Canada as a peninsula state: Conceptualizing the emerging geopolitical landscape in the 21st century

2019 ◽  
Vol 74 (3) ◽  
pp. 345-362
Author(s):  
Tsuyoshi Kawasaki
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Great Power ◽  
Power Politics ◽  
Rise Of China ◽  
Key Policy ◽  
Great Power Politics ◽  
Arctic Ice ◽  
Rising Power ◽  
The Rise Of China

An unprecedented geopolitical landscape, driven by the reduction of Arctic ice and the rise of China as “a Polar power,” is emerging. What does this mean for Canada, and how should Canada respond to it in a systematic and strategic manner? We need a coherent and holistic conceptual framework to answer these key policy questions. Yet, the current literatures do not offer us such a concept. In an attempt to fill the void, this article presents a vision that conceives of Canada as “a peninsula state” exposed to great power politics in its vicinity, involving China as a rising power as well as the United States and Russia as resident powers. Furthermore, it argues that Canada should be prepared for three kinds of strategic dynamics as it enters the game of great power politics: theatre-linkage tactics and wedge-driving tactics vis-à-vis China and Russia, as well as quasi-alliance dilemma with the United States. Moreover, in order for Canada to cope with this complex international environment effectively, this article calls for creating a cabinet-level unit to coordinate various federal bureaucracies’ foreign and security policies.

America’s exceptional empire

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jude Woodward
Keyword(s):  
World Order ◽  
Great Power ◽  
Power Politics ◽  
The Us ◽  
Rise Of China ◽  
Great Power Politics ◽  
Strategic Position ◽  
The Rise Of China ◽  
Line P ◽  
Liberal Perspective

The Obama administration announced in 2010 that the US would make a strategic foreign policy turn towards Asia i.e. China. This chapter shows that the discussion on this policy in the US is framed by a shared perception that the rise of China presents an existential challenge to the US-led world order that has prevailed since 1945. Some see conflict as an inevitable consequence of Great Power politics; others allege conflict will be unavoidable because China has regional expansionist aspirations or because China is a revisionist power that does not accept the rules of the ‘pax Americana’. The Pentagon is developing military strategies in the case of conflict with China. This chapter demonstrates that wherever the argument, starts, whether from a neocon or liberal perspective, whether concerned about the US’s economic, military or strategic position, all arrive at the same conclusion: China must be brought into line.

Selective Accommodation in Great Power Competition and U.S. Grand Strategy

2021 ◽  
pp. 182-210
Author(s):  
Timothy W. Crawford
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Short Circuit ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Other ◽  
Great Power ◽  
Grand Strategy ◽  
Power Politics ◽  
Future Developments ◽  
Great Power Politics ◽  
Hinge Points

This chapter examines a pair of scenarios built around hinge points in current U.S. grand strategy. The scenarios envision surprising departures from current alignment trends and prevailing precepts in U.S. foreign policy. One explores how China might undermine the deepening Indo-American partnership by accommodating India. The other explores how the United States might short-circuit the emerging Russia–China alliance by accommodating Russia. These scenarios show how the book's theoretical constructs may describe and explain future developments. They also illuminate potential changes in great power politics that today's orthodoxies in U.S. grand strategy make hard to imagine, let alone think about carefully. The chapter then concludes with commentary for policy practitioners seeking to make selective accommodation work.

scholarly journals Globalization, deglobalization and Great Power politics

2021 ◽  
Vol 97 (5) ◽  
pp. 1317-1333
Author(s):  
Norrin M Ripsman
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
The United States ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Great Power ◽  
Power Politics ◽  
The Us ◽  
Security Relations ◽  
Great Power Politics ◽  
The Cold War

Abstract Commercial liberalism would suggest that whereas globalization was conducive to great power cooperation—or at least moderated competition—deglobalization is likely to ignite greater competition amongst the Great Powers. In reality, however, the picture is much more complex. To begin with, the intense globalization of the 1990s and 2000s is not responsible for moderating Great Power tensions; instead, it is itself a product of the security situation resulting from the end of the Cold War. Furthermore, while globalization did serve to reinforce cooperation between the United States and rising challengers, such as China, which sought to harness the economic gains of globalization to accelerate their rise, it also created or intensified fault-lines that have led to heightening tensions between the Great Powers. Finally, while we are currently witnessing increasing tensions between the US and both China and Russia, deglobalization does not appear to be the primary cause. Thus, geoeconomic conditions do not drive security relations; instead, the geoeconomic environment, which is itself influenced by Great Power politics, is better understood as a medium of Great Power competition, which may affect the character of Great Power competition and its intensity, but does not determine it.

