"Circumstance is neutral; by itself it imprisons more frequently than it helps. A statesman who cannot shape events will soon be engulfed by them; he will be thrown on the defensive, wrestling with tactics instead of advancing his purpose."
Henry Kissinger
Block C of the course shifts the discussion from ends to means: from a consideration of the objectives of strategy, the national interests they serve, and the environment in which they must be pursued to the resources or power needed to achieve them. In a sense, we shift here from what is desirable in national security policy to what is feasible, from what we would like to accomplish through our national security strategy to what is possible given the tools at our command. Our examination of means will begin in Topic 7 with a look at the nature of power and influence in international affairs, followed in Topic 8 by an examination of diplomacy as the overall, coordinating instrument of statecraft. The rest of the Block, Topics 9 through 11, provides focused discussions of the nine most prominent non-violent instruments of statecraft.
The purpose of the instruments of state power, of course, is to influence the behavior of other sovereign states. Relationships between states can be thought of as a kind of continuous bargaining, an ongoing process in which each tries to influence the other in what ever way it can. Formal negotiations are very often a part of this process, but bargaining goes on whether states are seated at the conference table or not-indeed, whether or not they are even talking to each other. Bargaining is a complex interaction in which persuasion mixes with promises and threats, rewards and punishments are employed, and a variety of policy instruments may be used by each side.
Instruments of statecraft are often categorized as political (or diplomatic), economic, and military, with "informational" sometimes added as a fourth grouping. In this Block, however, the policy tools are categorized differently, according to a rough spectrum of generic strategies used in international bargaining: first, pure diplomatic persuasion; second, negotiating with positive incentives (promises or rewards); and third, bargaining with the pressure of threats or actual punishments, often called "coercive diplomacy." If we apportion the instruments along that spectrum, placing first those that seem most purely persuasive, then those with which promises and rewards are most often associated, and finally those which appear most coercive in nature, the diagram might look like this:
[Diagram wrecked]
Generic Diplomatic Bargaining with Coercive
Strategies Persuasion Incentives Diplomacy
Diplomacy Foreign Sanctions
Policy International Assistance Covert Action
Instruments Organizations Trade Policy Force and
International Law Alliances Diplomacy
Public Diplomacy/
Information
Instruments primarily associated with the first generic strategy are treated in Topic 9, "Persuasive Instruments;" those with the second strategy are in Topic 10, "Cooperative Instruments;" and those with the third are in Topic 11, "Coercive Instruments." Please note the adverb "primarily": the associations between the instruments and these generic strategies are meant to be suggestive rather than exclusive in nature. For example, although international organizations usually are fora for purely persuasive multilateral diplomacy and are listed with that generic strategy, on occasion they can --and do-- act in very coercive ways, as the UN did when it authorized the removal of Iraqi forces from Kuwait "by all necessary means." It also should be borne in mind that the ultimate coercive instrument, the employment of military force, is missing from this list only because it is treated extensively in Courses 5602 and 5605; the strategist must of course consider it along with all the non-violent instruments when deciding which ends to pursue with what means.
The topics in this Block include two general types of readings: theoretical articles about the instruments' characteristics, and case studies on the use of instruments in specific instances. The questions below will help focus our study. Answering them should help to illuminate the characteristics, strengths and weaknesses of these tools that are an essential foundation for formulating effective national security strategies.
Block C Objectives
- Learn the characteristic strengths and weaknesses of the principal instruments of national power.
- Understand the conditions under which particular instruments may be more or less effective in the international system today.
- Appreciate the resource constraints that help define the difference between potential and available power.
Central Questions
- What are the strengths and weaknesses of this particular instrument in the field? What conditions are needed for it to work successfully? What conditions should raise warning flags against its use?
- Is this policy tool usable only for one or a few kinds of strategic objectives? Or, on the contrary, can it be employed for a variety of purposes?
- Does this instrument work best alone or in tandem with other policy instruments? If the latter, what is its usual or necessary relationship with other tools?
- How much time is needed to create and field this form of mobilized power? What demands on the state's potential power -- its resources -- does it pose?
- How risky is this instrument relative to others that might be used? What can be done to minimize its risk?
- Are there certain qualities of this instrument that will tend to cut across the use of other instruments or the pursuit of other likely strategic objectives? What are they?
- Should any of these instruments be used covertly? If so, under what circumstances?
- What sorts of moral considerations, if any, should be taken into account before employing any instrument?
- Are realists or idealists more or less likely to use one or more of these instruments?
TOPIC 7: POWER AND INFLUENCE
"The reputation of power is power."
Thomas Hobbes
We begin our discussion of means with a look at the nature of power itself. Power is most often defined as the capacity for action or influence, the ability to get another individual or nation to do what it otherwise would not do. Clear thinking about power in the international context begins with the distinction between latent or potential power (inherent in a nation's natural resources, the talents of its people, its economy's productive capacity, and so forth) and actual or mobilized power (dependent on the government's capacity to extract resources from the economy and use them to produce usable instruments of statecraft). The national security strategist must make critical decisions about power on three levels: first, on the proper balance between potential and mobilized power; second, on which tools of statecraft the state ought to buy; and third, on how to use those tools effectively to advance or defend the nation's interests.
Making these choices involves an understanding of how power can be amassed by a nation-state, of what forms power takes in the contemporary world order, and of how these various forms of power work in interstate relations. It also requires judgments about the power of the United States relative to other states in the international system and about whether American power should be used cooperatively or coercively. This topic is designed to provide the opportunity for some preliminary thought and discussion of these kinds of questions before we delve into the specifics of individual tools of statecraft.
The reading assigned below by Jablonsky discusses the traditional elements of state power in international politics and describes how the power of states can be estimated and compared. Then Joseph Nye and Robert Keohane reconsider the conclusions of their classic 1977 book, Power and Interdependence, in light of the information age, looking at the power that three different kinds of information provide to its possessor. The final essay by Hans Binnendijk comments on the strange paradox of the world' s greatest superpower scrimping to afford the tools of statecraft and falling well short of what its interests would seem to demand and its power to make possible.
Topic Objectives
- Consider how power in its various manifestations should be defined and how the concept of power shapes the strategic landscape.
- Analyze the major determinants of state power.
- Assess how the changing nature of power in the international system has affected the United States relative to other actors in the system.
- Analyze the funding of foreign affairs, including the allocation of resources among the various instruments of statecraft.
Questions for Discussion
- How should power in international relations be defined? What elements go to make up state power? Can they be measured and tallied? How can we best judge states' relative power?
- Why is cost as important as values in determining the desirability of foreign policy objectives? What does it mean to say that statecraft, like all politics, is the art of the possible?
- What is the difference between, and relative importance of, latent power and mobilized power? Real power and perceived power? Absolute power and relative power?
- Has the nature of power in international politics changed in the post-Cold War era from what it was during the Cold War? Does the information revolution change the nature and uses of power? Is the concept of 'soft power' useful in explaining the nature of American power today?
- How serious is the current shortfall in funding the tools of statecraft? Are recent cutbacks in America's diplomatic infrastructure more or less important for the nation's interests overseas than the cuts in its military power?
Required Readings
* David Jablonsky, "National Power," Parameters 27 (Spring 1997): 34-54. (Reprint)
* Robert O. Keohane and Joseph S. Nye, Jr., "Power and Interdependence in the Information Age," Foreign Affairs 77 (September/October 1998): 81-94. (Reprint)
* Hans Binnendijk, "Tin Cup Diplomacy," National Interest 49 (Fall 1997): 88-91. (Reprint)
Supplemental Readings
* David A. Baldwin, Paradoxes of Power. New York: Basil Blackwell Inc., 1989.
* Lawrence S. Eagleburger and Robert L. Barry, "Dollars and Sense Diplomacy," Foreign Affairs 75 (July-August 1996): 2-8.
* K. J. Holsti, International Politics: A Framework for Analysis, 6th ed. New York: Prentice Hall, 1992. Chapter 5.
* Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers. New York: Vintage, 1987.
* Hans J. Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace. 5th Ed., Revised. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1978.
* Joshua Muravchik, "Affording Foreign Policy," Foreign Affairs 75 (March-April 1996): 8-13.
* A. F. K. Organski, World Politics. 2nd Ed. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1968.
* David Rothkopf, "Cyberpolitik: The Changing Nature of Power in the Information Age," Journal of International Affairs 51 (Spring 1998): 325-359.
TOPIC 8: COORDINATING STATECRAFT: THE ART OF DIPLOMACY
"We have not heard from our ambassador in Paris for two years. If we have not heard from him by the end of the year, let us write him a letter."
President Jefferson to Secretary of State Madison
Diplomacy is the application of the nation's strategic blueprint to the real world. Put differently, it is what a nation actually does as it tries to translate its plans into reality. Its importance can hardly be overstressed since, like a good military strategy, even the most brilliant national security strategy can be ruined by poor execution, while a skilled diplomat can often do a lot with rather shaky guidance. Thus, diplomacy may well be thought of more as a performing art than a science amenable to careful analysis.
The subject of this topic is diplomacy in its broadest sense, what might be called the overseas manifestation of statecraft, in which the diplomat attempts to orchestrate all the instruments of state power to serve American objectives in the country or institution to which he is accredited. It is a task every ambassador receives directly from the President when he or she takes on the management of the many executive branch departments represented at an embassy. Such coordination is more than ever essential today, since diplomatic tasks are many and varied. American diplomats continue to spend much of their time analyzing and reporting significant foreign events and attitudes, and they still find themselves involved in formal international negotiations both bilaterally and at the scores of multilateral meetings and conferences the U.S. attends each year. However, they are just as likely to be found running trade shows, hosting science exhibits or cultural programs, or managing assistance projects which supply goods and services to their host governments -- in short, wielding any of the instruments of power that are the subjects of later topics in this Block.
The principal reading for this topic is a rich case study of diplomacy in action: Richard Holbrooke's masterful performance negotiating the Dayton accords. In it, you will see Holbrooke using many of the non-violent instruments along with military force to bring the combatants in the Bosnian war and their sponsors to the negotiating table and then to strike a deal ending the war. Other readings are, first, the ideas of former Secretary of State George Shultz on diplomacy and how the information age is affecting it and, second, the sections of the current U.S. national security strategy that deal most directly with the diplomatic instrument.
Topic Objectives
- Consider the conditions under which diplomacy may be more or less effective as an instrument of statecraft.
- Understand how an embassy is structured and run and how embassies can more effectively pursue American national interests.
- Consider what diplomats do overseas and the characteristics of successful diplomats.
Questions for Discussion
- What do diplomats spend most of their time doing overseas? Can a person be trained to be a good diplomat, or is it a skill acquirable only through experience?
- What do diplomats spend most of their time doing overseas? How does an embassy operate?
- How important is diplomatic skill to successful diplomatic outcomes-- as compared, say, to the nation's relative power, or the degree to which its interests coincide with those of other nations?
- Why is all diplomacy, all international negotiation, in a sense tacit bargaining? Can sovereign nation states ever speak to each other convincingly except through their actions?
Required Readings
* George P. Shultz, "Diplomacy in the Information Age," Keynote Address from the Virtual Diplomacy Conference (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Institute of Peace, ), pp. 12-16. (Reprint)
Susan Rosegrant, "Getting to Dayton: Negotiating an End to the War in Bosnia," Case C125-96-1356.0 (Cambridge, MA: John F. Kennedy School, Harvard University, 1996). (Reprint)
"Diplomacy," "Arms Control," and "Nonproliferation Initiatives," in A National Security Strategy for a New Century (Washington, D.C.: The White House, October 1998), pp. 8, 9-12. (Student Issue)
Supplemental Readings
* Hans Binnendijk, National Negotiating Styles (Washington, D.C.: Center for the Study of Foreign Affairs, Department of State, 1987).
* Amitai Etzioni, "Mediation as a World Role for the United States,"The Washington Quarterly 18 (Summer 1995): 75-87.
* Gordon A. Craig and Felix Gilbert, The Diplomats: 1919-1935. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1953.
* Barry Fulton, "The Information Age: New Dimensions for U.S. Foreign Policy," Chapter 1 in Great Decisions 1999 (New York: Foreign Policy Association, 1998), pp. 9-17.
* Fred C. Ikle, How Nations Negotiate. New York: Harper and Row, 1964.
* K. A. L. Holsti, International Politics: A Framework for Analysis. New York: Prentiss-Hall, most recent edition. See chapters on instruments of power.
* Arthur S. Lall, Modern International Negotiation: Principles and Practice. New York: Columbia University Press, 1964.
* Niccolo Machiavelli. The Prince. Ricci/Vincent translation. New York: Mentor, 1952/1980.
* Harold G. Nicolson, Diplomacy . New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1939.
* Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1960.
TOPIC 9: PERSUASIVE INSTRUMENTS
". . . there is no durable treaty which is not founded upon reciprocal advantage . . . . Thus the great secret of negotiation is to bring out prominently the common advantage to both parties of any proposal, and so to link these advantages that they may appear equally balanced to both parties.
Monseiur de Callieres
The most direct, lowest-cost means of influencing another government or non-state actor is simply to convince those in control of its actions that it would be in their interest to change their behavior. Diplomacy has been defined as "letting the other guy have your own way," and persuasive instruments seek to do this simply by force of argument, without resorting even to threats or promises, still less to punishments or rewards. Bilateral diplomacy and negotiation, just covered in Topic 8, is perhaps the most common form of this kind of influence attempt, but multilateral diplomacy of the kind conducted in the UN and other international organizations (the first persuasive instrument treated below) is another instrument that can be used for purely persuasive bargaining. Once agreements are reached, governments use international law to cement their accords, and the whole structure of positive law (as well as custom and precedent) built up over the decades serves to regulate many of the activities of governments; but since international law has no enforcement mechanism in the system of sovereign states, this too can be considered a persuasive instrument. Another way to persuade governments is to persuade public opinion, especially the opinion of elites, who can in turn influence government policies. Public diplomacy is therefore the third persuasive instrument we will discuss below, and it is also the tool of statecraft that is perhaps the most influenced by the information revolution. These instruments, and the ones that follow, are introduced in the reading below by Steve Mann, currently U.S. Ambassador to Turkmenistan.
Required Reading
* Steven R. Mann, "The Interlocking Trinity," NWC Student Core Course Paper, 1991. (Reprint)
International Organization
Since the days when Woodrow Wilson fathered (and the Senate rejected) the League of Nations, U.S. policy towards international organizations has swung between enthusiasm and repudiation. These changes reflect less the reality of international organizations than ambivalence in American opinion, long divided between pacifists or idealists who expect miracles of peace from these agencies, and nationalists or isolationists who nurse ideological fears regarding their possible encroachment on American sovereignty. Far from disappearing with the end of the Cold War, this division has rarely been more sharply focused than in recent years, as devotees of a new world order clash with those who fear the imminent descent of the black helicopters.
The strategist, however, needs a balanced view of the utility of international organizations, which can usefully serve American interests in two broad areas. First, those agencies dealing with peace and security (the UN Security Council, or regional organizations like the OAS or the OAU) may help prevent violence, seek solutions to local disputes that might otherwise endanger American interests, or legitimize and coordinate needed interventions. Second, agencies active in economic, social, and scientific areas may provide services the U.S. needs, such as regulating the global commons (the high seas, space, the environment, Antarctica and the airwaves); managing the international monetary system; combating crime and the drug trade; establishing trade laws, postal regulations, and similar regimes necessary for the routine of international life; dealing with global issues like population growth, food shortages, and environmental degradation; advancing the welfare of labor and children; and promoting the whole complex of activities known as "development."
