Material Sources of Grand Strategy

2021 ◽  
pp. 204-220
Author(s):  
Norrin M. Ripsman ◽  
Igor Kovac
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Context ◽  
International System ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
Grand Strategy ◽  
Profound Impact ◽  
Material Sources ◽  
Material Environment ◽  
National Leaders ◽  
Strategy Construction ◽  
Material Setting

This chapter outlines material sources of grand strategy, such as the relative power of a state, the polarity of the international system, the regional balance of power, geography, and technology. It argues that these material factors, reflecting the material environment within which states interact, set the table for grand strategy construction and, therefore, have a profound impact on grand strategy, although they do not completely determine grand strategy. The material setting sets the parameters within which national leaders make decisions and prioritize goals within a given set of national institutions and in a particular cultural context. Furthermore, we provide concrete empirical examples of the mechanisms through which these factors impact state grand strategy.

Turkey’s Strategic Conduct under the Changing International System

2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (Fall 2021) ◽  
pp. 119-146
Author(s):  
Murat Yeşiltaş ◽  
Ferhat Pirinççi
Keyword(s):  
Security Policy ◽  
International System ◽  
International Order ◽  
Grand Strategy ◽  
Foreign And Security Policy ◽  
Characteristic Features

This article analyses how Turkey should orient its grand strategy under the changing international order. It claims that the international order has undergone a significant transformation that is pushing Turkey to relocate its international position. First, the article analyses the characteristic features of the changing dynamics of the international system; it then sheds light on the new aspects of Turkey’s changing strategic landscape. By taking into consideration the transformation in Turkish foreign and security policy since the Arab Uprising, the article argues that Turkey needs a basis for determining what is important and what is not, what the primary threats to the nation’s interests are, and how best to serve those interests in a way that is attentive to the costs and risks it is willing to bear. Our aim in this article is to describe how Turkey can deal with the new reality of the international system and pursue and protect its important interests by developing a comprehensive grand strategy.

Housing Insecurities and Homelessness Among Children and Unaccompanied Youth in Rural Appalachian Communities

2020 ◽  
pp. 23-45
Author(s):  
Sara Bender ◽  
Imelda N. Bratton
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Mental Health Treatment ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Homeless Children ◽  
Health Treatment ◽  
Profound Impact ◽  
Appalachian Culture ◽  
Unaccompanied Youth ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Unique Context

Homelessness may have a profound impact on a child's physical, socio-emotional, and/or cognitive development. Cultural context may further exacerbate the impact of such circumstances. Past literature confirms that the Appalachian culture is distinct from mainstream America, suggesting that various interventions, including mental health treatment, may not be received similarly or have the same impact as they would in other communities. This chapter addresses how to support children and unaccompanied youth facing homelessness or housing insecurity within rural Appalachian communities. Existing research addresses the developmental consequences of homelessness; however, there is limited literature dedicated to understanding how the unique context of the Appalachian culture may affect these conditions. The aim of this chapter is to provide educators, counselors, and similar professionals with an overview regarding how to best support homeless children and unaccompanied youth within Appalachian communities.

“A Change in the Balance of Power”

2021 ◽  
pp. 159-182
Author(s):  
Rush Doshi
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Financial Crisis ◽  
Global Financial Crisis ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
The United States ◽  
Grand Strategy ◽  
Chinese Leader ◽  
Regional Order ◽  
Balance Of Forces ◽  
The Global Financial Crisis

Chapter 7 explores the dawn of China’s grand strategy to build regional order as well as the ends, ways, and means of this strategy. Using Party texts, it explores how the shock of the Global Financial Crisis led China to see the United States as weakening and emboldened it to take a more assertive course. It begins with a thorough review of China’s discourse on “multipolarity” and the “international balance of forces,” concepts China uses as euphemisms for US power and which it ties to its strategic guidelines. It then shows that the Party sought to lay the foundations for order—coercion, inducements, and legitimacy—under the auspices of the revised guidance “actively accomplish something” issued by Chinese leader Hu Jintao in 2009. This strategy, like blunting before it, was implemented across multiple instruments of statecraft—military, political, and economic.

Remarks by Morton Kaplan

1973 ◽  
Vol 67 (5) ◽  
pp. 111-113
Author(s):  
Morton Kaplan
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
International System ◽  
Balance Of Power

Less than a generation ago international relations textbooks either referred to the international system as a realm of anarchy or applied to it global generalizations such as the balance of power. That the number of major states in the system, their economic and military potential, their alliance patterns, and so forth might affect the resort to force and the results of such resort was largely foreign to analysis.

