Nepal’s Strategic Hedging Behaviour: 2008-2019

Caught between the rising rival powers- India and China, Nepali foreign policy can be perceived as following the practice of strategic hedging where it is attempting to position itself in a way to maximize benefits while simultaneously defending against undesirable threats and dangers from both the rising powers. In the context of a small state like Nepal, strategic hedging implies consciously choosing to adopt mixed policies, which features both balancing and bandwagoning. This paper aims to understand how a ministate like Nepal formulates its foreign policy to address the power politics and applies economic pragmatism followed by smart power and nimble diplomacy to its advantage. This paper also aims to explain that strategic hedging can be followed by Nepal when there is an absence of immediate threat that might compel the state to ally with the power for protection. Through the lens of various realist theories, this paper analyzes that a mini state like Nepal can achieve its national interest and would either bandwagon with the rising power i.e., “China, or” it could try to balance against it supporting the current status quo i.e., India.

Brunei in 2020

In common with other countries around the world, Brunei Darussalam has had to deal with the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid19) pandemic and its consequences. By the end of 2020, Brunei had navigated the pandemic storm successfully by keeping its social compact intact, achieving a relatively buoyant economy, exhibiting a balanced foreign policy through strategic hedging, and keeping the country secure through defense diplomacy. Ending 2020 in great shape places Brunei in good stead for assuming the chairmanship of ASEAN and future royal succession.

Small states and strategic hedging: the United Arab Emirates’ policy towards Iran

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to unveil the main changes in the UAE’s policy towards Iran since its foundation in 1971. The UAE favored strategic hedging, extending its commercial and diplomatic relations with Iran, in addition to developing its military capabilities and maintaining military/security alliances with Saudi Arabia and the USA. However, the UAE started to reorient its policy towards Iran by adopting some sort of balancing strategy in the aftermath of the Arab Spring of 2011. This paper examines how and why the UAE had to change course and explores whether it would revert back to strategic hedging with Iran. Design/methodology/approach The study will be carried out based on a theoretical framework drawn from strategic hedging theory, a new structural theory in international relations, to examine the shifts in UAE policy towards Iran. Previous literature suggests that small states prefer hedging over balancing or bandwagoning. The authors also undertake a descriptive analysis and deploy a longitudinal within-case method to investigate changes in UAE policy towards Iran and identify the causal mechanisms behind these changes. That method allows investigating the impact of a particular event on a case by comparing the same case before and after that event occurred. Findings The main finding of this study is that the UAE hedging strategy towards Iran allowed maximizing the political and economic returns from the cooperation with Iran and mitigating the long-range national security risks without breaking up the consistent and beneficial ties with other regional and global powers. Hedging achieved the desired outcome, which is preventing direct military confrontation with Iran. Hard balancing, adopted by Abu Dhabi after the 2011 Arab Spring, has proved to have some negative effects, most importantly provoking Tehran. Some recent indicators suggest, though that the UAE may revert back to its long-established hedging policy towards Iran. Originality/value Strategic hedging is a new structural theory in international relation, although hedging behavior in states’ foreign policies is far from new. It is new enough, thus, not have been researched sufficiently, strategic hedging still needs theorizing and comparison. This paper highlights the importance of strategic hedging as the most appropriate strategy for small states. It provides an important contribution to the application of the theory to the case of UAE policy towards Iran. The paper also assesses the conventional wisdom that small states prefer hedging over balancing in the light of the changes in the UAE foreign policy since 2011.

China’s “Belt and Road” Economic Diplomacy in the Persian Gulf: Strategic Hedging amidst Saudi–Iranian Regional Rivalry

Drawing on the literature on strategic hedging and adapting it to China’s use of economic diplomacy in the service of comprehensive national security goals within the regionalised foreign policy approach of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), we examine China’s approach to securing and expanding its interests in the Persian Gulf. To implement the trade and infrastructure connectivity goals of the BRI and to secure the continued flow of diversified energy supplies, China needs to boost relations with both regional powerhouses, Iran and Saudi Arabia, without alienating either of them or the regional hegemon, the United States. The resulting strategy of strategic hedging is based in the Chinese approach to economic diplomacy, which utilises Chinese commercial actors in the service of national strategic objectives. Relations require careful and ongoing management if China is to achieve outcomes which benefit all sides while avoiding becoming entangled in the region’s intractable geopolitical problems.