The Grand Strategies of Small States

2021 ◽  
pp. 489-505
Author(s):  
Anders Wivel
Keyword(s):  
Political Culture ◽  
National Security ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Great Power ◽  
Grand Strategy ◽  
Small States ◽  
Small State ◽  
Security Environment ◽  
Similarities And Differences ◽  
Grand Strategies

This article discusses the nature, opportunities and limitations of small state grand strategy. It identifies the similarities and differences between the grand strategies of small states and great powers and unpacks the nature of traditional defensive small state grand strategies hiding and shelter-seeking as well as more recent offensive, influence-seeking small state grand strategies under the heading of smart state strategy. The article argues that while small state grand strategy remains tied to national security and is formulated in the shadow of great power interests, a changing security environment creates both the need and opportunity for small states to use their weakness instrumentally for maximizing interests. The likelihood of success depends on a pragmatic political culture and the willingness and ability to prioritize goals and means to utilize their nonthreatening small state status in “smart” or “entrepreneurial” policies.

Alternatives to Grand Strategy

2021 ◽  
pp. 619-636
Author(s):  
Peter Dombrowski
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
The United States ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Great Power ◽  
Grand Strategy ◽  
Military Leaders ◽  
Potential Conflict ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
Grand Strategies

The other contributions in this volume take seriously the proposition that having a universal grand strategy is essential for a great power. This chapter considers three alternative propositions: (1) that in many cases grand strategy in a classic sense is not achievable given bureaucratic and political impediments, (2) that all great powers do not require a grand strategy, and, (3) that under some circumstances, the great power can thrive by pursuing calibrated grand strategies depending on both region and threats. The first proposition will build upon the work of scholars (Jervis 1998; Metz 1997) who have argued that the United States and other countries often “muddle through” both strategic formulation and implementation. The second considers arguments about the process of developing grand strategies, such as those advanced by Ionut Popescu (2017) who advocate focusing on “emergent strategies” as understood by scholars studying business corporations. The final proposal builds upon my own research (Reich and Dombrowski 2018) that argues that it is impossible to implement one coherent grand strategy: there are six variants and the United States has inevitably pursued many if not all of them simultaneously in the post–Cold War era. Inverting top-down formulations, the choice of any one strategy in a theater of (potential) conflict is contingent upon the nature of the threat, the actors, and the potential conflicts as interpreted by senior political and military leaders, and the bureaucratic environment in which they operate. In the end, this chapter offers both conceptual and substantive challenges to traditional understandings of grand strategy.

Population Aging and Grand Strategy

2021 ◽  
pp. 720-736
Author(s):  
Mark L. Haas
Keyword(s):  
Quality Of Life ◽  
Population Aging ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Grand Strategy ◽  
Perceived Threat ◽  
Demographic Trend ◽  
Foreign Policies ◽  
Grand Strategies ◽  
A Share

This chapter examines the effects of population aging on states’ grand strategies. Due to major reductions in fertility levels and significant increases in life expectancies over the course of the last century, a majority of countries are growing older, many at fantastic rates and extent. The number of seniors, both absolutely and as a share of states’ overall population, is reaching unprecedented levels. This worldwide demographic trend is likely to affect all dimensions of states’ grand strategies, including in the great powers, which are among the world’s oldest countries. Population aging is likely to reduce states’ military capabilities, push leaders to adopt more isolationist and peaceful foreign policies, reshape states’ core international interests to place greater emphasis on the advancement of citizens’ quality of life and the protection of particular ethnocultural identities, and increase the perceived threat posed by immigration and multicultural ideologies.

Immoderate greatness: Is great power restraint a practical grand strategy?

2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 111-132 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tudor Onea
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Use Of Force ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Great Power ◽  
Grand Strategy ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
Victorian Britain ◽  
Scaling Down ◽  
Splendid Isolation ◽  
Self Defence

AbstractThe article examines when and how often great powers are likely to follow a grand strategy of restraint and whether there is any evidence that they have ever done so. The question has considerable implications for the ongoing US grand strategy debate. Restraint refers to the practice of self-discipline in the use of force for self-defence or for addressing massive power imbalances; and in extending security commitments to foreign political actors. The first part of the article examines statistics in the last two hundred years on great power involvement in wars and disputes as well as on their commitments to alliances and dependencies. The second part considers whether two seeming cases of the dominant power scaling down its international involvement – Ming China withdrawal from naval mastery in the fifteenth century and Victorian Britain splendid isolation – represent instances of genuine restraint.

