Foreign policy
Connection to theory o Overview/does theory inform policy: Walt (1998), Walt (2004), Snyder (2004), o How policy-making might work: Jervis (1976), Haas (1992), Weber (1992), Nye (1990,
2004)
Thinking about after the Cold War o US hegemony: Lieber and Alexander (2005), Barma, et al. (2007), Layne (2009), National
Intelligence Council (2005), Zakaria (2008), Khanna (2008), Brooks and Wohlforth (2008)
Rise of China o Christensen (2001), Friedberg (2005)
Putting the two together o Ikenberry (2008), Nye (2010)

Foreign policy and connections to theory
Theoretical expectations after the Cold War o Walt (1998)
 Offensive versus defensive realism on the future of Europe:

Offensive – Mearsheimer, Schweller, Zakaria – anarchy encourages states to try to maximize their relative strength simply because no state can ever be sure when a truly revisionist power might emerge; for
Mearsheimer, future of Europe in post-Cold War world is based on anarchy, which forces great powers to compete irrespective of their internal characteristics, so security competition will soon return after US withdraws

Defensive – Van Evera, Snyder – argue that the costs of expansion for states generally outweighs the benefits; for Van Evera, future of Europe in post-Cold War world is “primed for peace” because war is rarely profitable and usually results from militarism, hypernationalism, or some other distorting domestic factor
 Liberalism – perspective implies that war will remain a remote possibility among the advanced industrial democracies (democratic peace); bringing China and
Russia into the relentless embrace of world capitalism is the best way to promote both prosperity and peace, particularly if this process creates a strong middle class in these states and reinforces pressures to democratize (belief that economic forces are superseding traditional great power politics)
 Convergence: boundaries of each paradigm are somewhat permeable

Most realists recognize that nationalism, militarism, ethnicity, and other domestic factors are important

Liberals acknowledge that power is central to international behavior

Constructivists (some) admit ideas have a greater impact when backed by powerful states and reinforced by enduring material forces
 But, realism remains the most compelling general framework (examples for the
US: one-sided arms control agreements with Russia, dominated peace effort in
Bosnia, called for more multilateralism and role for international institutions, but refused to outlaw production of landmines and was uncooperative at Kyoto environmental summit  self-interest)

Though it doesn’t explain everything and policymakers should keep all in mind – each captures certain aspects of world politics well
Does this theory inform policy? o Walt (2004)
 Literature sees a wide gap between academic theories of IR and practical conduct of foreign policy; obstacles seen as the abstractness of IR theory
(compared to the specific and numerous complexities of foreign policy), the number of theories (limited explanatory power – many theories employing many variables, but how to combine or compare?), the differing agendas of academics and policy makers (implementation, for example)
 Is middle range theory better?

This type of theory focuses on situations, strategies, or tools that are of direct concern to policy makers and can employ a more controlled, quasi-experimental assessment of the tools in question


Problem: sacrifice parsimony and generality and produce contingent generalizations (if you do X, then Y will occur, assuming conditions a, b, and c hold) – this may be a virtue, if it encourages policy makers to consider context, but on the other hand, the generalizations may be so heavily qualified that they offer little guidance beyond the initial case(s) from which they were derived
 While sometimes good theory can lead to good policy, bad theories can lead to foreign policy disasters!

Historical example (Kennedy (1983)): before WWI, Admiral Von Tirpitz’s
“risk theory” argued that German acquisition of a large battle fleet would threaten British naval supremacy and deter Great Britain from opposing German dominance of the continent; in fact, the building of the fleet merely accelerated Britain’s alignment with Germany’s continental opponents
 Four ways theory can help policymakers: diagnosis, prediction, prescription, evaluation

Note, though, that social science theories are probabilistic, not deterministic (imagine the consequences of Huntington’s Clash of
Civilizations if taken as deterministic)
 And yet, it doesn’t. What to do? Alter prevailing norms of academic discipline  make young scholars strive to policy relevance. o Snyder (2004)
 Properly understood, policy implications of IR theories are subtle and multifaceted

Realism – pragmatic appreciation of role of power, but warns states will suffer if they overreach

Liberalism – cooperative potential of mature democracies, especially through institutions, but notes democracies’ tendency to crusade against tyrannies and the propensity of emerging democracies to collapse into ethnic turmoil

Idealism – consensus of values must underpin any stable political order, but recognizes forging this consensus often requires ideological struggle with conflict potential
 Reality: how do theories perform in post-9/11 world?

Realism – continued centrality of military strength and persistence of conflict even in age of economic interdependence; US used its power to expand sphere of domination o But, how can it explain US war on terrorism against non-state actors? Where is the balancing against the US?

