Foreign Policy

Instruments
December 8, 2011

Exercise
Come up with several broad and
several narrow research
questions that might be
generated from todays readings

Questions
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?

Gaddis: Detente

Dtente 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

Dtente as a Method of
Containment

Dtente 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).

Assessment: Successes
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: Failures
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

Larger Analysis
Gaddis softens this judgment by arguing that these
failures do not reflect on the overall goals of dtente
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 Failings contd

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 dtente in general).

Problems with Reagans

Abandonment of Dtente:
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.

General (Realist) Problems with

Democracy Revealed by Dtente
Interlude

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

Knock: Does Foreign Aid

Promote Democracy
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

Preliminary Evidence

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.

Counter-evidence (contd)
Aid may strengthen executives at the
expense of legislators, particularly through
conditionality.
Aid might make corruption worse by
diversion of funds into private accounts.

Results
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.

Meernick: Military Intervention

and Democracy
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 nondemocracies) 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?

Relevant Literature
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 nondemocracies 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
(contd)
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.

Method
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

Results
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.

Freedman: Escalators and

Quagmires
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.

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.

Escalators and 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.

Quagmire
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.

Lessons
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.