US Global Strategy Research Articles

Shifting Sands: US Gulf Policy Recalibrates As China's Regional Ambitions Grow

AbstractSince Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in the 1990s, the United States has played the role of security guarantor in the Gulf, and despite prevailing concerns of American retrenchment, it retains a strong military footprint across the region. But China's emergence as a major player in the Gulf—with its geopolitical ambitions, thirst for foreign oil, and attractive offer of business and investment with a “look the other way” policy on human rights—has stoked fears about the eclipse of American power. While the Gulf remains of strategic importance to the US global strategy, Washington's readjustment of its regional goals suggests that it is recalibrating. Drawing on the literature of foreign policy change, this analysis uses three case studies to examine Washington's recalibration toward the Gulf under the Biden presidency: US engagement with the Iran nuclear deal, US defense agreements with the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), and US‐GCC tech relations, specifically tensions with China over the use of Huawei technology. This article is part of a special issue on the responses of Gulf countries to rising Sino‐American competition, edited by Andrea Ghiselli, Anoushiravan Ehteshami, and Enrico Fardella.

AUKUS: The Changing Dynamic and Its Regional Implications

A historic security deal was announced on 15 September 2021. The strategic partnership amalgamating the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia is contrived to share advanced defence know-how and equip Australian forces with the nuclear-powered submarines. Attentions mount to the partnership’s ultimate purpose and implications for other countries. France expressed fury over its loss of the lucrative submarine deal by the scuppered pact. China sees itself as the target of the new grouping. Although reactions vary, the ASEAN generally views the enunciation of AUKUS as deteriorating the geopolitical situation in the region. Why have the three member states initiated such trilateral defence agreement? This article analyses that the audacious enlistment marks a shift in US global strategy, redistributing its forces by empowering its allies to strengthen military capabilities around the Indo-Pacific. It represents Australian eager to project power up to shape the security environment more in Australia’s favour, enhance its status and influence within the American alliance system and heighten its Anglophone identity. This article contends that the advent of a new inner Anglosphere core has disturbed the regional order by potentially escalating arms race, increasing regional tensions and undermining relevant institutions of non-proliferation of nuclear weapons.

Paradigms of US global strategy — concepts globalization and global instability

Analyzing the processes and events taking place in the world today, one gets the strong impression that the Washington "sages" — the main directors of modern world development — have decided to abandon the unsuccessful and boring play in order to stage a new one.
 It is about the obsolescence of the concept of globalization, so actively discussed in the recent past, and its replacement by the concept of global instability, which is in fact a return to Hegel's dialectic, which states: "all historical events are the result of conflict between opposing forces" [1].
 It is the antagonistic contradictions that have led to the strengthening of American dominance in the world as a result of the shaking of stable political structures, the creation of zones of numerous conflicts and world governance through the interaction of opposites in which conflicting forces are irreconcilable. This is achieved by manipulating opposing political forces.

Race, transnational militarism, and neocoloniality: The politics of the THAAD deployment in South Korea

This article explores the neglected connection between race and militarism by focusing on a US missile defense system deployed in South Korea. In September of 2017, the two countries installed the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system in a rural village. Manufactured by Lockheed Martin, this missile defense system was to protect South Korea from attacks by North Korea. The system is integral to US global military strategy, but from the perspective of human security, its benefits are dubious at best. By drawing on a theory of the ‘racial state’ and critical studies of the US empire-state, the article examines two fundamental practices of the neocolonial military relation between the two states: wartime Operational Control of the South Korean military and extraterritoriality of US bases in South Korea. It argues that these neocolonial practices in which the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system deployment is embedded reflect ‘the historicist racial ruling’ that denies self-rule for Koreans and its internalization by Koreans who support the unequal military relation. It also analyzes how the South Korean racial state promotes internal homogeneity and otherizes North Korea to bolster national security through the missile defense system.

Paradigms of US global strategy — concepts globalization and global instability

The article considers the concepts of globalization and global instability, developed by think tanks in the United States and Great Britain. The encroachments of the Americans and the British on their own uniqueness have a long history. They began with the views of the first settlers — the Puritans, who arrived on the American continent in the seventeenth century, hoping to carry out the biblical commandment "a hill on a hill" where all the inhabitants are equal and free. Hence the substantiation of the concept of expansion of the principles of freedom and democracy as a manifestation of the logic of Divine Providence. It is one step from this thought to the idea of what determined America to reform the world and lead it.
 Already in the middle of the XIX century аmerican ideologues argued that in the near future the United States would become a center around which all nations would unite into a single nation, that the United States, like the Sun, would have "a glorious influence on European countries and then on Asian empires".

