Intervention: The Responsibility of Power

Worldview ◽  
1967 ◽  
Vol 10 (10) ◽  
pp. 4-8
Author(s):  
Robert G. K. Thompson
Keyword(s):  
Great Powers ◽  
Great Power ◽  
Small Countries ◽  
Small Powers

I will not here discuss whether it is right or wrong for a country to intervene in the affairs of other states. I will assume that great powers will interfere with small powers and consider, rather, how the great power should exercise its responsibilities.We must begin by recognizing two major difficulties that face a great power. The first is that many of the problems—in fact most of the problems—which it faces in dealing with small countries are immune to power. This applies particularly to a Communist insurgency, which is designed to be immune to the application of power. It also applies, of course, to intervention which is perfectly respectable and normal, such as the giving of aid. In the case of aid, many of the problems are impervious to power in its broadest sense, that is, to resources, material, money, and so on.

Between ‘Coercive League’ and ‘Consultative League’: a reappraisal of debates surrounding the ‘Reform’ of the League of Nations

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shunsuke Obiya
Keyword(s):  
League Of Nations ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Great Power ◽  
Collective Security ◽  
Small Power ◽  
Pros And Cons ◽  
Small Powers

Abstract This article addresses debates surrounding the reform of the League of Nations from the viewpoint of Britain and China. They focused on the pros and cons of collective security because the failure of the League to stop Japanese invasion of Manchuria and Italian invasion of Abyssinia threatened the collapse of the League. There were two contrasting visions in debates, the ‘Coercive League’ and the ‘Consultative League’. The ‘Coercive League’ was the course to reinforce collective security to prevent further aggression. Conversely, the ‘Consultative League’ argument was to weaken collective security and induce Germany, Italy, and Japan to cooperate with the League. Deliberations took place in both the Council, in which great powers exerted a strong presence, and the Assembly, in which small powers made their voices heard. Therefore, this article deals with Britain as an example of a great power and China as one of a small power.

The Publication of the diplomatic papers of Other Governments

1947 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 365-377
Author(s):  
E. Wilder Spaulding
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Foreign Affairs ◽  
The Other ◽  
The World ◽  
Good Will ◽  
The Right ◽  
Small Powers

An expert on foreign affairs has summarized the limitation upon the right of a government to make public the diplomatic papers which it has received from another government as follows: “ … one party to a negotiation cannot, in honor and in courtesy, publish the negotiation without the consent of the other party, on pain of forfeiting that good-will upon which … ‘the peace of the world ultimately depends.’ ” This principle of consent to publication is accepted, with some reservations and exceptions, by American practice. But American practice in this matter is not generally accepted by all foreign offices and it is not precisely and definitely written into international law. It has been generally observed in normal times by the Great Powers, which have had most to gain by its application, and it has frequently been disregarded by small powers and by Great Powers in times of stress. It rests upon comity and reciprocity, not upon international legislation.

Immoderate greatness: Is great power restraint a practical grand strategy?

2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 111-132 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tudor Onea
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Use Of Force ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Great Power ◽  
Grand Strategy ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
Victorian Britain ◽  
Scaling Down ◽  
Splendid Isolation ◽  
Self Defence

AbstractThe article examines when and how often great powers are likely to follow a grand strategy of restraint and whether there is any evidence that they have ever done so. The question has considerable implications for the ongoing US grand strategy debate. Restraint refers to the practice of self-discipline in the use of force for self-defence or for addressing massive power imbalances; and in extending security commitments to foreign political actors. The first part of the article examines statistics in the last two hundred years on great power involvement in wars and disputes as well as on their commitments to alliances and dependencies. The second part considers whether two seeming cases of the dominant power scaling down its international involvement – Ming China withdrawal from naval mastery in the fifteenth century and Victorian Britain splendid isolation – represent instances of genuine restraint.

An analysis of stagnation in multilateral law-making – and why the law of the sea has transcended the stagnation trend

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Andreas Motzfeldt Kravik
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Current Trend ◽  
The United States ◽  
Legal Framework ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Great Power ◽  
Law Of The Sea ◽  
The Law ◽  
Law Making ◽  
Multilateral Treaties

Abstract The article explores the current stagnation in multilateral law-making based on an analysis of recent treaty attempts across various subfields of international law. It further examines why the law of the sea has continued to evolve despite this trend. The article demonstrates that states still regularly seek multilateral treaties to address new challenges. While there is some evidence of general treaty saturation, it is the current inability of traditional great powers to negotiate new binding norms which is the most constraining factor on multilateral law-making. This in turn is related to deeper geopolitical shifts by which traditional great powers, notably the United States and its allies, have seen their relative influence decline. Until the current great power competition ends or settles into a new mode of international co-operation, new multilateral treaties with actual regulatory effect will rarely emerge. The law of the sea has avoided the current trend of stagnation for primarily three reasons (i) a global commitment to the basic tenets of the law of the sea; (ii) a legal framework that affords rights and obligations somewhat evenly disbursed, allowing less powerful states to use their collective leverage to advance multilateral negotiations, despite intermittent great power opposition; and (iii) the avoidance of entrenched multilateral forums where decisions are reached by consensus only.

