CIAO DATE: 12/2011
Volume: 87, Issue: 6
November 2011
Strategy and contingency (PDF)
Hew Strachan
The determination that strategy should have a long-term predictive quality has left strategy seemingly wanting when having to address what are currently called ‘strategic shocks', such as the recent Arab Spring and the NATO commitment to Libya. The focus on grand strategy, particularly in the US, is responsible for this trend. Its endeavour to mitigate risk in the national interest is inherently conservative, rather than opportunistic, and it is favoured and probably required by powers that are committed to the status quo, that need to manage diminishing resources, and that are dealing with relative decline. Strategy as traditionally but more narrowly defined by generals for use in a military context, is much more exploitative and proactive. Precisely because it is designed to be used in war it presumes that its function is offensive, that it will have to deal with chance and contingency, and that its aim is change. Its task is to deal with the uncertainties of war, and to respond to them while holding on to long-term perspectives. Clausewitz addressed the issue of ‘war plans' in book VIII of On war, but the thinker who did most to inject planning into European strategic thought was Jomini. His influence has permeated much of American military thinking. The effect of nuclear planning in the Cold War was to ensure that strategy at the operational level became conflated with broader views of grand strategy-not least when the Cold War itself provided apparent continuity to strategic thought. Since 1990 we have been left with a view of strategy which fails to respond sensibly to chance and accident. Strategy needs context, and a sense of where and against whom it is to be applied. Its core task is to embrace contingency while holding on to long-term national interests.
The self-limiting success of Iran sanction
Ray Takeyh, Suzanne Maloney
Economic sanctions have often been considered an important tool for disciplining adversaries and compelling them to offer important concessions. History, however, suggests otherwise. Economic penalties rarely cause states to abandon important national assets. After decades of struggling under punitive financial measures, Iran has persisted with its objectionable policies ranging from terrorism to proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. All this suggests that ideological regimes that put a premium on their political priorities and which are seemingly insensitive to the mounting costs of their belligerence may not be suitable candidates for the type of cost-benefit analysis that sanctions diplomacy invites.
The chance for change in the Arab world: Egypt's uprising (PDF)
H.A. Hellyer
As the largest Arab country, Egypt has always played a crucial role in the politics of the Arab world; however, the internal political dynamics of Egypt have until the January 2011 uprising hardly attracted a glance from international observers. This article gives an overview of the political arena and the various political forces at play in post-Mubarak Egypt. With many unpredictable variables currently at play in Egyptian politics, the result of the elections scheduled for November 2011 will likely surprise many, both within the country and beyond. The article also looks at what impact the political changes in Egypt may have had on the relationship between Egypt and Israel. There have been increasingly frequent demands within Egypt to revise the Camp David accords—but not at the expense of war with Israel. While Israel is unlikely to accept any calls to revise the peace treaty, Arab public opinion has become newly relevant for policy-makers and Israel will have to make corresponding adjustments to its regional security strategy.
The 'China model' and the global crisis: from Friedrich List to a Chinese mode of governance?
Shaun Breslin
The global financial crisis reinvigorated ongoing debates over whether China has its own distinct and separate ‘model’ of political economy and/or development. There is much that connects this Chinese model with previous systems of national political economies; partly in terms of specific policy preferences, but also in terms of shared basic conceptions of the distribution of power in the global order. Like these previous systems, China has come to stand as an example of an alternative to following dominant (neo-)liberal models of development. In this respect, what the China model is not and what China does not stand for might be more important than what it actually is and what it does stand for. However, the idea of a coherent and unique Chinese model has considerable purchase, and is both informed by and also feeds into considerations of China’s uniqueness and difference from the norms, ideas and philosophies that dominate the rest of the world
China and global oil: Vulnerability and opportunity
Roland Dannreuther
China has grown increasingly dependent on imports of oil and, as a consequence,
has become a major and very visible player in the international energy markets.