Of Lambs and Lions: Relations Between Great Powers and their Smaller Neighbors

1988 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 111-122
Author(s):  
Olav F. Knudsen
Keyword(s):  
Great Powers ◽  
Great Power ◽  
Dyadic Relationships ◽  
Mutual Relationship ◽  
Small State ◽  
Political Pressure ◽  
Key Features ◽  
State Relations ◽  
Freedom Of Action ◽  
Causal Variables

Knudsen, O. F. Of Lambs and Lions: Relations Between Great Powers and their Smaller Neighbors. Cooperation and Conflict, XXIII, 1988, 111-122. The relations between great powers and their smaller neighbors are accentuated cases of great-power/small-state relations generally and thus potentially useful for exploring such asymmetries. The article presents a model to explain key features of asymmetric dyadic relationships, in particular the application of political pressure by a great power against its smaller neighbor(s). The model includes three causal variables: tension between the great powers; great-power neighbor's extroversion; the smaller neighbor's foreign policy orientation. The concept of "freedom of action" is critically scrutinized and rejected. It is replaced as dependent variable by "the great-power's propensity to apply pressure against the small state". The elements of the model are presented and discussed. The overall argument of the article is that relations between contiguous small and great powers tend to be unstable, due to (a) the fact that the neighbor's relations are largely shaped by factors outside the bilateral relationship, and (b) the asymmetric importance of the mutual relationship to the two parties.

Europe: Strategies for Co-operation and Joint Solutions

2014 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 259-270
Author(s):  
Adam Daniel Rotfeld
Keyword(s):  
National Security ◽  
Qualitative Change ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
European Security ◽  
The West ◽  
The Core ◽  
Security Environment ◽  
Ukraine Crisis ◽  
Emerging Powers

The article examines the sustainability and adaptability of European security institutions, structures and organizations in the context of the fundamental and qualitative change of the post-Helsinki European security order. Suggestions are presented for managing the Ukraine crisis by military and political restraint, the observance of the Helsinki Decalogue of principles and by upgrading executive mechanisms of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (osce). In a new European security order, the core political components would be constituted by the inviolability of frontiers and the incontestability of internal political order. In broader international change, the relative decrease of the role of old powers has to be accommodated with the growing clout of emerging powers. Since most of the conflicts take place within the States and not between them the risks and new threats have to be dealt with by transformed and upgraded security institutions adapted to the new security environment. At the same time, there is a manifested lack of interests by the great powers to rely on multilateral security institutions unless they are used as instruments in pursuing their own strategies. The new common security arrangement for the West and Russia has to reconcile the adversary national security interests within the Euro-Atlantic Security Forum.

Small States

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yee-Kuang Heng
Keyword(s):  
Soft Power ◽  
Structural Changes ◽  
International System ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Small States ◽  
International Studies ◽  
Small State ◽  
Military Conflict ◽  
Strategic Competition ◽  
Endogenous Variables

Scholarship in international studies has usually tended to focus on the great powers. Yet, studying small state behavior can in fact reveal deep-seated structural changes in the international system and provide significant insights into the management of power asymmetries. Overcoming the methodological limitations of gigantism in scholarship and case study selection is another epistemological benefit. Rather than conventional assumptions of weaknesses and vulnerabilities, research on small states has moved in fascinating directions toward exploring the various strategies and power capabilities that small states must use to manage their relationships with great powers. This means, even in some cases, attempts to forcibly shape their external environments through military instruments not usually associated with the category of small states. Clearly, small states are not necessarily hapless or passive. Even in terms of power capabilities that often define their weaknesses, some small states have in fact adroitly deployed niche hard power military capabilities and soft power assets as part of their playbook. These small states have projected influence in ways that belie their size constraints. Shared philosophies and mutual learning processes tend to underpin small state strategies seeking to maximize whatever influence and power they have. These include forming coalitions, principled support for international institutions, and harnessing globalization to promote their development and security interests. As globalization has supercharged the rapid economic development of some small states, the vicissitudes that come with interdependence have also injected a new understanding of vulnerability beyond that of simply military conflict. To further complicate the security environment, strategic competition between the major powers inevitably impacts on small states. How small states boost their “relevance” vis-à-vis the great powers has broader implications for questions that have animated the academy, such as power transitions and the Thucydides Trap in the international system. While exogenous systemic variables no doubt remain the focus of analysis, emerging research shows how endogenous variables such as elite perceptions, geostrategic locations and availability of military and economic resources can play a key role determining the choices small states make.

