Foreign Policy InstrumentsDecember 8, 2011

Come up with several broad and several narrow research questions that might be generated from today’s readings

Exercise

How do we understand the place and role of particular foreign policy instruments?

What are the problems with such instruments and are problems with the instruments or with political processes?

How effective are various instruments?

Questions

Détente is a strategy that must be seen as part of an overall foreign policy approach rather than as a stand alone strategy or foreign policy instrument.

In short, in the US context it was another way of implement an overall strategy of containment:◦ A different approach than the massive retaliation/low

resources and flexible responses/high resources interpretations of containment

◦ Thus an updated way of implementing containment within a particular context

◦ Not a substitute for or alternative to containment

Gaddis: Detente

Détente is a way of maintaining a particular balance of power arrangement. In the 1970s it meant◦ Ensuring that the Soviets did not dominate more

than one of the 5 global geo-strategic centers◦ Redefining “opponents” to disregard ideology– thus

allowing PRC to move from an opponent to a partner◦ Engage Soviets to manage competition and identify

common interests (thus in this understanding, containment and engagement are not rival strategies, but rather engagement can be an instrument of containment).

Détente as a Method of Containment

Achievement of important arms control agreements

Easing of tensions in Europe, particularly with regard to Berlin (a potential flashpoint for decades)

Overall reduction of Soviet power and growing dependence of the Soviets on Western economies

Refocus of US policy beyond obsession with Vietnam

Assessment: Successes

Soviets moved ahead in strategic and conventional weaponry

Tightening of internal controls within the Soviet bloc

Continued Soviet efforts at fostering instability in the Third World

Soviet violation of agreements, leading to a suspicion that they would not honor agreements

Invasion of Afghanistan

Assessment: Failures

Gaddis softens this judgment by arguing that these failures do not reflect on the overall goals of détente as a form of containment. Rather, if these represent failures, they must be attributed to factors other than the strategy itself:

Failure to carry through with linkage by consistently cultivating interests and conveying clear understanding to Soviets as to US strategic interests.

If use carrots and sticks, must use them consistently and to guide partner to actions you want them to take. This consistency was undermined by Congressional interference in foreign policy formation– division of authority.

Larger Analysis

Failure of Congress to keep pace with regard to spending on strategic and conventional weapons

Inability of both important officials and of the public to understand that international order must come first, then justice. This meant that there was pressure to emphasize human rights over strategic interests, and also lead to Nixon mistakenly agreeing to the Helsinki Accords (a set of commitments that the Soviets were not likely to keep, thus undermining the strategy of negotiation and détente in general).

Larger Failings cont’d

Returned to an unlimited resources strategy without a plan for generating those resources (is dubious of supply side economics)

Abandoned diplomacy as a strategy while still seeking to negotiate arms control agreements– inconsistency

Allowed support for containment and nuclear deterrence to erode by taking a casual attitude towards nuclear war.

Problems with Reagan’s Abandonment of Détente:

Inability to learn from the past with regard to strategic problems– each administration must learn from scratch—need professional and permanent NSC staff and counsels to President and Sec of State

Inability to segregate strategic policy from politics in general– need bipartisanship in foreign policy and a revised method for choosing presidential candidates

Inability to relate national security issues and economic burdens they entail with national economic strategy

Inability to define what it is that is to be contained. Inability to make proper use of allies and friends. Divided decision-making authority

General (Realist) Problems with Democracy Revealed by Détente Interlude

Foreign aid has been used as a tool of democracy promotion in part because it is thought that aid may be effective in particular areas:

Technical aid to strengthen legislatures and judicial bodies as checks on executives

Conditionality: aid not provided unless particular policies related to democratization are implemented

Boost incomes and education, both of which are positively related to democracy

Knock: Does Foreign Aid Promote Democracy

USAID, in noting the increase in democracies from 1980 to 1995, notes that it provided aid to 36 of the 57 new democracies

However, there are theoretical counter-arguments that hold that aid may be detrimental to democratization:◦ Aid strengthens governments at the expense of the

private sector (Friedman)◦ Aid weakens government accountability, just as does oil

and other mineral wealth, by giving the government an unaccountable source of income. Without aid, governments may have to seek agreement to be funded through taxes (Tilly, North). Aid makes governments accountable to donors, not citizens.

Preliminary Evidence

Aid may strengthen executives at the expense of legislators, particularly through conditionality.

