Classical Liberals and Foreign Policy: Time for a Rethink?

2017 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dalibor Rohac
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Security Policy ◽  
The United States ◽  
Critical Assessment ◽  
Classical Liberalism ◽  
Free Enterprise ◽  
Limited Government ◽  
Classical Liberal ◽  
Foreign And Security Policy ◽  
Rules Of The Game

AbstractThis paper provides a critical assessment of classical liberals’ view of foreign and security policy. In the United States, the defenders of free enterprise and limited government have embraced a neorealist perspective on international relations, which typically prescribes restraint for a country’s engagement overseas. Neorealism and classical liberalism, however, make strange bedfellows. Neorealism does not share the commitment to methodological individualism embraced by the classical liberal tradition and ignores the problems related to the aggregation of individual preferences into concepts such as the “national interest.” Neorealism also downplays the importance of institutions, understood as rules of the game, in favor of crude power calculus. Finally, neorealism is incompatible with the universalist, cosmopolitan outlook of classical liberalism.

scholarly journals EUROPEAN UNION’S QUEST FOR STRATEGIC AUTONOMY AND BIDEN’S FOREIGN POLICY

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (2/2021) ◽  
pp. 29-44
Author(s):  
Milan Igrutinovic
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Security Policy ◽  
The United States ◽  
First Year ◽  
Slow Recovery ◽  
Foreign And Security Policy ◽  
Strategic Autonomy ◽  
The Eu

Over the last decade the EU has faced challenges on numerous fronts: economic crisis and slow recovery, refugee crisis, terrorism, Brexit, lack of effectiveness of its foreign and security policy. In recent years, the EU has put new effort to define its purpose and standing in international relations, and it seeks to become strategically autonomous actor. That means an actor with the ability to set priorities and make decisions. As the role of the United States is still pre-eminent in the security of Europe, the EU-US relations have a special bearing on that EU’s ambition. In this paper we provide an overview of the relations between these two actors with the focus on the first year of Joseph Biden presidency, and we argue that through a complex interaction the EU will seek to define its policies independently of the United States, wishing to expand its space for maneuver and action.

scholarly journals Poland, Ukraine, and the Idea of Strategic Partnership

1999 ◽  
pp. 46
Author(s):  
Stephen R. Burant
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Public Relations ◽  
Security Policy ◽  
The United States ◽  
Strategic Partnership ◽  
Foreign And Security Policy ◽  
Political Differences ◽  
The Relationship

Both Ukrainian and Polish policymakers have come to use the term strategic partnership to characterize the relationship between their two countries. Teodozii Starak, an adviser to the Ukrainian Embassy in Poland, has stated that strategic partnership "means that both [Ukraine and Poland] demonstrate coordinated stances and support each other in the most important political areas. " However, Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma also regularly uses the term to characterize his country's relations with Russia. In addition, Ukrainian officials have labeled China, the United States, Germany, and Bulgaria as Ukraine's strategic partners. The use of the term with reference to Russia-with which Ukraine throughout the 1990s has had serious political differences-or Bulgaria or China, which are not priorities for Ukrainian foreign and security policy, appears to strip it of any significance; the term implies, at best, a goal, or, at worst, a public relations effort.

Die europäisch-amerikanischen Beziehungen unter US-Präsident Trump

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Scientific Knowledge ◽  
Security Policy ◽  
Practical Approach ◽  
European American ◽  
Policy Recommendations ◽  
Recommendations For Action ◽  
Foreign And Security Policy

In U.S. foreign and security policy under President Donald J. Trump clearly recognizable tectonic shifts have become visible (keyword: “America first”). This study by the Cologne Forum for International Relations and Security Policy (KFIBS) takes stock of the development of European-American relations. In particular, possible “EUropean” responses to the diverse transatlantic challenges that have arisen from the Trump era are the focus of this volume and their range and effectiveness are being investigated. In addition to the analysis, recommendations for action and policy recommendations have been formulated in terms of a practical approach to conveying scientific knowledge. With contributions by Sascha Arnautović, Jakob Wiedekind, Anna Hardage, Hendrik W. Ohnesorge and Aylin Matlé.

The ‘Obama Doctrine’ – Vision for Change?

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Georg Löfflmann
Keyword(s):  
Security Policy ◽  
American Exceptionalism ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Debate ◽  
Political Role ◽  
Strategic Vision ◽  
Academic Researchers ◽  
Foreign And Security Policy ◽  
The Media

The chapter explores how as President of the United States, Barack Obama was in a constant exchange with both political opponents and diverging voices within his own administration over defining America’s world political role and the purpose behind American power. The chapter describes how Obama’s strategic vision not only informed the political debate and determined policy, but also represented the central hub in an intertextual network of grand strategy discourses, providing the focus for the policy advice and criticism of Washington think tanks, the reporting and commentary of the media, and the intellectual attention of academic researchers interested in the study of US foreign and security policy. The chapter examines how Obama reconfirmed a national and bipartisan consensus, -the ideational dimension of American exceptionalism, liberal hegemony, and military supremacy-, while linking this identity to a pragmatic policy course of cooperative engagement and military restraint that large segments of the Washington establishment rejected for challenging the elite consensus on liberal hegemony.

1. International Relations and the European Union

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Hill ◽  
Michael Smith ◽  
Sophie Vanhoonacker
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Political Economy ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Security Policy ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Defence Policy ◽  
Foreign And Security Policy ◽  
Eu Policies ◽  
The Eu

This edition examines the contexts in which the European Union has reflected and affected major forces and changes in international relations (IR) by drawing on concepts such as balance of power, multipolarity, multilateralism, interdependence, and globalization. It explores the nature of policymaking in the EU's international relations and the ways in which EU policies are pursued within the international arena. Topics include the EU's role in the global political economy, how the EU has developed an environmental policy, and how it has attempted to graft a common defence policy onto its generalized foreign and security policy. This chapter discusses the volume's methodological assumptions and considers three perspectives on IR and the EU: the EU as a subsystem of IR, the EU and the processes of IR, and the EU as a power in IR. It also provides an overview of the chapters that follow.