For a country which has traditionally been strongly committed to the principle
of self-reliance, this dependence on foreign oil has been a source of vulnerability
and anxiety. But it has also been a strategic opportunity for China to chart its
own ambitions and objectives as a global economic and political actor. This article
addresses the various ways in which China has incorporated its energy import needs
within its foreign policy. There are, it is argued, three dimensions to this. There
is, first, integration and cooperation with the West and other large oil-importing
countries and a shift away from neo-mercantilism to a growing reliance on international markets. Second, there is a complementary strategy of balancing, which
seeks to develop the energy resources close to its borders, in Russia and Central Abstracts
Asia, which are not so vulnerable to western intervention. And third, there is the
construction, though preliminary and nascent at the moment, of a hegemonic
order which challenges the US and the West in the critical maritime routes from
the Pacific to the Indian Ocean and through to the Persian Gulf region
The new resource politics: Can Australia and South Africa accommodate China?
Mark Beeson, Mills Soko, Wang Yong
The material transformation of the Chinese economy is forcing a concomitant process of political adjustment—and not just in China. Other states are being forced to accommodate the ‘rise of China’. In this context, this article first presents a comparative analysis of China’s impact on two countries, Australia and South Africa, which have little in common other than a wealth of natural resources and a possible status as middle powers; this is a particularly useful exercise because these states are geographically distant and have very different political structures and general developmental histories. Second, the authors consider how China’s bilateral ties look from a Chinese perspective in these two very different relationships. Such an analysis serves as a reminder that resource dependency is a two-way street. The article argues that underlying material realities are constraining and to some extent determining the domestic and foreign policies of three very different states that otherwise have little in common
British nuclear weapons and NATO in the Cold War and beyond
Martin A Smith
NATO has been a source of influence on British nuclear policy and strategy since the 1950s. The nature and extent of its influence has, however, been kept limited by successive British governments. This article considers how and why this has happened. It discusses evolving British attitudes towards NATO command and planning, and shows how these were reflected with regard to strategic nuclear issues from the late 1950s. The evolution of the key notion that the United Kingdom is a second centre of nuclear decision within NATO is traced, and both its utility and contradictions are examined. Overall it is argued that, both during and since the Cold War, NATO has neither been a central factor in shaping British nuclear strategy and policy, nor have British nuclear weapons been other than of limited importance and relevance for most NATO members.
The US debate on NATO nuclear deterrence
David S Yost
NATO's nuclear deterrence posture has since the late 1950s involved risk- and responsibility-sharing arrangements based on the presence of US nuclear weapons in Europe. Since 1991 gravity bombs, deliverable by US and allied dualcapable aircraft, have been the only type of US nuclear weapons left in Europe. Although many other factors are involved in the alliance's deterrence posture and in US extended deterrence-including intercontinental forces, missile defences, non-nuclear capabilities and declaratory policy-recent discussions in the United States about NATO nuclear deterrence have focused on the future of the remaining Abstracts US nuclear weapons in Europe. The traditional view has supported long-standing US and NATO policy in holding that the risk- and responsibility-sharing arrangements based on US nuclear weapons in Europe contribute to deterrence and war prevention; provide assurance to the allies of the genuineness of US commitments; and make the extended deterrence responsibility more acceptable to the United States. From this perspective, no further cuts in the US nuclear weapons presence in Europe should be made without an agreement with Russia providing for reductions that address the US-Russian numerical disparity in non-strategic nuclear forces, with reciprocal transparency and verification measures. In contrast, four schools of thought call for withdrawing the remaining US nuclear weapons in Europe without any negotiated Russian reciprocity: some military officers who consider the weapons and associated arrangements unnecessary for deterrence; proponents of ambitious arms control measures who accept extended deterrence policies but view the US weapons in Europe as an obstacle to progress in disarmament; nuclear disarmament champions who reject extended nuclear deterrence policies and who wish to eliminate all nuclear arms promptly; and selective engagement campaigners who want the United States to abandon extended nuclear deterrence commitments to allies on the grounds that they could lead to US involvement in a nuclear war.
Extended nuclear deterrence in East Asia: redundant or resurgent?
