Superpowers in Post Cold War Era

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SUPERPOWERS IN THE POST-COLD WAR ERA

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Also by Martin A. Smith BUILDING A BIGGER EUROPE? EU and NATO Enlargement in Comparative Perspective (with Graham Timmins) ON ROCKY FOUNDATIONS: NATO, the UN and Peace Operations in the Post-Cold War Era

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First published in Great Britain 1999 by

MACMILLAN PRESS LTD Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and London Companies and representatives throughout the world A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN 0–333–76069–7 First published in the United States of America 1999 by ST. MARTIN’S PRESS, INC., Scholarly and Reference Division, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 ISBN 0–312–22262–9 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Aldred, Ken, 1937– Superpowers in the post-Cold War era / Ken Aldred, Martin A. Smith. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0–312–22262–9 (cloth) 1. World politics—1989– 2. United States—Foreign relations—1989– 3. Great powers. I. Smith, Martin A., 1965– . II. Title. D860.A58 1999 327.1'09'049—dc21 99–12667 CIP © Ken Aldred and Martin A. Smith 1999 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1P 0LP. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The authors have asserted their rights to be identified as the authors of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. 10 08

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Printed and bound in Great Britain by Antony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham, Wiltshire

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Superpowers in the Post-Cold War Era Ken Aldred Director of the Council for Arms Control Centre for Defence Studies King’s College London

and

Martin A. Smith Senior Lecturer in Defence and International Affairs Royal Military Academy Sandhurst Honorary Visiting Research Fellow in Peace Studies University of Bradford

Contents Preface

vii

Glossary of Names and Terms

ix

1 Power Power Defined Power in Pre-Cold War History Co-operation and Management by Leading Powers

1 1 7 14

2 The Two Cold War Superpowers The Superpower Concept American Power and Influence in the Cold War Years Soviet Power, Decline and Collapse in the Cold War Years Superpower Co-operation in the Cold War Years

18 18

3 The United States: Cajoler or Controller? American Power Resources and Policy The United States in the World since 1989 The United States in a Unitripolar World

50 50 69 95

20 31 46

4 Succeeding the Soviet Union Russia ‘In Itself’ and Its Foreign Policy Priorities Russia and the Former Soviet Republics Russia in the Wider Global Context Russian Power in the Post-Soviet Era

97 97 107 119 131

5 What Next for Europe? Western Europe as a ‘Civilian Power’ Western Europe’s Corporate Personality The European Union’s Security Void Western Europe’s Confidence and the United States European Power since 1989

133 133 143 148 152 163

6 Has the Winner Taken All? Superpower The United States as Hegemon? A Unitripolar World

165 165 171 173

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Winner Takes All? Power and Superpower after the Cold War

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Notes

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Index

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Preface This book deals with the issue of power in international relations. It is focused on the period of recent history following the end of the Cold War in 1989–91. The authors look at the leading international powers in this period of change. They seek to identify what has made these particular states powerful, and whether the key power-attributes of the Cold War have remained relevant and important as the 1990s have unfolded. Equally important has been the use made of the leading states’ power because power itself is a proactive commodity. Simply possessing the resources which make for power is not sufficient. A core argument of this book is that effective leading states are those which are able and willing to project power and influence consistently and successfully beyond their own national boundaries. The question ‘what is power?’ is obviously a fundamental one. In Chapter 1 the authors address it by breaking the concept down and considering its main component parts. A working definition is put together which acts as the framework of analysis for the rest of the book. In Chapter 2 the authors apply their definition, and provide essential historical background, in an analysis of the nature and exercising of power by the leading countries of the Cold War era: the United States and the Soviet Union. With the end of the Cold War, it has become commonplace to view the US as being the world’s sole remaining ‘superpower’. What this means in practice, and the extent to which the United States really has occupied the role since 1989, are the key issues in Chapter 3. In Chapter 4 the fate of Russia, as the Soviet Union’s chief successor state, is considered. The Soviet Union was accepted as a second superpower; but what are the prospects of Russia, as its heir, retaining or attaining a similar status? During the Cold War period, Europe was caught in the middle of the US–Soviet standoff. During the early 1990s, however, with that situation at an end, speculation began to mount as to whether Europe itself, or at least those of its western states grouped together in the European Union, might assume status and influence akin to a superpower. The prospects of this coming to pass are explored in Chapter 5. vii

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Undertaking an overview of power-relations in the post-Cold War world is, by definition, an ambitious task. In order to make it more manageable for both the authors and prospective readers, the main focus of this book has been confined to the states and regions which were of principal significance during the Cold War. Thus Europe is given a chapter of its own, whilst Asia is not and Asian security issues are instead discussed in sections of all the chapters between Chapter 3 and the concluding Chapter 6. These discussions focus mainly on how Asia has affected, and been affected by, the three key actors of the Cold War years: the US, USSR/Russia and Western Europe. This treatment is not intended to downplay the importance of the Asian region in contemporary world affairs. However, the specific focus of this book is an examination of the extent to which the main Cold War powers have developed, maintained, or lost power in the years since 1989. Very often when post-Cold War international relations are discussed, words like ‘transition’ and ‘flux’ are used to describe them. The findings in this study, which are brought together in Chapter 6, suggest that, notwithstanding the many uncertainties which do remain, it is nevertheless possible to answer with at least a reasonable degree of assurance vital questions on where international power will rest, and how it will be used in the first years of the next millennium. KEN ALDRED MARTIN A. SMITH London

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Glossary of Names and Terms APEC ARF ASEAN ASEM BEC CDSP CDPSP CFSP CIS CoE CSCE CSRC EC EDC EPC EU

FRG FRUS GATT GNP I-For IMF Mercosur NAFTA NATO OECD OSCE

Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation Forum ASEAN Regional Forum Association of South-East Asian Nations Asia–Europe Meeting Bulletin of the European Communities The Current Digest of the Soviet Press The Current Digest of the Post-Soviet Press Common Foreign & Security Policy (of the European Union) Commonwealth of Independent States Council of Europe Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (until November 1994) Conflict Studies Research Centre European Community (until November 1993) European Defence Community European Political Co-operation European Union (subsumed the EC when the Maastricht Treaty came into force from November 1993) Federal Republic of Germany Foreign Relations of the United States General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade Gross National Product Implementation Force International Monetary Fund Mercado Comun del Sur (southern common market) North American Free Trade Agreement North Atlantic Treaty Organisation Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (the CSCE’s new name from November 1994) ix

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x RFE/RL SEA USDSD USPGO WEU WTO UN

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Glossary of Names and Terms RFE/RL Research Report The Single European Act US Department of State Dispatch US Government Printing Office Western European Union World Trade Organisation (replaced the GATT from 1994) United Nations

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1 Power Power: what it is, who has it, and how it is used, are questions which lie at the heart of international relations. This book is concerned with the nature and uses of power by leading countries or groups of countries. Because it is such an important concept, this first chapter will focus on defining power and the ways in which it can be exercised in international affairs. The authors are interested in the kind of power which enables those which possess it to aspire to a leading or dominant status and role.

POWER DEFINED A very common basic definition of power sees it being exercised when A gets B to do something which B might not otherwise do. Because two or more actors are involved in a situation in which it is exercised, it is usually argued that power is relative. If only one actor existed, or if individual actors had no contact with each other, there would be no opportunity (or need) for one to exercise power over the other. As John Rothgeb has put it: ‘power is found only when members of the international system interact with one another’.1 A further important point here is the extent to which power can be either active or passive. Klaus Knorr, a well-known academic writer of the period from the 1950s to the 1970s, wrote that ‘the active side [of power], is concerned with what a country can do to other countries; the other, passive side, concerns a country’s ability to limit what other countries do to it’.2 Thus, one can say that the most powerful countries are those which are able to maximise their influence on others whilst minimising the ability of others to influence them. In short, the leading powers are likely to be the most active ones. This view has been popular amongst political scientists. Professor Samuel Huntington of Harvard University, for example, has written that ‘international primacy means that a government is able to exercise more influence on the behaviour of more actors, with respect to more issues than any other government can’.3 Edward Luttwak made a similar point pithily, albeit somewhat controversially, in 1

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1994 when he wrote that ‘great powers are in the business of threatening, rather than being threatened’.4 Power resources can be divided into three major component parts. These are military, economic and political. Whilst there are differences of opinion over what is meant by these terms, there is nevertheless broad agreement that they embrace the key facets of power.5 The first two are the best known and most discussed. Military power resides in the level and sophistication of the armed forces which a country is able to maintain. In international terms there is a strong body of opinion which sees possession of the means of projecting military power beyond national borders, and the willingness to do so, as essential for those states which wish to be considered great powers. As Luttwak has put it: a great power cannot be that unless it asserts all sorts of claims that far exceed the needs of its own immediate security . . . It must therefore risk combat for purposes that may be fairly recondite, perhaps in little-known distant lands, but definitely in situations where it is not compelled to fight but deliberately chooses to do so.6 Economic power can be measured in various ways; with a comparison of Gross National Products (or equivalent) being perhaps the most widely used. Other important factors which indicate international economic power are control of, or assured access to, vital natural resources, a major share of world trade and significant influence on international capital flows.7 Relative economic power is important in international relations for two main reasons. Firstly, it can give a country a significant capacity to shape and affect the policies and attitudes of other states and governments. Inducements, such as access to markets or the negotiation of preferential trading agreements, may be offered to those who comply with the economic power’s wishes, whilst economic and commercial sanctions may be threatened or used against those who do not. Secondly, most analysts would agree that economic strength and prosperity is important for the maintenance of sophisticated and capable armed forces. Political power is the most difficult to define more precisely. The British historian E. H. Carr used the phrase ‘power over opinion’ to describe this aspect. By this he meant ‘the art of persuasion’ by political leaders of both their own people and, in the case of coun-

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tries which seek influence beyond their own borders, other peoples and states as well. For Carr, effective propaganda was a major tool in the inventory of those seeking to exercise political power.8 During the Cold War years, the term ‘ideology’ became bound up with definitions of the political aspect of power, being used particularly with reference to the Soviet Union’s Marxist-Leninist doctrines. Used in this sense the word usually referred to a set of core beliefs and values which explained and justified the way in which countries and societies were organised and which ideally served as a common rallying-point for both political leaders and popular opinion within them. Some ideologies have been viewed by their adherents as being widely if not universally applicable. An effective ideology can thus provide valuable political self-confidence to a state and its leaders. The ideological dimension may also provide legitimacy for those who wield power. Legitimacy is a term which embraces the right to exercise power. It is important because, if achieved, it makes the exercising of power easier and less potentially disruptive if those who are having power exercised over them can be persuaded to accept this state of affairs. It is in this context that an American writer, Kenneth Boulding, coined the term ‘integrative power’. Boulding has argued convincingly that attempts to exercise power based solely on threats or coercion are likely to be more costly and less enduring than those in which at least some element of consent is present.9 It is also useful here to consider the difference between power and influence. An attempt to get to grips with this issue was made back in the 1960s by Arnold Wolfers. He defined power as ‘the ability to move others by the threat or infliction of deprivations’ and influence as ‘the ability to do so through promises or grants of benefits’. Simply put, Wolfers distinguished between coercion and persuasion. At the same time he took care not to suggest that the two could or should be kept entirely separate: ‘influence without power is not likely to carry far’, he wrote.10 Today, the distinction Wolfers drew between coercion and persuasion is still commonly used. Specifically, in terms of the three aspects of power discussed here, influence is usually defined as referring to attempts to affect the behaviour of others by mainly non-military means. These might involve political and ideological persuasion, frequently underpinned by offers of financial or other aid by the country seeking to exercise influence.11

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Closely bound up with this concept of influence is that of leadership. Leadership is generally viewed as being a political technique. Hence it is a talent which is likely to be most obviously on display when the political and ideological dimension of power is stressed. Broadly speaking, countries will follow a lead for one (sometimes two) of three reasons: either because they are coerced into doing so; or because their own interests coincide on specific issues with that of the state or states seeking to lead; or because their populations, or at least their political leaders, have ‘bought into’ the leading country’s ideology. If this happens the follower states might come to identify their own interests as being closely bound up with those of the leading state for most, if not all, of the time. It has been argued that true leadership is only exercised if the last of these three conditions applies. In an interesting and provocative article published in 1991, a group of British and Canadian academics applied this reasoning to the history of the allied coalition which blockaded and eventually fought Iraq after its invasion of Kuwait in August 1990. They argued that only the British government under Margaret Thatcher and later John Major showed a significant degree of genuine ideological affinity with the Bush administration and thus really acted in a ‘followership’ role. The support of the other coalition members was given out of self-interest, or as a result of American arm-twisting, as was the case with Japan, Germany and, to a degree at least, the Soviet Union.12 Hegemonic Power Hegemonic power, as the term is used in this study, refers to the capability and willingness of a limited number of countries to project significant power and influence beyond their national boundaries over a reasonably lengthy period of time. Hegemonic powers are able and willing to affect the attitudes and actions of others to a markedly greater extent than the others can affect them in turn. This concept is by no means a new one. The label ‘hegemonic’ has been used by writers, politicians and academics since the nineteenth century. Its origins go back much further, to ancient Greece and a Greek root word meaning ‘ruler’, ‘leader’ or ‘chief’. It is appropriate, therefore, to begin exploring this specific form of power with the writings of Thucydides, the Greek philosopher/soldier who lived and wrote in the fifth century BC and who, some argue, was responsible for producing what stands as the first systematic writing

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on international relations – the History of the Peloponnesian War. The ancient wars which Thucydides wrote about were fought out between two powerful city-states, Athens and Sparta, as a contest to determine which would become the greater power relative to the other. Modern-day academics have invented the term ‘hegemonic war’ to describe such conflicts – a war in which a dominant power is being challenged. Thus, ‘the fundamental issues to be decided are the leadership and structure of the international system’. These words are quoted from an article by Robert Gilpin who, in common with most of the (mainly American) academic theorists of hegemonic power and indeed Thucydides himself, saw hegemony as being concentrated in a single dominant power. Hegemony is not, in this view, something which can be shared. If a challenger appears on the scene, its objective can only be achieved at the expense of the existing hegemon.13 Thucydides’ writings are of interest here mainly because he was describing a contest for hegemonic power and, in doing so, offered thoughts and insights on the assets and attributes required for the exercising of this kind of power. He was aware of the vital importance, for would-be hegemons, of projecting power effectively. This is why he called naval forces ‘an element of the greatest power to those who cultivated them, alike in revenue and in dominion’. Naval forces were particularly important, given the geography of the ancient Greek world, because ‘they were the means by which the islands were reached and reduced, those of the smallest area falling the easiest prey’.14 Thucydides also believed that there was a close connection between economic resources and military capability. According to his narrative, ancient Greek leaders were aware of this too. Thus, for example, he quotes one Spartan leader as stating that ‘unless we can . . . deprive them [the Athenians] of the revenues which feed their navy, we shall meet with little but disaster’.15 Although sometimes accused of being preoccupied with the military dimension of power, there is good evidence to suggest that Thucydides appreciated the importance of political self-confidence. Insofar as can be gleaned from reading his work, the History, two political issues were of particular importance to him. One was stability and the other legitimacy. These both rested on, and provided for, good government. In assessing the history of the Spartan peoples, Thucydides wrote approvingly of the fact that Lacedaemon, the city-state around which Sparta was founded, ‘at a very early period

