Presidents and Their ‘Doctrines

Select a president from the table, “Presidents and Their ‘Doctrines,’” in Roskin, Chapter 4. Then write a 3-5 page paper on the doctrine that president used according to Roskin. Your research must include at least four (4) credible sources, apart from your textbook. Your paper must address the following:

1. Summarize a situation that required U.S. diplomatic efforts during the president’s time in office.
2. Explicate the diplomatic doctrine the president followed, with reference to specific actions or events that occurred.
3. Describe the effects of these diplomatic efforts for the U.S. and other countries.
4. Assess, in conclusion, the advantages and disadvantages of the particular doctrine that was followed.
5. Cite at least four (4) reputable sources in addition to the textbook (please see attachment for chap 1-3 of textbook), not including Wikipedia, encyclopedias, or dictionaries.

Your assignment must:

• Be typed, double spaced, using Times New Roman font (size 12), with one-inch margins on all sides; citations and references must follow APA or school-specific format. Check with your professor for any additional instructions.
• Include a cover page containing the title of the assignment, the student’s name, the professor’s name, the course title, and the date. The cover page and the reference page are not included in the required assignment page length.

The specific course learning outcomes associated with this assignment are:

• Identify the cultural, economic, and political context of information resources, and interpret information in light of that context.
• Use technology and information resources to research issues in international problems.
• Write clearly and concisely about international problems using proper writing mechanics.

  Michael G. Roskin LYCOMING COLLEGE

  Nicholas O. Berry FOREIGN POLICY FORUM

  IR THE NEW WORLD OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS Eighth Edition

  Longman

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Roskin, Michael IR : the new world of international relations/Michael G. Roskin, Nicholas O. Berry.—8th ed.

  p. cm. Includes index. ISBN-13: 978-0-205-72376-8 (student) ISBN-13: 978-0-205-72397-3 (exam copy) ISBN-10: 0-205-72376-4 1. International relations—Textbooks. 2. World politics—1945–1989—Textbooks. 3. World politics—1989—

  Textbooks. 4. United States—Foreign relations—1945–1989—Textbooks. 5. United States—Foreign relations— 1989—Textbooks. I. Berry, Nicholas O. II. Title. III. Title: New world of international relations. JZ1242.R67 2010 327—dc22

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  ISBN-13: 978-0-205-72376-8 ISBN-10: 0-205-72376-4

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  1

  Par t I The Cold War Come

  and Gone

  The Cold War dominated the latter half of the twentieth century and warped both of the mainantagonists—the United States and the Soviet Union, which the Cold War helped destroy.How they reached their present situations is thus worth study, both to show how the world got to where it is and to provide several concepts of international relations.

  Chapter 1 looks at the big picture—the transformation of the international system in the twentieth century and what seems to be emerging in the twenty-first century. Chapter 2 reviews America’s encounters with the world and uses them to illustrate the slippery and changeable concept of national interest. Over various periods of U.S. foreign policy—the independence war, manifest destiny, imperialism, World Wars I and II, isolationism, and the Cold War—U.S. national interests and the strategies to carry them out have changed in response to new threats and opportunities. George F. Kennan’s celebrated “containment” policy, for example, may be brilliant for one era but unworkable for the next (as Kennan himself lamented).

  Chapter 3 shows how we got into and out of the Vietnam War, something most young people know little about. The gap here between political generations is great. Few high schools get around to Vietnam in their crowded history curricula. Vietnam was a searing U.S. national tragedy, altering our foreign policy, undermining the economy and our confidence in government, and spawning a counterculture generation. We learn that government can be “wrong, terribly wrong,” in the words of Robert McNamara.

  Chapter 4 brings us to U.S. foreign policy today. Can we lead in this new, complex world situation? Do we wish to practice interventionism? Have we turned isolationist? Should we be motivated by ideals or self-interest? Do we have the economy, armed forces, and congressional support with which to lead a world that often does not follow us? Finally, do the institutions of our foreign policy tend to lead to policy errors and bureaucratic politics?

  With Chapter 5 we turn to our Cold War antagonist, the Soviet Union, and how it came to be, how Russia turned into the tyrannical Soviet Union. Russia raises questions of geopolitics: Is geography destiny? What role does ideology play in foreign policy? Was the Cold War inevitable?

  Chapter 6 explores why the Soviet Union collapsed. It considers how misperception of the outside world, hegemony over a costly empire, a failed détente, and increasingly critical elites driven by the fear of falling behind undermined regime legitimacy. Was Soviet foreign policy largely internally or externally generated? Russia under Putin returned to authoritarianism and hostility. Our difficulties with Russia are not over.

