Diplomacy Dersi 7. Ünite Özet

Theoretical Analysis of Global Powers’ Diplomacy

In case interests dominate foreign policy choices and behaviors of actors, states are mainly motivated in their external relations by the concern of maximizing their material power capabilities as well as ensuring their longterm survival. Engaging others and responding to external stimuli is basically a function of the instrumental calculation of how much benefit one could extract from such exercises. Foreign policy mainly targets the internal transformation of other states in the image of the values and norms that one holds at home. Neoclassical realism posits that making sense of the tangible factors out there is made through the intangible factors that constitute states’ identities and values.

Many middle and small-sized powers are much more preoccupied with their survival. Compared to global powers, their room of maneuvering is limited. Many middle and small-sized powers are much more preoccupied with their survival. Compared to global powers, their room of maneuvering is limited.

The immense material power capabilities at their disposal empower them in global powers’ attempts at shaping the external milieu, rather than merely responding to external stimuli in a reactionary manner. Global powers do not only aim at maximizing their power capabilities at the expense of their rivals but also endeavor to midwife a particular external environment that reflects their values and norms.

It is not easy to ascertain when global powers prioritize value-oriented transformative foreign policies or put power maximization at the center of their external behaviors. These two concerns are most of the time intermingled with each other and meeting one generally requires the fulfillment of the other. Just as immense material power capabilities enable global powers to set in motion valueoriented transformative foreign policies, successful normative/transformative foreign policies help them bring into existence suitable environments in which they find it much easier to preserve and improve their material well-being.

Diplomacy of the United States

At its foundation, the U.S. proved to be different from traditional powers in Europe and other continents. The immigrant nature of the American society led the founders of the republic to build their country on the basis of liberal, democratic and pluralist norms, further enshrining the principles of individual freedom, free entrepreneurship, limited government and checks and balances in the Constitution. In the realm of diplomacy and foreign policy, the rulers of the country long shunned the practices of getting involved in other states’ internal affairs and becoming part of geopolitical competitions in other continents. The geographical location of the country, being walled from other places through two oceans to the east and west, enabled the early generations to focus their attention solely on economic development and political cohesion at home. Unless other continents, most notably Europe and Asia, came under the domination of an antiAmerican power block and unless any other global power threatened the U.S. national interests by trying to take a strong presence in America’s near abroad, the U.S. leaders did not show strong enthusiasm to pursue ambitious policies to institutionalize American dominance across the globe. Hence the strong ‘isolationist’ impulse in American diplomatic practices.

Since the early years of the Cold War era, the U.S. has mainly adopted an ‘internationalist’ mentality and acted as a liberal power putting its liberal democratic norms at the center of its foreign and security policy engagements across the globe (Johnstone, 2011, 13-17). Realist and pragmatic tendencies in American foreign policy have almost always been in sync with the liberal democratic nature of U.S. polity at home.

AfterWWII the American power, norms and interests became predominant. The key international organizations, such as the United Nations, International Monetary Fund, World Bank and NATO all embody the American principles and preferences. The U.S. also played a facilitative role in the foundation of the European Union.

The end of the Cold War era paved the way for strengthening American primacy across the globe, as no other power was in a position to shake up the foundations of this uni-polar era for about fifteen years. The 1990s and much of the 2000s demonstrated that the U.S. was the indispensable power on earth.

The ominous terrorist attacks on U.S. territories on Sep. 11, 2001, did not only awaken the American rulers to the rise of a new world order that might not be as hospitable as the one before, but also urged them to engage in a global war on terror.

The steady increase in material power capabilities of nonwestern powers, the abject failure of the American nationbuilding projects in different quarters of the globe, the economic crisis that hit the western world severely in late 2008 and the growing appeal of non-western world visions have led Americans to go through a soul-searching process and find ways to successfully adapt to the new realities on the ground.

The election of Barack Obama to presidency in late 2008 can be read not only as the demonstration of the frustration of the American electorate with the policies of the Bush administration but also the growing need to adjust to the emerging dynamics of the post-American world order.The Obama administration recognized that the U.S. was no longer in a position to pursue a ‘primacist’ strategy across the globe.