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obtained good laws, and enjoyed a freedom from tyrants which was unbroken’. The legitimacy of this form of rule created political stability which in turn contributed directly to Sparta’s rise to a position of dominance. In Thucydides’ time, according to the History, Sparta had ‘possessed the same form of government for more than four hundred years’. As a direct consequence of their own political stability the Spartans had ‘thus been in a position to arrange the affairs of the other states’.16 Political will mattered too. Projection of power and influence is inherently proactive. Political leaders within a state have to decide to do it. The importance of the human factor to Thucydides is demonstrated by the extent to which he recounted, often at some length, speeches by important political leaders. In this context Laurie Johnson Bagby, an American academic, was right to conclude in 1994 that ‘Thucydides teaches us that even though internal passions and external forces may exert much force, humans are in control of themselves’.17 Although not a prominent theme in the History, there is evidence that hegemonic status was not regarded in the ancient Greek world as being a free ride. The leading states gave economic grants and subsidies of various kinds to their allies and client states. At one point Thucydides recounts how the Corinthian allies of Sparta informed the latter that ‘supremacy has its duties . . . leaders are required to show a special care for the common welfare in return for the special honours accorded to them by all in other ways’.18 The idea that power brings responsibility remains strong today. Some of the contemporary writers who have discussed it have drawn inspiration from the works of the Italian Marxist thinker Antonio Gramsci who wrote extensively during the 1920s. Gramsci saw hegemony as essentially a domestic phenomenon as his principal interest was in relations between different social classes within a society. Nevertheless, his ideas have been applied to international relations by modern scholars such as Robert Cox. Cox has argued that an international hegemonic power (again, the notion of a single dominant state is present) should strive to ‘found and protect a world order which was universal in conception . . . which most other states . . . could find compatible with their interests’. Here Cox draws upon a key feature of Gramsci’s conception of hegemony – that hegemonic powers attain their position of primacy largely through the means of persuasion and gaining consent.19 Other political scientists have used the term ‘socialisation’ to describe the process by which leaders

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of less powerful states peacefully embrace and absorb the ideological norms and principles projected by hegemons; although some have argued that an element of pressure might be applied initially by the hegemon in order to get the process moving.20 The discussions so far have suggested that various closely related attributes are necessary in order for a state to aspire to hegemonic power – that is to acquire the means (military and economic) and the willingness (political and ideological) to project significant power and influence beyond its borders consistently over a significant period of time. In the next section, a brief historical overview of the period from the sixteenth century up to 1945 will aim to shed more light on the attributes and activities of dominant and leading powers in the ‘real world’.

POWER IN PRE-COLD WAR HISTORY The projection of military power has long been a favourite subject with international historians. Economic resources and control have mattered too, but often only insofar as the latter could be effectively utilised in support of the former. A. J. P. Taylor, writing about European history between 1848 and 1918, argued that ‘the basic test for . . . Great Powers was their ability to wage war’. In measuring their own country’s status, Taylor believed that national leaders during this period supposed that ‘it was academic to ask: what are the economic resources of a Power? The decisive question was: how far can they be mobilised for war?’.21 In a similar vein, E. H. Carr, in his best-known historical work The Twenty Years’ Crisis, wrote that ‘the supreme importance of the military instrument lies in the fact that the ultima ratio of power in international relations is war’.22 Carr, like Taylor, believed that economic power did matter, but that its main importance lay in supporting the growth of a state’s military capabilities and hence its capacity to wage war successfully. Contemporary historians still adhere to this kind of thinking. Martin van Creveld, for example, has recently echoed Carr in writing that ‘war not merely serves power, it is power’[emphasis in the original].23 Professor Sir Michael Howard has agreed that military capability constituted the main defining characteristic of leading powers from at least the sixteenth century, when ‘states’ in the modern sense were starting to be formed. His accounts have, though, stressed

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a somewhat more equitable relationship between this capability and economic and financial resources. In analysing the United Provinces (essentially the modern day Netherlands), one of the leading powers of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, Howard suggested that, despite being relatively small geographically, the United Provinces could nonetheless develop and maintain a first rank status because they were, uniquely for the time, able to maintain a professional standing army. In order to do so vast sums of money were required. These were available owing to the United Provinces’ status, rivalled only by England, as the leading trading and commercial power of the time.24 During the late eighteenth and, especially, the nineteenth centuries, the role and importance of military power was magnified to an even greater extent than had previously been the case. This has been reflected in the stress laid upon military power in the writings of latter-day historians of that period; A. J. P. Taylor being an example. The revival of France in the early 1800s and the emergence of Prussia as a great power in its own right shortly thereafter both took place mainly as a result of the acquisition and deployment of military capabilities. Professor Howard has argued that Prussia’s rise in particular played an important role in promoting the growing belief during the nineteenth century that military power was of paramount importance.25 Prussia’s progress towards recognised great power status was certainly dramatic. From being virtually destroyed by Napoleon Bonaparte at the Battle of Jena in 1806, the Prussians were able to rise again so completely as to be able to inflict almost equally catastrophic military defeats on two of the recognised European great powers – Austria and France – within four years of each other in the period 1866–71. First-hand experience of Napoleon’s military successes (albeit from the opposing side) was important in shaping the ideas of the bestknown exponent of the theory that fighting or threatening war was a powerful tool which could be harnessed by states in pursuit of enhanced power or status. Carl von Clausewitz was a Prussian soldier and military thinker who had been at Jena in 1806. In his essays On War, which were first published in 1832, Clausewitz famously put forward the view that ‘war is not merely a political act, but also a real political instrument, a continuation of political commerce, a carrying out of the same by other means’.26 Napoleon’s dramatic military successes in the first decade of the nineteenth century also helped to revive the view that an important foundation

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of international power was the acquisition of territory, by force of arms if necessary. Imperial Russia had been steadily expanding its own boundaries since the seventeenth century, a process which was continued and accelerated during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as Russian interest became focused increasingly on central and northeast Asia. By the end of the nineteenth century, however, it was increasingly clear, even to some members of the Russian government, that the country’s social and economic development was not keeping pace with its military and expansionist ambitions. This situation would be regarded by many as being unsustainable over the long term, a view which the collapse of Imperial Russia in 1917 serves to support. The theory that leading powers which allow too large a gap to develop between resources and ambitions will almost inevitably suffer a decline and even collapse has grown during the course of the twentieth century. In published form it can be traced back at least to 1943 when Walter Lippmann’s short treatise on US Foreign Policy first appeared. In this work Lippmann argued that ‘foreign policy consists in bringing into balance, with a comfortable surplus of power in reserve, the nation’s commitments and the nation’s power’. Achieving and maintaining the balance is likely to be especially difficult for hegemonic powers. These are the countries which maintain the greatest commitments in the sense in which Lippmann used the term: an ‘obligation’ outside the country’s own territorial limits which ‘may in the last analysis have to be met by waging war’.27 Lippmann’s argument has proved to be of enduring interest and relevance and the phrase ‘Lippmann Gap’ has survived as a means of describing a situation where a country’s commitments are judged to be running ahead of its resources and capabilities.28 The whole debate was revived in the late 1980s by Professor Paul Kennedy with his bestselling book The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers. According to Kennedy, history strongly suggests that for leading powers to maintain their status it is ‘vital to preserve the proper balance between the country’s military and naval effort on the one hand and the encouragement of the national wealth on the other’.29 Major powers may find this balance increasingly difficult to maintain, especially as the pace of territorial acquisition hots up. In Kennedy’s view, the biggest danger to a great power’s status is the debilitation resulting from ‘imperial overstretch’ caused by territorial acquisitions and expansion to beyond the country’s means to

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effectively administer, police, defend and subsidise. Kennedy’s thinking differs in emphasis from most of the historians referred to above because he argues that economic capabilities and wealth represent the most important factor of overall power. In providing an answer to the question of what, in history, has made a great power, Kennedy puts particular emphasis on the development of an industrialised economy. It is significant that, in The Rise and Fall, the label ‘hegemon’ is not used to describe any power before newly industrialised Great Britain in the nineteenth century. ‘What the Industrial Revolution did’, Kennedy argues in relation to Britain, ‘was to enhance the position of a country already supremely successful in the pre-industrial, mercantilist struggles of the eighteenth century, and then to transform it into a different sort of power’ [emphasis added].30 Unfortunately, Kennedy does not really expand upon what he means by the phrase ‘different sort of power’. In the context of his overall arguments, however, it seems clear that his concept of hegemonic power relates principally to two things. The first of these is the ability to project influence and establish a presence on a global basis, beyond Europe in the case of Great Britain. Secondly, Britain’s power and its global presence in the nineteenth century was based principally upon and around international commerce and trade, with policy geared towards securing and maintaining the freedom to trade. Here the relationship between military and economic power advanced by historians such as Taylor and Carr is reversed. Military capabilities and resources exist and are maintained to support the pursuit of economic wealth and opportunities – the prime foundation, in Kennedy’s view, of hegemonic status and power. The thinking noted above has become increasingly popular in recent times. For many historians, only two countries deserved the label ‘hegemonic powers’ in the years prior to the Second World War. The first was Great Britain for much of the nineteenth century. The second was the United States. The US has been a rising hegemon from the final three decades of that century. In both cases the international status of these countries was underpinned mainly by their successful pursuit, and maintenance, of global trading opportunities. Given the role and status of the US in the period since the Second World War, its rise as a global power is of particular interest. Many students of American history have argued that US global political presence and influence grew in tandem with its economic and

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commercial profile in the years after the country’s civil war ended in 1865.31 According to Paul Kennedy’s figures, the US increased the value of its annual exports from $334m. to $2.3bn. between 1860 and 1914.32 Economic growth led, according to Christopher Layne, not only to a more assertive US political presence on the world stage, but also to the enhancement of American military capabilities, most especially in the naval sphere.33 The potential for the American rise to global hegemonic status was, arguably, present right from the start of the country’s existence as an independent state in the late eighteenth century. From the beginning the United States held a number of key economic advantages. Paul Kennedy emphasises in particular the country’s sheer size, natural resources, agricultural productivity and the technological prowess of its people, in concluding that it ‘seemed to have all the economic advantages which some of the other powers possessed in part but none of their disadvantages’ (emphases in the original).34 In itself the possession of such assets would not have sufficed. International power is in essence a dynamic and proactive commodity. It is exercised and demonstrated when countries do something; specifically when they project power and influence, and hence shape and condition the behaviour of other states and leaders beyond their own national boundaries. Right from the beginning American leaders have looked outwards, principally towards the possibility of increasing their country’s international trade and commerce, which is what made the US a global power from the late nineteenth century. Carl Degler has shown that the oft-quoted injunction of the first President, George Washington, to his fellow-countrymen to avoid entangling international engagements was not intended to be a prescription for comprehensive isolationism. Washington drew a distinction between commercial engagement on the one hand, and political and security engagements on the other, and assumed that the new United States would naturally want to actively develop the former. Degler argues that the principal foreign policy aim of the United States from its foundation has been the ‘vigourous, even aggressive’ pursuit of ‘markets and trade around the globe, wherever a profit beckoned or an opportunity opened’.35 As the commercial impulse quickened during the nineteenth century, so too did it begin to seem clear to many American leaders that the projection of wider political and military power and influence was essential in order to secure and underpin the access to world markets upon which American prosperity was largely deemed to rest.

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Although it is not always assumed to be a factor of US global power and influence, attention is often drawn to the supposed ideological cohesiveness of American society. Degler, for example, has noted the unifying role played by the individualistic ideology shared by virtually all political groups and popular opinion at large in the United States. Closely related to this in Degler’s view, and an important sign of political stability, though not necessarily political efficiency, has been the long-standing ‘veneration’ of the constitution of the United States.36 In assessing the strengths of the US in this context, Degler noted a link between a unifying idea or set of ideas – an ideology – and domestic political stability. Other historians have described the consequences of political instability on a country’s international status and hence its power. One example from the late nineteenth century has been cited by the historian G. P. Gooch. Although France remained a significant military and economic power after her defeat by Prussia in the war of 1870–1, frequent changes of government and the impact these had on efforts to fashion coherent policies hindered French efforts to regain diplomatic stature as a great power. In 1899, when the French Ambassador to London, Paul Cambon, attempted to interest the then British Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury, in a comprehensive diplomatic rapprochement, the Prime Minister reportedly shook his head and smiled. ‘I have the greatest confidence in M. Delcasse [the then French Prime Minister],’ he said, ‘and also in your present Government. But in a few month’s time they will probably be overthrown, and their successors will do exactly the contrary. No, we must wait a bit’.37 Ideological self-confidence of a particularly strong kind can encourage leaders to look to extend their power or influence over other states or regions. The first significant expansive ideologies in history were religious in orientation, hardly surprising given the claims to universal applicability made by some of the world’s major religions. Christianity and Islam can fairly be called the oldest of the world’s expansive ideologies; witness the great and destructive clashes between them during the crusading period of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. These were, without doubt, significantly motivated by sincere religious fervour on both sides.38 Secular political ideologies capable of inspiring their followers

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to comparable crusading zeal did not appear on the international scene until much later. The first example can be found with the egalitarian principles propounded by the leaders of the French Revolution in 1789. The new leaders of France declared that their doctrines were universally valid, and statements offering revolutionary assistance were directed to other European peoples. These caused serious alarm amongst France’s neighbouring governments and helped to plunge it into almost continuous warfare with its neighbours up to 1815. In this case the impact of the new ideology effectively served to mask political instability in its country of origin. In the early 1790s France was much feared abroad even as it descended into chaos at home. A similar phenomenon was evident in the immediate aftermath of the Bolshevik revolution in Russia in 1917. Here too the success of the bearers of a revolutionary political ideology with claims to universal validity ushered in a period of disorder and instability at home, together with fear and hostility abroad. The immediate reaction of the US and major European and Asian powers was to seek to eliminate the new Marxist-Leninist ideology before it became established; hence the involvement of an array of states on the anti-Bolshevik side in the Russian civil war of 1918–21 although, as Norman Davies has pointed out, this intervention was generally half-hearted and defensive.39 There were also significant ‘red scares’ in the United States, Great Britain and Germany during the same period. In describing other, more nationalistic, ideologies historians and other commentators often use the term ‘national mission’. Henry Kissinger, for example, has argued that Prussia’s rise during the course of the nineteenth century was underpinned by ‘an overwhelming sense of national mission’ aimed at asserting a role and status as a European great power following the heavy defeat by Napoleon at Jena in 1806.40 Writers have used similar language in describing the growth and development of the United States and its power during the nineteenth century.41 An element of secular missionary mentality also played an important role in underpinning the acquisition of overseas colonies – principally in Africa – by European powers in the final third of the nineteenth century. In the minds of many European leaders, the acquisition of colonies was also closely and clearly bound up with the home country’s international status. In 1872 Benjamin Disraeli asked his fellow-countrymen in England: ‘will you be content to be