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  2

  Strange New World: Power and Systems in Transformation

  C h a p t e r 1

  Instead of quick in and quick out, U.S. forces had to occupy Iraq and even train its army. Many Americans questioned major overseas military activity. (John Moore/Getty Images)

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  International relations (IR) depend a lot on power, theability of one country to get another to do (or sometimes not do) something. International laws and institutions are

  too weak to rely on them the way we rely on domestic laws

  and institutions. In domestic politics, when we have a

  quarrel with someone, we “don’t take the law into our own

  hands; we take him to court.” In IR, it’s sometimes the

  reverse. There is no court, and self-help may be the only

  option available.

  A system is the way power is distributed around the globe. An international system is a sort of “power map” for a certain time period. If you can correctly figure out what the current system is—who’s got what kind of power—you know where you stand and how and when to use your power. For example, if many countries have roughly equal power, it is likely a “balance of power system” (explored presently). If one country has overwhelming power, enough to supervise the globe (unlikely), it might be a “unipolar system.” The turbulent twentieth century witnessed four IR systems.

  1. Pre–World War I. Dominance of the great European empires in the nineteenth century until 1914. In systems theory, this period exemplifies a balance-of-power system, but by 1910 it had decayed.

  2. World War I through World War II. The empires destroy themselves from 1914 to 1945. With several major players refusing to respond to threats, the interwar period might be termed an “antibalance-of-power” system. It is inherently unstable and temporary.

  3. Cold War. The collapse of the traditional European powers leaves the United States and USSR facing each other in a bipolar system. But the superpowers block and exhaust themselves from 1945 through the 1980s, and the bipolar system decays.

  4. Post–Cold War. The collapse of the Soviet Union ends bipolarity, but ideas on the new system are unclear, ranging from multipolar (several power centers) to zones of chaos and from globalization to clash of civilizations. We will consider several possibilities.

  Do not reify these periods and systems. They are just attempts to get a handle on reality; they are not reality itself. Reification is a constant temptation in the social sciences. Students especially like to memorize neat tables in preparing for exams. Okay, memorize them, but take them with a grain of salt. Notice that in the foregoing breakdown one period overlaps with the next. The European empires, for example, did not turn off with a click in 1945; they phased out over three decades. To try to understand a confusing world, social scientists are forced to simplify a very complex reality into

  1. What is power? 2. How can some types of power be

  unusable? 3. What is an international system? 4. What systems has the world gone

  through over a century? 5. What kind of a system is now

  operating? 6. Is this new system stable or

  unstable? 7. Are states and sovereignty still the

  foundations of IR?

  QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER

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  4 Chapter 1 Strange New World: Power and Systems in Transformation

  Power is widely misunderstood. It is not big countries beating up little countries. Power is one country’s ability to get another country to do what it wants: A gets B to do what A wants. There are many kinds of power: rational persuasion, economic, cultural, technological, and military. Typically, military power is used only as a last resort. Then it becomes force, a subset of power. When Ethiopia and Eritrea quarreled over their border, they mobilized their armies and got ready to use force.

  Countries use whatever kind of power they have. In 2008 President Bush asked Saudi Arabia to increase its oil production. Riyadh—to Bush’s face—said no. Massive U.S. military power was unable to sway Saudi Arabia’s oil power. In our age, energy resources have become one of the most important sources of power. Russia, with an unimpressive army, kept Europe respectful by oil and natural-gas exports. U.S. dependency on imported petro- leum is the Achilles heel of American power, one that we paid little attention to until recently.

  Sometimes, as the United States discovered in Vietnam, power is unusable. The crux of power, remem- ber, is getting the other country to do something—in the case of North Vietnam, to stop its forcible reunifica- tion with South Vietnam. Can American power really stop coca cultivation in the Andes, an area where governments either cannot stop the activity or (in the

  case of Bolivia) supports it? U.S. military power in 2003 beat the Iraqi army in three weeks but could not calm or control Iraq. If all your types of power—political, economic, and finally military—do not work in a partic- ular situation, you turn out to be not as powerful as you thought.

