US Foreign Policy Priorities Research Articles

THE INFLUENCE OF US POLICY ON THE FORMATION OF A COMMON APPROACH BETWEEN IRAN AND RUSSIA TO RESOLVE THE SYRIAN CRISIS

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the US has always played the most important and influential role in the Iran-Russia relations. From the second half of the 1990s, one of the US foreign policy priorities has constantly been on the separation and divergence in the Iran-Russia relations, for which the US spared no efforts. Since the synergy of powers between the two countries and their anti-unipolar policies have always been a serious threat to the US hegemony at a global level, by the beginning of the Syria crisis in late 2010, following the Arab Spring, the US interests and goals were directly at odds with Iran’s and Russia’s political and security interests. The goals of Washington in the Syria crisis included: the decline of the Syrian government, the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad, and an effort to establish a pro-Western government to eliminate the sole ally of Russia after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and also to prevent Iran’s regional penetration, particularly its proxy groups like Hezbollah. For achieving these goals, Washington has profited from its allied countries in the region, such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey, as a front line. The US strategy in Syria not only exacerbated the crisis but also provided a situation in which Iran and Russia achieved their highest level of military and security cooperation in the past three decades. And it was precisely the same incident that the US considered a serious threat to its national interests and policies. Although Iran and Russia have pursued specific and sometimes contradictory interests, in the end, focusing on common goals and threats – arising from the Syrian crisis – they were able to cooperate effectively and take a new step in building a strategic unity.

The American political and academic elite on the end of the conflict in Ukraine

By the end of 2023, the American ruling circles got rid of illusions about the possibility of inflicting a decisive defeat on Russia during the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. From the point of view of the American political and academic elite, this conflict is clearly dragging on, diverting American resources from other US foreign policy priorities. According to many American experts and practical politicians, the United States has managed to extract serious benefits from the events in Ukraine, and it is time to limit its participation in this conflict before it becomes another "endless war" for the United States.

USA in the Middle East: the beginning of a great disengagement

The article is devoted to the strategic disengagement between the United States and its Middle Eastern partners and includes several blocks. 1) The article discusses the historical stages of US involvement in the Middle East processes. 2) The new US foreign policy strategy in the Middle East under the administrations of D. Trump and J. Biden, which preserved the continuity to the pragmatic and realistic line of D. Trump, is analyzed. 3) The level of relations between USA and regional leaders is reflected. 4) A special intra-regional transformation in the Middle East has been revealed, that is pushing The White House to reconsider its position based on US hegemony. The authors come to the overall conclusion about the development of two dependent tendencies: the susceptibility of the Middle East from US foreign policy priorities with withdrawal from the region and implementation of sovereign foreign policy by regional leaders based on national interests, that reduces their dependence on USA.

The US, Strategic Environment in the South Caucasus and Armenia: A Sight on the Future

The political, economic and geopolitical presence of the United States in the South Caucasus dates back at least a century, when, after the First World War, they emerged as a global political, economic and geopolitical actor. Cooperation has increased dramatically since 1991, when the three countries gained independence after the collapse of the Soviet Union. From this perspective, the article focuses on identifying core US interests in Eurasia and attempting to define US strategic interests and priorities with respect to the region. In this sense, the main research question is how the US relations with the South Caucasus and in particular with Armenia will look like in the future, especially within the current stage of the Ukrainian conflict that began after February 2022. The article simulates and tests four scenarios for future US engagement with the South Caucasus. Based on these scenarios, it is argued that, despite the lack of strategic interests in the region, the Ukrainian conflict prompted the US to increase its presence in the South Caucasus. This study is based on strategic documents, including the US National Security Strategy (2017), the Interim National Security Strategic Guidance of 2021, other white papers, reports, and studies of US foreign policy priorities.