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a comfortable England on Continental principles, or will you be a great imperial country . . . command[ing] the respect of the world?’42 At the time Disraeli can have had few doubts as to the answer to his question. Colonialist sentiment was shared across the political spectrum and amongst the population at large. Similarly in France, where one prominent political figure wrote that, with the colonisation of Tunisia in 1881, ‘France is resuming her place among the Great Powers’. 43

CO-OPERATION AND MANAGEMENT BY LEADING POWERS Because power is relative it is likely to be the object of competition between states. The leading states in particular are also likely to strive to increase, or are least maintain, their own resources of power and the ability to use that power. It is in the interest of the major powers, those states with the most to lose, to prevent an uncontrolled competition for power from threatening to overturn an established international system. This is why the leading powers are sometimes described as ‘satisfied’ or ‘status quo’ countries. Order and stability are much-sought after goals in international politics and the most obvious and serious threat to order and stability is war. A shared desire to regulate and constrain the use of warfare was evident amongst the leading powers in Europe from at least the middle of the eighteenth century. The historian W. F. Reddaway, in his analysis of the so-called Wars of the Austrian Succession of the 1740s, demonstrated that this series of conflicts was highly regulated by Austria, Britain, France and Prussia, which were the major powers involved, with clear ‘ground rules’ being established and adhered to in order to try to prevent the situation getting out of hand.44 Co-operation amongst the leading states continued and was, indeed, enhanced during the nineteenth century. This was reflected in the so-called ‘Concert of Europe’ which was established following Napoleon’s final defeat in 1815. The Concert was based on an informal agreement amongst the leaders of the four major powers involved in the wars against France since the 1790s: Austria, Great Britain, Prussia and Russia, together with their defeated enemy. The most striking and significant feature of the Concert system was the fact that France was included as a partner from the start and thus effectively re-established as a recognised European great

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power almost as soon as Napoleon was banished into exile. The Concert system was based, firstly, on an attempt to maintain stability amongst the major powers by preserving rough equality between them. This entailed ensuring that no one state rose to a clear position of dominance with the ability to coerce the others. Doing this also implied trying to make sure that none of the recognised powers was so weakened that it risked relegation to a lesser status and role. Hence the inclusion of France. An important feature of the Concert system was the understanding that the major powers would attempt to regulate and organise relations between and amongst the smaller states in Europe so that disputes involving them did not escalate and threaten major power war. Congress meetings brought together the leaders of the five major powers at periodic intervals in the years after 1815, and provided the forum within which such activity was undertaken. The major powers were thus seeking not only to manage relations amongst themselves, but also amongst the smaller and less powerful states.45 The best example of a major power exercising restraint for the sake of European stability during the nineteenth century is that of the newly united Germany in the years immediately following the crushing defeats by Prussia of Austria and France between 1866 and 1871. Germany could doubtless, under an expansionist leader, have made a bid for pre-eminent power status on the European continent. But Chancellor Otto von Bismarck did not choose this course. He opted instead to develop a complex system of alliances and agreements which were designed to maintain stability – as Bismarck saw it – by preventing other states, acting either alone or in coalition, from attacking Germany. Bismarck’s Germany was a satisfied state. As such the object of his diplomacy was to try to maintain the post-unification status quo on the European continent. Bismarck himself was quite explicit about this. Reviewing the European scene early in 1887 he proclaimed that his German state had ‘no warlike needs, for we belong to what Metternich called saturated states’.46 Elsewhere he wrote of the desirability of maintaining rough equality amongst the established major powers: we could certainly tolerate our friends losing or winning battles against each other, but not that one of them should be so severely wounded and injured that its position as an independent Great Power, with a voice in Europe, should be endangered.47

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Unfortunately for the future of peace in Europe, the restrained attitude of Bismarck did not survive in Germany for long after his enforced retirement in 1890. The period between that date and the outbreak of war between the major powers in 1914 was one in which the mutual benefits of restraint appeared to have been forgotten. Things did not improve in the period following the First World War. Indeed a low-point of cooperation amongst the major powers in Europe was reached in the years between 1919 and 1939. A common view holds that the smaller and less powerful European states were never able to effectively influence the thinking and activities of the major powers in any significant way and that they were, to all intents and purposes, pawns in the political processes which took place amongst the major powers. An incident recounted by G. P. Gooch illustrates this neatly. The story concerns attempts by the King of Bulgaria to marry a granddaughter of the German Kaiser in 1884. The former was at this time out of favour with the Russians who were nominally his ‘protecting’ power. Upon travelling to Berlin to sound out the possibility of nuptial permission being obtained from the Kaiser, the Bulgarian ruler was, according to Gooch, bluntly informed by Bismarck that ‘the marriage is impossible and so long as I am Chancellor it will not take place. Germany has no interest in Bulgaria. Our interest is peace with Russia. Now you are a Bulgarian you must submit to Russia’.48 Some have suggested, however, that the lesser powers did enjoy a more significant existence than stories like the above would suggest. Peter Calvocoressi, the political scientist and historian, has argued that the Concert period during the nineteenth century witnessed the evolution and widespread acceptance of what international lawyers have called the doctrine of the sovereign equality of states. Under this doctrine, still generally regarded as the basis of international law today, all states, regardless of size, resources or relative power, have an equal right to sovereignty and independence, at least in theory. Calvocoressi argues that under the Concert of Europe ‘the greater powers were guardians of the system which, within limits and incidentally, protected the lesser members of the sovereign family’.49 When the objective of major powers is to protect international order and stability, as it generally is, this can give lesser states a degree of influence far outweighing their actual power resources. The disintegration of smaller states, or their defection (or threat of defection) from one major power’s camp to another, could lead

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to instability and disorder; or so the major powers might fear. This was the context within which A. J. P. Taylor argued that even ‘when one state is completely dependent on another, it is the weaker which can call the tune: it can threaten to collapse unless supported, and its protector has no answering threat to return’. Taylor backed his argument with the somewhat obscure, but relevant, example of the extent to which the French Emperor Napoleon III became preoccupied and tied down in his dealings with the Vatican during the 1840s.50 The extent to which lesser powers might be able to influence, and be a significant factor in, the policies and activities of leading powers is a question which became of especial interest during the Cold War period in Europe. As such, it is discussed in greater detail in Chapter 2. This next chapter continues to explore and apply the framework concepts of power and influence defined above by focusing in particular on the Cold War years from 1945 to 1989.

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2 The Two Cold War Superpowers In looking at the nature and exercising of international power in the Cold War period from 1945 to 1989, this chapter will focus principally on the class of power which the United States and the Soviet Union became. The label most often attached to these two states was ‘superpower’. After briefly exploring this concept, the discussions consider the position and influence of the two Cold War superpowers including their relations with less powerful allies and with each other. The objective is not simply to explore a particular period of recent history for its own sake. The Cold War system in Europe and elsewhere has left a distinct legacy with which the leading states in the 1990s and beyond have to grapple in their attempts to develop and reorient their own power and influence.

THE SUPERPOWER CONCEPT The term ‘superpower’ became so widely used during the Cold War years that it might have appeared to have been around for ever. In fact it is of relatively recent vintage. It was an American scholar, William T. R. Fox, who introduced it into general circulation in a book published in 1944. Fox didn’t invent the term itself. It had already been used by fellow American John Dos Passos, a journalist and commentator, in a book first published in 1936. Dos Passos attributed the term to a powerful American businessman of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries who reportedly used it as a description of his business empire which was based on gas and electricity monopolies.1 Even though he did not originate the term ‘superpower’ itself, however, William Fox can certainly claim the credit for first applying it as a concept specifically to international relations. According to Fox’s argument, what counted in making an international superpower was more than just a country’s possession of the attributes of power: military, economic, political and ideological. A superpower was principally distinguished by dynamism and 18

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proactivity, by the ability and willingness to project power and influence. Superpower status, in other words, was gained not just by what a country had but by what it did, or was prepared to do. As Fox put it: ‘great power plus great mobility of power describes the super-power’.2 Fox’s main emphasis was on the military–economic dimensions of power, which was scarcely surprising in view of the wartime context in which he wrote. In 1944 he identified three superpowers, with the United Kingdom being placed in that category together with the United States and Soviet Union. By the time the Second World War ended in the following year, however, it was clear that the UK was economically debilitated and virtually bankrupt and hence not deserving – on objective assessments – of being placed in the same category of power as the US and USSR. As the term came to be more generally used during the Cold War period so the military emphasis grew. Even though the relative economic weaknesses of the Soviet Union were widely discussed in the West its claim to superpower status along with the US was scarcely ever seriously questioned. As time went by the definitional focus became even more narrow and came to rest specifically upon the nuclear capabilities of the US and USSR. In this particular context, no-one doubted that these two belonged to an exclusive and pre-eminent category of global power. They were the only two powers capable of destroying the world. The emphasis on the projection of power and influence survived as a central component of recognised superpower status during the Cold War years. This came increasingly to be connected with the ability to project on a global and not just a regional basis. For some, not least within its own political and military leadership circles, the Soviet Union did not become recognised as a full superpower until the 1960s and 1970s when it began to display an interest in influencing and intervening in areas beyond its own proximity, such as Africa and the Caribbean. In 1980, William Fox returned to the subject of superpowers and stressed that ‘“World” power is the criterion for first-ranking status in the states system of today’s world’. In 1993 another scholar, Jan Nijman, agreed that ‘the essence of superpower lies in their global impact’.3 Another contemporary writer, Christer Jonsson, has made a similar point in a different way. He has argued that superpower status should be defined mainly according to the roles which superpowers play in the international system. In Jonsson’s view there are two kinds of

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roles: those which the superpowers take for themselves and those which lesser powers effectively assign to superpowers by expecting them to undertake. 4 So superpower status does not constitute a free ride or a licence to do just as they please for those countries which possess it. Since the 1940s, there has been an important strand in the thinking about superpowerdom which has stressed responsibilities as well as rights. This was certainly present in Fox’s original work and was reflected in the fact that he chose to subtitle his 1944 book The United States, Britain and the Soviet Union: Their Responsibility for Peace. Superpowers have been seen as having a special responsibility to protect and preserve international peace, order and stability. As discussed in Chapter 1, it is to be expected that those countries which have achieved the top rank in an existing international system will want to make sure that they hold on to it. They are thus likely to have an in-built interest in defending and trying to preserve the established order. Lesser powers have some scope to exert leverage by at least implicitly threatening to disrupt the existing order by, for example, changing allegiances. Superpowers may have ended up paying a significant economic and political price to prevent this from happening. The price the US and USSR had to pay to maintain their respective core spheres of influence in Europe during the Cold War years is discussed in detail later.

AMERICAN POWER AND INFLUENCE IN THE COLD WAR YEARS The United States’ principal aim following the conclusion of hostilities in 1945 was to take the lead in establishing and developing an international system which would be conducive to furthering traditional American international interests. Since the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, these had been, as noted in Chapter 1, mainly commercial and economic in nature. Many in the US believed that it was their country’s failure to organise and lead the international economic system effectively which had been largely responsible for precipitating the great depression of the 1920s and 1930s.5 Determined not to repeat this experience from 1945, US leaders focused mainly on the construction of an international order which the US would lead, and in which its commercial and economic opportunities would be maximised. On the military side the immediate

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postwar period was marked by a rapid American demobilisation, especially in Europe. In this period the US was mainly interested in using and projecting economic power and influence. This policy was, no doubt, born of a widespread belief within high-level political circles in Washington that it was in the economic arena that the United States stood out most clearly as a hegemonic power. The country’s annual Gross Domestic Product was increasing dramatically. It grew from $100bn. to $287bn. between 1940 and 1950.6 The effects of the war on major European economies ensured that amongst the leading industrialised states only the US emerged from the conflict with an enhanced rate of per capita industrial production.7 An almost overwhelming sense of self-confidence was evident amongst many American policy-makers during the late 1940s and early 1950s, based largely on their perceptions of the country’s economic strengths. In March 1950 the State Department recorded that one of its senior political consultants, Robert Lovett, was arguing that ‘there was practically nothing that the country could not do if it wanted to do it. It becomes stronger economically every day’.8 There was of course in the US an appreciation of ideological differences with the Soviets. These had been present since the time of the Bolshevik revolution in 1917, and there was no Cold War during the 1920s and 1930s. In the 1940s, however, the United States became increasingly convinced that the Soviet Union was determined to frustrate US ambitions to construct a global economic system favourable to itself, and specifically that the USSR was trying to construct its own closed system. This perception – whether justified or not – undoubtedly touched a sensitive historical nerve in the US. American global economic and commercial policy has been basically consistent since at least the nineteenth century, premised first and foremost upon assuring commercial access for the United States. This policy has opposed the development of closed or protectionist regional economic blocs and also the potential development of other powers to the extent that they challenged the United States’ growing role.9 This was especially so during the twentieth century. By the late 1940s it appeared to many in the US that the Soviet Union was seeking to violate both these basic American ground rules. This was particularly felt in 1948 after the Soviet Union rejected American Marshall Plan aid, with its associated conditions which would have required economic co-operation and exposure of the Soviet economy to