Andrew O'Neil
A number of commentators have claimed that the strategic relevance of extended nuclear deterrence is declining in the twenty-first century. This claim is based on three key arguments. First, that the positive effects of extended nuclear deterrence have been exaggerated by its proponents; second, that the rational actor logic underpinning extended nuclear deterrence is increasingly redundant; and third, that extended deterrence using conventional weapons is equally, if not more, effective as extended nuclear deterrence. This article applies these arguments to East Asia, a region where nuclear weapons continue to loom large in states’ security equations. In applying each of the above arguments to the East Asian context, the analysis finds that not only is extended nuclear deterrence alive and kicking in the region, but also that in the coming decades it is likely to become more central to the strategic policies of the United States and its key allies, Japan and South Korea. Despite predictions of its demise, US extended nuclear deterrence remains a critical element in East Asia’s security order and will remain so for the foreseeable future
The Russian social contract and regime legitimacy
Aleksei Makarkin
The social contract in Soviet and post-Soviet Russia has concerned not classical political rights but socio-economic issues. Loyalty is accorded to the powersthat-be partly from fear of repression, but also in return for new opportunities of advancement—whether resulting from social upheaval or from educational expansion—and for modest improvements in living standards. The Soviet era Abstracts ended when such benefits could no longer be delivered, on account of lower oil prices, arms-race burdens and lagging productivity and innovation. After the turmoil of the 1990s, the contract was re-established under Putin in the early 2000s. Public opinion accepts relatively authoritarian rule if economic stability appears guaranteed in return. Moreover, world events from 2008 onwards have dampened economic expectations. Nonetheless, the sustainability of the present contract is doubtful, with economic modernization likely to prove elusive in the absence of effective democratic institutions.
Review article: The Cold War as history
Geoffrey Roberts
Jonathan Haslam’s Russia’s Cold War is the latest effort by a western scholar to synthesize new research and findings on the Soviet role in the Cold War. Citing an array of published Russian archival material, Haslam seeks to resuscitate the traditional western Cold War view that the conflict was the inevitable result of communist expansionism. However, the material cited by Haslam does not support such a conclusion and he ignores conflicting evidence and views. The Cold War was a war of choice not necessity, the result of distorted perceptions and calculations by both sides, aided and abetted by generations of ideologically aligned historians
Leaving Vietnam: Nixon, Kissinger and Ford, 1969–1975 Part one: January 1969–January 1972
Geoffrey Warner
Some have suggested that Richard Nixon’s narrow victory in the US presidential election of November 1968 was due to his persuading the Government of South Vietnam (GVN) to boycott the Paris peace talks for the settlement of the Vietnam War between the US government, that of the Democratic Republic of North Vietnam (DRV) and the representatives of the communist guerrilla movement in South Vietnam. This seems doubtful. The new president had abandoned the hawkish stance he had adopted when vice-president in the Eisenhower administration and was anxious to bring the unpopular war to an end. The question was: how? The president, together with his influential National Security Advisor, Henry Kissinger, adopted a policy of ‘Vietnamization’, which involved the progressive scaling down of the US military presence and the handing over of responsibility for waging the war to the GVN. At the same time, the president recognized that too precipitate an American withdrawal and, above all, one which took place under the terms of an agreement which was too favourable to the communists, would have a deleterious effect upon its allies and its own position as a Great Power. In order to bring about a satisfactory agreement with the DRV, the US employed a twin strategy: secret talks between Kissinger and senior DRV representatives in Paris, coupled with veiled threats of an escalation of the war if the communists acted unreasonably and occasional displays of military strength, such as the incursion into Cambodia in 1970. Although it seemed, briefly, that there might be a breakthrough in Kissinger’s secret negotiations with the DRV later in 1971, they broke down mainly as a result Abstracts of the communists’ insistence that the US in effect dismantle the South Vietnamese government for them. An angry Nixon secretly considered retaliation against the DRV to force it to modify its demands and publicly revealed the existence of the negotiations and much of their content to the American people in a speech on 25 January 1972. At the same time, however, he insisted that Vietnamization would continue.