US policy in the South Caucasus prior to and after the 2020 Karabakh War in the Context of the Evolving Regional and International Geopolitics

The article analyzes the main directions of US foreign policy in the South Caucasus before and after the Artsakh war in 2020, taking into account new regional and geopolitical challenges. It is shown that the United States considers the policy in the South Caucasus in the context of Russian-American relations. In recent years, the South Caucasus has not been included in the US foreign policy priorities, yielding to both the Asia-Pacific region and Ukraine. Under US President Trump, the three main US goals in the region were to include the South Caucasus in a policy of maximum pressure on Iran, launch the Southern Gas Corridor, and contain Russia. The US took a rather passive position during the 2020 Artsakh war, limiting itself only to calls for a cessation of hostilities and the organization of a meeting between the foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan in Washington. As a result of the study, it was substantiated that after the end of the Artsakh war, the main goal of the US was to eliminate the Russian monopoly in the process of resolving the conflict. After the outbreak of the war in Ukraine on February 24, 2022 and the complete breakdown of Russian-American relations, the weakening of Russia’s position in the South Caucasus became the cornerstone of US regional policy.

Changing regional geopolitics and the foundations of a rapprochement between Arab Gulf and Israel

ABSTRACT The fast-changing regional geopolitics in the Middle East exacerbated by the Arab Spring protests and the signing of the Iran nuclear deal brought the Arab Gulf States, namely the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Oman and Bahrain, closer to Israel. The shared security concerns vis-à-vis Iran, the changing US foreign policy priorities and growing external involvement in regional affairs have generated a threat perception forcing the Arab Gulf states seek alliance with Israel. They have increasingly shed the hesitation to publicly engage Israel as evident from the UAE’s and Bahrain’s decision to normalize ties with Israel laying the foundations of a rapprochement.

Diplomatic documents data for international relations: the Freedom of Information Archive Database

We introduce the Freedom of Information Archive (FOIArchive) Database, a collection of over 3 million documents about state diplomacy. Substantively, our database focusses on the USA and provides opportunities to analyze previously classified (or publicly unavailable) corpora of internal government documents which include the raw—often full—text of those documents. We also provide within-country diplomatic records for the USA, UK, and Brazil. The full span of the data is 1620–2013, but it is mainly from the twentieth century. Our database allows scholars to view text and associated statistics online and to download and view customized datasets via an application programming interface. We provide extensive metadata about the documents, including the countries and persons they mention, and their topics and classification levels. The metadata includes information we extracted with domain-specific, customized natural language processing tools. To demonstrate the potential of this data, we use it to design and validate a new index for “country importance” in the context of US foreign policy priorities.

US Policy towards Ukraine under Donald Trump’s Administration: Problematic Issues and Prospects

The article describes and analyses the policy of the Trump administration towards Ukraine. Traditionally, the election of a new US President has some impact on the Washington’s position on Ukrainian issues, and the end of the presidential tenure serves as a reason to take stock of the results. Donald Trump’s presidency has not been marked by profound changes in the US foreign policy towards Ukraine, as it was inertially in line, for the most part, with the previous years. The American political establishment primarily views Ukraine through the prism of the security paradigm as a bulwark of deterring its global opponents, particularly Russia. Thus, the article deals with the challenges and prospects of the modern US policy towards Ukraine. The priorities of the US foreign policy towards Ukraine traditionally consist of the issues enshrined in the 2008 U.S.-Ukraine Charter on Strategic Partnership. The article focuses on defence, security, and energy cooperation. In this regard, the United States remains the major guarantor of the territorial integrity and independence of Ukraine. In deterring the Russian aggression, the Trump administration generally follows the approach of the imposition of economic sanctions, launched during the presidency of Barack Obama. It is important to stress that the United States focuses not only on the problem of the armed conflict in Donbas but also on the attempted illegal annexation of Crimea by Russia. At the same time, the focus on security issues has its negative repercussions, as it leads to certain limitations in bilateral relations, as evidenced by the lack of large-scale joint projects and weak trade and economic cooperation that impacts Ukraine’s position in the US foreign policy priorities. In the meantime, regardless of the name of the future US President, Washington’s support for Ukraine will be maintained. The close involvement of the United States in the negotiation process for the settlement of the conflict in Donbas and de-occupation of Crimea would significantly influence the course of events, but it is difficult to predict whether this prospect will become a reality. Keywords: US foreign policy towards Ukraine, Trump administration, strategic partnership, U.S.-Ukraine bilateral relations, process of impeachment.

