War and Peace

2002 ◽  
Vol 55 (1) ◽  
pp. 137-166 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard N. Rosecrance
Keyword(s):  
Balance Of Power ◽  
The United States ◽  
Stopping Power ◽  
War And Peace ◽  
Power Politics ◽  
Realist Theory ◽  
Economic Relationships ◽  
Great Power Politics ◽  
Theory Of War ◽  
To Come

John Mearsheimer'sTragedy of Great Power Politicserrs in claiming that all national security decisions are rational ones. In contrast, sometimes state ambitions and actions go beyond what “rationality” typically would permit; sometimes states do not assert capabilities which they clearly possess. The explanations for such outcomes reside in realms that Mearsheimer either does not consider or dismisses too readily, such as alignments, democracy, ideology, and economic relationships. He also charts a role for the United States (a state confronting “the stopping power of water” that is too limited given the objectives (a balance of power) which he believes it should seek to create. His theory of war is too restricted and so therefore is his theory of peace. But he has fashioned one of the first new empirical essays in general realist theory in recent years and deserves to be commended. His approach will be the focus of debate and analysis for some time to come.

After Victory

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. John Ikenberry
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Politics ◽  
World Order ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
The United States ◽  
Big Bang ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Napoleonic Wars ◽  
Power Politics ◽  
The Cold War

The end of the Cold War was a “big bang” reminiscent of earlier moments after major wars, such as the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 and the end of the world wars in 1919 and 1945. But what do states that win wars do with their newfound power, and how do they use it to build order? This book examines postwar settlements in modern history, arguing that powerful countries do seek to build stable and cooperative relations, but the type of order that emerges hinges on their ability to make commitments and restrain power. The book explains that only with the spread of democracy in the twentieth century and the innovative use of international institutions—both linked to the emergence of the United States as a world power—has order been created that goes beyond balance of power politics to exhibit “constitutional” characteristics. Blending comparative politics with international relations, and history with theory, the book will be of interest to anyone concerned with the organization of world order, the role of institutions in world politics, and the lessons of past postwar settlements for today.

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.

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.

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.

Global versus National

Age of Iron ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 70-104
Author(s):  
Colin Dueck
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Republican Party ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
The United States ◽  
Great Power ◽  
Power Politics ◽  
Long Run ◽  
Clinton Presidency ◽  
Great Power Politics ◽  
The 1960S

This chapter describes the efforts of various Republican presidents and congressional leaders to strike balances between nationalist and internationalist priorities between the 1960s and 2015. Barry Goldwater championed a hawkish Sunbelt conservatism that in the long run helped remake the Republican Party. President Nixon pursued a foreign policy based upon assumptions of great-power politics and realpolitik. President Reagan led an ideologically charged effort at anti-Communist rollback, although he was careful not to overextend the United States in any large-scale wars on the ground. Republicans during the Clinton presidency struggled to reformulate conservative foreign policy assumptions in the wake of the Soviet Union’s collapse. George W. Bush remade conservative foreign policy into a war on terror, aiming at the democratization of the Greater Middle East. Finally, during the presidency of Barack Obama, Republican foreign policy factions once again splintered, paving the way for a conservative nationalist resurgence.

Bad Debts: Assessing China's Financial Influence in Great Power Politics

2009 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 7-45 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel W. Drezner
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Security Studies ◽  
Budget Deficits ◽  
Sovereign Wealth Funds ◽  
Power Politics ◽  
Economic Statecraft ◽  
Financial Investments ◽  
Great Power Politics ◽  
Financial Power

Commentators and policymakers have articulated growing concerns about U.S. dependence on China and other authoritarian capitalist states as a source of credit to fund the United States' trade and budget deficits. What are the security implications of China's creditor status? If Beijing or another sovereign creditor were to flex its financial muscles, would Washington buckle? The answer can be drawn from the existing literature on economic statecraft. An appraisal of the ability of creditor states to convert their financial power into political power suggests that the power of credit has been moderately exaggerated in policy circles. To use the argot of security studies, China's financial power increases its deterrent capabilities, but it has little effect on its compellence capabilities. China can use its financial power to resist U.S. entreaties, but it cannot coerce the United States into changing its policies. Financial power works best when a concert of creditors (or debtors) can be maintained. Two case studies—the contestation over regulating sovereign wealth funds and the protection of Chinese financial investments in the United States—demonstrate the constraints on China's financial power.

Anglo-American Primacy and the Global Spread of Democracy: An International Genealogy

2012 ◽  
Vol 64 (2) ◽  
pp. 341-373 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin Narizny
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
Power Politics ◽  
The Past ◽  
Global Spread ◽  
Great Power Politics ◽  
American Primacy ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
The Cold War

For the past three centuries, Great Britain and the United States have stood in succession at the apex of the international hierarchy of power. They have been on the winning side of every systemic conflict in this period, from the War of the Spanish Succession to the Cold War. As a result, they have been able to influence the political and economic development of states around the world. In many of their colonies, conquests, and clients, they have propagated ideals and institutions conducive to democratization. At the same time, they have defeated numerous rivals whose success would have had ruinous consequences for democracy. The global spread of democracy, therefore, has been endogenous to the game of great power politics.

Taking the Land without the People: The 1967 Story as Told by the Law

2017 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 18-38 ◽  
Author(s):  
Noura Erakat
Keyword(s):  
No Value ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
The United States ◽  
Legal Argumentation ◽  
Power Politics ◽  
Original Intent ◽  
Palestinian Territories ◽  
The People ◽  
Un Security Council ◽  
The Relationship

This paper seeks to show how Israel has deployed Occupation Law in strategic ways to incrementally take the land of Palestine without its people. It argues that Israel has used UN Security Council Resolution 242 to retroactively legitimate those colonial takings in a political framework shaped by U.S. intervention. In themselves, the constituent pieces of the argument are not new and they have been extensively discussed in legal, political science, and historical literature. Rather than consider them as the sum of their parts, this paper attempts to view the issues that have been kept distinct and separate within disciplinary silos as a mutually-reinforcing whole, demonstrating that the United States' political position made an otherwise bankrupt legal argument effective and showing how the Security Council's deliberations gave Israel ample room for maneuver in spite of the drafting parties' original intent. In examining the relationship between law and political power, the article points to the ways in which the balance of power bears upon the meaning and significance of law in international conflict. Thus, the failure of Occupation Law to regulate the occupation of the Palestinian Territories ultimately reflects the outcome of a political, not a legal, contest: Israel's legal argumentation that the territories are merely under its administration would have no value were it not for the power politics that shape international relations in the region.

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.

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