Religion and U.A.R. African Policy

1968 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-57 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tareq Y. Ismael
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Political Culture ◽  
Sense Of Community ◽  
International System ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Political Integration ◽  
African Continent ◽  
Nationalist Movements ◽  
New States

The emergence of the new states of Africa into world politics not only influenced the traditional balance of power in the international system, but also created a response among the older African states to restore the equilibrium of order maintained on the continent and fill the vacuum created by the departure of the colonial powers without clashing with the new nationalist movements. Henceforth, the search for influence had to take an ideological overtone. The activities of Egypt in Africa are a reflection of this. Since the mid-fifties, her African policy has aimed at creating a sense of community, cultural loyalty, and political integration. An attempt was made to reinforce the existing culture created by Islam and to transform it into what Pye and Verba call ‘political culture’.1 Thus, Egypt turned gradually toward the employment of religion on the African continent as an instrument of its foreign policy.

Russia and Foreign Policy

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert H. Donaldson
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Political Development ◽  
International System ◽  
General Rule ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Regime Type ◽  
Russian Foreign Policy ◽  
Global Issues ◽  
Vladimir Putin

Russian foreign policy has both been similar and unique to that of other great powers. As a general rule of statecraft, Russia has pursued balance-of-power policies, which essentially involves the mobilization of power to countervail the power of an enemy or a potential adversary. The enduring goals pursued by Russian foreign policy have placed primary emphasis on ensuring national security, promoting the economic wellbeing of the country, and enhancing national prestige. The dominant theme in the Russian foreign policy under the tsars is that of expansionism. No single motive force can be found to explain tsarist Russian expansionism; rather, the influences of geography, regime type, the international system, and ideology all weigh in, though in different proportions at different times. The ideology known as Marxism–Leninism has also had a significant effect on Soviet and post-Soviet policy. Meanwhile, Russian Federation president Boris Yeltsin’s primary aim in foreign policy, like Mikhail Gorbachev’s before him, was to create a nonthreatening external environment that would be most conducive to his country’s internal economic and political development. On the other hand, Vladimir Putin pursued a pragmatic, cautious, and nuanced policy. The most visible change that Putin brought to Russia’s foreign policy was a heightened level of presidential activism. In his second presidential term, Putin further changed the direction of Russian foreign policy, increasingly demanding that Russia be recognized as a great power and be given commensurate weight in the resolution of global issues.

scholarly journals Configuraciones de orden (¿o de desorden?) mundial, de Westfalia al presente | World Order Configurations: From Westfalia to the present day

2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-42
Author(s):  
Francisco Manuel Corigliano
Keyword(s):  
International System ◽  
World Order ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
La Paz

Este trabajo procura analizar las diferentes configuraciones de poder mundial de los últimos cuatro siglos transcurridos desde la Paz de Westfalia de 1648, que dio origen al sistema internacional moderno, centrado en el Estado-nación como actor portador de soberanía y de justicia dentro de las fronteras que gobierna. Dicho sistema ha sufrido diversas trasmutaciones a lo largo de este período, tanto en el tipo de actores miembros del mismo (reinos, Estados, actores trans y subnacionales) en el grado de consenso o disenso en las reglas escritas y no escritas que rigen las interacciones entre estos actores (grado de homogeneidad y/o heterogeneidad del sistema).ABSTRACTThis paper seek to analize the different configurations of power in the last four centuries from the Peace of Westfalia in 1648, the origin of the modern international system, centered in state-nation like actor who possess sovereignty and justice inside frontiers governed from that state. This system suffered a lot of changes across this period, as much as the type of constitutive members (reigns, states, trans and subnational actors), like in the written and unwritten rules who govern the interplays between these poles (grade of system’s homogeneity and/or heterogeneity)Palabras claves: balance de poder – concierto de poderes – polaridad – homogeneidad – heterogeneidadKeywords: balance of power – concert of powers – polarity- homogeneity- heterogeneityDOI: 10.12957/rmi.2016.26994Recebido em 05 de Dezembro de 2016 | Aceito em 23 de Janeiro de 2017Received on 05 December 2016 | Accepted January 23, 2017  

Leaping Jaguar, Crouching Tiger: Comparing the Strategic Culture of Brazil and India