  Power cannot be closely calculated or predicted. The Soviet Union looked powerful but suddenly collapsed due to a faulty economy and tensions among its many na- tionalities. You often know who’s more powerful only after a war. Typically, before the war, both sides figured they were pretty powerful. The war serves as a terrible corrector of mistaken perceptions. Washington often re- lies too much on a bigger and better army, which does not always work. Remember, military is only one kind of power. No one—not the British, the Soviets, or the Americans, all very powerful—tamed Afghanistan. One’s power may be unsuitable to the problem at hand. Artillery and tanks may not work against religiously moti- vated guerrillas. Attempting to persuade another country may provoke resentment: “Who are you to tell us what to do?” (Washington often gets such replies from Beijing and Tehran.) Accordingly, power of whatever sort is best exercised cautiously. The question for our day is what kind of power we should emphasize—military, economic, or political?

  theories, models, time periods, and conceptual frameworks, all of them artificial. The systems approach is one such framework.

  Why should we bother naming and analyzing internation- al systems? Because if we misunderstand the system in which we operate, we can make terrible, expensive mistakes. For example, if we continue operating under the rules of the bipolar system of the Cold War—with its emphasis on military power—we will become frustrated and perplexed that our allies no longer follow our lead and that we seem to be creating new enemies. It will be like trying to play a game whose rules have changed. On the other hand, if we suppose we can stop massacres and promote democracy around the globe, we may collide with some nasty realities in “zones of chaos.” Understanding the world system means you can go with the flow of events (and sometimes manipulate them) instead of working against them.

  Concepts

  POWER

  international relations Interactions among countries.

  power Ability of one country to get another to do its bidding.

  domestic politics Interactions within countries.

  system Interaction of many components so that changing one changes the others.

  superpower Nation with far more power than others and the ability to wage many kinds of war nearly everywhere.

  reification Mistaking a theory for reality.

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  The European Balance-of-Power System 5

  The European Balance-of-Power System

  As we will consider in Chapter 7 on colonialism, in the nineteenth century Europe carved up the globe into empires and spheres of in- fluence. Some say they did it for economic gain, but imperial costs usually outweighed profits. Prestige and fear of someone else getting the territory were big moti- vators. It was perhaps a foolish system and terribly unfair to the “natives,” but it was a reasonably stable system and had several advantages for preserving peace. By denying their subjects self- rule, the imperial powers also denied them the possibility of going to war. Britain held down the latent violence between Hindus and Muslims in India. Upon India’s independence in 1947, vio-

  A system is something composed of many components that interact and influence each other. If the logic of a system can be discovered, one can roughly predict its evo- lution or at least warn what could go wrong. Statesmen who understand the current international system can react cleverly to threats and opportunities.

  The crux of systems is in the term “interact.” If something is truly a system, you cannot change just one part of it because all the other components also change. Systems thinking originated in biology. The human body is a system of heart, lungs, blood, and so on. Take away one component, and the body dies. Alter one, and the others try to adjust to compensate. Systems can be stable and self-correcting or they can break down, either from internal or external causes.

  After World War II, systems thinking spread to al- most every discipline, including international rela- tions. Thinkers—some focusing just on Europe, others on the entire globe—found that various systems have come and gone over the centuries, each operating with its own logic and producing variously stable and unstable results. Obviously, an unstable system does not last.

  The strong point about systems thinking is that it trains us to see the world as a whole rather than just as a series of unrelated happenings and problems. It also encourages us to think about how a clever states- man may create and manipulate a system to get de- sired results. If he presses here, what will come out there? Will it be bad or good?

  To some extent, international systems are artificial creations of varying degrees of handiwork. A system that obtains the assent of the major powers and goes with the forces of history may last a long time. A system that harms one or more major players and goes against the forces of history will surely soon be overturned. Systems do not fall from heaven but are crafted by intelligent minds such as Metternich and Bismarck. This brings an element of human intelligence and creativity into inter- national politics. It’s not just science; it is also an art that brings with it hopeful thinking.

  Does the world form a political system? It is surely composed of many parts, and they interact. The trouble is few thinkers totally agree on what the systems were, their time periods, and the logic of their operation. Looking at the four systems of the twentieth century, some would say there are only three, because the first and second should really be merged (the second was merely the decayed tail end of the first). Others would say, no, actually there are five, adding the period of the Axis dictatorships as a separate system.

  International-systems thinking is inexact, not yet a science. We have still not settled on what the pres- ent system is. In this chapter, we consider several attempts to describe the current system and note that none of them is completely satisfactory. With each proposed system, ask two questions: (1) Does it exist, and (2) will it persist? That is, does the proposed system match reality, and, if so, is it likely to remain stable and last for some time?