The strategist's first task, then, is to appreciate the importance of intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) to American statecraft, a task admirably performed by John Ikenberry in the first assigned reading below. Next, it is important to understand the basics of the global international organization created by American diplomacy at San Francisco over a half-century ago without succumbing to the popular myths about it, a task facilitated by Stephen Schlesinger. Next, Paul Kennedy and Bruce Russett discuss the prospects for UN reform, an important enterprise as states ask the world body to take on more and more duties. Finally, P. J. Simmons turns a critical eye towards the other kind of international organization, the non-governmental organization (or NGO), a non-state actor that will likely be increasingly important in American statecraft.
Topic Objectives
- Analyze the strengths and weaknesses of international organization as an instrument of U.S. national security strategy.
- Understand the issues revolving around U.S. relations with the UN, including various proposals for UN reform.
- Appreciate the growing role played by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in the international system and how they can be used to further American interests.
Questions for Discussion
- Although the institutions of the UN may resemble those of a national government with its legislative, executive and judicial branches, how are they different? What effect do these differences have on the UN's ability to act?
- In what ways do international organizations affect the structure of the international political system? Do they affect the behavior of states?
- On balance, does the UN support or frustrate U.S. national security goals? What tactics should the United States adopt at the UN to defend its interests?
- Should the United States be willing to surrender some of its sovereignty to the UN? Should the UN create standing international military contingents, as originally called for in the Charter? Should the United States support better crisis management machinery (with greater powers) in New York? Which of the other commonly suggested reforms of the UN should the U.S. champion?
- Does the end of the Cold War mean that the United Nations will at least be able to fulfill the vision of its founders? Why or why not?
Required Readings
* G. John Ikenberry, "America's Liberal Hegemony," Current History 98 (January 1999): 23-28. (Reprint)
* Stephen Schlesinger, "Can the United Nations Reform?" World Policy Journal 14 (Fall 1997): 47-52. (Reprint)
* Paul Kennedy and Bruce Russett, "Reforming the United Nations," Foreign Affairs 74 (September/October 1995): 56-71. (Reprint)
* P. J. Simmons, "Learning to Live with NGOs," Foreign Policy 112 (Fall 1998): 82-96. (Reprint)
Reference:
* "Charter of the United Nations (amended)," in Committees on Foreign Affairs/Relations, U.S. House of Representatives/Senate, Legislation on Foreign Relations Through 1985 (Washington, D.C.: GPO, August 1986), pp. 707-731.
Supplemental Readings
* Inis L. Claude, Jr., Swords Into Plowshares. New York: Random House, latest edition.
* Jesse Helms, "Saving the UN," Foreign Affairs 75 (September-October 1996): 2-7, and "Letters to the Editor," Foreign Affairs 75 (November-December 1996): 172-179.
* Robert O. Keohane, "International Institutions: Can Interdependence Work?" Foreign Policy 110 (Spring 1998): 82-96. (Student Issue)
* Edward C. Luck and Toby Trister Gati, "Whose Collective Security?" The Washington Quarterly 15 (Spring 1992): 43-56.
* Jessica T. Mathews, "Power Shift," Foreign Affairs 76 (January/February 1997): 50-66.
* John J. Mearsheimer, "The False Promise of International Institutions," International Security 19 (Winter 1994/95): 5-49.
* Bruce Russett, "Ten Balances for Weighing UN Reform Proposals," Political Science Quarterly, 111 (Summer 1996): 259-269.
* Cheryl Shanks, Harold K. Jacobson, Jeffrey H. Kaplan, "Inertia and Change in the Constellation of International Governmental Organizations, 1981-1992," International Organization 50 (#4, 1996): 593-627.
* Shashi Tharoor, "The Challenges to UN Peacekeeping," The Brown Journal of World Affairs III (Winter/Spring 1996): 85-94.
International Law
Underpinning any discussion of the role and effectiveness of international organizations is the closely related question of the nature and relevance of international law. On the one hand, skeptics may castigate international law as ineffective and irrelevant, pointing as evidence to the inability of the International Court of Justice to enforce its decisions, or of the Hague War Crimes Tribunal to bring Bosnian war criminals to justice. Many even question whether there really is any body of international norms we can legitimately call "law." On the other hand, on issues ranging from combating terrorism to controlling ozone levels in the environment, or to settling disputes of which they have grown tired, states both large and small often find it useful to turn to international legal regimes to secure their interests. As with international organizations, then, the strategist's job is not to praise or condemn international law but to understand its nature and to think shrewdly about how international legal regimes can be used to advance American interests.
The readings below should help start that task. First, Steve Ratner offers an update on recent developments in legal scholarship, including non-state participants, new enforcement efforts, law's relation to power and its legitimacy, and new linkages between legal areas, as well as hot legal issues like trade law, the environment, human rights, and extraterritoriality. Then two articles discuss the most dramatic legal development of our day, the direct application of international law to individuals accused of criminal actions as leaders of sovereign states. Finally, the excerpts from the current U.S. national security strategy give some examples of how international law is used as part of American strategy today.
Topic Objectives
- Analyze the strengths, weaknesses, and characteristics of international law as an instrument of U.S. national security strategy.
- Appreciate the role of international law in structuring the international environment and regulating common activities of global actors.
Questions for Discussion
- Is international law important? What contribution does it make to relations between nations, as well as to the other actors in the international system?
- How does the international legal system differ from the domestic legal systems of the various states within the international system?
- Can governments be convinced that their relations are best protected by mutually-arranged norms with which they will comply consistently and voluntarily? Or is "the law" inevitably what the policies of powerful nations make and impose on the world?
- Does the United States bear any responsibility for the weakness of international law?
- Should a concern for international legal norms affect the development of our national security strategy? How?
- Has the United States taken the right position on the new international criminal court? Why or why not?
Required Readings
* Steven R. Ratner, "International Law: The Trials of Global Norms," Foreign Policy 110 (Spring 1998): 65-80. (Reprint)
* Ricardo Lagos and Heraldo Munoz, "The Pinochet Dilemma," Foreign Policy 114 (Spring 1999): 26-39. (Reprint)
* Aryeh Neier, "Waiting for Justice: The United States and the International Criminal Court," World Policy Journal 15 (Fall 1998): 33-38. (Reprint)
* "International Law Enforcement Cooperation" and "Environmental Initiatives" in A National Security Strategy for a New Century (Washington, D.C.: The White House, October 1998), p. 13-14. [Note: the "Arms Control" and "Nonproliferation" sections contain more examples of the uses of international law in American strategy.] (Student Issue)
Supplemental Readings
* James L. Brierly, The Law of Nations. 6th ed. New York: Oxford Unversity Press, 1963.
* Lee A. Casey and David B. Rivkin, Jr., "Against an International Criminal Court," Commentary 105 (May 1998): 56-58.
* Andrew P. Cortell and James W. Davis, Jr., "How Do International Institutions Matter? The Domestic Impact of International Rules and Norms," International Studies Quarterly 40 (December 1996): 451-478.
* Theodore Meron, "Answering for War Crimes," Foreign Affairs 76 (January-February 1996): 2-7. Jeremy Rabkin, "International Law vs. the American Constitution," The National Interest 55 (Spring 1999): 30-41.
* Naomi Roht-Arriaza, "Institutions of International Justice," Journal of International Affairs 52 (Spring 1999): 473-492.
* Alfred P. Rubin, "Dayton, Bosnia, and the Limits of Law," The National Interest, 46 (Winter 1997), pp. 41-46.
* David L. Scheffer, "International Judicial Intervention," Foreign Policy 102 (Spring 1996): 34-51.
Public Diplomacy in the Information Age
Public diplomacy may be defined as the efforts governments make to influence important segments of foreign public opinion and thereby advance their policy objectives. Each time a senior official gives a press conference or makes a statement available to the media, for example, he or she is engaging in public diplomacy. In addition, the U.S. Information Agency (after October 1, the Department of State) operates hundreds of programs overseas using international radio/TV broadcasting, magazines, placement of materials in the foreign media, and audiovisual products to explain U.S. policies and educate foreign publics about American society. Its communication techniques include personal contact by USIA officers, American speakers, libraries, exhibits, American studies programs, tours by American performing artists, and educational exchange activities.