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 223-247
Author(s):  
Marcos Degaut ◽  
◽  
Keyword(s):  
International System ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
Emerging Countries ◽  
Strategic Thinking ◽  
Security Policies ◽  
Strategic Culture ◽  
Regional Powers ◽  
The World ◽  
Global Affairs ◽  
Emerging Powers

Based on the premise that each country has a particular way of interpreting and reacting to international events, the study of strategic culture provides an important analytical tool for understanding and explaining how countries see the world and what drives their foreign policy practices and preferences. Considering that the rise of emerging powers has the potential to affect the balance of power in the international system, this article examines and compares the strategic culture of two of the most important emerging countries in the world, Brazil and India. While apparently exhibiting completely different patterns of strategic thinking, which have led them to pursue different approaches to reach their objectives, these two states share a belief that they are predestined to “greatness,” to play a more significant role in their regional contexts, and to become major stakeholders in global affairs. As the largest countries in their respective regions, Brazil and India can help to shape the future of Latin America and South Asia. Their international behaviour can not only condition the foreign, security and domestic policies and strategies of their neighbours but also impact the ambitions of extra-regional powers with a stake in those regions. Analyzing the strategic culture of these two countries can therefore help policymakers and scholars to understand the rationale for their perceptions and ambitions, what influences and drives their foreign and security policies, how they see the world and why they behave the way they do.

Alliance Behavior in Balance of Power Systems: Applying a Poisson Model to Nineteenth-Century Europe

1975 ◽  
Vol 69 (3) ◽  
pp. 859-870 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick J. McGowan ◽  
Robert M. Rood
Keyword(s):  
Power Systems ◽  
International System ◽  
Poisson Model ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
Alliance Formation ◽  
Time Intervals ◽  
System A ◽  
Research Questions ◽  
International Systems ◽  
Verbal Model

This paper is a partial systematic test of Morton A. Kaplan's “theory” of alliance behavior in balance of power international systems first proposed in his well-known System and Process in International Politics (1957). Three hypotheses are inferred from Kaplan's writings predicting that in a stable balance of power system, (a) alliances will occur randomly with respect to time; (b) the time intervals between alliances will also be randomly distributed; and (c) a decline in systemic alliance formation rates precedes system changing events, such as general war. We check these hypotheses by applying probability theory, specifically a Poisson model, to the analysis of new data on fifty-five alliances among the five major European powers during the period 1814–1914. Because our research questions are so general, our findings should not be regarded as definitive; however, the data very strongly support our hypotheses. We conclude that Kaplan's verbal model of a balance of power international system has had its credibility enhanced as a result of this paper.

scholarly journals Measuring environmental injustice: how ecological debt defines a radical change in the international legal system

2016 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 381 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jordi Jaria i Manzano ◽  
Antonio Cardesa-Salzmann ◽  
Antoni Pigrau ◽  
Susana Borràs
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Justice ◽  
International Law ◽  
Legal System ◽  
International System ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
Radical Change ◽  
Structural Features ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Environmental Injustice ◽  
International Legal System

This paper takes ecological debt as a measure of environmental injustice, and appraises this idea as a driving force for change in the international legal system. Environmental justice is understood here as a fair distribution of charges and benefits derived from using natural resources, in order to provide minimal welfare standards to all human beings, including future generations. Ecological debt measures this injustice, as an unfair and illegitimate distribution of benefits and burdens within the social metabolism, including ecologically unequal exchange, as a disproportionate appropriation and impairment of common goods, such as the atmosphere. Structural features of the international system promote a lack of transparency, control and accountability of power, through a pro-growth and pro-freedom language. In theory, this discourse comes with the promise of compensation for ordinary people, but in fact it benefits only a few. Ecological debt, as a symptom of the pervasive injustice of the current balance of power, demands an equivalent response, unravelling and deconstructing real power behind the imagery of equally sovereign states. It claims a counterhegemonic agenda aiming at rebuilding international law from a pluralist, 'third world' or Southern perspective and improving the balance of power. Ecological debt should not only serve as a means of compensation, but as a conceptual definition of an unfair system of human relations, which needs change. It may also help to define the burdens to be assumed as costs for the change required in international relations, i.e. by promoting the constitutionalization of international law and providing appropriate protection to human beings under the paradigms of sustainability (not sustainable development) and equity.Key Words: environmental justice, ecological debt, international legal system

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document