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international scrutiny, for both itself and the Central European countries within its sphere of influence. In the US there were significant differences of view as to whether this apparent Soviet challenge should be dealt with predominantly by mainly coercive or persuasive means. President Truman, in office from 1945–1953, is reported to have believed that the Soviet Union could be brought to its knees economically if the US systematically engaged in a drive to outspend it on armaments.10 Others, especially within the State Department, argued that the best way to prevent the nascent Soviet bloc from disrupting American designs was to engage with it commercially and economically and begin to draw it gradually into the American global system. In the event the Truman administration adopted what was already being called a ‘containment’ strategy. As its name suggested, this involved the United States seeking to deny the Soviet Union opportunities to further expand its power and influence, either in the military or economic sphere, to the extent where it might be able to threaten or challenge American preponderance. It was first openly proclaimed by the President in 1947 and has become known as the ‘Truman Doctrine’. Military matters came to the fore from June 1950, following the attack by North Korea, with backing from Communist China and less openly from the Soviet Union, on its southern neighbour. It was during the period 1947–53 that the United States became internationally recognised as a superpower, although there has been some disagreement amongst historians and commentators as to precisely when this occurred and what the key events were in bringing it about. Norman Davies has argued that the proclamation of the Truman Doctrine in 1947 was of key importance as it ‘marked America’s voluntary acceptance of the leadership of the free world’ and ‘put an end to prolonged indecision’ amongst US policy-makers.11 Robert Jervis, in contrast, has made the case that it was the Korean War of 1950–3 which was instrumental in transforming the US into a world-class military and hence superpower.12 Certainly, following the outbreak of hostilities in Korea, the US reversed its post-1945 military drawdowns and acted to deploy forces at the head of an international coalition in South Korea to repel the North Korean invasion. The significant increases in the US defence budget precipitated by the war, plus the deployment of troops back to Western Europe to underwrite the new NATO arrangement there, raised questions of affordability and the most appropriate balance between

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the nation’s military expenditures and economic health. Similar questions have been asked ever since. Notwithstanding its apparent economic and military strength during this period, an argument can be made that the United States felt itself to be somewhat vulnerable in the ideological sphere against the apparently robust and confidently espoused Marxism-Leninism of the Soviet Union. It has been argued that in the Cold War, ‘despite the fact that their country was the most powerful the world had ever seen – economically, politically, militarily – Americans felt themselves on the defensive’.13 Some have suggested that US political leaders sought to compensate for a sense of ideological vulnerability by developing an excessively and aggressively anticommunist stance. This was most evident in the McCarthyite witch hunts of the 1950s, which one historian of the Cold War has described as an exercise in ‘tribal self-adoration’.14 American leaders sometimes acknowledged and tried to counteract the sense of vulnerability by stressing the existence and the virtues of a distinctive American set of beliefs and principles. It has been argued that ideology has played a particularly important role in the US where it has been used to try to define a common identity in a society well known for being a cosmopolitan ‘melting pot’ and comprising peoples from a wide variety of ethnic and cultural backgrounds. The leading American sociologist Seymour Martin Lipset has recently summed up this view by claiming that ‘other countries’ senses of themselves are derived from a common history . . . Being an American, however, is an ideological commitment. It is not a matter of birth. Those who reject American values are un-American’.15 Nor has the importance of binding ideological values in the American context been apparent only to academics. In December 1984 the then Secretary of State, George Shultz, publicly stated that: Unlike most other peoples, Americans are united neither by a common ethnic and cultural origin nor by a common set of religious beliefs. But we are united by a shared commitment to some fundamental principles: tolerance, democracy, equality under the law, and, above all, freedom. We have overcome great challenges in our history largely because we have held true to these principles [emphasis in the original].16

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Shultz’s President, Ronald Reagan, believed perhaps more than any other Cold War leader, at least on the Western side, in the importance of ideological self-confidence – scarcely considered as a distinct issue in 1944 by William Fox – as an essential component underpinning the United States’ superpower status. According to Reagan’s memoirs, of all the problems which he faced as President, ‘none was more serious than the fact America had lost faith in itself’. Reagan claimed that his principal aim had been to bring about a ‘spiritual revival’ in the United States.17 Reagan and his most influential advisers in the early 1980s believed that a vital part of the task of restoring American self-confidence lay in embarking on a programme of increased military expenditure to prevent the Soviet Union from succeeding in an alleged drive to overtake the US in the military sphere. Thus, the annual US defence budget increased from $155bn. in 1980 to $319bn. in 1988. 18 Ironically, in view of his professed aim of reviving American self-confidence, the Reagan military build-up led directly to a revived debate in the United States about whether the country’s economic health was being eroded as a result of greater resources being devoted to the military. A source of particular concern to many was the extent of the shift in the position of the US from once being the world’s largest creditor nation to, under Reagan, its largest debtor. An argument as to why this mattered was put forward in 1990 by Theodore Sorensen, a former adviser to President Kennedy. According to Sorensen: The sense of well-being that has generally characterized our way of life since emerging from the Great Depression would become increasingly dependent upon investments, deposits, credits – and thus decisions – from other countries, whose objectives and values are not inevitably the same as our own . . . The rise and fall of our currency and our stock markets, the prospects for inflation, recession and long-term growth in our economy, the price we pay for our gasoline and the price we charge for our grain exports – all would become more subject to the attitudes and actions of others.19 For those who shared these concerns, an important source of their unease was, as Sorensen argued, concerned with the prospect of the US being laid open increasingly to the influence of other major economic powers; in other words of its losing at least some of its

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international primacy in the sense in which that term has been defined by Huntington and discussed in Chapter 1. This brief sketch of Cold War history has taken the form of an outline overview of the main components of official US thinking about the sources of power during the Cold War period. The US embarked on the post-1945 period with a primary focus on the construction of a favourable global economic system. Its plans were constrained and stunted, if not ultimately derailed, by the Soviet Union’s unwillingness to co-operate. The developing Cold War was compounded by an almost obsessive distrust of ‘communism’ on the part of many American leaders, which, together with the Korean War, allowed for the natural development of an international superpower role for the United States as leader and defender of the ‘free world’. Parallel to taking on this responsibility, the US developed the capacity to project significant military power virtually anywhere in the world and underwrote this by maintaining standing peacetime concentrations of military personnel in Western Europe and Asia. The American nuclear capability also developed by leaps and bounds during the 1950s and 1960s. In contrast, there was continuing US anxiety in the ideological sphere. An additional source of concern in the background was occasioned by lingering doubts as to whether the burdens of military spending might undermine the country’s economic health. During the 1960s and 1970s various tactics were adopted to try to reduce the military burden. These included attempts to persuade allies to take up a greater share of responsibility for the joint defence, coupled with the bilateral pursuit of arms control between the US and the Soviet Union. The first Reagan administration significantly changed these priorities. The main emphasis was placed on restoring what it saw as the country’s battered self-confidence. One means of attempting to do this was by repeated public reiterations of the supposed merits of the traditional American individualistic and free-market ideology. Another was by a military build-up. Both were aimed at countering the perceived strengths of the Soviet Union. By the mid-1980s it appeared that Reagan had succeeded in convincing many that, as a result of these measures, it was once again ‘morning in America’, as the President himself put it in 1984. Thereafter, however, fresh anxieties began to creep in, particularly over the extent to which the country had gone into debt in order to finance Reagan’s tax cuts and the increases in military spending.

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Thus, when the Cold War order in Europe unravelled in the period 1989–91, the United States faced the challenges brought about by the changes in a somewhat uncertain and sombre mood. The United States and Western Europe The focus of analysis in this section is on the relationship between the US and its Western European allies in NATO because, overall, the US enjoyed a closer relationship with this group of countries than with any other state or grouping (save, possibly, Japan and South Korea) during the Cold War years.20 If lesser powers were indeed able to influence the attitudes and policies of the Western superpower, then it is in the context of US relations with NATO that such influence is most likely to have been apparent. In Chapter 1 the phenomenon of small power leverage over larger and more powerful states in pre-Cold War times was briefly discussed. It was argued that smaller powers had been able to exercise some influence insofar as their position was important to the major powers in the context of maintaining international order, stability and the major powers’ own status. This consideration certainly held good in Cold War Europe too. Indeed it can be argued that the importance of the United States’ NATO allies in this context was even more pronounced than that of their historical forebears. In part at least this can be explained by awareness of the importance of the US superpower role as both the leader and chief defender of the free world. This helped to shape and condition US foreign and security policy towards Europe as successive generations of American leaders responded to expectations – both their own and their allies’ – of how superpowers should behave and act. After the signing of the treaty which created NATO in April 1949, the US would have been extremely reluctant to see any of the signatories – no matter how relatively small and lacking in power they may have been – defect either to the Soviet camp or to a non-aligned or neutral position. The threat, however remote, that this might happen gave the smaller allies scope for either deflecting US demands which they did not like, or else influencing US policy in ways favourable to their own interests. There existed one area in which the US was particularly vulnerable to this kind of influence in the Cold War years. This was, once again, in the ideological sphere and derived from the American superpower role as leader of the free world. The free world was

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supposed to be distinguished from the communist world by the fact that the US led it in a non-coercive and non-domineering way, in contrast to the way the Soviet Union dealt with its bloc. In short, America’s allies were in its camp because they wanted to be and not because the US forced them. In addition, as noted, many Americans saw the Cold War as essentially an ideological struggle and they developed a tendency to view their country as leading an ideological crusade against international communism. From this perspective, it was especially important that the US avoided defections from its coalition. ‘It is precisely America’s crusading spirit’, wrote Robert Keohane, a well-known American international relations expert, in 1971, ‘that has presented small allies with bargaining influence’.21 The influence could be felt even in the United States’ relations with countries which were relatively less important to it than those in Western Europe; a conclusion supported by, for example, Timo Kivimaki’s detailed study of US–Indonesian relations in the Cold War period.22 In considering the first phase in the development of US relations with Western Europe after 1945, a key issue concerns the extent to which the Americans sought to establish economic domination, as opposed to seeking to revive the European states as viable commercial partners which would presuppose a more equitable and genuinely co-operative relationship. The evidence is confused by differences of opinion which were apparent within US leadership circles, especially during the 1940s. The State Department favoured the US supporting rather than trying to direct Europe’s economic recovery and restructuring process. In 1947, a memorandum prepared by its Policy Planning Staff stated that a programme for European recovery ‘cannot be definitely predetermined by us . . . the question of where and how this initiative should be taken is primarily one for the European nations, and we should be careful not to seek unduly to influence their decision’.23 The American Marshall Plan, conceived in 1947, offered reconstruction assistance for Europe but contained a clause which effectively permitted the US to interfere with patterns of trade amongst European states. It required recipients of the aid to refrain from trade of which the United States did not approve with countries within the Soviet sphere of influence.24 This was a significant imposition by the United States. Trade with the Eastern countries was seen by some to symbolise, for Western Europe, its ‘position between the two Great Powers, not wholly dependent on either’.25

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It was, therefore, relatively easy for some to believe that the hidden agenda behind the Marshall Plan was to make Western Europe both more economically dependent on the US and tied to American views about how the international economy should be organised. Maurice Couve de Murville, who in 1948 was Head of Political Affairs in the French Foreign Ministry, is on the record as stating that the Americans . . . were convinced that the help they offered would help to develop their influence and power. In fact the Marshall Plan was the beginning of the Western bloc and of the predominance of the United States on all Western countries.26 It has not, though, been proved that the United States’ main abiding concern was to establish economic domination over Western Europe. As the Cold War division in Europe intensified, so both the strategic and ideological requirement to keep the US– West European alliance together increased. The late 1940s and 1950s were a paradoxical period during which the US was at its most powerful and yet was also displaying arguably its greatest willingness to forge international agreements with its allies as opposed to attempting to act unilaterally to force its opinions on them.27 In this formative period the US was arguably not interested in trying to turn Western Europe into a military protectorate. The story of how US troops did in fact come to be based there on a standing peacetime basis from the early 1950s has been dubbed the creation of an American ‘empire by invitation’ in the sense that pressures coming from West European leaders for such a deployment were significantly greater than any ‘push’ originating in the United States.28 The Americans did not seek to establish allied military structures in which they were dominant until pressed by the West Europeans to do so. State Department records from the late 1940s are littered with references to the desirability of Western Europe forming a ‘third force’ capable of dealing with the Soviet Union largely from its own resources. The Americans hoped that such a force would combine the military, economic and psychological strength necessary to deter any danger of Soviet expansion without Western Europe having to depend upon the United States beyond the short term.29 There was a specific hope that a revived United Kingdom would be able and willing to perform the role of pulling together and leading continental Western Europe into the self-supporting entity which the Americans were hoping to see.30

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This suggests that the view of the UK taken by William Fox in 1944, which placed it in the superpower category with regard to sharing in the main responsibilities for maintaining global peace, was not in fact quite dead in the late 1940s. Once it was committed militarily to Western Europe, the US felt obliged to bear significant burdens and costs. The most obvious of these were the financial ones. By 1985 it was calculated that, out of a total US general purpose defence budget of $241bn., no less than $134bn. was taken up by European commitments, and another $42bn. in Asia.31 A further important cost came in the form of the time and political capital spent by US leaders and diplomats in trying to ensure that the country’s main allies stayed solidly on side. This was a continuous and time-consuming process, with the United States having to win the support of its allies ‘issue by issue’ as William Fox put it in 1980.32 The US could never be sure, even at times of dire international crisis, that its allies would automatically support it, at least in active and practical ways. Even in October 1962 at the time of the Cuban missile crisis – widely regarded as the most serious superpower crisis of the Cold War – allied support for the US position was less than complete, notwithstanding intense American diplomatic lobbying. Canada refused to allow US bomber aircraft to use its airfields and NATO members as a whole rejected an American suggestion that their NATO-assigned forces should be placed on a state of heightened alert as a warning to the Soviet Union.33 Asserting that the US could not reliably influence its smaller allies is not the same as saying that it neither tried nor that it invariably failed when it did so. During the Cuban crisis, for example, the US reportedly compelled the Norwegian government to recall Norwegian ships bound for Cuba by threatening the termination of American arms supplies.34 The smaller and less powerful members of NATO sometimes complained of overt domination and disregard for their views within that organisation.35 Even the major European powers were not immune. So, for example, the former British Chancellor of the Exchequer, Denis Healey, recalled in his memoirs an American attempt to effectively dictate the terms of a planned loan to the UK by the International Monetary Fund during 1976, whilst Helmut Schmidt, West German Chancellor between 1974 and 1982, has complained about a general lack of consultation by the US with its NATO allies during the Carter and first Reagan administrations.36

