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.

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.

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.

A Geriatric Peace? The Future of U.S. Power in a World of Aging Populations

2007 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 112-147 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark L. Haas
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
International System ◽  
Elderly Care ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Other ◽  
Power Politics ◽  
Humanitarian Interventions ◽  
Aging Populations ◽  
History Of ◽  
Great Power Politics

In the coming decades, the most powerful states in the international system will face a challenge unlike any experienced in the history of great power politics: significant aging of their populations. Global aging will be a potent force for the continuation of U.S. economic and military dominance. Aging populations are likely to produce a slowdown in states' economic growth at the same time that governments will face substantial pressure to pay for massive new expenditures for elderly care. This economic dilemma will create such an austere fiscal environment that the other great powers will lack the resources necessary to overtake the United States' huge power lead. Moreover, although the U.S. population is growing older, it is doing so to a lesser extent and less quickly than all of the other major actors in the system. Consequently, the economic and fiscal costs created by social aging—as well as their derivative effects on military spending—will be significantly lower for the United States than for potential competitors. Nevertheless, the United States will experience substantial new costs created by its own aging population. As a result, it will most likely be unable to maintain the scope of its current international position and will be less able to realize key international objectives, including preventing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, funding nation building, and engaging in military humanitarian interventions.

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.

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.

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.

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