If I had a Hammer: A Review of Kagan's “Power and Weakness”

2003 ◽  
Vol 4 (9) ◽  
pp. 963-969
Author(s):  
Olaf Dilling

In recent years it has become a truism that after the Cold War Europe no longer plays the important role it used to play. The focus of US foreign policy seemed to shift away from Europe towards other regions like the Middle East or Asia. This process is even accelerated by the recent disagreement of European politicians with respect to the U.S. led military action against Iraq. The climax of this development was Chancellor Schröder's strict and explicit rejection of a German role in any form of military action against Iraq, be it sanctioned by a UN Security Council resolution or not. German Federal Minister of Justice Herta Däubler-Gmelin was axed in the wake of the tensions and replaced by Brigitte Zypries after she compared Bush's war against terrorism with Hitler's strategy to concentrate on foreign policy in order to distract attention from domestic problems (thereby, as the Economist put it, giving a fine example of “the pot calling the kettle black.”).

2012 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 97
Author(s):  
Kübra Dilek Azman

The aim of this study is to discuss the Middle East policy of the United States’ (U.S.) after the Cold War. In the period following the Cold War, the Middle East has been a place that the U.S’ has projected upon as if it were its own private land. This is an attractive and important issue for political research area. In briefly, it can be divided the policies of the U.S. in the post-Cold War concerning the Middle East into three just like a tripod and these are security, economy and politics. Firstly, eliminate the danger of radical Islamic groups, especially war against to acts of terrorism, secondly; controlling oil and energy resources and the finally is ensuring the security of Israel state. This paper will examine the September 11 attacks and the U.S. Greater Middle East Project and the U.S. occupation of Iraq. In that period U.S. tend to use the hard power. Than after this period, new President Barack Obama has changed the American Middle East policy discourses. The Obama’s foreign policy discourses show us that he is tend to use soft power instruments. This study argues that the U.S. foreign policy in Middle East after the Cold War has changed periodically. However the aim of Middle East policy of the U.S.’ has not changed, but the policy instruments have been changed from hard power to soft power Then, the question has been raised about the whether the U.S. will be success or not with this new policy. These concerning issues are going to be discussed.


Author(s):  
Daniel Deudney

The end of the Cold War left the USA as uncontested hegemon and shaper of the globalization and international order. Yet the international order has been unintentionally but repeatedly shaken by American interventionism and affronts to both allies and rivals. This is particularly the case in the Middle East as the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as well as the nuclear negotiations with Iran show. Therefore, the once unquestioned authority and power of the USA have been challenged at home as well as abroad. By bringing disorder rather than order to the world, US behavior in these conflicts has also caused domestic exhaustion and division. This, in turn, has led to a more restrained and as of late isolationist foreign policy from the USA, leaving the role as shaper of the international order increasingly to others.


2016 ◽  
Vol 85 (2) ◽  
pp. 147-161
Author(s):  
Hans Blix

International institutions given the task to maintain collective security and to seek disarmament need to build on cooperation between major powers. The authors of the un Charter vested great powers in the Security Council but a consensus between the five permanent great powers was required for use of the powers. This inevitably paralyzed the Council during the Cold War. After the end of the Cold War, the permanent members have remained unable jointly to pursue disarmament, but they have succeeded in several remarkable cases to reach consensus, notably on measures to prevent the further spread of weapons of mass destruction. The quick action to eliminate chemical weapons in Syria was a win-win case led by us-Russian diplomacy, while the comprehensive deal settling the controversy over Iran’s nuclear program was a victory for patient diplomacy involving all permanent members and the eu. These actions show the potentials of the Council.


2006 ◽  
Vol 58 (4) ◽  
pp. 469-491
Author(s):  
Aleksandra Joksimovic

In searching for various opportunities to act in pursuing its foreign policy and endeavors to achieve a dominant role in the global processes USA has developed a broad range of instruments including a financial assistance as a way to be given support for its positions, intelligence activities, its public diplomacy, unilateral implementation of sanctions and even military interventions. The paper devotes special attention to one of these instruments - sanctions, which USA implemented in the last decade of the 20th century more than ever before. The author explores the forms and mechanisms for implementation of sanctions, the impact and effects they produce on the countries they are directed against, but also on the third parties or the countries that have been involved in the process by concurrence of events and finally on USA as the very initiator of imposing them.


Author(s):  
Tsolin Nalbantian

Chapter 3 examines the 1956 Catholicos election in Lebanon.While the excitement and success of the repatriation movement was a public relations victory for the USSR supported by local Armenian institutions and assisted by Lebanese and Syrian governments, this election became a site of contestation by Cold War powers and by their state and non-state allies and proxies in the Middle East. This analysis allows us to look at the Cold War in the Middle East not from the top down, through the eyes of Washington or Moscow (or Lebanon’s or Egypt’s state authorities, for that matter) during flash points like the 1958 U.S. intervention in Lebanon or the U.S. and Soviet reactions to the Tripartite Aggression against Egypt in 1956. Rather, in that election, Armenians made use of Cold War tensions to designate a leader of the Armenian Church who was seen to suit the community’s interests. That story also expands our understanding of Lebanon’s Armenians: from refugees and outsiders in national politics to true participants, whose own internal politics, moreover, were of interest to Lebanon’s authorities and who by now felt free to invade and use public spaces beyond their own neighborhoods to make political statements.


Author(s):  
Richard Saull

This chapter examines US foreign policy during the Cold War, beginning with an overview of the main historical developments in US policy. It first considers the origins of the Cold War and containment, focusing on the breakdown of the wartime alliance between the United States and the USSR, the emergence of US–Soviet diplomatic hostility and geopolitical confrontation, and how the Cold War spread beyond Europe. It then explains how the communist revolution in China in 1949 and the outbreak of the Korean War in June 1950 propelled the US towards a much bolder and more ambitious containment policy. It also looks at US military interventions in the third world, the US role in the ending of the Cold War, and the geopolitical, ideational, and/or socio-economic factors that influenced American foreign policy during the Cold War. The chapter concludes with an assessment of the dual concerns of US foreign policy.


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