  Concepts

  SYSTEMS

  force Application of military power.

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  6 Chapter 1 Strange New World: Power and Systems in Transformation

  Changeab le alliance

  Changeable alliance

  lence erupted as two lands emerged from the Raj, India and Pakistan, and they have fought four wars since. Their next war could be nuclear; both have the bomb. The imperial system, then, was not all bad.

  Second, by carving up the globe in an agreed-upon fashion, the great empires mostly avoided wars among themselves. All powers understood that Britain had India, France had Indochina, the Netherlands had the East Indies, and so on. This has been called a balance-of-power system.

  Some historians and political scientists claim that during certain periods the power of the several major nations was similar, and they arranged this power, by means of alliances, to roughly balance. If country A felt threatened by country B, it would form an alliance with

  country C, hoping to deter B from aggression. Later, all of them might form an alliance to protect themselves from the growing power of country D. It did not always work, but it helped to hold down the number and ferocity of wars. For a balance-of-power system to function, theorists say, it took at least five major players who shared a common culture and viewpoint and a commitment not to wreck the system. Balance of power was like a poker game in which you decide you’d rather keep the game going than win all the money, so you refrain from bankrupting the other players. Graphically, it looks like this:

  balance of power Theory that states form alliances to offset threatening states.

  Westphalian System set up by 1648 Peace of Westphalia that made sovereignty the norm.

  sovereignty Concept that each state rules its territory.

  Metternichian Conservative restoration of balance of power after Napoleon.

  Historians see two great ages of balance of power, from 1648 to 1789 and again from 1814 to 1914. The Thirty Years War, mostly fought in Germany, pitted Catholics against Protestants and was the bloodiest in history until World War II. By the time it was settled in 1648 with the Peace of Westphalia, Europe’s monarchs had had enough of bashing each other and so constructed a balance-of-power system that endured until the French Revolution (1789) and Napoleonic wars (ending in 1814). The Westphalian system also established the concept of sovereignty (see discussion later in this chapter).

  Napoleon overturned the old system with unrestrained ambition and a mass army that conquered most of Europe. When Napoleon played poker, he tried to bankrupt all the other players. (He also cheated.) Gone was the restraint that had characterized the old system. Once Napoleon was beaten, Europe’s conservatives met under the guidance of Austrian Prince Metternich to construct a new balance-of-power system, sometimes called the Metternichian system. It worked moderately well for some decades, but only as long as monarchs restrained their ambitions and shared the values of legitimacy and stability. This slowly eroded with the effects of nationalism in the

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  The European Balance-of-Power System 7

  nineteenth century—especially with German unification in 1871— until it disappeared by World War I. There has not been a balance- of-power system since then. Some say there cannot be one again.

  Some scholars reject the balance-of-power theory, pointing out that there were nasty wars when power was supposed to be balanced, for example the Seven Years War (what Americans call the French and Indian War) of the 1750s or the Crimean War of the 1850s. Balance-of-power theorists counter by saying these were relatively small wars that did not wreck the overall system.

  Some writers hold that not balance of power but hierarchy of power acts to preserve peace. When nations know their position on a ladder of power, they are more likely to behave. The aftermath of a great, decisive war leaves a victor on top and a loser on the bottom, and this brings a few decades of peace. Critics say balance-of-power proponents have mistaken this hierarchy for a balance that never existed. All such hierarchies are temporary and eventually overturned as weaker states gain power and dominant states lose it.

  Either way, the nineteenth-century system started decaying when two newcomers demanded their own empires. Germany and Japan upset the system with demands for, as Berlin put it, “a place in the sun.” German unification (1871) and Japan’s Meiji Restoration (1868) produced powerful, dissatisfied nations eager to overturn the existing system. Tremors started around the turn of the century as Germany armed the Boers who were fighting the British, engaged Britain in a race to build battleships, and confronted France by boldly intervening in Morocco. At this same time in the Pacific, the Japanese took Taiwan from China, attacked and beat the Russians, and seized Korea.

  If someone had told Prussian Chancellor Bismarck that the unified Germany he created in 1871 would lead to two world wars and Europe’s destruction, he would have been aghast. Bismarck was a conservative, yet his handi- work brought radical, systemic change. Remember, in systems you cannot change just one thing, because everything else changes too. Bismarck supervised a giant change in the political geography of Europe—German unification—but this rippled outward, changing the global political system.