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The process of allied influence could work the other way as well, however. The US sometimes had to change its stated views and policies, even on issues judged to be of prime importance to itself, as a result of political and diplomatic pressure exerted by allies. For example, the allegations of US pressure on allies during the Cuban missile crisis are balanced by accounts which point up the ways and the extent to which American policy and attitudes during the crisis were influenced and conditioned by what the NATO allies thought, or by what American policy-makers believed that they thought. This European influence was made possible by the generally held belief amongst the Americans that nothing must happen which would risk causing divisions or splits within NATO at such a delicate time.37 A further good demonstration of European influence occurred in the context of the divisive Western debates between 1979 and 1984 over the prospective deployment of new intermediate-range nuclear forces in Western Europe. During this anxious time, the Reagan administration conducted a concerted diplomatic and political campaign in order to try and ensure that the missiles were deployed on schedule. Consultations were held, presentations given, intelligence information on the scale of the supposed Soviet nuclear threat shared. Even so the US had to accept that neither Belgium nor the Netherlands would agree to take their share of the new missiles according to the original agreed NATO timetable. The Dutch were further able to negotiate specific quid pro quos with the US which saw them being relieved of existing NATO nuclear roles in return for agreeing to, eventually, deploy the new missiles.38 That the nuclear deployment question was the subject of intense public debate and scrutiny, and that the actual deployments did not commence until four years after the outline decision was taken, to allow for possible arms control breakthroughs, contrasted starkly with the Soviet Union’s way of doing business with its allies on nuclear matters. An insight into this was recently given by a former Foreign Minister of Czechoslovakia, Bohuslav Chnoupek. Late in 1983, he claims, the Czechoslovak government: Got a note from the Soviet embassy with no more than 50 words on it saying that medium-range missiles would be deployed on the territory of Czechoslovakia and the GDR. I called Prime Minister Strougal to ask if he knew anything about it. He said ‘No, that’s the first information I’ve had on it’. I called Berlin

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and an official there answered that the same message had been received there. The deployment had not been discussed with us during any of the previous consultations.39 The contrast here was stark. Undoubtedly the United States did often dominate discussions in NATO, but it never controlled the decision-making process to the extent that decisions on vital political or strategic matters within the Alliance’s remit were taken in a manner comparable to the Eastern bloc’s decision-making process. As time went by, security relations with their allies served to modify American leaders’ own thinking about the utility of the United States’ relatively much greater resources of power. In October 1973, well before the nuclear missiles controversy, the then Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, acknowledged this when he stated that ‘military muscle does not guarantee political influence . . . countries can exert political influence even when they have neither military nor economic strength’.40 In this respect the noted American academic, David Calleo, was right in 1987 to claim that NATO had served ‘as a training ground for life in a pluralistic world . . . even the greatest countries are subject to a balance of power and . . . national selfinterest has to be defined and pursued in a cooperative framework’.41

SOVIET POWER, DECLINE AND COLLAPSE IN THE COLD WAR YEARS Throughout the Cold War period, whilst it was generally termed a superpower, the Soviet Union was widely regarded as not being truly the equal of the United States. Many felt, to use Paul Dibb’s phrase from the late 1980s, that the USSR was, somehow, an ‘incomplete superpower’.42 There were two main reasons why this view persisted. Firstly, the Soviet Union’s resources of power were felt to be more restricted and less broad than those of the United States. Secondly, some argued that the Soviets were not using the power which they did have as effectively as the Americans in order to meet the main criterion for superpower status as defined by William Fox and others: that is the willingness and ability to project power and influence on a truly global basis. The more popular view of Soviet limitations places the emphasis on relative lack of the range of the resources of power. Specifically, it is argued that the Soviet Union spent too much on its military

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forces during the Cold War period. Certainly the comparative statistics for defence expenditure make illuminating reading. Averaged out over the Cold War period as a whole, American annual defence spending amounted to around 7 per cent of its Gross National Product. Official Soviet figures claimed around the same level of spending although Western experts believed that the USSR actually spent in the region of 16–17 per cent of its GNP. Recent revelations about the true level of Soviet defence spending suggest that even the Western estimates were too conservative. In his memoirs Mikhail Gorbachev has described his horror at discovering, on coming to power in 1985, that military expenditure was not 16 per cent of the state budget, as we had been told, but rather 40 per cent; and its production was not 6 per cent but 20 per cent of the gross national product. Of 25 billion rubles in total expenditure on science, 20 billion went to the military for technical research and development.43 The result was that, as the American historian John Lewis Gaddis has put it: ‘by the 1980s . . . Moscow’s power had come to rest upon a monodimensional military base, while that of the United States and its allies remained multidimensional; the resulting situation determined which side finally prevailed in the Cold War’.44 The second and, to some extent at least, complementary interpretation of the sources of Soviet weakness places the emphasis on the Soviet Union’s relatively limited superpower scope and role when compared to the United States. It has been argued that the Soviet Union was unable to fully compete with the United States in terms of power projection because it ultimately lacked the economic resources to underwrite such a competition. Some have argued from a longer historical perspective that the Soviet Union, as the successor to Imperial Russia, remained locked into traditional Russian strategic thinking which focused on building up influence over territories close to its existing borders rather than further afield across the seas. In this vein, Jan Nijman, in 1993, compared the Cold War spheres of influence of the US and the USSR and concluded that they confirmed ‘the notions of the Soviet Union as a regional land power, and the United States as a global sea power’.45 The initial tenor of Soviet policy and outlook in the Cold War period was, of course, determined by Stalin. It has frequently been argued since his death in 1953, not least by some of his successors,

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that he overestimated the importance of military strength as the single most important factor of power. There is evidence, however, that Stalin did believe that the economic and political aspects of power were important too. During the 1930s in particular he had been especially preoccupied with the forced development of Soviet heavy industry. Although this produced a narrow and limited industrial base, and the social costs which the Soviet people had to pay for Stalin’s industrialisation drive were exceedingly heavy, economists have conceded that some impressive statistical results were achieved. The economist Alec Nove analysed a series of indicators of Soviet industrial output and production for the decade 1940–50 and came to the conclusion that, by 1950, ‘the USSR could face the arms race . . . with a stronger industrial structure than before the war’. In other words the Soviet Union had, effectively within five years, more than made good the industrial devastation wrought in the years 1941–5. This progress continued throughout the Stalin era. According to Soviet writer Dmitri Volkogonov, ‘by 1952 the USSR had doubled its pre-war output of steel, coal and cement, and sharply increased production of oil and electricity’.46 There is also evidence that Stalin appreciated the importance of confident and effective diplomacy in the international arena, not as an alternative to military power but as a complement to it. In 1945, he reportedly told his army chiefs that ‘good foreign policy is worth two or three armies at the front’. In 1952, when appointing Andrei Gromyko as Soviet Ambassador to the UK, Stalin paid tribute to that country’s ‘sophisticated diplomatic experience’ and predicted that this would help the British to ‘play a major role in international affairs’. 47 The massive number of men maintained under arms by the USSR after 1945 did constitute the most visible sign of Soviet power, at least in the European context. But in military terms the USSR did not amount to more than a leading regional power in Stalin’s time. Aside from the alliance with Maoist China and North Korea in Asia, the USSR’s military presence and reach was restricted to Eastern Europe. In ideological terms, however, Soviet communism was granted a (malevolent) global scope by the West, most especially the United States, where the notion of the ‘worldwide communist threat’ came to dominate political discourse during the 1950s. It is not necessary to discuss here the extent to which this threat may or may not have existed in reality. What counts is the extent to which early Soviet global influence, such as it was, was perceived

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to be principally an ideological phenomenon. The post-Stalin Soviet leadership, under Nikita Khrushchev, moved to substantiate the Soviet global role from 1955 by taking the first steps to extend Soviet influence into the security and economic spheres beyond Europe (and communist China), specifically into South-East Asia, and into the Middle East and the Caribbean. Closely bound up with a developing sense of ideological selfconfidence under Khrushchev was an emphasis in Soviet propaganda upon projecting the USSR’s supposed economic strengths. This led, most notoriously, to Khrushchev’s statement directed to Western leaders to the effect that ‘we will bury you’. Khrushchev said that this was intended to refer not to any Soviet intention to conquer Western Europe by force of arms, but rather to the inevitable success of the USSR and its socialist allies in the competition to increase economic productivity and prosperity. American leaders were undoubtedly concerned that Khrushchev’s boasting was not idle talk. In 1957, a top-secret report prepared for President Eisenhower sounded a deeply pessimistic note about the US’s prospects in the long-term economic competition with the Soviet Union. The report claimed that ‘the Gross National Product of the USSR is now more than one-third that of the United States and is increasing again half as fast’. The feeling that the USSR would become a stronger power economically, and was already stronger ideologically, was a pervasive one in the US during the late 1950s and early 1960s.48 The importance of ideology as a factor of power for the Soviet Union has been much debated by historians and other specialist commentators. Some doubted that it had much significance, whilst others argued strongly that it did.49 The perspective adopted in this study supports the second view. The Soviet Union was, as has been argued many times, ‘a cause rather than a country’. In other words its very raison d’être as the world’s first socialist state was to build socialism in its own society and also to act as an example, source of support and leader to other socialist countries which appeared on the scene after 1917. After 1945 the latter became the USSR’s basic superpower role. During the Cold War years, Marxist-Leninist ideology was instrumental in propelling Soviet horizons beyond traditional Russian ones. This was shown by the USSR’s willingness to aim for a status which Imperial Russia had never aspired to, that of a global power with overseas interests and a presence beyond its own geographical proximity.

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This helps to explain why the 1962 Cuban missile crisis was such a watershed event in the Cold War. Prior to Cuba entering the Soviet camp, Soviet influence, whilst moving somewhat beyond Europe, had remained confined to regions reasonably close to Soviet territory. With Cuba this was clearly not the case. That the island was within the United States’ own traditional ‘backyard’ only served to emphasise how confident and sure of its own power the Soviet leadership was feeling by the early 1960s. Khrushchev’s decision to station nuclear-tipped missiles in Cuba in 1962 has been a source of heated debate ever since. Many have professed to see the ensuing crisis principally in terms of traditional balance-of-power politics, with the USSR seeking to compensate for the medium-range nuclear weapons stationed by the US close to Soviet territory in Europe. This consideration was undoubtedly important in Soviet thinking. The USSR’s ability to construct sites for nuclear missiles in Cuba showed that it was able and willing to project military power over great distances, by sea as well as on land. Clearly it was no longer merely a regional land power. At the same time, these factors seem to have been inseparably linked in Khrushchev’s own mind with ideological considerations. For him it seems clear that the USSR did have what might be termed traditional national interests at stake, but these were inseparable from ideological concerns. The extent of the link between the two is suggested in Khrushchev’s personal recollections of the origins of the crisis: We had an obligation to do everything in our power to protect Cuba’s existence as a Socialist country and as a working example to the other countries of Latin America. It was clear to me that we might very well lose Cuba if we didn’t take some decisive steps in her defense. The fate of Cuba and the maintenance of Soviet prestige in that part of the world preoccupied me . . . while on an official visit to Bulgaria, for instance, one thought kept hammering away at my brain; what will happen if we lose Cuba? I knew it would be a terrible blow to Marxism-Leninism. It would gravely diminish our stature throughout the world, but especially in Latin America.50 Fedor Burlatskiy, a Khrushchev aide at the time of the crisis, has supported the view that his former boss had mixed motives.

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According to Burlatskiy, Khrushchev’s ‘primary objective was to achieve a balance of power’ with the United States. At the same time, the Soviet leader’s whole approach was dominated by an ideological world-view. It was this, Burlatskiy argues, that heightened the fear and mistrust between the USSR and the US.51 Recent research carried out on the basis of new (if still incomplete) access to Soviet archives has added further support to the mixed-motives viewpoint.52 Although Khrushchev was eventually forced to remove the nuclear components of the Soviet forces based in Cuba, the outcome of the crisis did not represent a crushing defeat for the USSR. The Soviets extracted a de facto pledge from the Americans not to attempt an invasion of the island which thus remained firmly within the Soviet sphere of influence and continued to play host to Soviet conventional forces. Assuming that the Soviet leader’s goal had been both to establish a permanent socialist foothold in the United States’ backyard and to demonstrate that the USSR had the capacity to project itself as a global power, the Cuban episode may even be said to have proved at least a qualified success on both counts.53 Certainly such an interpretation would help to explain the policies and activities of the post-Khrushchev USSR. After 1964, the basic foreign policy of the new Soviet leadership, with Leonid Brezhnev the increasingly dominant political personality at home, seems to have been geared towards gaining confirmation from the international community – and especially the United States – of the USSR’s right to be regarded as a full superpower with a global role and influence. Looking back, this drive may have sown the early seeds which led to the weakening and eventual collapse of the Soviet Union. This was because, under Brezhnev, the emphasis began to shift from Soviet strengths in the ideological and economic spheres to an increasing emphasis on the military dimension, and specifically the nuclear component. By the early 1970s the Soviet leadership was ready to make its final push for acceptance as a superpower officially co-equal with the United States. The formal start of this campaign can be traced to the Twenty-Fourth Congress of the Soviet Communist Party which took place in April 1971. Soviet leaders used this high-profile gathering as the occasion to announce that the era of full Soviet superpowerdom had arrived. In doing this, Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko provided what may well stand as the most succinct statement of what being a superpower actually meant in the Cold War

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era. He told the assembled delegates that ‘today no significant issue can be resolved without the Soviet Union or contrary to its will. Should anyone try to prove that such matters could nowadays be settled without the Soviet Union he would be regarded as a freak.’54 The Soviet Union’s status as a superpower, formally co-equal with the United States, was officially blessed at the Nixon–Brezhnev summit in Moscow just over one year later. The formal basis of this relationship was strategic nuclear parity, as codified in the first Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty. The Soviet leadership was anxious that this treaty led not just to recognition of broad equality in the nuclear sphere, but in a more general sense too. Hence, the Americans were persuaded to agree to a declaration on the basic principles governing relations between the two states. The first of these was ‘the recognition of the security interests of the parties, based on the principle of equality and the renunciation of the use or threat of force’ (emphasis added). The view that the Soviets saw the 1972 summit as their passport to recognised superpower status is further supported by the official commentary published at the conclusion of that meeting. In this the Soviet leadership expressed its ‘deep satisfaction’ that thanks to its own ‘correct, Leninist policy’, coupled with the ‘selfless labor of the Soviet people’, the ‘might of the Soviet Union [was] constantly gaining strength’.55 From about 1974 the Brezhnev leadership appears to have embarked on a drive to confirm the Soviet Union’s superpower status by increasing its role as a global power, specifically as a supporter of ‘national liberation movements’ in Africa and Latin America. In part, this was an opportunistic policy, taking advantage of perceptions of American weakness in the post-Vietnam and post-Watergate period. Nevertheless, the Soviet Union would probably have tried a more assertive policy in any event, with the 1972 agreements being seen as conferring upon it a global stature and, one might argue, global responsibilities comparable to those of the United States.56 Soviet ideological self-confidence was evidently still high during this period. In 1976, for example, Brezhnev reportedly told French President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing that communism would dominate the world by the mid-1990s.57 Again, it could be argued that the seeds of later problems were being sown. During the 1970s the USSR paid scant heed to any strategy for making those countries brought within the Soviet orbit in Africa and elsewhere pay their way in economic terms. They thus added to the significant economic burdens already imposed by the Soviet Union’s relations with