Revisiting international relations legacy on hegemony

Purpose This study aims to investigate the decline of American hegemony as one of the most prominent crises of the modern world order, from a broader perspective that transcends narrow traditional interpretations. The paper assumes that the September 11 events in 2001 have launched the actual decline in American hegemony. Tracing the evolution of US global strategy over the past two decades, the study seeks to analyze the main causes and repercussions of the decline of US hegemony, which would provide a bird’s eye view of what the current global system is going through. Design/methodology/approach The study investigates the decline in American hegemony through a longitudinal within-case analysis which focuses on the causal path of decline in hegemony in the case of the USA, since the events of September 11, 2001, and tries to identify the causal mechanisms behind this decline. Following George and Bennet (2005), the study uses process tracing to examine its research question. Process-tracing method seeks to identify the intervening causal process – causal chain or causal mechanisms or the steps in a causal process – that leads to the outcome of a particular case in a specific historical context (Mahoney, 2000; Bennet and Elman, 2006). The study chose this method, as it offers more potential for identifying causal mechanisms and theory testing (George and Bennet, 2005); it opted for a specific procedure, among the variety of process-tracing procedures listed by George and Bennet, which is the detailed narrative presented as a chronicle, accompanied by explicit causal hypotheses. Using this process tracing procedure, the study assumes that American hegemony has witnessed dramatic changes in the aftermath of critical junctures, particularly the events of September 11, 2001, and the financial crises, 2008, which contributed significantly to this decline. Consequently, it traces the impact of these events on the state of American hegemony, in light of the review of contributions of different theories on hegemony in the field of international relations, both traditional and critical. Consequently, introducing the theoretical framework used in the study (the four-dimensional model of hegemony), which transcends criticisms of previous theories. Findings The crises of the modern world order and the decline of American hegemony – being the main manifestation of such crises – revealed the inability of the traditional and critical approaches reviewed in the study to interpret this decline and those crises. The reason behind that was the inability of these interpretations to reflect the various dimensions of American hegemony and its decline since the September 11 events. This highlights the importance of using the four-dimensional model, which combines different factors in the analysis and has proved to be an appropriate model for studying the case of American hegemony and its decline after the events of September 11, as it deals with the phenomenon of hegemony as a social relationship based on specific social networks. Originality/value Despite the currency and relevance of the decline of US hegemony for both the academic and political world, the topic needed to be analyzed systemically and addressed in a thorough scientific way. Through the application of theoretical concepts into the analysis of empirical data, this study contributes to a field where too often the discourse about decline of American hegemony is led without the required theoretical or conceptual considerations.

«Стратегический терроризм» США как угроза национальной безопасности России: генезис и особенности

The proposed article is devoted to the study of the phenomenon of strategic terrorism as an element of the US global strategy for maintaining world domination and leadership, creating external threats to Russia's national security. The article deals with the genesis of this phenomenon, its nature, its connection with the proxy war.

ПРЕЗИДЕНТСЬКІ ВИБОРИ 2016 Р. В США І АМЕРИКАНСЬКА ЗОВНІШНЬОПОЛІТИЧНА СТРАТЕГІЯ

Presidential campaign 2016, given its degree of mutual mistrust and major candidates' profiles, was among the most unusual in the American history. However both H. Clinton and D. Trump managed to formulate quite lucidly their approaches to the national foreign policy strategy. Despite widely spread belief in incompatibility of the platforms of the two leaders competing for the Oval Office, they had a lot of common in their strategic perspectives. Both vehemently argued in favor of America's active world role and shared opinion about the importance of global developments for the wellbeing of common Americans. On the other hand real differences between the strategic paradigms of the two leaders did have place. H. Clinton represented the worldview rooted mainly in her husband's presidential foreign policy, it could be categorized as more proactive version of B. Obama's liberal globalism. On his part D. Trump put forward set of messages that appeared to be a new version of the long standing US global strategy made adaptable to the changed American public moods and the realities of the early 21st century world. Some of his messages sounded like remake of old themes harking back to the times between two World Wars. Yet not clear enough Republican candidate's blueprint contained ideas which could lead to one of the most unconventional and stylistically innovative, if not exotic, presidential international strategies ever known in the American history. Immediate reaction to the election results from Z. Brzezinski and H. Kissinger – two major national authorities in the field of international strategy -- supported the presumption about the expectable differences between D. Trump's electoral rhetoric and his steering of the American foreign policy from the White House. However presidential race 2016 left more questions open than answered when the forthcoming national international strategy is concerned. Thus the initial period of D. Trump presidency had all chances to become the time of prolonged and uneasy efforts of America to make its world strategy compatible with the increasingly complex world.