Intelligence and Grand Strategy

2021 ◽  
pp. 405-421
Author(s):  
Joshua Rovner
Keyword(s):  
National Security ◽  
Use Of Force ◽  
Grand Strategy ◽  
Covert Action ◽  
Liberal Internationalism ◽  
Logical Basis ◽  
Intelligence Services ◽  
Grand Strategies ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter explores the relationship between intelligence and grand strategy. The first section discusses how intelligence informs grand strategy, and describes several factors that limit its influence. The second section introduces the concept of an intelligence posture, which describes how states build and operate their intelligence services. A state’s intelligence posture reflects its choices about how to collect information, how to prioritize what it collects, and whether to employ covert action abroad. These choices depend on the state’s broader approach to national security. Grand strategy guides key decisions about spying and sabotage, just as it provides the logical basis for the use of force. The chapter illustrates this idea by sketching intelligence postures for three grand strategies: restraint, liberal internationalism, and primacy.

Grand Strategy and the Tools of Economic Statecraft

2021 ◽  
pp. 369-388
Author(s):  
Bryan R. Early ◽  
Keith Preble
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Framework ◽  
Foreign Aid ◽  
Economic Sanctions ◽  
Economic Cooperation ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Grand Strategy ◽  
Nonstate Actors ◽  
Commercial Policy ◽  
Economic Statecraft ◽  
Grand Strategies

Economic statecraft provides great powers with a set of valuable tools they can employ in pursuing grand strategies, but the importance of its contribution is often overlooked. This chapter provides a conceptual framework for understanding how policymakers can leverage the tools of economic statecraft to achieve major objectives in pursuit of their grand strategies, including: bargaining, balancing, generating power and prosperity, signaling and norms promotion, and influencing nonstate actors. It then maps how economic sanctions, foreign aid, strategic commercial policy, and institutionalized economic cooperation can best contribute to the realization of these objectives. The analysis reveals that the flexibility of economic sanctions and foreign aid in achieving numerous objectives helps explain why great powers rely so heavily upon them.

Grand strategy in a post-bipolar world: interpreting the final Soviet response

1992 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 355-375
Author(s):  
Raymond Taras ◽  
Marshal Zeringue
Keyword(s):  
International System ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Grand Strategy ◽  
International Environment ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
Grand Strategies ◽  
Distribution Of Power ◽  
Do So

All great powers have a grand strategy—including great powers on the verge of collapse. Each power develops its code of national security ends and means differently. Among the myriad factors which explain particular grand strategies, the most important consideration is the distribution of power capabilities in the international system. Regardless of each state's desire to operate independently—to be master of its own grand strategy—the structure of world politics offers little latitude to do so. As in the case of decision-making processes in organizations and bureaucracies, the international system imposes its own constraints and incentives on the security goals of individual states. Primarily addressing the international environment, however, systems theory ‘provides criteria for differentiating between stable and unstable political configurations.’ The first objective of this essay is to explore the role of structure as an indirect influence on the behaviour of its constituent actors, in this case, states. ‘The effects [of structure] are produced in two ways: through socialization of the actors and through competition among them.’

Small state survival in a system of collective hegemony: the concert system, 1815–1918

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthias Maass
Keyword(s):  
International Politics ◽  
First World War ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Small States ◽  
World War ◽  
Small State ◽  
The First World War ◽  
First World ◽  
State Survival

The 4th chapter starts with the Congress of Vienna 1814/15 and moves the discussion to the eve of the First World War. At Vienna, the so-called concert system was introduced, and it structured most of 19th century international politics. But how did the small state fare in the 19th century system? During the first half of the century, small state numbers continued to erode before the all but collapsed in the later decades of the century. These historic losses of small states, it is argued, stem largely from the particular ‘oligopolistic’ features of the concert system and its key modifiers. Small state survivability decreased as great powers formed a cartel and later split into two hostile camps.

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