Liberalism – democracy promotion (problem is policy makers are ignoring the part about democratization  chaos/violence), but Bush administration ignored institution building

Constructivism – in offering advice, points in two incompatible directions; highlights need for dialogue across cultures about appropriate rules of the game, but many idealists think they already know right and wrong o Basically, these theories can be many things to many people

o None of the theories has a strong ability to explain change
 Because of these weaknesses, need to have the theories act as a powerful check on one another (they are all irrationally exuberant in their own way); deployed effectively, they reveal weaknesses in arguments that can lead to misguided politics
How policy-making might work: o Jervis (1976)
 Perception and misperception in international politics: foreign policy decisionmakers’ perceptions of their environment and of other actors often diverge from reality, which has important consequences for their and others’ subsequent actions
 Three questions that often face decision-makers clearly bring out the importance of correctly assessing the other sides’ goals and beliefs:

Can an issue in dispute be treated in isolation?

How will the other carry out his undertakings?

What threats and promises will be most effective?
 Intentions – the actions an actor will take under given circumstances

Differing perceptions of the other state’s intentions often underline policy debates (example: deterrence)

Both prisoner’s dilemma (spiral debates) and chicken games
(deterrence) show us the deep concern with the danger of misunderstandings and the consequent importance of states’ making their intentions clear o Deterrence model (chicken) – having so great a preponderance of power as to convince the adversary that you mean what you say; worry is that aggressors will underestimate the resolve of the defenders o Spiral theorists (prisoner’s dilemma) – having just enough to stay ahead; worry is that each side will overestimate the hostility of the other

A major determinant of the effect of threats is thus the intention of the other side – but this depends to a large extent on the other’s intentions and its perceptions of the first state

These perceptions are often incorrect – this is because (1) decision makers cannot process all available facts and facts are chosen that are most conducive to fitting current perceptions (for rational decision making), (2) context within which information is received is crucial, as most recent events set the stage for the interpretation of the next pieces of information, and (3) decision makers typically use history for drawing generalizations that can be applied to current policy issues not to rationalize policy decisions o Types of misperceptions: (1) see others as being more centralized, more planned, and hence more devious than is in fact the case, (2) exaggerate the degree to which one is a factor in another’s policies, to believe that one’s importance and influence are greater than is the case

o How to minimize misperceptions? Expose implicit assumptions, be aware of the potential for misperception o Haas (1992)
 How do policy makers get the relevant technical information to make state-level policy decisions?
 Use “epistemic communities” – network of professionals with recognized expertise and competence in a particular domain and an authoritative claim to policy-relevant knowledge within that domain or issue area

Have shared set of normative beliefs, shared causal beliefs, shared notions of validity, and a common policy enterprise
 Epistemic policy coordination – major dynamics are uncertainty, interpretation, and institutionalization

“Conditions of uncertainty” (George) – actors must make choices without adequate information about the situation at hand; because international policy often has uncertainties (increasingly complex and technical nature of the ever-widening range of issues considered on the international agenda causes this) o Misperceptions of the nature of the international setting or of others’ intentions and actions are most likely to occur under conditions of uncertainty o In the face of uncertainty, many of the conditions facilitating a focus on power are absent o Thus, there are demands for particular sorts of information – this information is the product of human (typically, specialists, experts, or technocrats) interpretations of social and physical phenomena o May contribute to the creation and maintenance of social institutions that guide international behavior
 This suggests a non-systemic origin for state interests and identifies a dynamic for persistent cooperation independent of the distribution of international power

Assumes state actors are uncertainty reducers as well as power/wealth pursuers
 Epistemic communities can explain cause-and-effect relationships and give advice following a crisis; can shed light on the nature of complex inter-linkages between issues; can help define the self-interests of a state or factions within it; can help formulate policies
 Reality is socially constructed; this approach focuses on the process through which consensus is reached within a given domain of expertise and through which the consensual knowledge is diffused to and carried forward by other actors (note: they generate consensual knowledge, not necessarily truth)

Ideas inform policies – epistemic communities are channels through which new ideas circulate from societies to governments as well as from country to country

Actors’ understanding of the world and the formulation of alternative actions are shaped by belief systems, operational codes, and cognitive maps


Consensual knowledge may contribute to policy coordination and to more comprehensive policies o Weber (1992)
 Good critique of neo-realism [for approaches outline]
 NATO (signed 1949, permanent organization 1952) – through most of its history, has been distinctly non-multilateral, with the US commanding most decisionmaking power and responsibility; at the same time, it provided security to its member states in a way that strongly reflected multilateral principles (security indivisible – an attack on any border was an attack on all and diffuse reciprocity was the norm)
 Two sets of ideas governed the way in the which the US shaped the postwar balance of power through NATO