A Pragmatic Policy Case: Us-Azerbaijan Relations

The collapse of the Soviet Union had changed the world politics in which the US has found opportunities for having a new type of foreign policy perspective. Newly independent countries became focal points of the US interests since some of them host significant energy resources. Azerbaijan as a country which suffered from a large-scale war became a target of the economy and energy-oriented policies. The US foreign policy approach towards Azerbaijan has been identified differently by various administrations. The country’s energy-rich position was the first priority for Clinton administration and after it became a geostrategically important state during Bush administration. It can be argued that the unstable world politics directly affected the position of Azerbaijan, and the US officials evaluated this country from different dimensions. Obama’s declining influence in the region was replaced by the Trump administration with a new perspective to balance Russia and Iran via the existence of Azerbaijan in the South Caucasus region. At the same time, this energy-rich area slightly becomes a scene of militarization. This article seeks to analyze the main determinants of the US foreign policy priorities in the relations with Azerbaijan since the early 1990s with unstable and changeable regional and global dynamics. For having a clear approach, governmental policies have been explained periodically with domestic and foreign policy issues as well as official statements of high-level policy-makers.

The Obama approach to the Middle East: the end of America's moment?

As Obama begins his second term, this article takes stock of his foreign policy approach towards the Middle East. It lays out four big arguments. First, Obama's foreign policy in the Middle East has demonstrated more continuity with the past than real change. While shifting his approach significantly from Bush's, Obama has adopted a centrist-realist approach towards the region, consistent with the dominant US foreign policy orientation. Second, from Palestinian-Israeli peace to Afghanistan, Obama's conduct testifies to the structural-institutional continuity of US foreign policy. More than in any other region in the world, presidential policy in the Middle East is hampered by institutional, bureaucratic and domestic politics. America's dysfunctional political culture has imposed severe constraints on Obama's ability to pursue an even-handed approach towards the enduring and preeminent Palestine question. Third, despite Obama's lofty rhetoric about a new start in relations between the United States and Muslim countries, the Middle East does not rank very high on his agenda. Putting America's fiscal house in order and renewing its long-term economic strength have been Obama's priorities. From the outset, Obama has been shifting US foreign policy priorities away from the Middle East to the Pacific and Asia where he and his aides believe that America's future lies. Finally, the article argues that the US finds itself in a similar position to that of Great Britain after the Second World War, at the beginning of the end of its hegemonic moment in the Middle East. The end of American hegemony in the region stems from internal and external causes, including an awakened public opinion in the Middle East, the emergence of geostrategic and geo-economic regional powers with assertive foreign policies, America's relative economic decline and the high costs of war, and the shift in US foreign policy priorities to the Asia-Pacific region.

What Does Obama’s Re-election Mean to South Asia

While the world watched the closely contested Presidential elections in the United States in much anticipation, most observers and policy wonks in South Asia were bracing for change or continuity in the foreign policy that the new administration in Washington would herald. Although India received scant mention during the third Presidential debate which was focused exclusively on foreign policy, Pakistan and Afghanistan gained ample attention but with a caveat. There was little differentiated gap between the positions of the two candidates – President Obama and Governor Romney – on ending the war in Afghanistan. It is therefore no surprise that with President Obama's re-election, many in South Asia are bracing for continuity in US foreign policy. However, with his likely focus on legacy and attention towards other hot spots, there are imminent dangers of other South Asian countries taking a back seat in the US foreign policy priorities.

NATO: The United States, Transformation and the War in Afghanistan

During the Bush years, NATO exhibited in stark form two trends which have long characterised its development: periodic exposure to crisis and division, and a subordination to American leadership. Despite signs of American indifference towards the alliance, talk of the Bush administration levering a break with NATO was always overstated, particularly so during its second term of office. Views of NATO after 2004 were shaped by Afghanistan giving rise, in fact, to a return to the alliance on America's part. NATO remains important to Bush's successor but on terms which are as demanding as those of his predecessors. NATO, in other words, is valued in so far as it accords with current US foreign policy priorities. The safest assumption in this regard is that Obama will continue to favour the trend towards a global NATO pursued by the Bush administration. However, retreat (or defeat) in Afghanistan could hasten a contrary trend towards a consolidating NATO with a renewed concentration on the wider Europe.