Introduction

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Sebastian Rosato
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Real World ◽  
The United States ◽  
International Relations Theory ◽  
Historical Record ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Great Power ◽  
Power Politics ◽  
The Past ◽  
Great Power Politics

This chapter begins by explaining that the question of whether or not great powers can be confident that their peers have benign intentions is of enormous importance in both the real world and in international relations theory. In a nutshell, confidence causes peace and uncertainty causes security competition with the potential for war. The chapter then addresses the intentions question in three ways. First, it briefly describes a theory—intentions pessimism—that says great powers can rarely if ever be confident that their peers have benign intentions, because it is extraordinarily difficult for them to obtain the requisite information. Second, it argues that intentions pessimism matches up well with the historical record, and specifically, that it offers a compelling explanation of how great powers have actually thought about each other’s intentions over the past 150 years. Third, it applies intentions pessimism to the future of great power politics, predicting that the United States and China will each be uncertain about the other’s intentions, which will, in turn, cause them to compete for security and perhaps go to war.

The Power to Divide

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy W. Crawford
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Great Power ◽  
Power Politics ◽  
Alliance Politics ◽  
The Past ◽  
Future Performance ◽  
The World ◽  
Great Power Politics

This book examines the use of wedge strategies, a form of divisive statecraft designed to isolate adversaries from allies and potential supporters to gain key advantages. With a multidimensional argument about the power of accommodation in competition, and a survey of alliance diplomacy around both world wars, the book artfully analyzes the past and future performance of wedge strategy in great power politics. It argues that nations attempting to use wedge strategy do best when they credibly accommodate likely or established allies of their enemies. It also argues that a divider's own alliances can pose obstacles to success and explains the conditions that help dividers overcome them. The book advances these claims in eight focused studies of alliance diplomacy surrounding the world wars. Through those narratives, the book adeptly assesses the record of countries that tried an accommodative wedge strategy, and why ultimately, they succeeded or failed. These calculated actions often became turning points, desired or not, in a nation's established power. For policymakers today facing threats to power from great power competitors, the book argues that a deeper historical and theoretical grasp of the role of these wedge strategies in alliance politics and grand strategy is necessary. The book drives home the contemporary relevance of the analysis with a survey of China's potential to use such strategies to divide India from the United States, and the United States' potential to use them to forestall a China–Russia alliance, and closes with a review of key theoretical insights for policy.

The Struggle for Recognition in International Relations

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michelle Murray
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
International Relations ◽  
The United States ◽  
Great Power ◽  
Power Transition ◽  
Rising Powers ◽  
Peaceful Rise ◽  
Rising Power ◽  
Struggle For Recognition ◽  
Power Transitions

How can established powers manage the peaceful rise of new great powers? With The Struggle for Recognition in International Relations, the author offers a new answer to this perennial question in international relations, arguing that power transitions are principally social phenomena whereby rising powers struggle to obtain recognition of their identity as a great power. At the center of great power identity formation is the acquisition of particular symbolic capabilities—such as battlesheips, aircraft carriers, or nuclear weapons—that are representative of great power status and that allow rising powers to experience their uncertain social status as a brute fact. When a rising power is recognized, this power acquisition is considered legitimate and its status in the international order secured, leading to a peaceful power transition. If a rising power is misrecognized, its assertive foreign policy is perceived to be for revisionist purposes, which must be contained by the established powers. Revisionism—rather than the product of a material power structure that encourages aggression or domestic political struggles—is a social construct that emerges through a rising power’s social interactions with the established powers as it attempts to gain recognition of its identity. The question of peaceful power transition has taken on increased salience in recent years with the emergence of China as an economic and military rival of the United States. Highlighting the social dynamics of power transitions, this book offers a powerful new framework through which to understand the rise of China and how the United States can facilitate its peaceful rise.

scholarly journals The U.S.-China technological war through the prism of techno-nationalism

2021 ◽  
pp. 29-43
Author(s):  
I. Danilin
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Global Economy ◽  
Technological Development ◽  
Digital Technologies ◽  
The United States ◽  
Market Situation ◽  
Key Factor ◽  
Rise Of China ◽  
The Rise Of China ◽  
The U.S

The “technological war” between the United States and China that started in 2017–2018 raises a number of questions about the future role of technological development as a factor in relations between superpowers. Analysis shows that for the United States this conflict is caused by changing balance of risks and benefits of the liberal model of globalization due to the rise of China`s power and growing geopolitical tensions between the two nations. In this context, emerging, especially digital, technologies appear to be a new battlefield between superpowers. Within the realist framework, actors consider emerging technologies as a key factor for strengthening their global postures. This, among other things, contributes to securitized technological agenda and strengthens its geopolitical dimension. Neo-technonationalism has become the platform that integrates different processes and goals into new U.S. policy. Although historically neo-technonationalism took its roots in Asia, the evolving market situation prompted the United States to rethink existing approaches and to upgrade the techno-nationalist dimension of its policy. Considering similar policies of China and the EU (i. e. the European digital sovereignty policy), this trend shapes new realities of technological “blocs”, the struggle for expansion of technological platforms, and technological conflicts. Taking into account prospective development needs of the global economy and future specification of mutual interest areas, as new digital technologies mature, the ground for normalizing the dialogue between the superpowers will emerge. However, at least in the U.S.–China case, this issue will be complicated by geopolitical contradictions that leave little room for any serious compromise.

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