Political ideas – fundamental beliefs about the relationship between the number of powerful actors in the international system and stability/peace o Fostered autonomous European “pole” in order to promote long-term stability in international politics (seen as first step toward multipolar international system) o Example: Eisenhower administration, 1956-1961, shared nuclear weapons within the alliance

Military ideas – deterrence of invasion and nuclear strategy (preventing
Soviet aggression through use or threat of force) o Example: efforts at multipolarity became blocked by
“deterrence scenario” under Kennedy administration
 After Soviets closed all routes of supply except air traffic to West Berlin, the first
US-Soviet Cold War crisis in Europe made it seem as if the Soviet threat might in fact be imminent and military, not long term and political
  “deterrence scenario” took precedence over a continuing commitment to avoiding European dependency
 Initially, when US signed North Atlantic Treaty and bound itself to the European balance of power, it did so in ways calculated to maintain as much of the multipolarity scenario as was possible at the time (example: nothing in the treaty gave US a privileged position within the military or political structures of the alliance; votes were “one vote, one state”)
 With Korean War, moved away from the principle of multilateralism  principle of forward defense for Europe  need for integrated force under centralized command/control (Eisenhower appointed Supreme Allied Commander Europe in 1950)

Later, after Eisenhower became US president, decided that NATO needed to rely on nuclear weapons for the defense of Europe  US had privileged position within alliance, but wanted this to be a temporary role (while Europe building capabilities, including sharing nuclear weapons) o Eisenhower saw nuclear weapons, properly channeled, as being the crucial spur to European integration that would place the US government’s multipolarity scenario back on track

o Problems for Eisenhower: historical accidents, not constraints that follow from IR theories – strong opposition from a congressional committee (JCAE)
 Eisenhower was deeply sensitive to the political sources and implications of the
Europeans’ lack of confidence, but ultimately failed – Kennedy administration was more concerned with military strategy (credibility of extended deterrence – actually thought US might have to fight a war in Europe) and reconfigured the plan to add strict American veto power on launch authorization (so Europeans paid for an American-dominated nuclear force, which was not Eisenhower’s plan)

Kennedy administration shifted to “flexible response” ideas – increase in number and variety of conventional forces and plans to use nuclear weapons in a limited and precisely controlled manner (and for signaling purposes)

National nuclear forces in Europe were anathema to this reasoning because a proliferation of “decision centers” would complicate the problem of implementing a precise nuclear strategy and thus undermine the logic of flexible response o  tightening of US control o  “deterrence scenario” won out in 1961 and this rationale for centralized control over any decision to use nuclear weapons remained for the next 30 years
 Theoretical takeaway: states ally to increase their security against potential adversaries, but the principles on which an alliance is constructed and the institutional form of it are blind spots for neorealists

We see here that multilateralism can be either a dependent or independent variable (though the latter often rests on counterfactuals) o Nye (2004)
 Nye (1990): term “soft power” was initially proposed
 Soft power is the ability to get what you want through attraction rather than coercion or payments (means of getting a desired outcome)

When you can get others to want what you want, you do not have to spend as much on sticks and carrots to move them in your direction

Hard power is the ability to coerce and grows out a country’s military and economic might

Soft power arises from the attractiveness of a country’s culture, political ideals, and policies – when policies are seen as legitimate in the eyes of others, soft power is enhanced
 US used soft power resources after WWII to coopt others into a set of alliances and institutions that lasted for 60 years; containment used our soft power as well as our hard power
 In post-9/11 world, with the new threat of transnational terrorism and increased American vulnerability, the US cannot meet the new threat without the cooperation of other countries

They will cooperate, up to a point, out of mere self-interest, but their degree of cooperation is also affected by the attractiveness of the US


If the US is so unpopular in a country that being pro-American is a kiss of death in their domestic politics, political leaders are unlikely to make concessions to help us o Examples: Turkey, Mexico, and Chile in the run-up to the Iraq
War in March 2003
 Hard-line skeptics: whatever the merits of soft power, little role to play in the current war on terrorism (al Qaeda, for example, is repelled, not attracted, by
American culture, values, and policies and military power was essential in defeating the Taliban)

Problem with this argument: yes, precision bombing and special forces defeated the Taliban, but US forces in Afghanistan wrapped up less than
¼ of al Qaeda (has cells in 60 countries) – success against the rest depends on close civilian cooperation, whether sharing intelligence, coordinating police work across borders, or tracing global financial flows o Soft power influences whether this cooperation can occur
 Power depends on context, and the distribution of power differs greatly in different domains – “three-dimensional chess game”:

Top chessboard = political-military issues o Military power is largely unipolar/US hegemon

Middle chessboard = economic issues o US not a hegemon or empire and it must bargain as an equal
 when Europe acts in unified way
Bottom chessboard = transnational relations o Power chaotically dispersed
 Need to notice all three boards and the vertical connections among them (example: removed tyrant in
Iraq with military power from top board, but simultaneously increased the ability of the al Qaeda network to gain new recruits on the bottom board)
 Soft power, not military power, is especially important in dealing with the issues that arise from the bottom chessboard (like terrorism, climate change, spread of infectious diseases)
 Implications for foreign policy: style is key (humility, not arrogance and coalitions/UN participation, not unilateral action as examples)
US hegemony? o Lieber and Alexander (2005)
 Since the end of the Cold War, great power balancing – when states seriously commit themselves to containing a threatening state – has failed to emerge, despite a huge increase in the preponderant power of the US
 Since 9/11, many claim US behavior has been sufficiently threatening to others
(example: balance of threat theorists say preventive war made US appear as less of a “benevolent” hegemon), so it is accelerating the process of balancing

Even some liberal theorists, who typically argue that democracy, economic interdependence, and international institutions largely obviate the need for states to engage in balancing behavior, have joined

realists in predicting balancing – see US policymakers as having violated a grand bargain of sorts
 But, in reality, neither “hard” balancing nor “soft” balancing has occurred

“hard” balancing – traditional balancing through internal defense buildups or external alliance formation o Wohlforth: US enjoys such a large margin of superiority over every other state in all the important dimensions of power that an extensive balancing coalition is infeasible o This fact, however, is less the result of rigid constraints than of much more malleable budgetary choices (example: despite coordination problems, EU does have more troops at their disposable than US and a higher total GDP)
 So, if there were a will to balance against US, there would be a way o “internal balancing” – states invest heavily in defense by transforming their latent power into military capabilities
 See this only in China, but this has been going on for decades (not since 9/11) o “external balancing” – states seek to form military alliances against the predominant power
 Little visible change in the alliance patterns of the late
1990s o “diplomatic red lines” – send clear signals to the aggressor that states are willing to take costly actions to check the dominant power if it does not respect certain boundaries of behavior
 Extensive criticism, like of invasion of Iraq, but no ultimatum

“soft” balancing – states seek to undermine and restrain US power in ways that fall short of classic measures o States make efforts to entangle the dominant state in international institutions
 No, the most powerful states exercise the most control in these institutions; no attempt to block US campaign in Afghanistan o States make efforts to exclude the dominant state from regional economic cooperation
 No, US has been one of the primary drivers of trade regionalization, not excluded from it o States make efforts to undermine the dominant state’s ability to project military power by restricting or denying military basing rights
 Maybe in Turkey or Saudi Arabia, but US has established new bases, negotiated landing rights, and updated existing bases in many new regions of the world o States make efforts to provide relevant assistance to US adversaries such as rogue states
 Examples are South Korean aid to North Korea and
Russian aid to Iran in building nuclear power plants; but,

this isn’t unambiguously driven by a strategic logic of undermining US power

Should also be skeptical of soft balancing claims because the criteria for predicting this behavior are conceptually flawed – how to tell soft balancing from just routine diplomatic friction between countries? Example: one trading partner often seeks outcomes that the other doesn’t prefer, without balancing being relevant
 Why aren’t countries balancing against US?

Strategy in post-9/11 world is ambitious, assertive, and backed by tremendous offensive capability, but it is also highly selective and not broadly threatening o Focus is on threats emanating from nuclear proliferator states and global terrorist organizations
 That is, the US isn’t seen as a threat worth balancing against because of shared interests in nonproliferation and the war on terror o Barma, et al. (2007)
 “World without the West” – what role do emerging powers play in the making/shaping of world order? In contrast to the notion of increasingly uniform interconnectedness, look at the directionality of political-economic flows to investigate the idea that the largest and wealthiest countries in the developing world have begun to preferentially connect with each other and in so doing reduce their relative exposure to Western centers of power
 International relations scholarship surmises that rising powers are presented with a binary choice: assimilate to the existing order or challenge it

Third possibility: emergence of an alternative international order that exists parallel to the predominant order