One of the paradoxes of post-Cold War American statecraft is the shrinking of resources devoted to U.S. public diplomacy during today's explosive information revolution. Information obviously is not a recent invention, but during the last decade or so it has received an enormous amount of coverage in the press, government, and academe primarily because the means to convey it have been revolutionized in speed and complexity. It is as yet unclear whether these rapidly changing technologies have somehow transformed information or changed its characteristics and uses sufficiently to have created a new, discrete instrument of statecraft. Even more unclear is whether the "information instrument," old or new, will provide as yet unseen opportunities that may be exploited by strategists or simply new threats and vulnerabilities to vex them.
This subtopic provides the opportunity, then, to explore public diplomacy in the new information environment and to debate what strategists should do to prepare for this aspect of the post-Cold War era. The assigned reading by Larry Wohlers, now PAO at the U.S. Mission to the European Union, looks at traditional public diplomacy and how it might be re-conceptualized as a more effective tool of modern day statecraft. Then Joseph Nye and Admiral Owens focus on uses for the new information capabilities that technology is presenting American strategists, including the possibility that an information umbrella may replace the nuclear umbrella as the cement holding U.S. alliances together. Finally, David Rothkopf makes the point that information age tools allow the United States to spread its culture globally in a way likely to increase and preserve its dominant power, an opportunity he thinks Americans should grasp with both hands.
Questions for Discussion
- What is the difference, if any, between information and propaganda? What is meant by "public diplomacy" and how is it employed in today's international political environment?
- What are the elements that go into making effective overseas information and cultural programs? Are hard-hitting, advocacy programs most effective, or are softer, less contentious programs more likely to accomplish essential policy objectives? Can one measure or evaluate the effectiveness of such programs? How?
- What should the goals of public diplomacy --including international broadcasting-- be in the post-Cold War world? For example, should the U.S. spread democracy? Liberate oppressed peoples? Foster health care in the third world? Try to prevent genocide?
- How is public diplomacy changing in response to the end of the Cold War, the expansion of democratic governance worldwide, the new electronic media, reduced funding, and expansion of private sector informational, educational, cultural, and exchange efforts?
- Does the information revolution offer the United States new tools of statecraft it can exploit? If so, what are they, and how are they best used? Will the increasingly rapid means of information dissemination render traditional diplomacy (and diplomats) obsolete?
Required Readings
* Larry Wohlers, "America's Public Diplomacy Deficit," NWC Student Paper, 1997. (Reprint)
* Joseph S. Nye, Jr., and William A. Owens, "America's Information Edge," Foreign Affairs 75 (March-April 1996): 20-36. (Reprint)
* David Rothkopf, "In Praise of Cultural Imperialism," Foreign Policy 107 (Summer 1997): 38-53. (Reprint)
Supplemental Readings
* Tom C. Korologos, "U.S. Government International Broadcasting in the Twenty-First Century," The Mediterranean Quarterly 8 (Summer 1997): 21-32.
* Carnes Lord, "The Past and Future of Public Diplomacy," Orbis 42 (Winter 1998): 49-74.
* Martin Libicki, "The Emerging Primacy of Information," with a rejoinder by Colin S. Gray, Orbis 40 (Spring 1996), pp. 261-276.
* Jamie F. Metzel, "Information Intervention," Foreign Affairs 76 (November/December 1997): 15-21.
* Claude Moisy, "Myths of the Global Information Village," Foreign Policy 107 (Summer 1997): 78-87.
* Robert Nevitt, "Public Diplomacy," Chapter 3 in Hans Binnendijk and Patrick Clawson, eds, Strategic Assessment 1996: Instruments of U.S. Power . Washington, D.C.: NDU Press, 1996, pp. 23-32.
* Frank Ninkovich, "U.S. Information Policy and Cultural Diplomacy," Headline Series No. 380. New York: Foreign Policy Association, 1996, 63pp.
* David J. Rothkopf, "Cyberpolitik: The Changing Nature of Power in the Information Age," Journal of International Affairs 51 (Spring 1998): 325-359.
* Henry Butterfield Ryan, "What Does a Cultural Attache Really Do?" SHAFR Newsletter 20 (September 1989): 2-9.
* Hans N. Tuch, Communicating with the World. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1990.
* Michael Vlahos, "Entering the Infosphere," Journal of International Affairs 51 (Spring 1998): 497-526.
* Walter B. Wriston, "Bits, Bytes, and Diplomacy," Foreign Affairs 76 (September/October 1997): 172-182.
TOPIC 10: COOPERATIVE INSTRUMENTS
"Every Christian prince must take as his chief maxim not to employ arms . . . until he has employed and exhausted the way of reason and of persuasion. It is to his interest also, to add to reason and persuasion the influence of benefits conferred, which indeed is one of the surest ways to make his own power secure, and to increase it."
Monsieur de Callieres
When important national interests are at stake, states quickly move beyond simple persuasion in their attempts to influence other governments. For the wealthier members of the world community, it often seems easier to offer carrots than to use sticks, and there are many advantages to doing so, as you will learn by reading David Baldwin's "The Power of Positive Sanctions" below. Accordingly, this topic focuses at a different point on our spectrum of generic bargaining strategies: on bargaining with positive incentives, or rewards. Such inducements may involve political privileges, recognition, territorial gains, or linked concessions on other issues, but often incentives are economic in nature. Two of the three instruments treated in this topic are economic: trade policy and foreign assistance. The third, alliances, might be thought of as a derivative or secondary policy tool, since alliances are themselves maintained through the use of intensive diplomacy, foreign economic and security assistance, and other first-order instruments of statecraft. But alliances pose so many distinctive characteristics, capabilities and management requirements, and are so vital a part of American statecraft, that they are worth our separate attention.
Required Reading
* David A. Baldwin, "The Power of Positive Sanctions" (excerpts), Chapter 4 in Paradoxes of Power (New York: Basil Blackwell, Inc., 1989), pp. 58, 68-79. (Reprint)
Alliances
Blessed by what Washington called its "detached and distant situation," the United States has historically seen alliances as "entangling" (to use Jefferson's word) and found that its security could best be safeguarded by maintaining freedom of action. Still, Americans should remember that their country gained its independence from the superpower of the 18th century only through an alliance--- with France. Much more recently, the exigencies of the Cold War resulted in three periods of extensive American alliance building: the first, under President Truman, mostly with developed but destroyed countries that needed rapid strengthening as the bulwarks of resistance to Soviet power (NATO, Japan, the ANZUS, and the Rio Treaty); the second, under President Eisenhower and the "pactomania" of John Foster Dulles, with Third World states on the rimlands of Eurasia that it was thought might otherwise be the targets of Soviet or Chinese adventurism (SEATO, CENTO, Taiwan and South Korea); and the third under President Reagan, who strengthened both earlier systems and added new states thought necessary to make good on the Carter Doctrine and counter burgeoning Soviet military capabilities. By the time the Bush administration constructed the coalition against Iraq (see Topic 14), alliances and other less formal security partnerships with a wide range of countries were considered an ordinary part of American statecraft.
Perhaps for that reason they have continued their role in the post-Cold War era, despite the end of the Soviet threat. Indeed, the Clinton administration has recently strengthened the U.S.-Japan alliance and made NATO expansion the cornerstone of its European and Russian policy. This is possible because, as Paul Schroeder pointed out 25 years ago, alliances are used not only to aggregate power against foreign threats but also as "general tools of management and control in international affairs." Our effort to understand their functions will begin with Professor Steve Walt's analysis of why some American alliances formed during the Cold War seem to be enduring while others may collapse. Next is a talk by former U.S. Representative Lee Hamilton on why the U.S. still needs allies despite the end of the Cold War, while Dana Priest explores the military relationships that make up much of America's informal alliance policy. Finally, the current U.S. national security strategy shows how overseas military presence and activities fit into official American strategy today.