Aid might make corruption worse by diversion of funds into private accounts.

Counter-evidence (cont’d)

When controlling for other factors and looking at aid given to countries in general, aid does not constitute a statistically significant element in increasing the democratic standing of countries when measured by standard ratings.

Results

Promotion of democracy is often cited as a reason for particular military interventions.

However, this rationale may be contrary to democratic peace theory (democracies are supposed to be less militaristic than non-democracies) and to democratic theory (is it consistent to impose a democracy on another country?)

If this is the case, why would the US intervene militarily to promote democracy?

Is military intervention an effective way of promoting democracy?

Meernick: Military Intervention and Democracy

While democratic peace theory argues that democracies are more peaceful than non-democracies, empirically this holds true only for relations among democracies.

Democracies are much more belligerent toward non-democracies and may have an incentive to intervene militarily to convert authoritarian governments to democracies in the interest of promoting a future peace.

The literature on democracy promotion lists a variety of non-military means by which democracy is promoted, but not military means. Also concludes that democracy is difficult to create and sustain and often depends on a complex mix of internal and external factors.

Relevant Literature

A separate literature on successful military interventions with regard to the US stresses the importance of narrow, well-defined goals, overwhelming use of force and the need to accomplish the goal quickly and withdraw.

These may not be conducive to democracy promotion:◦ Narrow goals are often military rather than broadly

political◦ Overwhelming use of force creates a large footprint and

many civilian and military casualties, making the US (as a democracy) appear brutal and uncaring

◦ Quick departure is not conducive to necessary nation and institution building.

Relevant Literature (cont’d)

Analyze data to determin if coutnries subject to US miltiary intervention experienced expansion/contraction of democratic practice, as measure by standard benchmarks

Compare these to countries that did not experience intervention

Examine important factors surrounding intervention, including stated objectives

Determine when such interventions are effective and when they are not

Method

For countries which did experience US military intervention, the majority did not experience change within a 3 year window, though some regressed and some advanced in terms of democratic practice.

The same holds generally true of countries that did not experience US military intervention.

The only statistically significant factor in terms of separating interventions that resulted in democratic progress and those that did not is a stated goal of promoting democracy through the intervention.

Results

During the Cold War, both NATO and its constituent countries were involved in various types of military planning. Part of that planning came to dominated by the concepts of escalation and quagmires:

Escalation was seen as something that had to be controlled. On the one hand, escalation was part of deterrence against the Soviets and as a way of dealing with others. The measured use of power would help keep the peace in Europe and keep the alliance together.

But uncontrolled escalation was seen as dangerous as leading to wider wars and possible nuclear exchanges.

Freedman: Escalators and Quagmires

Quagmires were seen as the result of interventions in former colonies and Third World countries, in which the investment of an initial amount of military resources would result, over time, to continued investment in the belief that the added increment would lead to victory and vindicate all the previous investments.

Not to invest anew, by this logic, was to regard previous investments as wasted, with no chance of redemption.

Quagmires

In both of these cases, it was thought that it was the logic of military intervention and action that was at the heart of these dangers.

Escalation: factors◦ Tit for tat actions: actions followed by reactions, followed by new

reactions, all of which go up the scale of force and violence◦ Miscalculation: an initial misjudgment or mistake leads to wider

war due to automated responses However, it was also thought that escalation would be a

way of getting an opponent to back to or concede without engaging in an all out war– incremental additions of force would lead to a breaking point in an economical fashion. Most important test case in Vietnam, in which strategy was fashioned after an interpretation (probably wrong) of Cuban Missile Crisis as an example of controlled escallation.

Escalators and Quagmires

Oversized commitment to goal Inability to meet commitment decisively

through military means and political/public commitment

Thus the doling out of coercive measures in small packages meant to be politically palatable and to rescue the effort by supplying just enough additional resources to secure victory, though this occurs over an over again as victory remains elusive.

Quagmire

Not that military intervention locks a country into a predetermined and automatic series of steps that lead to escalation and/or quagmire, but that what happens militarily is a matter of political decisionmaking.

Escalation and quagmires happen because a political system is unable to balance competing needs to satisfy public opinion and political goals and to deal with military reality and strategic goals.

Thus understanding that the military is a tool as with any other in that its use is determined by those who use it, not its nature. The same would be true of various kinds of foreign aid, or sanctions as a tool, etc.

Lessons