Level of connectivity key (emerging powers with each other v. with the
West) – see if non-Western economies trade and coordinate at the UN with each other above and beyond what is expected given their level of development, geographic position, market size, domestic political institutions, and geopolitical and colonial ties o OECD v. “in-play” countries (29 largest economies, but not in
OECD)
 Trade relations: West continues to be major trading partner for in-play countries, but see increase in trade of the in-play countries with themselves over the last 25 years
 UN voting: over the last 20 years, and seen especially from mid-1990s on, inplay countries have, as a group, exhibited voting patterns that are more similar than those one would otherwise expect (based on confounders)
 By looking only at two of the three possibilities (ignoring “World Without the
West” idea), the existing theoretical paradigm has deeply constrained the ability of schools to understand the full variance of behavior

This idea challenges existing views of order in the international system as a public good provided by powerful states, through institutions that

are either epiphenomenal (realism) or come to facilitate rule-based order themselves over time (institutionalism) o International rules and patterns of behavior can become deeply embedded in an international order without formal institutions to facilitate them; transactional networks have emergent properties – they spread ideas and norms and so build structures that shape patterns of behavior beyond their original purpose o Layne (2009)
 Unipolarity describes the post-1991 international system in which US military and economic power has dwarfed that of all other states, but it also describes a policy dimension: since the USSR’s downfall, the maintenance of US preeminence has been the overriding grand strategic goal of every administration beginning with George H.W. Bush

“Unipolar stability” realists – argue that the present unipolar distribution of capabilities in America’s favor is insurmountable and that other states will not counterbalance because they receive important security and economic benefits from US hegemony

“Balance of threat” realists – US has negated counter-hegemonic balancing by adopting accommodative policies that allay others’ fears of
American dominance o Along with liberal international relations – see the US as having been successful because it is a “benevolent” hegemon o Other states will acquiesce to US hegemony if the US displays self-restraint by exercising its predominance multilaterally through international institutions o US “soft power” – the purportedly singular attractiveness of its political and economic institutions and its culture – draws other states into Washington’s orbit
 By late 2007, whispers of American decline, doubts about the dollar’s long-term prospects as the international system’s reserve currency, and murmurings about incipient multipolarity began to creep into the foreign policy debate
 Is US hegemony waning?
 National Intelligence Council: US-dominated unipolar world will give way to multipolarity during the next two decades spurred by two causal mechanisms –
(1) emergence of new great powers (and potentially important regional powers) and (2) economic, financial, and domestic political constraints that may erode
US capabilities

China, India, and possibly Russia (though this is more problematic – as one example, population is expected to decline substantially by 2025) are emerging great powers o Note: China has already overtaken the US as the world’s leading manufacturer

Dollar’s decline (China called for new international reserve currency in
2009) may force US into difficult trades between ambitious foreign policy goals and high domestic costs

Declining credibility of US extended deterrence security guarantees could fuel new regional arms races


Competition for control of natural resources could drive great power competitions

Fallout from financial/economic crisis could make international economic system more mercantilist o A non-hegemonic US will lack the capability to revitalize established international institutions
 Zakaria (2008)

China and India are rising great powers, destined to emerge as the number two and three economies in the world during the next several decades

Book is not about the decline of America, but rather the rise of everyone else – China and India are not posing traditional geopolitical challenges to US, but soft power challenges o Example: China adopted asymmetric strategy comprising skillful diplomacy and economic statecraft, and highlighting its own model of political and economic development, to make itself an attractive partner, especially in a world in which the US is seen as an overbearing hegemon

US decline is economic – not geopolitical – and shallow, not steep

Sees the world as moving toward America with respect to modernization, globalization, human rights, and democracy

To stay on top, US needs to renounce the unilateralism/bad diplomacy of Bush administration and revert to tradition of working through multilateral institutions/diplomacy o Way to retain preeminence is through soft power
 Khanna (2008)

International politics in the coming decades will be shaped by two forces: (1) globalization and (2) geopolitical competition among the US,
EU, and China for global leadership and allegiance of the “second world”
(meaning states straddling the first-world/third-world divide, like Russia,
Middle East, and Balkans)

US will need to adapt to a non-American world in which its influence is challenged and contained by the EU and China o Rise of these two entities renders international politics intensely competitive, because globalization facilitates the intrusion of each of the three empires into the spheres of influence of the others o US is unlikely to win this competition – power is on a downward arc due to imperial overstretch, domestic political malfunction, economic weakness, and diminishing soft power

Whether the EU becomes an empire depends on Brussels’ institutional cohesion

China, though, poses a double strategic threat: it can challenge the EU for control of the Eurasian heartland and the US for control of the
Pacific rim-land o It has a combination of economic and soft power along with growing military muscle  becoming regional hegemon

 Brooks and Wohlforth (2008)

The world will remain unipolar for a long time – there are no structural constraints that impinge seriously on US power