The relative decline in American material power capabilities and the rise of alternative ideational and normative challenges put by non-western powers appear to have led both presidents to put nation-building at home at the center of their foreign policies. This introvert approach and increasing aversion from military engagements abroad seem to have strengthened the realist, pragmatic and isolationist tendencies in U.S foreign policy. The ambivalent and equivocal attitude of the U.S. during the course of the socalled Arab Spring is a clear evidence of the realist and pragmatic turn in U.S. foreign policy.

Contrary to the ‘hegemonic stability theory’, the US does not want to play the role of benign hegemon any longer. As for the relations with traditional allies, the key message the United States is now sending is that those allies should spend more on their security and defense.

For NATO to remain relevant for U.S. security interests, European allies need to increase their military contribution to the alliance. For the US to continue providing peace and stability in East Asia, its traditional allies there should take on more responsibility.

The conventional American view concerning China’s rise is that the U.S. would do well to help integrate China into existing international institutions so that China would gradually act as a responsible stakeholder and demonstrate more commitment to the preservation of the existing order.

Americans view relations with China through multiple prisms, most importantly security and economics. The pivot-to-Asia strategy seems to have already strengthened its credentials across the American security establishment. Needless to say, geopolitical, demographic, economic and security developments in East Asia will become more and more important for the U.S. as time goes by.

The U.S.’ view of Russia is also important, for the dynamics of Russian-American relations will profoundly impact peace in Europe and beyond (Biden and Carpenter, 2018, 44-57). According to many American foreign and security policy experts, the ideology of Putinism is clearly anti-American, revivalist, nationalistic and unilateral. Despite such a grim picture of Putin’s Russia, Americans do not put Russia on an equal footing with China.

Both state and non-state actors are quite influential in the U.S. foreign policy making process. Compared to their Chinese and Russian counterparts, American presidents are weaker in the sense that they need to share authority with the US Congress. Due to its open society character, civil society organizations, organized interests groups, other states and ethnic lobbies have access to key decision makers located in Washington.

In the US state apparatus, Department of Defense, Department of State, National Security Council, National Economic Council, Department of Commerce, Department of Treasury, Central Intelligence Organization, and United State Trade Representative do all to aid the President in the formulation of U.S. foreign policy interests. The President is in charge of the execution of foreign policy and acts as the commander in chief during peace and war times. The Congressmen do also have constitutional authority in shaping foreign policy. The authority to declare war, to send troops abroad for longer than three months, to sign alliance treaties, to sign trade agreements, to approve ambassadors, to raise taxes rest with the Congress.

Diplomacy of the Eurapean Union

The EU is by far the most successful example of international institutions aiming at transcending traditional/modern interstate relations through the formation of collective identities and supranational institutions.

The contribution of the EU to international peace and cooperation mainly stems from its success in institutionalizing the post-modern logic in interstate relations that increasingly casts doubts on the legitimacy of ‘self-other’ dichotomies.

The EU does not speak with one voice in the realm of foreign policy. On foreign policy, security and defense issues member states still preserve the right to veto any decision they think is not in their national interests (McCormick, 2014). Foreign policy decisions are taken most of the time through unanimity, despite the fact that the Lisbon Treaty of 2009 broadened the scope of taking decisions through the principle of qualified majority. The European Council and the European Commission are more privileged than European Parliament and other organs of the European Union in terms of foreign policy.

Despite its decades-old success in eroding the traditional understanding of diplomacy and foreign policy, the EU has been lately facing various modern challenges concerning the post-modern logic of its integration process and international identity.

The growing chaos and anarchy in the Middle East and North Africa also presents the EU with a very serious strategic challenge. The erosion of the decades-long territorial borders in these regions, particularly following the rise of Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, not only puts the bilateral and multilateral relations that the EU has developed with the incumbent regimes in these regions in jeopardy but also presents the EU members with the problem of continuous migration. Figuring out how to deal with the emerging humanitarian problems in the spirit of EU’s multicultural and universal integration has proved to be a fallacy as EU members are still far away from adopting common policies that offer long-term solutions.

