Intentions Pessimism

2021 ◽  
pp. 21-43
Author(s):  
Sebastian Rosato
Keyword(s):  
Great Powers ◽  
The Other ◽  
Great Power ◽  
Power Politics ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Future ◽  
Great Power Politics ◽  
The One

This chapter outlines a theory called intentions pessimism. It begins by describing the information problems that confront states seeking to divine each other’s intentions. The first problem is that it is particularly difficult for a great power to access firsthand information about another state’s current intentions, that state’s actual ideas about how it intends to behave. The second problem is that although great powers can acquire information about each other’s declarations, interests, and actions, all of which are related to its intentions, this secondhand information is unreliable, which is to say that it is consistent with both benign and malign intent. The third problem is that states cannot access firsthand information about each other’s future intentions, while secondhand information on the matter is especially unreliable. The chapter then argues that given the inextricable link between information, on the one hand, and certainty and uncertainty on the other, these problems of access, reliability, and the future virtually preclude great powers from being confident that their peers have benign intentions, or more simply, from trusting them. Indeed, they typically cause states to be acutely uncertain about each other’s intentions. The chapter concludes by exploring the effects of uncertainty on great power politics.

Great Powers

2018 ◽  
pp. 638-652
Author(s):  
Barry Buzan
Keyword(s):  
Power Management ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
The Other ◽  
Great Power ◽  
Global Level ◽  
Major Powers ◽  
The Third ◽  
Shifting Balance ◽  
Shared Fate ◽  
The One

This chapter starts by arguing the need to differentiate between great powers and superpowers at the global level. From there, it looks at the structural implications, both material and ideational, of analyzing the major powers in this way. The third section sets out the shifting balance between, on the one hand, the traditional security agenda of great powers managing relations among themselves, and on the other, the rising new security agenda of how to manage a variety of shared fate problems. The last section features the pathology of autism in great powers, and how that affects the prospects for great power management in the decades ahead.

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.

Oil and the Future of Great Power Politics

2020 ◽  
pp. 173-182
Author(s):  
Rosemary A. Kelanic
Keyword(s):  
The United States ◽  
First Century ◽  
Great Power ◽  
Power Politics ◽  
Indirect Control ◽  
The Future ◽  
Belt And Road ◽  
Great Power Politics ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
The Belt And Road

This concluding chapter explores the implications of the theory for great power politics as China continues to rise in the twenty-first century. If significant quantities of Persian Gulf oil could be realistically transported overland, away from U.S. naval interference, then the future threat to Chinese imports would remain low. Combined with a petroleum deficit that is likely to be large, Chinese coercive vulnerability could be held to a moderate level. Moderate coercive vulnerability should induce China to pursue indirect control as it emerges as a great power. Thus, the theory predicts that China is likely to eventually forge alliances with major oil-producing countries and transit states to keep oil in “friendly hands.” As yet, China is too militarily weak to shield friendly oil-producing states from interference by the United States or other potential rivals, but the beginnings of an alliance-based strategy appear to be taking shape under the auspices of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), described by some analysts as a nascent framework for twenty-first-century Chinese grand strategy.

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 Worlds beyond Westphalia: Daoist dialectics and the ‘China threat’

2013 ◽  
Vol 39 (3) ◽  
pp. 549-568 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. H. M. LING
Keyword(s):  
World Order ◽  
World Politics ◽  
The Other ◽  
Great Power ◽  
Power Politics ◽  
The Us ◽  
Great Power Politics ◽  
Rising China ◽  
China Threat ◽  
Us West

AbstractDiscourse in the US/West that a rising China threatens world order serves no national interest or international purpose. It subscribes only to Westphalian anxieties about the Other. Drawing on Daoist dialectics, this article shows how we can reframe this issue by revealing the complicities that bind even seemingly intractable opposites, thereby undermining the rationale for violence. By recognising the ontological parity between (US/Western) Self and (Chinese/non-Western) Other, we may begin to shift IR/world politics from hegemony to engagement, the ‘tragedy’ of great power politics to the freedom of discovery and creativity.

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.

scholarly journals The Diplomatic Status of the Joseon Kingdom in the Context of the Competition among China, Japan and Russia on the Korean Peninsula (Late 19th Century)

2020 ◽  
Vol 34 ◽  
pp. 83-89
Author(s):  
L. E. Kozlov ◽  
Keyword(s):  
19Th Century ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
The Other ◽  
Late 19Th Century ◽  
The Third ◽  
Fourth Level ◽  
Qing Government ◽  
The One ◽  
Global Arena ◽  
The 19Th Century

At the end of the 19th century Korea took the first steps towards developing a modern model of diplomacy. This process was hampered by the inertia of vassal-suzerain relations with China and the uncertain status of Korea on the global arena. The author analyzed the indications of incomplete sovereignty of the Joseon Kingdom and its attempts to conduct sovereign diplomacy. The attitude of the great powers to Joseon has been considered. The uncertainty of Korea's diplomatic status at the end of the 19th century can be illustrated by the following contradiction. On the one hand, the great powers recognized Korea's sovereignty as a limited one and assigned a minister resident or consul general, which corresponds to the third and fourth level of a diplomatic representative. On the other hand, the Qing government prevented Joseon from pursuing an independent foreign policy, but could not shape it at its discretion. In 1901-1902, the diplomatic status of the Joseon Kingdom finally became fully sovereign de jure, de facto though internal problems and weaknesses did not disappear, and in 1904–1905 a Japanese protectorate over Korea was established.

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