Attack neorealist balance of power theory – states have not formed a counter-hegemonic coalition to balance US unipolar power, nor have other states engaged in internal balancing by undertaking major military buildups aimed at countering US military preponderance o States will not balance against the US because the threat posed by a hegemonic – but geographically distant – US pales in comparison to the regional security threats that they confront in their own neighborhoods

US uniquely combines overwhelming economic and military power, so it has an unchallenged preeminence in the international system
 Back to Layne (2009)
 Problems with “unipolar stability” theory: based on a freeze-frame view of the distribution of capabilities in the international system; hegemons sprint to the front because economic leadership is based on productivity and technological innovation, but over time this diffuses and other states catch up
 Problems with idea that international system becoming bipolar or multipolar: trends that show a rise in China, India, Russia, and/or the EU do not conclusively demonstrate that the international system is becoming multipolar; merely aspiring to great power status doesn’t assure success (must take into account issues of state capacity like the effectiveness of administration and political machinery and the quality of leaders); measuring state power is hard; though
China has experienced double-digit annual growth rates through 2006, this doesn’t necessarily mean it can sustain similar growth over the next two decades, especially since the long-term effects of current crises are unknown
 Problems with claims for the importance of “soft power”: crisis discredited one of the pillars of US soft power – American free-market capitalism; US is not the only country that possesses soft power
Rise of China o Christensen (2001)
 Most existing debates about China surround its future military power compared with that of the US and other East Asian regional powers

China as a “peer competitor” or “near peer competitor” of US – realist notions of how international politics works; power matters, relative capabilities compared with those of other great powers matter o This debate misses many of the important questions regarding a
China with increasing, but still limited, military capabilities o With certain new equipment and strategies, China can pose major problems for American security interests, and especially for Taiwan, without the slightest pretense of catching up with
 the US by an overall measure of national military power
China as “regional hegemon” – towering over its cowed neighbors and threatening American interests in a region of increasing importance to the US o China will not be able to develop the capabilities to match or defeat US military power, so takes more realistic approach:

develop the capabilities to dominate most regional actors, to become a regional peer competitor or near peer competitor of the other great powers in the region (including Russia and
Japan) and to develop politically useful capabilities to punish
American forces if they were to intervene in a conflict of great interest to China
 In the near term, China seems devoted to developing new coercive options to exert more control over
Taiwan’s diplomatic policies, and to threaten or carry out punishment of any third parties that might intervene militarily on Taiwan’s behalf (US/Japan)
 China sees more advanced countries as being vulnerable precisely because they depend on more advanced, high-tech systems than do less advanced countries (so can target with things like information warfare; can also use blockade because US and Taiwan don’t have good defensives for sea mines)

Idea is to use asymmetric tools to coerce technologically superior foes
 Problems with peer competitor logic:

US forces are spread thin in more than one theater, especially true if embroiled in conflicts in various regions – even if we focus exclusively on relative military power in East Asia, using overall American national assets are not a useful basis of comparison to judge whether Beijing will perceive itself as able to use force effectively against US interests in East
Asia

Geography of potential conflicts with China – most very close to China, very far from US

Assumption that relative material strength means security because significantly weaker powers would not openly challenge the security interests of stronger states – this assumption is invalid; often, the loser of a great power war is the initiator; as in realist power transition theory, it is the rising challenger that initiates conflict to change the status quo, not the still superior but declining hegemon (not preventive war); conscious decisions can be made to fight either because of misperceptions or despite perceived national weakness (Pearl Harbor, for example)
 This suggests that what will determine whether China takes actions that will lead to a Sino-American conflict will likely be politics, perceptions, and coercive diplomacy involving specific military capabilities in specific geographic and political contexts, not the overall balance of military power across the Pacific or across the Taiwan Strait
 Why a weaker China might challenge the US:

Backed into a corner – if Chinese leaders believe that they are backed into a corner and that refraining from force is prohibitively costly to the regime; in such an instance, Beijing’s high degree of concern about a particular issue like Taiwan and its perception that it cares much more

about the issue than Washington may lead Beijing elites to use force despite the risk of American intervention

Somalia analogy – if Chinese leaders believe that they can deter effective US intervention or compel US withdrawal by raising the prospect of casualties or by actually killing or wounding American service personnel

American forces tied down elsewhere – if Chinese leaders perceive the
US military as sufficiently distracted or tied down in other parts of the world that it could/would not take on a belligerent China effectively

America’s uncertain alliances – if Chinese leaders believe the US can be separated from its regional allies by political persuasion or military coercion targeted at those allies
 This suggests that preventing war across the Taiwan Strait and between the US and China is more difficult than a straightforward net assessment of relative military power in the region might suggest