Recent years have witnessed the rise of illiberal, populist, anti-integrationist, anti-immigrant and anti-globalist parties across the European continent.

The EU’s post-modern integration process seems now to be on life-support given the Brexit decision of the British nation in the referendum held in June, 2016, as well as the continuous electoral victories of rightist and leftist populist parties across the continent. The United Kingdom leaving the EU is a fatal blow to EU’s credibility.

The latest crises engulfing EU members appear to have brought forward the issue of leadership inside the EU. Despite the fact that Germany has come under limelight in this regard, it is still far from certain that Germany has accepted to rise to this challenge and other members, notably France, have already acquiesced to German leadership inside the union.

The United States, Russia and China have never given up on the time-tested strategy of divide-and-rule in their relations with the European Union.

The failure of the EU to handle the modern crises on its doorsteps and turn out to be a credible diplomatic actor has a lot to do with its overdependence on the United States. Too much dependence on American security commitment has not only militated against the EU’s ability to forge a distinctive European approach to global security problems but also led the EU members to underinvest in security and common foreign policy.

Diplomacy of China

Acting as the gatekeepers to the western international community, the international organizations such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Organization, NATO and the EU have long played key roles in the socialization of erstwhile non-western states into the constitutive norms, rules and values of the Western world. Consolidation and promotion of the principles of individual entrepreneurship, democratic way of government, minimum state involvement in economy, rule of law, free trade, secularization of societal relations and respect for multiculturalism, constituted the backbones of the western-led liberal world order. The assumption was that non-western countries would one day join the league of developed and powerful countries should they transform themselves in line with such values.

That Chinese rulers have been pursuing the so-called ‘peaceful rise/peaceful development’ strategy in their neighborhood since the late 1970s appears also to have encouraged the American leaders to prioritize the ‘strategy of engagement’ over the ‘strategy of containment’ in their relations with China.

The financial crisis that hit western economies in 2008 and its aftermath have made it unavoidably clear that the United States is today the most indebted country on earth whereas China the number one creditor country. Majorities across the globe seem to believe that China, the aspiring hegemon, is on the rise whereas the United States, the incumbent hegemon, in terminal decline.

Whereas China deems its phenomenal rise as part of its normalization process, the United States finds in China a strong contender for its global hegemony.

Chinese leaders have already succeeded in establishing indispensable mutual economic relations with many countries across the globe.

Right from the very beginning of its opening to the outside world in late 1970s, China has adopted the view that China’s internal markets would be open to foreign companies for investment and China’s competitive advantage would emanate from its cheap labor. It is striking that as of today over half of Chinese exports are still being covered by multinational corporations which operate their factories in China.

A novel characteristic of China’s economic development is the strong economic relations that China has established with many countries located in the non-western world.

In order for the relationships established with many resource-rich countries in Africa and Asia not to appear as neo-colonial, China has adopted a ‘no-strings attached’ policy in its relations with those countries.

The recently announced ‘One Road One Belt’ Project and the formation of the Asian Infrastructure and Investment Bank should be seen from this perspective. Through such initiatives, China is trying to give the message that it very much values the development of underdeveloped and developing countries because there is a mutually constitutive relationship between China’s development at home and the development of non-developed others abroad. China’s rise also poses a challenge to the established western powers because of its huge continental size and high population.

Unlike the nation-states of the western world, China is a civilization-state which very much values the following principles: a father-like status of the state in the eyes of people, unitary state identity, territorial integrity, societal cohesion, primacy of family bonds over individuality, primacy of state sovereignty over popular sovereignty, state’s unquestioned involvement in economics and social life, primacy of responsible and ethical statesmanship over electoral legitimacy, resolving conflicts through societal mechanisms and trust relationships rather than legal instruments, primacy of hierarchical relations within the society over egalitarianism and primacy of shame culture over guilt culture. Such are the values that westerners would find difficult to accommodate.

Reminiscent of its ages-old historical background, today’s China is not pursuing a strategy of global hegemony in such a manner as being pursued by the United States since the end of the Second World War.