  Before Bismarck, Germany had been a patchwork of small kingdoms and principalities. After unification, Germany had the location, industry, and population to dominate Europe. Bismarck thought unified Germany could live in balance and at peace with the other European powers. He was neither a militarist nor an expansionist. Instead, after unification, Bismarck con- centrated on making sure an alliance of hostile powers

  did not form around his Second Reich. Trying to play the old balance-of-power game, Bismarck made several treaties with other European powers proclaiming friendship and mutual aid.

  But the Bismarckian system was not as stable as the earlier Metternichian system (see page 6). Bismarck’s unified Germany had changed the European—and to some extent global—political geography. German nation- alism was now unleashed. A new Kaiser and his generals were nationalistic and imperialistic. They thought Bismarck was too cautious and fired him in 1890. Then they started empire building, arms races, and alliance with Austria. The French and Russians, alarmed at this, formed what Kennan called the “fateful alliance.” Thus, on the eve of World War I, Europe was arrayed into two hostile blocs, something Bismarck desperately tried to avoid. Without knowing or wanting it, Bismarck helped destroy Europe.

  Turning Point

  BISMARCK: SYSTEM CHANGER

  hierarchy of power Theory that peace is preserved when states know where they stand on a ladder of relative power.

  Bismarckian Contrived, unstable balance of power from 1870 to 1914.

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  8 Chapter 1 Strange New World: Power and Systems in Transformation

  Pa ss

  iv e

  Expansionist

  powers

  Passive

  Passive

  Pa ss

  iv e

  If there had been a balance-of-power system during the nineteenth century, it was no longer operative by the start of the twentieth century. Balance of power requires at least five players who are able to make and remake alliances. Flexibility and lack of passion

  are the keys here. Instead, by 1914 Europe was divided into two hostile, rigid alliances. When one alliance member went to war—first Austria against Serbia—it dragged in its respective backers. By the time the war broke out, the balance-of-power system was no longer functioning.

  The Unstable Interwar System

  World War I was the initial act of Europe’s self-destruction. Some 10 million of Europe’s finest young men died. Four empires—the German, Austro-Hungarian, Russian, and Turkish—collapsed. From the wreckage flowered the twin evils of communism and fascism. The “winners”—Britain and France— were so drained and bitter they were unable to enforce the provisions of the Versailles Treaty on the defeated nations. The international economy was seriously wounded and collapsed a decade later.

  World War I led directly to World War II. The dissatisfied losers of the first war—Germany and Austria—joined with two dissatisfied winners—Italy and Japan (Japan participated in a minor way by seizing German possessions in China and the Pacific during World War I)—while another loser, Russia, tried to stay on the sidelines.

  Another connecting link between the two wars was the failure of any balance-of-power system to function, this time by design. Balance-of-power thinking stood discredited after World War I. Many blamed the cynical manipulations of power balancers for the war. This is an unfair charge, as the system had already broken down before the war. Maybe balance of power is a defective system, but the start of World War I by itself does not prove that point. At any rate, the winning democracies—Britain, France, and the United States—chose not to play balance of power, and from their decision flowed the catastrophe of World War II.

  What do we call this strange and short-lived interwar system? It was not balance of power because the democracies refused to play. The dictators, sensing the vacuum, moved in to take what they could. We might, for want of a better term, call it an “antibalance-of-power system.” Britain and France, weary from the previous war and putting too much faith in the League of Nations and human reason, finally met force with force only when it was too late; Germany nearly beat them both. Graphically, it looked like this:

  interwar Between World Wars I and II, 1919–1939.

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  The Bipolar Cold War System 9

  Stalin’s Soviet Union also refused to play (see Chapter 5). Here it was a case of ideological hatred against the capitalist powers and the conviction they were doomed anyway. The United States also refused to play balance of power. Isolationism plus verbal protests to Japan over the rape of China were thought to keep us at a safe distance from the conflagration (see Chapter 17). We did not need much military might; we had two oceans. In 1941, both the Soviet Union and the United States learned they could not hide from hostile power.

  Europe destroyed itself again in World War II. Into the power vacuum moved Stalin’s Red Army, intent on making East Europe a security zone for the Soviet Union. The Japanese empire disappeared, leaving another vacuum in Asia. The Communists, first in China and North Korea, then in North Vietnam, took over. The great European empires, weak at home and facing anticolonial nationalism, granted independence to virtually all their imperial holdings (see Chapter 7). Britain, the great balancer of the nineteenth century, ceded its place to the United States. The age of the classic empires was over, replaced by the dominance of two superpowers.