The Iraq war in the context of global capitalism

Abstract The 1991 Gulf War and the 2003 occupation of Iraq were central to US global strategy to dominate global capitalism after the fall of the Soviet Union. The United States dealt with perceived challenges to its domination through conquest. The Middle East has been central to US global strategy to maintain control of Western Europe and in its rivalry with its two main competitors, the Russian Federation and China. Developing crises in global capitalism exposed the United States to instability in its global position, which it countered by invading and destabilizing Middle Eastern states. The following questions present themselves: What is the relationship between the crises of capitalist globalization and US global strategy? In what way is the Middle East central to US global strategy and instrumental in meeting the challenges posed by its rivals and competitors, the Russian Federation, China, the European Union and Iran? What role has Iraq played in this strategy? Attempting to answer these questions would go a significant way in assessing the US role in Iraq and the Middle East.

The Korean War and the US Global Strategy

The Korean War and the US Global Strategy

Degrading and Managing Risk: Assessing Australia's Counter-Terrorist Strategy

Given the occasionally vexatious nature of academic discussion in Australia on the subject of terrorism, it is surprising that so little has been written regarding Australia's approach to countering terrorism. This gap in the literature stands in marked contrast to the highly charged debate over the direction of terrorism studies in this country. In seeking to fill this lacuna, the article critically examines the three essential pillars of Australia's counter-terrorism strategy that have evolved since 2001: domestic legislation, intelligence, and regional assistance and engagement. I argue that Australia's counter-terrorist strategy exhibits greater cohesion than many of the critics have been willing to acknowledge. However, I also argue that there remain significant flaws in the Howard government's approach, particularly as it relates to a lack of transparency in justifying new anti-terrorism legislation and Australia's unswerving support for a US global counter-terrorism strategy that has lost its way since the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Underlying Causes of Violence in the Middle East

AbstractIn the last five decades the Middle East has been the scene of very intensive conflict, violence and terror. The magnitude of violence has intensified following the events of September 11, 2001. There has been an outpouring of writing and scholarship that focuses on the analysis of this phenomenon. This paper attempts to reveal the major factors that have contributed to the state of violence in the Middle East. The paper argues that the failure of most of the Middle Eastern regimes to widen the arena of political participation, as well as their inabilities to improve the socio‐economic conditions of the masses, has been the major cause for violence. Adding to this the US global strategy to fight terror, and subsequently the invasion of Iraq, as well as the failure to reconcile the Palestinian issue also precipitated the state of violence in the Middle East. It is only after redressing the socio‐economic and political grievances of the masses, and finding remedies to both the Palestinian and Iraqi issues that we can contemplate the idea of a peaceful and stable Middle East. In this article, the author will attempt to address each of these factors.

The United States and central Asia: in the Steppes to stay?

11 September 2001 elevated the importance of the South Caucasus and Central Asia in US global strategy. The Central Asian republics proved crucial bases for military and intelligence operations. The South Caucasus, in turn, provided the only realistic air corridor for the deployment of Europe‐based US forces to Afghan territory. As its Central Asian footprint grows, Washington must consider the interests of key Eurasian powers and demonstrate a sustained economic and political commitment to the region.

The US Global Strategy in the Post-Cold War Era and Its Implications for China‐United States Relations: A Chinese perspective

At the early stage of the post-Cold War era, Chinese scholars put more attention into the study of US international standing than to the study of US global strategy. Around the middle of the 1990s, it became obvious for Chinese scholars that the power structure in the post-Cold War era was 'yi-chao-duo-qiang' (one super-power and several big powers). People realized that the leading position of the US would be unshakable and its comprehensive national power would be unparalleled by any single country in the foreseeable future. Since then, Chinese scholars have paid more attention to the study of US global strategy. Chinese scholars tend to agree that the Bush Administration's strategy was a transitional one, and that the US global strategy in the post-Cold War era came into being in the middle of President Clinton's first term. It is symbolized by the appearance of so-called 'engagement and enlargement strategy'. At the very beginning of his Administration (January 1993), President Clinton set forth that 'economy, security and democracy' would be the three pillars of US foreign policy. This greatly changed the traditional 'security first' strategy. The new strategy reflects some new features in the international and domestic contexts of the post-Cold War era. It has very important influences on Sino‐US relations.