Topic Objectives
- Learn what alliances are and what purposes they serve.
- Understand the strengths and weaknesses of this instrument of statecraft.
- Decide how alliances ought to fit into U.S. post-Cold War strategy.
Questions for Discussion
- How would you define alliances, differentiating them from alignments or coalitions?
- Why do alliances endure or collapse? What do your conclusions on this score indicate for the future of U.S. Cold War alliances?
- What effect do alliances have on the balance of power? Do they provide order in the international system, or are they likely to lead arms races and war?
- What is the proper role of alliances in national security strategy? What purposes do they serve?
- What should the relationship be between a nation's power and its commitments? Is the United States overcommitted today?
- Why is the Clinton administration strengthening the alliance with Japan and expanding NATO into Central Europe? Do these actions make strategic sense?
Required Readings
* Stephen M. Walt, "Why Alliances Endure or Collapse," Survival 39 (Spring 1997): 156-179. (Reprint)
* Lee H. Hamilton, "Why We Need Allies," Inaugural Lecture for the James R. Schlesinger Program in Strategic Studies, Institute for the Study of Diplomacy (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University, 1998), pp. 21-26. (Reprint)
* Dana Priest, "Free of Oversight, U.S. Military Trains Foreign Troops," Washington Post (July 12, 1998): A1, A22-23. (Reprint)
* "Military Activities" and "Overseas Presence and Power Projection," in A National Security Strategy for a New Century (Washington, D.C.: The White House, October 1998), pp. 12-13, 26-27. (Student Issue)
Supplemental Readings
* Ted Galen Carpenter, A Search for Enemies: America's Alliances after the Cold War. Washington, D.C.: CATO Institute, 1992. Ted Galen Carpenter, ed., Collective Defense or Strategic Independence? Lexington: D.C. Heath & Co., 1989.
* Fred Chernoff, After Bipolarity: The Vanishing Threat, Theories of Cooperation and the Future of the Atlantic Alliance. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1995.
* Steven David, Choosing Sides: Alignment and Realignment in the Third World. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991.
* Terry L. Deibel, Commitment in American Foreign Policy, National Defense University Monograph Series 80-4. Washington, D.C.: NDU Press, 1980.
* Terry L. Deibel, "Hidden Commitments," Foreign Policy 67 (Summer 1987): 46-63.
* Terry L. Deibel, "Alliance, Military and Political," in Trevor N. Dupuy, ed., International Military and Defense Encyclopedia Vol. I (Washington: Brassey's U.S., Inc., 1993), pp. 116-121.
* Roger V. Dingman, "Theories of, and Approaches to, Alliance Politics," Chapter 10 in Paul Gorden Lauen, ed., Diplomacy: New Approaches in History, Theory, and Policy. New York: Free Press, 1979, pp. 245-254.
* Dan Reiter, Crucible of Beliefs: Learning, Alliances, and World Wars. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1996.
* Alan Ned Sabrosky, ed., Alliances in U.S. Foreign Policy. Boulder: Westview Press, 1988.
* James R. Schlesinger, "The Role of Allies in U.S. National Security Strategy," Inaugural Lecture for the James R. Schlesinger Program in Strategic Studies, Institute for the Study of Diplomacy (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University, 1998), pp. 9-19.
* Paul W. Schroeder, "Alliances, 1815-1945: Weapons of Power and Tools of Management," in Klaus Knorr, ed., Historical Dimensions of National Security Problems. Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1976, pp. 227-262.
* Stephen M. Walt, "Alliance Formation and the World Balance of Power," International Security (Spring 1985): 3-43.
* Stephen W. Walt, "The Ties That Fray," The National Interest 54 (Winter 1998/99): 3-11.
* Patricia A. Wietsman, "Intimate Enemies: The Politics of Peacetime Alliances," Security Studies 7 (Autumn 1997): 156-193.
Foreign Assistance
Foreign assistance as an important tool of U.S. foreign policy really began with the Marshall Plan after World War II. The United States provided grant and loan financed resources in vast amounts to rebuild the European economies and Japan. With decolonization, American attention gradually turned to the problems and needs of the developing world, and by the late 1950s the Third World was receiving the bulk of American economic assistance. Then as now the U.S. channeled some funds through the World Bank, IMF, the UN and other international organizations created for development purposes, but official bilateral assistance on a government-to-government basis remained a major policy instrument.
While development strategies and country allocations have varied over the years, the fundamental rationale for providing economic aid has basically remained the same. Humanitarian reasons notwithstanding, the United States believes this assistance serves both short and longer term U.S. political and security interests. Of course, how foreign aid can best serve the national interest remains a contentious issue, one that often revolves around the question of whether aid should be given for long-term development needs or as a quid pro quo for shorter-term political gains.
The purpose of today's topic is to explore strengths and weaknesses of foreign assistance as a tool of American statecraft and the ways in which it can serve as an incentive for bargaining strategies. In the first reading below Jim Speth, the outgoing American head of the UN Development Program, makes the case for more official development assistance (ODA) as an essential element in any policy designed to narrow the growing global gap between rich and poor. Graham and O'Hanlon then present the argument for what might be called "tough aid:" that aid donors must be ready to bear the costs of terminating aid when recipients do not take the steps needed for growth to happen. Stanton Burnett, on the other hand, points the discussion away from development to explore whether and how economic aid can be used to accomplish overtly political purposes. Finally, students can find in the White House national security strategy the way in which foreign assistance fits into current American statecraft.
Topic Objectives
- Understand the strengths and weaknesses of foreign aid as a tool of statecraft.
- Consider the conditions under which assistance can be more or less effective.
- Decide what objectives American foreign aid can best serve and how the program should be configured for the post-Cold War period.
Questions for Discussion
- How and for what purposes should American aid be used? Should the United States continue to concentrate most of its foreign assistance on security-oriented programs in a few countries where we have major near-term political interests, e.g., Egypt and Israel, at the expense of the needs of most other Third World nations?
- Should the United States provide substantial aid to the successor states of the Soviet Union and free states of Central Europe? Does the U.S. have the resources (or the will to find the resources) to assist these countries in addition to traditional aid recipients? If not, how should available resources be divided?
- Given the changing nature of the problems confronting Third World nations (mounting debt, unfavorable terms-of-trade, deteriorating access to world markets, rampant population growth, chronic high unemployment, slow or negative growth, and massive urbanization), can bilateral economic assistance itself attain meaningful goals?
- Does development ameliorate or exacerbate political instability? What should U.S. policy be in those countries where economic growth requires major structural adjustments in the role of the recipient government?
- Should American economic aid be given on strictly economic grounds or should other criteria influence its size, timing, and composition? Should aid be terminated whenever a country is judged sufficiently "developed?"
- Is it legitimate and useful for the United States to deliberately use the aid program to force change in foreign countries? To what extent can the United States use these programs to engineer democratic governments abroad? Or should the goal be leaders who provide effective administration and are friendly to the United States and pliable to its interests, rather than officials democratically elected?
Required Readings
* James Gustave Speth, "The Plight of the Poor," Foreign Affairs 78 (May-June 1999): 13-17. (Reprint)
* Carol Graham and Michael O'Hanlon, "Making Foreign Aid Work," Foreign Affairs 76 (July/August 1997): 96-104. (Reprint)
* Stanton H. Burnett, "Foreward" and "Conclusions and Recommendations," from Investing in Security: Economic Aid for Noneconomic Purposes (Washington, D.C.: Center for Strategic and International Studies, 1992), pp. vii-viii, 1-16. (Reprint)
* "International Assistance" and "Promoting Sustainable Development Abroad," in A National Security Strategy for a New Century (Washington, D.C.: The White House, October 1998), pp. 8-9, 33. (Student Issue)
Supplemental Readings
* "Economics," Chapter 5 in Strategic Assessment 1996: Instruments of U.S. Power. Washington, D.C.: National Defense University, 1996, pp. 47-60.