To deter China, US must do more than demonstrate an ability to prevail militarily in a conflict; it must also demonstrate American resolve and, perhaps, the ability to protect its forces not only from defeat but also from significant harm o Friedberg (2005)
 Each of the three theoretical schools – realism, liberalism, and constructivism – has two variants, one of which is essentially optimistic about the future of US-
China relations, the other distinctly pessimistic
 Liberal optimists

Believe in the pacifying power of three interrelated and mutually reinforcing causal mechanisms: economic interdependence, international institutions, and democratization

Economic exchange between US and China has increased dramatically since the onset of market reforms in China in the late 1970s

Proliferation of regional institutions in East Asia like APEC and ASEAN+3; entered WTO in 2001; large increase in PRC’s membership in formal, international governmental and non-governmental organizations since late 1970s o Increased chances for cooperation, decreased chances for misperception, and gives China a growing stake in stability/continuity of existing global order
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See process of democratization as well under way in China, driven largely by economic development and accelerated by increasing openness to trade; over time, if China wishes to approach levels of wellbeing in advanced industrial democracies, it must also become democratic o This should lead to a democratic “zone of peace” for US/China
 Realist pessimists
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Inescapable laws of nature compel a recurrent struggle for power and survival; persistence of international anarchy; material power, and military strength in particular, is decisive in shaping patterns of relations

Single most important feature of PRC today: rising power

 o If take aggregate economic capacity as a rough surrogate for overall national power, China’s growth has been extraordinarily rapid o This rapidly growing economy brings military expansion –
China’s spending on arms and military equipment has grown
See China’s aims as expansion o Why? Economic development – a more wealthy and more powerful state will select a larger bundle of security and welfare goals than a less wealthy and less powerful state o Rising power’s expansion attempts collide with established counterparts and the resulting disputes are seldom resolved peacefully (example: established power(s) may use preventive war to destroy a rising state before it can achieve its full potential)
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Security dilemma is intense – even if the larger political goals of both sides are, in some sense, purely defensive, the measures that each takes to secure its position and achieve its objectives may still arouse alarm and stimulate countermeasures on the other side o Taiwan – even if China only wants to prevent independence and
US only wants to prevent forceful reunification, Chinese threats and military buildup may increase fear, so US may increase military assistance to Taipei, which then makes it seem the US would intervene, which leads to Chinese fear  more buildup
 Realist optimists

China’s power is not increasing as rapidly as is often claimed and its ambitions are, and are likely to remain, modest, even conservative; a variety of other factors are at work that may help mitigate the effects of the security dilemma and keep US-Chinese relations from spiraling out of control o Chinese economic expansion may be disrupted by domestic social and political turbulence; growth could be slowed by difficulties in creating efficient, equitable, and open legal and financial institutions o China will most likely continue to lag behind US, so likelihood that it will want to mount a serious challenge to US is small o China may not behave in an especially assertive/aggressive fashion because it is not simply a function of China’s capabilities, but a reflection of underlying intentions o Structure of post-Cold War East Asian system essentially bipolar and both have nuclear weapons (US and China) so relations likely to be tense but basically stable o Geography will greatly enhance stability – US is maritime power, so interests will likely remain offshore, but China is land power  these spheres of influence do not overlap (with possible exception of Taiwan and Korean Peninsula)
 Liberal pessimists

China is authoritarian regime of dubious legitimacy with uncertain grip on power – ideology has lost most of its appeal, heavily dependent on

military/domestic security services for preservation of domestic order; government’s claim to rule now comes from promise of continued increases in prosperity and appeals to nationalism  unstable, especially if economic progress falters, which could lead to hypernationalism
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Transitional states (where pressures for participation increasing, but effective democratic institutions haven’t yet emerged) seen as most likely to initiate conflict with neighbors – typically appeal to nationalism
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For US, democratic peace suggests hostility/atmosphere of suspicion
(example: conflict over human rights issues – for US, this shows regime is illegitimate); US more likely to assist polities that it perceives to be democratic if they are threatened by China  possibility of stable relationship is remote
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Some groups in each state will favor more confrontational policies and these will make it harder to achieve stable relations
 Constructivist optimists
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International relationships are “socially constructed” and shaped to a considerable degree by subjective factors, by beliefs and ideas
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Identities – collective self-perceptions of political actors and their shared perceptions of others
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Strategic cultures – sets of beliefs about the fundamental character of international politics and about the best ways of coping with it, especially as regards the utility of force and prospects for cooperation