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Cuba, Vietnam and the Warsaw Pact states in Central Europe. By the late 1970s informed Western observers were already detecting some serious cracks in the Soviet superpower edifice. These appeared to be especially discernable in the economic arena, previously overlooked by many Western observers in the 1960s and early 1970s who had been impressed with Soviet military capabilities and ideological self-confidence. In a much-discussed article published in October 1977, one prominent Western expert, Robert Legvold, argued that the Soviet Union’s claims as a superpower were extremely weak in the economic sphere because of its lack of influence, indeed non-participation, in leading global economic institutions and regimes such as the International Monetary Fund and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. ‘How much of a world power is a nation without much power in the world economy?’ Legvold asked, rhetorically.58 Other Western experts were noticing the slowdown in Soviet economic growth and the increasingly unsustainable demands of the military sector on the Soviet economy as a whole.59 Going beyond this, one academic writer, William Robinson, has suggested that the USSR’s failure to develop its own network of international economic and commercial institutions comparable to those created by the United States in the 1940s and 1950s resulted in the Soviet bloc’s gradual de facto absorption into the US-led capitalist world economic system. Not only did this further entrench the USSR’s relative economic weakness, it also in Robinson’s view contributed to the eventual collapse of communist rule in Central Europe and the Soviet Union itself by fixing, in the minds of increasing numbers of people in the Soviet bloc, the proposition that a better Western alternative to their existing flawed economic systems was available.60 In the sense in which Robinson discussed it, relative Soviet weakness vis-à-vis the US and its allies was illustrated in the increasingly urgent efforts made by Mikhail Gorbachev to formally achieve the USSR’s ‘organic integration with the world economy’ in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The most obvious manifestation of this effort was Soviet attempts to gain membership of the Group of Seven forum (G7) of major industrial countries.61 In the early 1980s, a sense of ideological decline in the Soviet Union also became apparent to some informed observers. Writing in 1984, Zbigniew Brzezinski argued that the ideological component of Soviet power had in fact been fading since the 1960s with the result that military power had been allowed to become too

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singularly significant for the USSR’s own good. Brzezinski argued that the USSR’s ‘ambivalent condition of one-dimensional power’ promoted ‘an outlook on the world’ which was ‘a combination of possessive defensiveness and disruptive offensiveness’.62 Various reasons have been cited for the decline in Soviet ideological strength, which many specialists agree was underway before Mikhail Gorbachev came to power in 1985. A Russian writer, A. V. Obolonsky, has argued that the decline was essentially a result of a loss of faith by both the population at large and many members of the political elite in the USSR, as the emptiness of the official state ideology became ever more clear. The controversial American writer, Francis Fukuyama, has meanwhile suggested that the demands imposed by a desire to keep up with modern technological developments ultimately proved too much for the collectivist and centralising Soviet ideology.63 Many Western analysts have told the story of the USSR’s decline and eventual collapse during the 1980s and early 1990s largely in economic terms. The argument in this book suggests that a key factor was the progressive discrediting and marginalisation of Soviet ideology. When growing Soviet military power had been allied with ideological self-confidence in the 1960s and 1970s, this was the period when the Soviet Union stood at the peak of its international power. This had been the case even though the country’s economic growth rates had been slowing down since the mid-1960s. A sense of crisis developed during the 1980s as the ideological component of Soviet power became increasingly weak and discredited. As this process occurred, Soviet power became too mono-dimensional to be sustainable indefinitely. Gorbachev himself, by initiating a process of de-ideologisation of Soviet foreign policy, contributed substantially, if not terminally, to the decline and fall of the USSR. The increasing relative weakness of the Soviet Union in this sphere was thrown into particularly sharp relief during the period 1980–8 by the presence of Ronald Reagan in the White House. Reagan, as noted, consistently exuded an innate belief in the fundamental strengths of American ideological values. There can be little doubt that Gorbachev and his closest associates did set out to downgrade the role of ideology in Soviet policy-making. In December 1988, Gorbachev addressed the United Nations General Assembly in New York. Here he said that ‘the de-ideologisation of interstate relations has become a requirement’.

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More significantly, he also called for ‘an honest struggle between ideologies’ internationally in order to determine which were ultimately stronger and more worthy of adoption.64 With these words one of the fundamental planks of Soviet foreign policy since at least Khrushchev’s time was effectively removed. The world-wide victory of communism was no longer, it appeared, regarded by the Soviet leadership as being inevitable. Nor was the innate superiority of Marxism-Leninism any longer automatically assumed. The crucial consequence of this revised worldview was that it marked the beginning of the end of the Soviet Union’s superpower role as leader of the socialist world. According to Sylvia Woodby, at the UN the Soviet leader had quite consciously set out to show that his country was becoming ‘a state preoccupied with domestic difficulties, uninterested in foreign adventures, and no threat to others’.65 In the final analysis, superpower status depends upon a country’s capacity and willingness to project power and influence beyond its boundaries on a global basis. By the late 1980s Gorbachev’s policy priorities seemed to be leading in the direction of the USSR ceasing to be a superpower. Powerful evidence in support of this proposition was supplied in another Gorbachev speech, this one to the Council of Europe in Strasbourg in July 1989. Here the Soviet leader said that the social and political orders in particular countries have changed in the past and may change in the future. But this change is the exclusive affair of the people of that country and their choice. Any interference in domestic affairs and any attempts to restrict the sovereignty of states – friends, allies or any others – are inadmissible.66 This seemed to be the clearest possible statement that Gorbachev had abandoned Soviet claims to a right of either ideological, political or military influence – still less dominance – even over countries in its core sphere of influence in Central Europe. Later, many in the West would recall this Gorbachev speech and date it as the effective beginning of the process which was shortly to lead to the overthrow of communist regimes throughout Central Europe in the autumn of 1989. Gorbachev’s downgrading of ideology fatally undermined the Soviet Union itself. During the Cold War years the USSR was viewed by many as essentially an ideological creation, rather than a state in

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the traditional sense; a cause rather than a country in the popular phrase. With the ‘cause’ being progressively discredited and weakened, it seems scarcely surprising that the state apparatus built upon it since 1917 was also being terminally weakened. It was to collapse, finally, in 1991. The Soviet Union and Central Europe Western Europe was, as noted above, relatively speaking the single most important area in US foreign policy in the Cold War years. Those areas of Central Europe which fell within the Soviet sphere of influence were, if anything, even more important to the USSR. The discussions here will assess the Soviet sphere in Europe in a similar fashion to the way in which the American sphere was assessed earlier; asking what were the methods used by, and what were the costs to, the Soviet Union in its dealings with the countries within its European sphere.67 The prevailing view in the West, certainly during the Cold War years, was one of rigid centralisation in the Soviet bloc coupled with draconian disciplining of its allies by the Soviet Union. From the 1940s, however, the Soviet leadership was never able to act with total impunity. As early as 1948, disputes developed between the USSR and Yugoslavia, with the latter declaring its right to pursue an independent road to socialism. Many at the time expected that Stalin would attempt to deal with this problem by invading Yugoslavia. This did not happen, however, and the Yugoslavs were able effectively to drop out of the Soviet bloc. The fact that Stalin chose not to intervene was almost certainly owing not only to a concern that any conflict in Yugoslavia would be unwinnable but also to the fear of potential escalation, perhaps with the United States ultimately being drawn in. Stalin appears to have had a persisting concern about escalation. This led to decisions which sometimes baffled his associates; witness Nikita Khrushchev’s recollection of Stalin’s ‘absolutely incomprehensible’ decision to withdraw all Soviet military advisers from North Korea on the eve of the Korean war in 1950. Stalin justified this decision on the grounds that ‘we don’t want there to be evidence for accusing us of taking part in this business’, and reportedly reacted with ‘extreme hostility’ to suggestions that even limited military aid be offered to the North Koreans. Although new evidence, drawn from previously closed Soviet archives, shows that

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Soviet military support was eventually offered, Stalin went to great lengths to keep this low-key and, as far as possible, hidden. Among the steps he took was to order that Soviet military personnel in North Korea be dressed in Chinese army uniforms.68 In those areas of Central Europe which remained within the Soviet sphere (and were occupied by Soviet military forces), the USSR undoubtedly did exercise a harsh and inflexible system of domination during Stalin’s lifetime. Even here, however, it has recently been claimed that Stalin was beginning to contemplate a limited loosening-up in the months immediately prior to his death in March 1953.69 The evidence for that particular proposition is mainly circumstantial. More clear, however, is the pace with which relations between the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies began to evolve after Stalin’s death. In this respect, 1956 was a pivotal year. A political crisis in Poland in the spring and autumn of that year was defused when the Khrushchev leadership acquiesced in Polish demands to restore Wladislaw Gomulka to the position of national leadership from which the Soviets had effectively expelled him eight years earlier. The long-term significance of the Polish crisis, according to Peter Calvocoressi, was that it demonstrated that ‘a mere three years after Stalin’s death, the Kremlin was tacitly admitting that RussoPolish relations were a matter for management, not dictation’.70 There were limits to the tolerance. These were clearly illustrated in Soviet behaviour at the time of the second major bloc crisis of 1956, in Hungary in the autumn. At first, the Soviet leadership appeared willing to consider a ‘Polish solution’ to this crisis. The Soviets initially thought that they had done a deal with the new government in Budapest. In outline, this was based on the premise ‘that loyalty to the Warsaw Pact would guarantee non-interference by the Soviet Union in the internal affairs of allied countries’.71 It was only when the Hungarians attempted to overstep the terms of this bargain, specifically by announcing an intention to leave the Warsaw Pact, that Soviet military power was used, and then in a duplicitous and bloody manner. The relative toleration of the Khrushchev leadership may have been due, at least in some degree, to the emphasis on the supposed superiority of Marxist-Leninist ideology which the Soviet leader liked to stress. Resorting to overt and naked use of terror to keep the Central Europeans in line would hardly have accorded with the view which Khrushchev was propagating publicly that communism would ultimately triumph over capitalism because it was a

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fairer, less socially-divisive and hence stronger system. Emphasis on ideological factors may also have increased the value of Central Europe in Soviet eyes. In this sense one Western specialist termed the region an ‘ideological security zone’ as well as a physical one.72 With this in mind, Soviet leaders after Stalin became more wary of using strong-arm tactics which might conceivably have provoked popular revolt in Warsaw Pact states. There is certainly evidence that, in the years after 1956, the USSR’s Warsaw Pact allies were taking, and/or being granted, greater autonomy within the overall Soviet bloc structure. The growing rift between China and the USSR from this time has been cited as a further reason why the Soviets felt obliged to loosen the reins. With China increasingly departing from the Soviet orbit, Central Europe was becoming even more important for shoring-up the Soviet Union’s superpower role as leader of the socialist world. Sensing their importance, other Warsaw Pact states, in particular the Romanians, sought and found an increased ability to influence Soviet policies and attitudes.73 Khrushchev’s memoirs lend support to the view that, for reasons both of ideology and international status, the USSR under his leadership was increasingly reluctant to be seen to be dealing with its European allies in a heavy-handed fashion. In accounting for the reduction in the Soviet military presence in Poland and Hungary during the late 1950s, Khrushchev argued that ‘these were our allies. They were building Socialism in their countries because it was in their own interest to do so, not because there were Soviet troops stationed in their midst’. Khrushchev claimed that he agreed to the total withdrawal of Soviet forces from Romania in 1958 after the Romanians convinced him that they would continue to build socialism even without the Soviet military presence, because they really believed in it. According to Khrushchev’s account, this argument won him over despite his having, shortly beforehand, raised a number of strategic concerns.74 These claims may not be as implausible as they may at first sound to Western ears. It is possible that the leaders of the Central European states in the Soviet bloc really had bought into the Soviet Union’s Marxist-Leninist ideology – or been ‘socialised’ in the terms discussed earlier – if only for reasons of personal and political survival. In this case, their efforts to convince the Soviet leader that they were sincere about building socialism may have been a least partly motivated by genuine ideological beliefs.

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The emphasis on ideological solidarity was maintained by Brezhnev after 1964. The Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968 was justified to the Soviet people and the world mainly in ideological terms. It was the Soviet Union’s superpower role as the leader of the international socialist movement which was being safeguarded, it was admitted, and it was in this context that the socalled ‘Brezhnev Doctrine’ was first formulated. Despite its name, the doctrine did not originate in the speeches and writings of Brezhnev himself, but in an article by a relatively junior official, S. Kovalev, which appeared in Pravda shortly after the invasion of Czechoslovakia. There is no doubt, however, owing to the extremely sensitive nature of its content, that Kovalev’s article did reflect the views of the Soviet leadership. The Brezhnev Doctrine was overwhelmingly an ideological statement. Its basic purpose was to officially formalise and justify the USSR’s claim to the right to intervene in the internal affairs of allied states when socialism in those countries seemed, to Soviet leaders, to be under threat. Kovalev’s article provided an ideological worldview which put the interests of the international socialist movement (which, of course, the Soviet Union led) above the national sovereignty of the USSR’s allies. According to Kovalev: There is no doubt that the peoples of the socialist countries and the Communist Parties have and must have freedom to determine their country’s path of development. However, any decision of theirs must damage neither socialism in their own country nor the fundamental interests of the other socialist countries nor the worldwide workers’ movement, which is waging a struggle for socialism. This means that every Communist Party is responsible not only to its own people but also to all the socialist countries and to the entire Communist movement.75 That the Soviet leadership was anxious to stress the ideological aspect was further suggested by other post-invasion articles which appeared in the pages of Pravda. Kovalev’s was one of many, and they all doubtless reflected the approved line emanating from the top. The Soviet leadership seems to have genuinely believed that ideology was one of its main – perhaps even the greatest – sources of strength internationally at that time.76 Notwithstanding the invasion of Czechoslovakia, the persisting ideological emphasis seems to have ensured that whenever poss-