* Blanca Heredia, "Prosper or Perish? Development in the Age of Global Capital," Current History (November 1997): 383-388.
* K. A. L. Holsti, International Politics: A Framework for Analysis. New York: Prentice-Hall, latest edition.
* Paula R. Newberg and Thomas Carothers, "Aiding -- and Defining -- Democracy," World Policy Journal 13 (Spring 1996): 97-108. (12)
* David Rieff, "The Humanitarian Trap," World Policy Journal 12 (Winter 1995/96): 1-12.
* Joseph E. Stiglitz and Lyn Squire, "International Development: Is It Possible?" Foreign Policy 110 (Spring 1998): 138-151. (Student Issue: Assigned for Economics course)
TRADE POLICY
Since the days of the Boston Tea Party, the United States has seen economic power as a primary foreign policy tool. Indeed, throughout its history almost any aspect of the nation's commercial and financial life has been likely to be used for political purposes as an instrument of statecraft. In post-Cold War American statecraft economic tools seem more fashionable than ever, and may include (beyond foreign assistance discussed below) policies and multilateral institutions dealing with such diverse matters as trade, international finance, macroeconomic coordination, commercial diplomacy, credit terms and availability, and direct investment. Positive economic statecraft can include relaxing export restrictions, lowering tariffs and other trade barriers, opening the home market to direct investment from foreign countries, offering concessional financial arrangements, providing needed technology transfers, lifting sanctions, and many other actions listed in the chart by David Baldwin that is assigned for the sanctions instrument in Topic 11.
This subtopic, then, should be considered as covering a broad array of economic inducements as well as trade policy itself. A solid understanding of these instruments and some feel for their utility is essential to the strategist, since they are not only popular but also, unfortunately, increasingly problematical. As the number of significant players in the global economy increases and private economic flows overwhelm government efforts to control them, the utility of economic instruments may diminish while the challenge of matching effective economic means with foreign policy ends is certain to grow.
In the first reading assigned below Gary Hufbauer and Jeff Schott describe four strategies for advancing free trade and discuss how they should be used by current American statesmen. Then Peter Morici and Barry Eichengren discuss and critique the international financial institutions that are so important to U.S. economic statecraft today: the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Trade Organization. Next the Economist magazine offers its rather dark view of the current state of play on trade issues between the U.S. and Europe in the summer of 1999. Finally, Martin Walker argues that a free trade policy is in fact the national security strategy of the Clinton administration, followed by the segments of the national security strategy of the Clinton administration on trade policy.
Topic Objectives
- Identify and assess the strengths and weaknesses of trade policy and the other major economic tools of statecraft.
- Consider the conditions under which particular economic instruments are more or less effective.
- Understand the relative costs and benefits of utilizing
Questions for Discussion
- With which types of countries and issues are economic inducements likely to be most successful?
- Are economic tools of statecraft likely to be used more or less frequently in the years ahead? Will U.S. economic leverage increase or decrease in the future?
- What is required for the successful use of economic inducements (aid, trade enhancements, commercial diplomacy, concessionary debt refinancing, etc.) by the United States? Are those conditions likely to be fulfilled in today's international economic system?
- Should the United States use multilateral, regional, or bilateral trade strategies? Which advantages and disadvantages does each possess?
- Do the IMF, the World Bank, and the WTO need serious reform? What changes should the U.S. promote to make them more effective instruments of American statecraft?
- What has happened to the emphasis on trade policy in the first Clinton administration? Has the administration shifted away from its early economic focus, or has economic statecraft simply become routinized in its second term? If the shift is real, is it a positive or negative change?
Required Readings
* Gary C. Hufbauer and Jeffrey J. Schott, "Strategies for Multilateral Trade Liberalization," Chapter 7 in Geza Feketekuty, ed., with Bruce Stokes, Trade Strategies for a New Era (New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 1998), pp. 125-141. (Reprint)
* Peter Morici, "Managing the Global Economy's Managers," Current History 97 (November 1998): 374-379. (Reprint)
* Barry Eichengreen, "The Asian Financial Crisis: The IMF and Its Critics," Chapter 2 in Great Decisions 1999 (New York: Foreign Policy Association, 1999), pp. 19-29. (Reprint)
* "Trade: At Daggers Drawn," Economist (May 8, 1999): 17-18, 20. (Reprint)
* Martin Walker, "The Clinton Doctrine," New Yorker (October 7, 1996): 6, 8. (Reprint)
* "Promoting Prosperity," in A National Security Strategy for a New Century (Washington, D.C.: The White House, October 1998), pp. 27-32. (Reprint)
Supplemental Readings
* James B. Burnham, "The IMF and the World Bank: Time to Merge," The Washington Quarterly 22 (Spring 1999): 101-112.
* "Economics," Chapter 5 in Strategic Assessment 1996: Instruments of U.S. Power. Washington, D.C.: National Defense University, 1996, pp. 47-60.
* Ellen L. Frost, "Horse Trading in Cyberspace: U.S. Trade Policy in the Information Age," Journal of International Affairs 51 (Spring 1998): 497-526.
* Jeffrey E. Garten, "Is America Abandoning Multilateral Trade?" Foreign Affairs 74 (November-December 1995): 50-62.
* David D. Hale, "The IMF, Now More Than Ever," Foreign Affairs 77 (November/December 1998): 7-13.
* Devesh Kapur, "The IMF: A Cure or a Curse?" Foreign Policy 111 (Summer 1998): 114-129.
* Anne O. Krueger, Economic Policies At Cross-Purposes. Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution, 1993.
* Marc Levinson, "Kantor's Kant," Foreign Affairs 75 (March-April 1996): 2-7.
* Peter Liberman, "Trading with the Enemy: Security and Relative Economic Gains," International Security 21 (Summer, 1996): 147-175.
* William J. Long, "Trade and Technology Incentives and Bilateral Cooperation," International Studies Quarterly 40 (March 1996): 77-106.
* Paula Stern and Raymond Paretzky, "Engineering Regional Trade Pacts to Keep Trade and U.S. Prosperity on a Fast Track," The Washington Quarterly 19 (Winter 1996): 211-222.
TOPIC 11: COERCIVE INSTRUMENTS
"Countries that proclaim that they are unaffected by pressure are either bluffing or have had the good fortune never to be exposed to it."
Henry A. Kissinger
If neither pure persuasion nor bargaining with the incentive of promises or rewards seems sufficient to defend or advance important national interests, states will add threats and punishments to their bargaining strategies. Called "coercive diplomacy" by Alexander George in the reading assigned below, its essence is to use threats or limited force, not to bludgeon an adversary into submission, but to persuade him to do what he would not otherwise do. Richard Nixon was using coercive diplomacy when he sent an aircraft carrier into the Bay of Bengal in a showdown with the Soviet Union over the Indo-Pakistan war of 1971, a move Henry Kissinger thought "created precisely the margin of uncertainty needed to force a decision by New Delhi and Moscow." Bill Clinton used coercive diplomacy in 1996 when China conducted provocative military maneuvers near Taiwan: he sent two aircraft carrier task forces into nearby waters while his secretary of defense warned a Chinese envoy of "grave consequences" if Chinese weapons struck Taiwan.
Both those instances are examples of force and diplomacy, the third coercive instrument treated in this topic. But economic sanctions are also obviously coercive in nature and much more frequently used in modern American statecraft than military force. (Note that the sanctions topic below completes the treatment of economic instruments begun in the last topic with trade policy and foreign assistance.) Also coercive in nature is covert action, like alliances an instrument that might be seen as derivative or secondary in nature since it is merely some other instrument used in a fashion so as to disguise its origins. Being covert obviously rules out much bilateral and multilateral diplomacy and any sort of action that must be enforced through public laws (like trade policy or sanctions), but propaganda, aid of all sorts, alliances, and force short of war can all be covertly done, as well as a number of other actions that will be discussed below.