Norms – beliefs not only about what is efficacious but also about what is right or appropriate in the international realm o Each of these strongly shaped by prevailing interpretations of a society’s shared historical experiences; tend to be highly resistant to change; beliefs evolve/transform through interaction with others o Implies there is always the possibility that people can change the world by changing how they think

International politics tends to be competitive and violent, not because some immutable principles of human behavior require that it be so but rather because, across the centuries, national leaders have tended to believe this to be the case o By acting in accordance with their pessimistic expectations, leaders have helped to make them come true (“realism is a selffulfilling prophecy”) o If widely shared, a more optimistic assessment of the prospects for, and benefits of, international cooperation could achieve similar status
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China’s increasing participation in international institutions will lead to shifts in strategic culture, in the norms of international behavior accepted by its leaders, and ultimately in their conceptions of national identity

Process of socialization reflecting China’s desire to be accepted as a modern, advanced country – Chinese leaders may be moving toward

much broader embrace of what are essentially liberal norms and expectations regarding international behavior o So, participation and norm change are mutually reinforcing mechanisms
 Constructivist pessimists

No reason that the beliefs of China’s leaders/people will necessarily evolve in ways conducive to long-term improvements in US-China relations

Existing mental constructs/social structures are deeply rooted o Pending some truly dramatic shift, Americans likely to continue to regard China as illegitimate and potentially dangerous o Unless US draws back, Chinese likely to regard it as intrusive bully

While repeated interaction can erode old identities, it can also reinforce them
Putting the two together o Ikenberrry (2008)
 Existing “descent of the West”/reorientation toward the East view – as China gets more powerful/US position erodes, China will try to use its growing influence to reshape the rules and institutions of the international system to better serve its interests and other states in the system – especially declining hegemon – will start to see China as a growing security threat  tension, distrust, conflict (power transitions)
 This view, however, is not inevitable – China faces fundamentally different international order than those that past rising states confronted (Westerncentered system that is open, integrated, and rule-based with deep political foundations; nuclear revolution made war among great powers unlikely)
 US – needs to use its leadership of the Western order to shape the environment in which China will make critical strategic choices (strengthen rules/institutions to make them harder to overturn)

US “unipolar moment” will inevitably end: if struggle between China/US, then China wins; if struggle between China and revived Western system,
West will win
 Postwar Western order historically unique:

US-led order has been more liberal than imperial – legitimate, rules/institutions reinforced by democracy/capitalism, barriers to economic participation are low and potential benefits are high

Coalition-based character of leadership – coalition of powers arrayed around US (not US alone)

Has a widening array of participants with an unusually dense, encompassing, and broadly endorsed system of rules and institutions
(basis for cooperation and shared authority over global system) o These give incentives for China to integrate into liberal international order and, in fact, it is increasingly working with – rather than outside of – the Western order (example: UN
Security Council permanent member)

o At the same time, gives Western order a remarkable capacity to accommodate rising powers o The road to global power runs through the Western order and its multilateral economic institutions o Nye (2010)
 Crisis of 2008/2009 – poor performance of Wall Street institutions and
Washington regulators has cost a good deal in terms of soft power, or the attractiveness of its economic model
 Observers see China’s soft power increasing in Asia and other parts of the developing world, particularly after the financial crisis (idea of “Beijing
Consensus” on authoritarian government with a successful market economy)

Examples: embarking on global popular culture through things like creating Confucius Institutes around the world to teach language/culture, China Radio International increasing broadcasts in
English to 24 hours per day, 24-hour news designed to imitate al
Jazeera, diplomacy like contributing troops to UN peacekeeping operations and hosting Six-Party Talks on North Korea

But, limits: 2008 Olympics mainly successful, but domestic crackdown in
Tibet and on human rights activists undercut soft power gains; attempts to create media giant to compete with Bloomberg, etc. but efforts hindered by domestic political censorship o It is difficult for a government to sell its country’s charm if the narrative is inconsistent with domestic realities – so, except for economic success, China has a long way to go
 Economic relationship between US and China: US accepts Chinese imports, pays
China in dollars, and China holds the US dollars and bonds, in effect making a loan to the US

China has amassed $2.5 trillion of foreign exchange reserves

Could China bring the US to its knees by threatening to sell its dollars? o Yes, but China would not only reduce the value of its reserves as the price of the dollar fell, but also jeopardize US willingness to continue to import cheap Chinese goods  job loss/instability in China
  pain would be mutual (vulnerability of interdependence)
 Beware of projections! China still lags far behind the US economically and militarily and has focused its policies primarily on its region and on its economic development (example: even if China surpassed US in GDP, China’s vastly underdeveloped countryside may be an issue)