China is against the idea of a universal civilization as well as the practices of setting global standards of human rights. No country whatsoever should have the claim to universal truths or values. Therefore, from China’s perspective, the promotion of liberal democracy, or any other political ideology, should be immediately discarded from the vocabulary of foreign policy. Rules, values and norms are relative and products of different time and space configurations.

China views the United Nations (UN) and many other international organizations as institutional platforms within which it could counterbalance the hegemony and primacy of the established Western powers by actively contributing to their functions. Taking an active stance within the existing institutions simply provides China with the tools to make sure that its voice be heard more loudly.

China’s foreign policy is made by the Chinese Communist Party organs many of which are chaired by the president of State. The head of the state is also the secretary general of the party and commander in chief of the people’s liberation army. All state bureaucracy dealing with foreign policy is structured in a hierarchic and centralized way. The participation of civil society organizations and other non-state actors in the formulation of China’s foreign policy interests is extremely limited. China is a highly centralized and authoritarian state.

Diplomacy of Russia

Having an imperial legacy in the background and acting as one of the two superpowers of the Cold War era, it is quite natural and understandable that Russia wants to leave the troubled years of the 1990s behind and put a serious claim to global power status in the emerging century. Recently, Russia has come under international limelight once again following its annexation of Crimea into its territory.

Putin’s Russia has been extremely aghast at the primacy of western actors in world politics and therefore has been striving to help bring into existence a multipolar world order in which Russia plays a decisive role.

In Russian strategic thinking, the road to global primacy passes through the entrenchment of Russia’s geopolitical influence in Europe and Eurasia. It is where Russia finds itself in strategic competition with the West.

Russia has been quite discontent with NATO’s enlargement towards the erstwhile communist states of Central and Eastern Europe. Putin being no exception, the Russian establishment of the post-Cold era has been subscribed to the view that Russia has been deceived by the Western powers in that NATO’s enlargement occurred to the detriment of Russia’s geopolitical interests and priorities.

The Yeltsin era in the 1990s did not witness a serious breach in Russia’s relations with the West, mainly because westernization had been the dominant ideology in Moscow.

The improving Russian economy and the growing need of western powers to seek Russia’s help in responding to the geopolitical challenges in the post 9/11 era seem to have emboldened Russian leaders to openly question the legitimacy of the liberal Western order.

In Russian thinking, western security institutions, most notably NATO, should not be the main regional platforms in which questions of European security are discussed.

Russia is a multi-lingual, multi-ethic and multicultural state and this pushes Russian security elites to put an overwhelming stress on Russia’s territorial integrity and national sovereignty over all other concerns.

In Russian geopolitical thinking, the notion of ‘sphere of influence’ occupies an important place (Kotkin, 2016, 2- 9).

Russia is a sovereignty-sensitive country and Russian elites abhor their western counterparts whenever the latter preach the virtues of liberal democracy.

Russian rulers do not want to see that the principle of ‘responsibility to protect’ drive international involvement in conflict-riven places.

Russia has put the notion of ‘sovereign democracy’ at the center of its engagement with the outside world, particularly the Western powers.

Today’s Russia is rebuilt on the red values of communist era and the white values of Orthodox Christianity. It is also believed that the Russian society is built on the primacy of patriarchal and communal values instead of self-regarding individualistic morality. Russian society evinces a predisposition to communitarian ethics over individualistic or cosmopolitan ethics.

The three approaches towards the West in Russia;

• Pro-western tradition in Russian culture and history, according to which Russia’s place is in the West and the road to modernity and development goes through Russia’s acceptance of western values and practices.
• Resistance to the West also exists in Russian history, whose most exemplary manifestation took place during the Cold War era.
• Eurasian school of thought sits somewhere in the middle of these two polar positions. According to Eurasianism, Russia is both a European and Asian country at the same time and Russia’s historical mission is to unite the diverse communities in the Eurasian region under Russia’s moral and political leadership.

Russian foreign policy is most of the time made by the president, in consultation with particular state institutions that are supposed to aid the president in this process. Russia is an extremely centralized and authoritarian state suggesting that foreign policy is mainly the business of the state.