Required Reading
* Gordon A. Craig and Alexander L. George, "Coercive Diplomacy," Chapter 15 from Force and Statecraft (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), pp. 196-213. (Reprint)
* John E. Reilly, ed., Chapter 4, "National and International Security," in American Public Opinion and U.S. Foreign Policy 1999 (Chicago, IL: Chicago Council on Foreign Relations, 1999), pp. 23-27. (Student Issue)
Sanctions
It is now widely accepted that there has been an explosion in the use of economic sanctions by the United States since the end of the Cold War. Less well recognized is that economic sanctions have been the coercive tool favored by American statesmen ever since colonial leaders used the boycott to protest the Townsend and Stamp Acts in the 1760s and 70s. Presidents Jefferson and Madison used them to try to end the impressment of American seamen before the War of 1812, the Confederate States of America used King Cotton diplomacy in its attempt to persuade Britain to join the South in the American Civil War, the United States used an oil embargo against Japan before Pearl Harbor, and during the Cold War the U.S. used sanctions against the USSR, China, Cuba, South Africa, Iran, and Uganda, to name a few. Our most recent major uses of economic sanctions have been against Panama and Haiti to unseat distasteful dictators, against Iran and Iraq as part of the dual containment strategy, and against India and Pakistan to protest their 1998 nuclear tests.
But sanctions are a blunt and powerful tool frequently used when the target state is hostile and the objective is one which probably requires the use of military force. Though putatively part of a bargaining strategy, their imposition can often poison the atmosphere for negotiations, and as the history sketched above indicates, they can often lead to war ---usually, as in the Gulf Crisis, not when the targeted state strikes back but when the sanctioning state tires of their ineffectiveness and reaches for more potent tools. They can also have substantial costs for the continuing American interest in economic prosperity.
All these issues and many more are discussed in the assigned readings below, beginning with a piece by Richard Haass that attempts to explain the high incidence of sanctions in current U.S. statecraft and offers guidelines for using this tool more effectively. In stark contrast, Jesse Helms then denies that there is a sanctions epidemic and defends their use as essential to a moral American foreign policy. The next two articles are case studies. The first, by David Weekman, looks at the use of sanctions against Haiti; the second by Pat Clawson analyses
sanctions against Iran. Finally the tables by David Baldwin simply offer a comprehensive list and definitions of the different and often confused forms sanctions take.
Topic Objectives
- Appreciate the strengths and weaknesses of sanctions as an instrument of statecraft.
- Decide how economic sanctions should fit into post-Cold War American national security strategy.
- Understand the conditions required if economic sanctions are to be successful.
Questions for Discussion
- Is the United States turning more and more to economic sanctions as a favored instrument in the post-Cold War era? If so, why?
- Do you agree with the conclusions offered by Weekman and Clawson regarding the utility of economic sanctions as used against Haiti and Iran? Why or why not? What general conclusions about the use of sanctions can be derived from these cases?
- Which among the policy tools listed by Baldwin do you think are most useful as instruments of coercive diplomacy?
- What is required for the efficient imposition of economic sanctions by the United States? Are those conditions likely in today's globalized political economy?
- What factors in the international environment will determine whether sanctions are effective in causing economic pain in the target state?
- What kinds of political objectives are most likely to be achieved by inflicting economic punishment on a foreign country, and under what conditions is such punishment likely to accomplish them?
Required Readings
* Richard N. Haass, "Sanctioning Madness," Foreign Affairs 76 (November/December 1997): 74-85. (Reprint)
* Jesse Helms, "What Sanctions Epidemic?" Foreign Affairs 78 January/February 1999): 2-7. (Reprint)
* David E. Weekman, "Sanctions: The Invisible Hand of Statecraft," Strategic Review 26 (Winter 1998): 39-45. (Reprint)
* Patrick Clawson, "Iran," Chapter 4 in Richard N. Haass, ed., Economic Sanctions and American Diplomacy (New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 1998), pp. 85-106. (Reprint)
* David A. Baldwin, Tables 2 and 3 from Chapter 2 in Economic Statecraft (Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press, 1985), pp. 41-42. (Reprint)
Supplemental Readings
* Jahangir Amuzegar, "Adjusting to Sanctions," Foreign Affairs 76 (May/June 1997): 31-41.
* Gary C. Hufbauer, Jeffrey J. Schott, and Kimberly A. Elliott, Economic Sanctions Reconsidered: History and Current Policy, 2nd ed. Washington, D.C.: Institute for International Economics, 1990.
* David A. Baldwin, Robert A. Pape, "Evaluating Economic Sanctions," International Security 23 (Fall 1998): 189-198.
* David Cortright and George A. Lopez, "Are Sanctions Just? The Problematic Case of Iraq," Journal of International Affairs 52 (Spring 1999): 435-756.
* Daniel W. Drezner "Serious about Sanctions," The National Interest 53 (Fall 1998): 66-74.
* Kimberly Ann Elliott, "The Sanctions Glass: Half Full or Completely Empty?" International Security 23 (Summer 1998): 50-65.
* Robert A. Pape, "Why Economic Sanctions Do Not Work," International Security 22 (Fall 1997): 90-136.
* Robert A. Pape, "Why Economic Sanctions Still Do Not Work," International Security 23 (Summer 1998): 66-77.
Covert Action
Virtually all nations collecting intelligence overseas have the capacity to engage in sub-rosa political, economic and other direct actions in support of foreign policy. These activities may be described as "covert" insofar as they are without direct connection, or attribution, to the sponsoring nation. To be successful in such efforts the sponsor must have exploitable assets at a meaningful action level somewhere in the target country's government, legislature, political parties, labor unions, religious groups, media, armed forces, internal security organizations, or émigré and dissident groups. Theoretically, all of these sectors can be exploited by the sponsor to pursue his foreign policy goals without the knowledge of the target nation.
Even though every U.S. president during the past sixty years has engaged in covert operations, such activities were seldom the subject of controversy prior to the ill-fated Bay of Pigs invasion of April 1961. During the latter decades of the Cold War, however, U.S. covert activities were the subject of considerable political debate, Congressional hearings, and worldwide media exposure as a result of the Iran-contra affair and of the constant leaks over U.S. policy in Central America, Cambodia, or elsewhere. Critics raised serious questions concerning these programs' morality and compatibility with our Judeo-Christian ethic and democratic principles.
In today's post-Cold War era covert action may seem unnecessary and out of line with American support of democracy worldwide. Still it remains, like economic sanctions, one of the tools available to policymakers who have tried diplomacy or other forms of overt persuasion unsuccessfully but who are not willing to commit military forces. The first readings below are a set of newspaper articles which together constitute a case study of the American covert action in Iraq following the Gulf War, considered by many to be the most serious failure of its kind since the Bay of Pigs disaster of 1961. Obviously, it is usually only the failures of this instrument that become public knowledge, but there are many lessons to be learned from this case about how to do covert action right. Some of them are noted in the final reading by Bruce Berkowitz and Allan Goodman, which also provides definitions of covert action and a set of guidelines for success.
Topic Objectives
- Understand the strengths, weaknesses, and characteristics of covert action as an instrument of statecraft.
- Appreciate the special dangers inherent in covert action and its necessary relationship to overall policy.
Questions for Discussion
- Given the nature of Congress and its oversight committees plus the proclivity of any administration to "leak," is true covert action a realistic option for the United States at the turn of the millenium?
- Do presidents and their administrations tend to overuse covert action, or to use it when one of the more mundane policy tools may be more effective and less risky?
- Plausible denial is critical to any covert action effort. When the USG hand is exposed, the resulting embarrassment can directly affect the President's credibility. Should, therefore, covert action ever be used against any non-hostile foreign power?
- Investigative journalism as practiced by an aggressive and sometimes antagonistic media may well operate to frustrate both quiet diplomacy and covert action. How can this problem best be managed? Or should it be?