Arms Control and Nuclear Safety: The National and International Politics of Russia's Nuclear Arsenal

1995 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 510-532
Author(s):  
Christoph Bluth
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Russian Federation ◽  
Security Policy ◽  
The United States ◽  
National Interests ◽  
Independent State ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Foreign And Security Policy ◽  
The Russian Federation ◽  
To Come

RUSSIAN FOREIGN POLICY IS STILL IN A STATE OF FLUX. LIKE the other former republics of the Soviet Union, the Russian Federation seeks to come to terms with being an independent state needing to define its national interests and foreign and security policy objectives.The principal element in the new frame of reference for Moscow is the disintegration of the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union itself. For forty years, most of the territories controlled by Moscow were adjacent to territories protected by the United States, or else to China. The Russian Federation is now virtually surrounded by former Soviet republics, all with deep political, social and economic problems, and some of which are highly unstable and subject to violent civil conflicts. The territory of the Russian Federation itself, about 75 per cent of the territory of the former USSR with about 60 per cent of its population, is still not properly defined, given that significant sections of the borders are purely notional, and the degree of control that Moscow can exercise over the entire Federation is uncertain.

Weltmacht im Abseits

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Security Policy ◽  
The United States ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Us ◽  
Cast Doubt ◽  
Foreign And Security Policy ◽  
Second World ◽  
Presidential Election Campaign

The election of Donald Trump as the 45th President of the United States surprised the world and aroused great anxiety. His ‘America First’ rhetoric had already fuelled concerns that his presidency would be radical during the presidential election campaign in 2016. Above all, it seemed to cast doubt on the US’ claim to global leadership, which was regarded as the foundation of the global order that the US had helped to form since the Second World War. From both an internal and external perspective, this book examines the social, institutional and international reasons for the USA’s foreign and security policy under Trump. With contributions by Hakan Akbulut, Florian Böller, Andreas Falke, Gerlinde Groitl, Steffen Hagemann, Lukas D. Herr, Gerhard Mangott, Marcus Müller, Sonja Thielges, Charlotte Unger and Jürgen Wilzewski.

scholarly journals Conflict-Generating Potential of Brexit: National, Regional, and Global Dimensions

2020 ◽  
pp. 803-821
Author(s):  
Andrii Hrubinko
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
European Integration ◽  
Security Policy ◽  
Negative Impact ◽  
Eu Enlargement ◽  
Eu Member States ◽  
Foreign And Security Policy ◽  
Research Findings ◽  
Global Arena ◽  
The Eu

The article presents the research findings on a set of challenges and threats to the national and international order that have arisen as a result of Brexit. As far as the author is concerned, Brexit has not only a significant conflict-generating impact on British realities but also causes tremendous challenges and threats to international security. The means of preventing and addressing these challenges are far from obvious and are yet to be fully developed. Most of the challenges, just like the UK’s withdrawal from the EU, have a negative impact on Ukraine’s international status and prospects in the global arena, particularly with regard to European integration and counter the Russian aggression. The regional, or all-European, implications of Brexit are manifested in rising Euroskepticism, pervasive disintegration (nationalist) sentiments in EU member states, heavy image losses of European integration in general and the EU in particular as its principal outcome, weakened abilities of the EU in the strategically important sphere of foreign and security policy, the slowdown in the fundamental process of EU enlargement, and a significant realignment of political forces in the union. The global implications of Brexit consist in the EU’s weakened international standing, the enhanced process of reviewing EU-US relations, a new, almost unprecedented, technological level of information propaganda, and a rapprochement of the EU and Russia. The historical and modern trends analysed permit a preliminary conclusion on who will ultimately benefit most from the completion of Brexit and the UK’s permanent withdrawal from the EU, which has become a part of the regional and global struggle for influence in international relations. Keywords: Brexit, Great Britain, European Union, European integration, conflict-generating potential, international relations.

scholarly journals WESTERN BALKANS U. S. POLICY IN THE CONTEXT OF THE PRESIDENT TRUMP’S GRAND STRATEGY

2019 ◽  
Vol 65 (3/2019) ◽  
pp. 13-42
Author(s):  
Dragan Simić ◽  
Dragan Živojinović
Keyword(s):  
Security Policy ◽  
The United States ◽  
Foreign Affairs ◽  
Grand Strategy ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Western Balkans ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
National Security Strategy ◽  
Foreign And Security Policy ◽  
Set Up

Many critics of Donald Trump argue that Donald Trump’s Grand Strategy is an absence of Grand Strategy or that his foreign and security policy is driven by impulses and tactical approach. However, such policy leaves us with practical consequences which mean that we have to follow this sort of a Donald Trump approach to foreign affairs and politics in general. The best guide in that sense would be the 2017 U. S. National Security Strategy idea of principled realism which is the most important written strategic statement of the Trump administration up to this date. If Trump’s approach “is guided by outcomes not ideology” and if “prosperity depend on strong, sovereign nations that respect their citizens at home and cooperate to advance peace abroad”, then the U. S. policy to Western Balkans has to be considered in that context. The Prespa agreement between Greece and North Macedonia is one form of that approach put in practice. Having in mind Belgrade–Pristina negotiations and Bosnia and Herzegovina’s future as well, the main thesis of this paper is that we may expect some kind of unusual approach from the United States to this region, different from the framework that was set up in the 1990s. That will have consequences both for the region and for the outside great powers, especially the European Union.

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