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ible, for similar reasons to those discussed above, relations with the Central European allies continued to be managed, rather than dictated, by the Soviet Union. Published evidence suggests that the Warsaw Pact allies were sometimes able both to resist and influence Soviet ideas and proposals during the late 1960s and 1970s.77 After 1985 the progressive, and deliberate, downgrading of the role of ideology in Soviet foreign policy created, as noted above, the conditions for the disintegration of the Soviet bloc. In the discussions on United States relations with Western Europe it was argued that, in financial terms, the US effectively paid significantly for the privilege of leading the Western alliance. The Soviet Union also incurred heavy costs as part of the price for its position as the leader of international socialism for most of the Cold War period. It did not begin by so doing. David Reynolds has noted that between 1948 and 1953 the USSR extracted the equivalent of $14bn. from its Central European allies, in stark contrast to the US which pumped around $13bn. into Western Europe through Marshall aid and military assistance programmes between 1948 and 1951.78 The USSR’s transition from net gainer to major net contributor, which took place during the mid-1950s, did so largely for political and ideological reasons. At the time, Khrushchev was interested in creating an Eastern-bloc equivalent of the European Economic Community. Undoubtedly too, aside from any desire to demonstrate ‘socialist internationalism’ in relations with their Central European allies, Soviet leaders saw the provision of oil and gas at advantageous rates – the chief material source of Soviet subsidy to the region – as an important means of increasing the dependence of Central European countries and leaders upon the USSR. That the Soviet Union went from being an importer of energy from Central Europe in 1955 to an exporter to it by 1960 suggests that a deliberate Soviet turnaround strategy had been implemented.79 Whatever the motivation, the costs to the already burdened Soviet economy of having to subsidise the Central European allies were high. One Western specialist calculated in 1990 that the Soviet Union had spent the equivalent of $118bn. on economic subsidies to its Warsaw Pact allies between 1970 and 1984, a figure which did not include the costs of maintaining the Soviet military presence in Central Europe.80 Nor did their dependence upon cheap Soviet energy and other forms of subsidy leave the Central Europeans without political influence over the USSR. They were able to ensure that

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the Soviets continued to deliver oil and gas on advantageous terms, even after some within the Soviet Union had come to question this arrangement in the 1970s and 1980s. The arguments used by the Central Europeans took advantage of Soviet sensitivity to the possibility that a reduction or halting of energy imports might have provoked political instability and popular protest within the bloc. On occasion, allied governments were unabashed in making this point quite specifically and publicly. 81 High-level meetings of the Soviet bloc’s main economic forum, the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance, evidently resembled those of the Warsaw Pact in that Central European representatives were sometimes able to resist and influence Soviet initiatives and proposals.82 It has not been the intention here to suggest that the Soviet Union organised its European sphere of influence in what westerners might regard as being a democratic and inclusive manner. The example noted earlier of the stark contrast in US and Soviet decision-making processes over the deployment of intermediaterange nuclear forces in Europe in the early 1980s serves as a reminder of the extent to which the Soviet Union was able and willing to dictate to its allies when it chose to. Frequently, however, it did not choose to, for reasons discussed above. Additionally, and like the United States, it bore significant costs in order to maintain its superpower status and roles. Partly these were financial and economic, but perhaps even more important were the limitations which international leadership imposed on the Soviets’ ability to dominate and consistently get their own way in international relations with their main allies.

SUPERPOWER CO-OPERATION IN THE COLD WAR YEARS One further important consideration, which effectively regulated the behaviour of both superpowers vis-à-vis each other was the shared desire to prevent crises and flashpoints from giving rise to a direct US–Soviet clash of arms. In the sense that this never happened, it could be argued that the superpowers were engaged in a process of continuous background co-operation, defined as the regulation of their activities and relations in ways which prevented direct confrontation between them.83 The impact of this shared desire to minimise the risk of serious

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conflict was seen with regard to European crises from an early stage. Notwithstanding some feisty Republican rhetoric during the 1952 presidential election campaign about rolling back Soviet influence in Central Europe, the new Eisenhower administration made no attempt to support in any practical way the workers’ demonstrations taking place in Berlin in June 1953 which represented the first flicker of open opposition to communist rule in Central Europe. By 1956 the informal principles which both superpowers adopted to regulate their mutual relations were already in place. They were, as one writer explained them: ‘do not challenge directly the core interests of the other superpower; avoid direct intervention in the other superpower’s sphere of influence; and do not pursue actions likely to result in a direct military showdown’.84 The influence of these principles was reflected in the studiously disinterested stance taken by the US with regard to the Hungarian crisis in the autumn of that year. According to a senior American diplomat of the time, the main concern of the Eisenhower administration was to make sure that the Soviet leadership got the message that the United States would not consider Hungary, or any other country within the Soviet sphere in Europe, to be a potential ally of itself under any circumstances.85 Twelve years later, at the time of the Sovietled invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, a similarly keen desire to avoid doing anything whatsoever which could be regarded as provocative by the Soviet Union was again evident. NATO reportedly went so far as to temporarily withdraw troops from front-line positions in West Germany close to the Czech border.86 The record on the Soviet side appears at first sight less impressive. In the early 1960s, Khrushchev provoked the Cuban missile crisis which, briefly, appeared likely to escalate into superpower war. However, once he felt that he was approaching the limits of American patience, Khrushchev opted not to continue with his provocation. Indeed, his memoirs convey the impression of a rapid decision to de-escalate the crisis once a certain point had been reached. Khrushchev ‘could see that we had to reorient our position swiftly’ once he became convinced that there was a danger of a military coup against President Kennedy in the United States.87 Whether such fears were well-grounded is immaterial to the present discussion. The important point is the Soviet leader’s perception of limits beyond which he was not prepared to push the Americans. The Cuban missile crisis also represents probably the bestknown example of the use of the diplomatic ‘backchannel’ for the

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containment and resolution of disputes between the superpowers before they escalated further. This technique was adopted when the two sides wanted to see a dispute de-escalated but did not want to be seen to be publicly negotiating. In the Cuban case the backchannel operated largely through the Soviet ambassador in Washington, Anatoly Dobrynin, and the President’s brother, Robert Kennedy. Khrushchev himself later testified to the importance of this behind-the-scenes channel of communication.88 The Cuban episode was by no means the only occasion on which a superpower backchannel was employed. By 1962 it had become an accepted part of the US–Soviet toolkit for the conduct of their bilateral relations. A backchannel had been used to defuse the standoff over the Soviet blockade of Berlin as long ago as 1949, and backchannel negotiating almost certainly played a role in facilitating the conclusion of the armistice which effectively terminated the Korean War in 1953.89 There were also occasions when the superpowers informally pressured, or attempted to pressure, their allies to desist from a course of action which might, if left unchecked, have resulted in superpower confrontation. There is some evidence for believing that, at the time of the Suez crisis in the autumn of 1956, the US tried to persuade the USSR to accept a tacit bargain. In exchange for exerting pressure on its own allies – France and the UK – not to use military means, it expected the Soviets to influence the Egyptians to settle for a negotiated compromise.90 The Soviet leadership does not appear to have taken up the idea. Nevertheless the Americans still put heavy and successful pressure on France and the UK to halt their invasion of the Suez canal zone and withdraw their military forces from the area. In large part this can be explained by American concern that a continuation of the invasion might prompt the Soviet Union to become involved on the side of Egypt. Similar considerations later prompted the US to pressure Israeli governments to accept ceasefires, rather than try to press home military advantages against their Arab adversaries, in the Middle East wars of 1967 and 1973.91 Notwithstanding what has been said here about the significance of US–Soviet co-operation during the Cold War period, it should not be forgotten that their relationship was generally perceived, on both sides, as being at bottom a competitive one. Whilst the cooperation which did take place was at least useful (and probably essential) to stop the superpowers colliding with one another, it

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never evolved to the point where US–Soviet relations overall became fundamentally premised upon co-operation rather than competition. That being said, many informed observers have concluded that US–Soviet relations were highly structured and organised and that, with the ending of the Cold War stand-off, international relations in the 1990s and beyond are likely to be less ordered and less stable. It is in this respect that some have argued, only partly or not at all in jest, that the world will grow to miss the Cold War.92 In the chapters which follow the discussions focus on what has happened to the main Cold War actors, that is the United States, the former Soviet Union and Western Europe, since 1989. A key issue for analysis will be the ways in which relations between these regions and amongst the states within them have evolved.

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3 The United States: Cajoler or Controller? The present and future position of the United States in world politics has dominated discussions and debates about international power since 1989. The US has often been referred to as the world’s sole remaining superpower, especially since the demise of the Soviet Union at the end of 1991. This chapter assesses these claims. The first section examines the power resources of the US in the three key areas outlined and discussed in preceding chapters, that is, the economic, military and ideological/political. Section two continues from this to analyse the core international roles which the US has sought and played since the end of the Cold War in identified key regions of the world. This is vital in view of the crucial importance of a viable and accepted global role in underpinning the status of a superpower.

AMERICAN POWER RESOURCES AND POLICY Economic It has become a truism for many observers that the economic dimension of power has increased significantly in importance relative to the military since the ending of the Cold War. As noted in Chapter 2, a key debate of the late 1980s and early 1990s concerned the extent to which the United States was in decline relative to other significant economic powers, but the US has clearly remained one of the largest and most important. Comparative statistics vary but have almost always supported this point. According to figures produced by the World Bank in 1992, for example, the Japanese economy was at that time only 40 per cent as large as the American, and the German even less at 30 per cent. These relative positions were projected to remain constant in the years to 2020. Two years later, The Economist calculated that, ‘by the purchasing-power test’, the American economy was 260 per cent the size of China’s and 630 per cent larger than the Russian. The combined economic strength 50

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of the then twelve European Community states was, by this measurement, roughly on a par with the United States.1 As the 1990s entered their second half, increasing optimism about the strength of, and prospects for, the American economy was replacing the pessimism which had previously garnered so much attention. Martin Walker has noted that between 1992 and 1996 the Japanese economy overall did not grow and ‘may even have shrunk’, whilst the US ‘created 11 million new jobs and increased its GDP by nearly a fifth’. In seeking to demonstrate just how strong, relatively speaking, the US economy has remained in the 1990s, Walker added that: By the time of Clinton’s Second Inauguration [in January 1997], the president could claim to have presided over an economy whose GDP had in the previous four years grown by the equivalent of Germany’s. Unless something dramatically good happens to the Japanese economy and something dramatically bad happens to the US economy . . . Clinton may be able to claim that the difference between American GDP in 1992 and in the year 2000 is roughly the equivalent of the annual GDP of a stagnant Japan.2 Walker’s projections were confirmed as 1997 and 1998 progressed. In an economic survey of the United States published in November 1997, the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) noted that the United States has enjoyed a year of exceptionally good economic performance. Real GDP growth looks set to be around 33/4 per cent this year, the best among the largest seven Member countries of the OECD and the highest since 1988. The OECD survey further observed that the federal government’s budget deficit, the cause of a good deal of angst in certain quarters during the 1980s, was set to fall to 0.5 per cent of GDP in 1997; down from 4.75 per cent in 1992.3 In both Germany and Japan meanwhile economic recession had set in, sending unemployment up towards record post-war levels. The Japanese economy was in particularly poor shape during 1998 with the government’s budget declining from a surplus of 1.5 per cent of GDP in 1992 to a deficit of 3 per cent by 1997.4 At least as important as raw measurements of national economic strength has been the United States’ continuation as the pivotal

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power in the global economic system and its leading international institutions, chiefly the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) (replaced by the World Trade Organisation [WTO] from 1994), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. This can be traced directly to the leading role which the US played in creating these institutions. There was plenty of evidence, especially strong during the 1970s and 1980s, that successive American administrations did not always adhere to the multilateral principles of consultation and decision-making upon which the institutions of the global economy were formally based. Nevertheless, no other country or international grouping mounted a significant or sustained challenge to the United States’ position as the linchpin of the global economic order, not least because the major communist powers were never able to either join the Western-based system and try to change it from within or else develop a real alternative of their own. During the Cold War period American stewardship of the Westernbased international economic order, whilst important, did not constitute the United States’ main superpower role in the eyes of many, probably most, observers. That role was, as noted in Chapter 2, to lead the ‘free world’ which implied a mainly ideological vocation backed up by American military power. The Bush administration, in office from 1989 to 1993, appeared generally content to try to retain this ideological–security focus, with the President’s declared goal being US leadership in the construction of a ‘new world order’. From 1993, however, the administration of President Clinton made a determined effort to bring about a major shift of focus. This was by no means a complete or absolute shift. However, many did feel that, in the post-Cold War era, the United States should devote more energy and attention to its worldwide economic and commercial interests rather than military-dominated ones. Some informed analysts argued that such a policy did not represent a radical new departure so much as a return to pre-Cold War American objectives of ensuring commercial and trading opportunities for American businesses wherever in the world there were profitable openings. Closely related to this had been the foreign policy objective of preventing the rise of rivals or challengers – whether blocs or single states – which might disrupt or restrict the smooth conduct of American commerce internationally. Substantial and sophisticated military resources would, therefore, still be required by the US to deter and if necessary actively oppose such challenges. But many now felt that the country’s military resources should exist at

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the service of its economic and commercial objectives rather than the other way round, as most assumed had been the case during the Cold War, especially during the Reagan years in the 1980s.5 The shift of focus was certainly not intended to entail US abandonment of a worldwide presence or influence per se. Rather the intention was to change, to an extent, its nature. Emphasis was now to be placed, far more than Bush appeared to have envisaged, on promoting US economic interests via improved trading and export opportunities for American firms. According to their official statements, the President and his advisers believed that it was both necessary and possible to emphasise national US interests without undermining the established multilateral frameworks or the American role within them. In one of his first major speeches as President in February 1993, Clinton told an audience in Washington that the basic goal of his foreign policy would be ‘putting the American people first without withdrawing from the world and people beyond our borders’. He also said that it was ‘time for us to make trade a priority element of American security’.6 From the beginning, therefore, the Clinton administration pursued a clear overarching foreign policy goal. From the perspective of the US’s main allies the problem this caused, and the source of subsequent disputes, was not so much the lack of a coherent Clinton foreign policy per se. Rather, it was the perceived disinterest of the Clinton administration in pursuing what for them were traditional US foreign policy objectives as established during the Cold War, that is with the main focus on military security matters rather than economics and international trade. To many Europeans, in particular, Clinton’s foreign policy, at least between 1993 and the summer of 1995, seemed to amount to ‘little more than export promotion’.7 US allies in both Western Europe and Asia were especially concerned by indications that the Clinton administration would adopt an increasingly unilateral approach to world trade and other economic issues. Such an approach might, they thought, entail considering national American interests first and foremost, if not exclusively, and seeking to advance them via threats and sanctions if other countries proved non-compliant in negotiations. In its early days, the administration seemed barely able to disguise its willingness to adopt this kind of approach. Clinton’s nominee for Secretary of State, Warren Christopher, had stated baldly at the beginning of 1993 that