Watching the Soviet Union Decline

2018 ◽  
pp. 99-118
Author(s):  
Joshua R. Itzkowitz Shifrinson
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Relative Position ◽  
State Policy ◽  
The United States ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Great Power ◽  
Archival Research ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Union Decline

Chapters 2 and 3 helped confirm that rising states support declining great powers when decliners can help rising states against other great power threats. In contrast, Chapters 4 and 5 assess the logic of rising state predation by examining the United States’ response to the Soviet Union’s decline in the 1980s and early 1990s. Chapter 4 first provides an overview of the Soviet Union’s waning relative position and discusses U.S. efforts to monitor the trend. Next, it reviews existing research on the course of U.S. strategy and relates this work to alternative accounts of rising state policy. The bulk of the chapter then uses extensive archival research to evaluate the factors central to predation theory and predict U.S. strategy given the argument. These predictions are analyzed in Chapter 5.

The Resurgence of Interwar Germany

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
David M. Edelstein
Keyword(s):  
Great Britain ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Interwar Period ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Great Power ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Time Horizons ◽  
The Soviet Union

While Hitler’s Germany in the 1930’s has received abundant attention, this chapter begins earlier in the interwar period. Throughout the 1920’s, Europe’s great powers debated how to manage a defeated Germany that had the latent power potential to again become a great power. This chapter traces how Great Britain, France, and the Soviet Union addressed this challenge. It argues that all three of these European powers preferred to cooperate with Germany in the short-term rather than paying the high cost of competing with Germany when it had uncertain long-term intentions. This explanation based on time horizons is superior to alternative explanations based on either buckpassing or engagement.

Against Optimism

2021 ◽  
pp. 44-72
Author(s):  
Sebastian Rosato
Keyword(s):  
Great Powers ◽  
Great Power ◽  
The Future

This chapter evaluates intentions optimism, the view that great powers can, under certain conditions, obtain the kind of information that would allow them to estimate the intentions of their peers with confidence. The first argument holds that there are some situations in which states can access firsthand information about each other’s intentions. The next three arguments contend that secondhand information about state’s intentions—evidence of their declarations, interests, and actions—can, on occasion, be a reliable guide to how they intend to behave. The fifth argument maintains that even if single clues are only marginally informative, multiple clues can, in combination, be a dependable indicator of a state’s intentions. The final argument deals with the future and contends that knowledge of how a great power intends to behave today can serve as reliable secondhand information about how it will intend to behave in the future. An evaluation of these arguments reveals that they are logically and empirically flawed. Intentions optimists have greatly exaggerated the odds that states can access firsthand information or acquire reliable secondhand information about each other’s current and future intentions. Hence, it is almost impossible for great powers to trust each other.

Soothing Wounded Vanity

2020 ◽  
pp. 108-137
Author(s):  
Joslyn Barnhart
Keyword(s):  
Essential Role ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Competitive Dynamics ◽  
Third Party ◽  
Great Power ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Land Grab ◽  
Security Concerns ◽  
International Events

This chapter focuses on national humiliation and the triggering in the 1880s of the Scramble for Africa, an unprecedented land grab by European great powers. It demonstrates that individual-level support for aggressive policies, both vengeful in nature and directed at third-party states, increased within states that are confronted with potentially humiliating international events. The chapter reviews two international events that played an essential role in generating the competitive dynamics of the Scramble for Africa during the 1880s. The first event involved an instance of unexpected national failure, while the second event involved the denial of great power privileges by a higher status state. It also describes the acts of territorial conquest in Africa by France and Germany that generated status and security concerns within Italy and Britain, which led both states to adopt expansionary policies they likely would not have pursued otherwise.

The Ubiquity of Oil

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Rosemary A. Kelanic
Keyword(s):  
Great Powers ◽  
Great Power ◽  
International Affairs ◽  
Power Politics ◽  
Major Powers ◽  
Self Sufficiency ◽  
Great Power Politics ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Systematic Framework

This introductory chapter provides an overview of the relationship between oil and great power politics. For over a hundred years, oil has been ubiquitous as both an object of political intrigue and a feature of everyday life, yet its effects on the behavior of major powers remain poorly understood. This book focuses on one particular aspect of oil: its coercive potential. Across time and space, great powers have feared that dependence on imported petroleum might make them vulnerable to coercion by hostile actors. They worry that an enemy could cut off oil to weaken them militarily or punish them economically, and then use this threat as a basis for political blackmail. Oil is so essential to great powers that taking a state's imports hostage could give an enemy significant leverage in a dispute. The book presents the first systematic framework to understand how fears of oil coercion shape international affairs. Great powers counter prospective threats with costly and risky policies that lessen vulnerability, ideally, before the country can be targeted. These measures, which can be called “anticipatory strategies,” vary enormously, from self-sufficiency efforts to actions as extreme as launching wars.

Introduction

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
Charlie Laderman
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
The United States ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Great Power ◽  
World Power ◽  
The Us ◽  
Eastern Question

This introductory chapter outlines why the American response to the destruction of the Ottoman Armenians offers such critical insights into the US rise to world power, its evolving relationship with Britain, and the development of ideas on humanitarian intervention and global order at the turn of the twentieth century. It introduces the Armenian question, setting it within the larger Eastern question, and explains why the Ottoman Empire became a target for outside intervention by the European great powers in the nineteenth century. It explains why the United States, which had traditionally avoided political entanglement in the Near East even while its missionaries established an exceptional role there, began to take a greater interest in the region as its emergence as a great power coincided with the first large-scale Armenian massacres.

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