- Dictatorships are much better organized to use covert action against both friendly and hostile states. Can a democracy really compete in this field against a China, Vietnam, or North Korea?
- How should "success" in covert action be measured? Is it a short- or long-term quality?
Required Readings
Case Study: Covert Action in Iraq
* Steven Lee Myers, "U.S. Calls Alert As Iraqis Strike A Kurd Enclave," New York Times (September 1, 1996): 1, 8.
* Stephen Kinzer, "Iraqi Troops Said to Round Up Kurd Leaders," New York Times (September 3, 1996): A6.
* Stephen Lee Myers, et al, "A Failed Race Against Time: U.S. Tried to Head Off Iraqis," New York Times (September 5, 1996): A1, A11.
* Eric Schmitt, "Clinton,
Claiming Success, Asserts Most Iraqi Troops Have Left Kurds' Enclave," New York Times (September 5, 1996): A1, A10.
* John F. Harris and Bradley Graham, "After Quick Response to Iraq, A Lengthy Debate on Motive," Washington Post (September 8, 1996): A29.
* R. Jeffrey Smith, "CIA Operation Fell with Iraqi City," Washington Post (September 8, 1996): A1, A28.
* R. Jeffrey Smith, "CIA-Backed Iraqi Dissidents Killed," Washington Post (September 10, 1996): A1, A20.
* Douglas Jehl, "Faction of Kurds Supported by Iraq Takes Rival's City," New York Times (September 10, 1996): A1, A8.
* Steven Lee Myers, "U.S. Trying to Help Trapped Iraqi Dissidents," New York Times (September 10, 1996): A8.
* R. Jeffrey Smith, "U.S. Redefines Interests to Fit Iraq Scenario," Washington Post (September 11, 1996): A1, A18.
* R. Jeffrey Smith and David B. Ottaway, "Anti-Saddam Operation Cost CIA $100 Million," Washington Post (September 15, 1996): A1, A29-30.
* Jim Hoagland, "How CIA's Secret War on Saddam Collapsed," Washington Post (June 26, 1997): A21, A28-29. (Reprints)
* Bruce Berkowitz and Allan Goodman, "The Logic of Covert Action," The National Interest 51 (Spring 1998): 38-46. (Reprint)
Supplemental Readings
* David Boren, "Covert Action and American Foreign Policy," Harvard International Review, 10th Anniversary Issue (March 1988): 103-105.
* Roy Godson, "Handmaiden of Policy: Principles of Covert Action," excerpts from Chapter 4 in Dirty Tricks or Trump Cards (Washington, D.C.: Brassey's, 1995), pp. 120-170.
* Allan E. Goodman, "Does Covert Action Have a Future?" Parameters 18 (June 1988): 74-80.
* K. J. Holsti, "Clandestine Actions and Military Intervention," Chapter 9 in International Politics: A Framework for Analysis, 6th ed. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1992, pp. 204-227.
* Gregory F. Treverton, "Covert Intervention in Chile, 1970-1973," Case Study in Ethics and International Affairs No. 3 (New York: Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs, 1990).
* Gregory F. Treverton, "Covert Action and Open Society," Foreign Affairs 65 (Summer 1987): 995-1014.
* Admiral Stansfield Turner, "Covert Action: The Dirty Tricks Department," Chapter 7 in Secrecy and Democracy: The CIA in Transition. New York: Harper & Row, 1985, pp. 75-89.
Force and Diplomacy
Since Core Courses 5602 and 5605 deal extensively with military strategy and operations in combat, this topic is concerned only with the so-called "political" uses of military force. Of course, American military forces should always be employed to serve political purposes, whether in war or peace; but this topic follows the definition used in the classic Blechman and Kaplan study Force Without War:
A political use of the armed forces occurs when physical actions are taken by one or more components of the uniformed military services as part of a deliberate attempt by the national authorities to influence, or to be prepared to influence, specific behavior of individuals in another nation without engaging in a continuing contest of violence.
Theodore Roosevelt was perhaps the first modern American president to make conspicuous use of military force for essentially diplomatic purposes when he sent the Great White Fleet around the world. Since his day the American military has been used far more often in such "political" roles than in waging war, especially since World War II. (Blechman and Kaplan found 215 such uses in the three decades between 1946 and 1975, and a follow-up study found 44 more by 1982.) It seems that American leaders have rarely hesitated to flex military muscles when a vivid demonstration of American power seemed likely to influence foreign attitudes or actions. George Kennan summed up the rationale behind such deployments when he told your predecessors in the first NWC class, "You have no idea how much it contributes to the general politeness and pleasantness of diplomacy when you have a little quiet armed force in the background."
Such uses of American power can of course be quite controversial and are fraught with special risks. After learning some of the basic characteristics of this instrument from the Blechman and Kaplan excerpt assigned below, the rest of the readings focus on one of the most notorious recent uses of force without war, the 1982-83 deployment of the U.S. Marines in Lebanon. First is the Kennedy School's case study of the incident, followed by an excerpt from Secretary of State Shultz's memoirs on the debates within the Reagan administration over the deployment decision. Last is a classic state paper written by Shultz some months after the Marines' withdrawal as part of his ongoing debate with Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger over the conditions for using military force, and in particular to refute those who, after the tragic 1983 Marine barracks bombing in Lebanon, argued against any use of American military power except to win wars.
Topic Objectives
- Learn the theory of coercive diplomacy as a generic strategy.
- Understand how military forces can be used, short of combat, to support diplomatic objectives.
- Appreciate the various diplomatic roles played by military power and the strengths and weaknesses, benefits, costs and risks of this instrument.
Questions for Discussion
- Can U.S. military forces be used effectively to support the nation's diplomatic objectives? What guidelines for such use does the theory of coercive diplomacy suggest?
- What kinds of military forces under what kinds of conditions are most likely to succeed? Is it correct to conclude that naval forces are the most often used in peacetime but the least effective in serving foreign policy objectives?
- Is this instrument of statecraft likely to be used more or less in the future international environment than was the case during the Cold War? Have the conditions for its success improved or deteriorated?
- How does the Shultz doctrine square with Weinberger's conditions for using forces in combat and the Powell doctrine of overwhelming force?
- Why are military officers sometimes hesitant to employ military force in support of diplomacy? Can we devise a set of principles to guide the use of military forces in support of diplomacy?
Required Readings
* Barry M. Blechman and Stephen S. Kaplan, "The Armed Forces as a Political Instrument" and "The Basic Concept," from the Introduction to Force without War (Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution, 1978), pp. 4-14. (Reprint)
* Esther Scott, "The US Marines in Lebanon," Case C16-91-1045.0 (Cambridge, MA: John F. Kennedy School, Harvard University, 1991). (Reprint)
* George P. Shultz, Turmoil and Triumph: My Years as Secretary of State (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1993), pp. 104-110. (Reprint)
* George P. Shultz, "Power and Diplomacy in the 1980s," Address before the Trilateral Commission (Washington, D.C.: Department of State Current Policy No. 561, April 3, 1984). (Reprint)
Policy Reading
Joint Pub 1, Joint Warfare of the Armed Forces of the United States, Chapter 1, American Military Power. [web link]
Supplemental Readings
* Carl H. Builder, "Keeping the Strategic Flame," Joint Force Quarterly 14 (Winter 1996-97): 76-84.
* Alexander L. George. Forceful Persuasion: Coercive Diplomacy as an Alternative to War. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Institute for Peace, 1991.
* James A. Nathan, "Force, Statecraft, and American Foreign Policy," Polity 28 (Winter 1995): 237-259.
* ________, "On Coercive Statecraft: The New Strategy and the American Foreign Affairs Experience," International Relations 12 (December 1995): 1-
* Matthew C. Waxman, "Coalitions and Limits on Coercive Diplomacy," Strategic Review 25 (Winter 1997): 38-47.
* Philip D. Zelikow, "Force Without War, 1975-82," Journal of Strategic Studies (1984): 29-54.
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