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more than ever before, the State Department cannot afford to have ‘clientitis’, a malady characterized by undue deference to the potential reactions of other countries. I have long thought the State Department needs an ‘America Desk’. This administration will have one – and I’ll be sitting behind it.8 In spite of this kind of tough-talking the Clinton administration has not been willing to promote aggressively American national interests to the point where doing so might either seriously threaten the established global economic system or the US leadership role within it. On key occasions, when the United States and major allies almost went to the limit in bruising talks on trade and commercial issues, both sides would eventually prove amenable to compromise. Particularly good examples of such last-minute compromises have been the eleventh-hour conclusion, with the European Community, of the Uruguay Round of GATT in December 1993 and the settlement of the US–Japan ‘Car Wars’ dispute in the summer of 1995, after Japan had threatened to refer the matter to the WTO. In addition, during 1997–8 the Clinton administration felt compelled to call a truce in a developing dispute with the European Union (EU) over attempts to tighten international economic sanctions against Cuba, Libya and Iran. Concerns about the risk of damage to international institutions of which the US is generally considered to be the leading member were undoubtedly a key factor in persuading the Americans to back away from open rows in each of these cases. Threats by the other side to refer disputes to the GATT/WTO have placed the US in an especially difficult position. Successive administrations have made great play of claims that the US is the leading champion of international free trade and free-market economics and the risk of being found to be in breach of GATT/WTO rules or other international trading agreements would thus be highly embarrassing politically and diplomatically. Nor would it be easy for the US to choose to simply ignore such adverse judgements in view of the claims its leaders have frequently made for it. The progress of the disputes with Japan over cars and the EU over Cuba, Libya and Iran both support this argument. A detailed analysis of the former led analyst Jagdish Bhagwati to conclude that: In the end . . . the Japanese, as should have been expected by informed analysts, yielded nothing of consequence . . . The US

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threat to use punitive tariffs illegal under the WTO had simply not been credible: the WTO would have found against the United States some time during the election year, badly exposing President Clinton to the charge, not that he was wrong to stand up against Japan (that is politically a non-starter), but that his chosen method of doing so had been incompetent and had hurt the United States instead.9 With regard to the EU and Cuba, Libya and Iran, two related disputes had their origins in the passage by the US Congress of the Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act (popularly called the ‘Helms–Burton Act’ after its main congressional sponsors) and the Iran and Libya Sanctions Act (the ‘D’Amato Act’) during 1996. Both these pieces of legislation contained contentious provisions. In the Cuban case these allowed for non-US individuals or companies to be sued for ‘trafficking in’ (that is using or profiting from) property in Cuba claimed by US citizens but confiscated by the Castro government, and also for executives from offending companies to be denied US entry visas. In the cases of Libya and Iran, the American legislation was aimed at companies making investments or exporting items deemed likely to significantly enhance the petroleum industries of either country, or the military capabilities of Libya. The legislation stipulated that economic, financial or commercial sanctions could be imposed by the US against such companies, regardless of their nationality. EU member states and the European Commission quickly decided that not only were these provisions intolerable but also likely to be illegal under WTO rules and these views were forcefully put to the Clinton administration which responded by twice deferring by six months the entry into force of the provisions in the Helms– Burton legislation relating to the right of US citizens to bring cases against overseas ‘traffickers’. A statement made by the President on announcing the first of these deferrals in July 1996 pointed clearly to two distinct administration concerns about what might happen if the dispute got out of hand. The President stated that compromise would not only ‘avert commercial disputes that would harm American workers and businesses and cost us jobs here at home’, but that it would also ‘help maintain our leadership authority in international organizations’ [emphasis added].10 The EU, however, proved not to be satisfied with these deferrals of one part of the Helms–Burton Act. The other contentious

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provision, relating to the refusal of visas, went into effect with the rest of the legislation. Early in 1997, the EU formally referred the matter to the WTO. The fact that its complaint also mentioned other US anti-Castro embargo legislation, some dating back to the time of President Kennedy, suggested a deliberate raising of the stakes by the EU in order to bring additional pressure to bear on the Americans. The Clinton administration was undoubtedly worried, not by the scope of the EU complaint as much as by the European decision to involve the WTO at all. An official response issued jointly by the Commerce Department and the Office of the US Trade Representative in February 1997 showed up the nature of the American dilemma. If the EU proceeded with its complaint, the statement read, ‘the United States will . . . make clear that [the WTO] has no competence to proceed because this is a matter of US national security and foreign policy’. Yet the same statement also declared that ‘no nation is more committed to the success of the WTO than the United States. The United States led the world in both the creation of the WTO and its predecessor, the GATT.’11 This latter ringing declaration would be difficult to reconcile with a brusque US refusal to consider submitting to WTO jurisdiction. Mindful of this, the Clinton administration chose the same course that it had adopted with Japan two years earlier: compromise. Under the terms of a deal announced in April 1997, the EU agreed to suspend (but not drop) its complaint to the WTO in exchange for the administration pledging to try to persuade Congress to waive the provisions of the Helms–Burton Act relating to the denial of visas. At the same time both parties agreed to open negotiations to try to find a mutually-acceptable solution to the property trafficking problem. Agreement was reached at an EU–US summit meeting in London in May 1998. When the terms of this deal were made public it could be seen that the Clinton administration had made the relatively greater concessions in agreeing to seek congressional approval for a permanent waiver of the contentious title of the Helms–Burton Act with regard to trafficking in expropriated property in exchange for the European Commission and EU member states pledging that they would not extend credits, loans or other assistance to any projects deemed to involve illegally expropriated property in Cuba. However, the EU stated that it would not implement its side of the bargain until the congressional waiver had been obtained.

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Concurrently with this agreement the US Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, announced that she was exercising her right to waive US sanctions against the French-owned oil firm, Total, which had recently signed a deal to help develop a major Iranian gas field. This announcement suggested that the Clinton administration wished to extricate itself from a parallel EU threat to refer the contentious provisions of the D’Amato Act to the World Trade Organisation too. Albright’s statement announcing the waiver echoed that made previously by the President in his justification for the Helms–Burton decisions: granting waivers will prevent retaliation against US firms, which the imposition of sanctions would probably engender, and avoid possible challenges based on claims related to treaties and other international obligations. These considerations buttress the view that a waiver in this case best serves our national interest.12 The examples discussed here support the view that the United States, self-styled leader and guarantor of the international economic and commercial system, has had a special reason to ensure its preservation. For if the system itself crumbled, so too would one of the Americans’ main claims to a global role in the postCold War era. Because of this the Americans have ultimately proved willing to make what many saw as being the relatively greater compromises in disputes with both the Japanese and the Europeans. The American claim to be the leading international champion of both economic and political freedom has continued to be asserted since 1989. If the US could be accused of pursuing a course of action which led to the wrecking of an international system explicitly designed to promote free-market principles on an international basis, these ideological claims would be severely, perhaps fatally, undermined. Thus, the US declaratory commitment – repeatedly stated – to international economic co-operation to further free trade and the spread of market economies has imposed clear limits on the extent of its unilateral behaviour. Whilst preferring to operate ultimately within the framework of established international institutions, the United States has not been averse to taking advantage of the legacy of its Cold War superpower status in order to try and secure advantages and breaks for American firms and enterprises. Both the Bush and Clinton administrations saw opportunities for leverage in the expressed desire of almost all

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West European and Asian allies for the US to maintain a significant military presence in their regions. An example of how such leverage was being utilised was given in congressional testimony by Asia expert Donald Zagoria in the spring of 1993. ‘In Korea’, said Zagoria, our Ambassador . . . is regarded, because of our strategic position, as one of the most powerful men in the country, and Korean businessmen listen to him when he talks to them. He has spent a lot of his time over the past 2 years telling the Koreans that they have got to start doing more business with American companies, and he has been very successful in doing this . . . Similar things have happened in other parts of the region.13 With the phrase ‘our strategic position’, Zagoria was referring to the continued presence of over 30 000 US troops in South Korea. The view that the US has overstepped the mark by linking its security commitments to greater openings for American firms in Asian countries has not gone unheard, especially in Western Europe where a number of governments have themselves been making increasing efforts to open up greater economic opportunities in Asia for their own firms. The Financial Times, the de facto house journal of the City of London, has been particularly vociferous in criticising the Americans for what it argues are unfair tactics in gaining a greater share of global markets.14 The Americans have not shown themselves to be seriously troubled by such criticisms. Regional and local economic arrangements, mainly free-trade areas, have been on the rise in the 1990s. Of the 108 in existence at the end of 1994, 33 had reportedly been established since 1990.15 The US has not opposed these in principle; but Americans have been concerned about the potential creation of regional protectionist blocs which would erect barriers against imports from non-members. American economists and business leaders, the European Union’s Trade Commissioner, and the Secretary-General of the World Trade Organisation have all publicly argued that the best, indeed only, way for the United States to ward off the threat of closed regional blocs is by strengthening established multilateral fora like the WTO by working firmly and consistently within them itself.16 Beyond this, occasional concerns have been voiced that US interest in and support for the global trading regime might even be showing signs of diminishing.17

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There have been signs that such arguments have had some impact. An important part of the Clinton administration’s foreign economic policy from 1993 was focused on what it liked to call ‘open regionalism’. This entailed seeking to ensure that regional free trade arrangements which the United States has been instrumental in establishing have been based on the principle that any trade advantages negotiated amongst the members will also be made available to non-member states which wish to partake of them. Potentially at least, the principle of open regionalism has been in conflict with the American desire to shore up its global position in the post-Soviet era by ‘buttoning up’ key regions against the possibility of economic penetration by potential great power rivals or challengers. An especial concern has been that the European Union might establish itself as a leading economic player in Asia and/or Latin America. So, for example, the US has been very reluctant to see the EU (or Russia) become involved in the Asia–Pacific Economic Co-operation forum which President Clinton revitalised in 1993. Indeed the American position was so clearly discouraging that in 1996 the EU and its members moved instead to establish their own forum for dialogue with Asian countries.18 Renewed US interest in Latin America during the 1990s has also been motivated in part by a desire to avoid the EU establishing too significant a presence in that region. Military The collapse of the Soviet empire, and the Soviet Union itself, has thrown into sharp relief the unrivalled physical security of the United States. This is a product not only of its conventional military power, but also of size, possession of one of the world’s two largest stockpiles of nuclear weapons, and geographical location. This matters. As one American writer noted in 1992, ‘to be militarily secure in a world where most others are insecure is a tremendous asset’.19 Notwithstanding the relative security of the US, successive administrations during the 1990s have felt a need to spend a greater proportion of national wealth on the military than many less-secure states. During 1990 and 1991, many were awed by the display of American military might in the Gulf. Notwithstanding the proportion of its military resources which were required to be sure of defeating Iraq quickly20 and the extent to which the US had actively solicited financial contributions to its war effort from Japan, Germany and

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Saudi Arabia, most observers felt that the US had achieved in the Gulf something which no other country could have done. As Paul Kennedy summed it up in March 1993: In dispatching over 1,500 aircraft and 500,000 men (including heavy armoured units) to Saudi Arabia in a matter of months, and in filling the Mediterranean, Persian Gulf, and Indian Ocean with carrier task forces, the United States displayed military power unequalled in modern times. Perhaps the only modern historical equivalent was Britain’s ‘force projection’ of over 300,000 soldiers, safely protected by the Royal Navy’s command of the seas, to fight in the South African war at the beginning of this century.21 The Bush administration was politically, and fiscally, realistic enough to appreciate that some drawdowns would have to be made in defence spending. But the Bush military restructuring process appeared to be premised on the belief that nothing more drastic was required than a somewhat slimmed down version of the Cold War force posture, largely because of the President’s firm belief that the United States should retain the capacity to project military power on a global basis. In view of the security against aggression of the American homeland itself, it seems reasonable to ask why both the Bush and Clinton administrations have been willing to continue to spend substantial sums of money on the American armed forces, especially as the link between the military build-up promoted by the Reagan administration and the unprecedented transformation of the US from being the world’s major creditor state to being its largest debtor during the decade of the 1980s has been discussed, debated and bemoaned frequently in US political, media and academic circles. Although some reductions have been made, Ronald Steel in his concise book Temptations of a Superpower asserted that in 1995 the US defence budget was still as large as those of all the other countries of the world put together and that half of the total then being spent was still going on maintaining military personnel and bases outside the United States itself.22 Steel’s claim about the total amount being spent relative to everybody else almost beggars belief, even though other analysts have arrived at similar conclusions.23 What is undeniable, however, is that in terms of the financial resources which it has continued to commit to the military, the United States has been in a league of its own in the post-Cold War era.

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Offering a somewhat more precise indication than Steel, Martin Walker has recently asserted that ‘the US defense budget is greater than that of the world’s next ten military powers added together, and the 1997 US military procurement budget of $76 billion is greater than the defense budget of any other country’. In January 1997, according to Walker, General John Shalikashvili, Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, told senior Clinton administration officials that ‘never in his professional life had the gap in military power and capability between the United States and all other powers yawned so wide’.24 Ronald Steel has drawn two persuasive conclusions from the continuing high relative rates of US defence spending. Firstly he argues that American leaders from both parties have clearly wished the US to remain a superpower. Secondly, and following on from this, Steel argues that American leaders continue to see a military capability unequalled by any other state (or potential combination of states) in the world as the most important underpinning of such status. Elements of such thinking could be found in a draft of the US Defense Department’s basic planning guidance for the period 1994–9 which was leaked to the press in the spring of 1992. According to the printed excerpts from this document, the main goal of US postCold War security policy would be to ‘prevent the re-emergence of a new rival’ anywhere in the world. It recommended that American leaders undertake this task by developing a strategy of persuasion and co-option (i.e. incorporating other powerful states into the USled global system), rather than coercion. The US must show the leadership necessary to establish and protect a new order that holds the promise of convincing potential competitors that they need not aspire to a greater role or pursue a more aggressive posture to protect their legitimate interests [it stated; adding that] we must account sufficiently for the interests of the advanced industrial nations to discourage them from challenging our leadership or seeking to overturn the established political and economic order. The leaked document also detailed those regions which were considered of especial importance to US interests: the former Soviet Union, Europe, Asia/Pacific, the Middle East and Latin America.25 Considerable public controversy was generated by the leaking of

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this draft. Many objected to the argument, which they thought the document conveyed, that the United States could and would strive to play a ‘world policeman’ role. Senior planners and administration officials responded with a partial rethink and the results were again leaked to the press, this time quite possibly at official instigation. The revised policy guidance differed from its predecessor most notably in one key area. The original Pentagon draft had stated that the US would ‘retain the preeminent responsibility for addressing selectively those wrongs which threaten not only our interests but those of our allies or friends’. The new version reportedly amended this so that the key passage now read: where our allies’ interests are directly affected, we must expect them to take an appropriate share of the responsibility, and in some cases play the leading role; but we maintain the capabilities for addressing selectively those security problems that threaten our own interests.26 However, although this shift was hailed in some quarters as representing a US retreat from an overall foreign policy goal of ‘blocking the rise of new superpowers’, other analysts and commentators have been more sceptical and have argued that for at least some powerful elements of the US government, such as the Department of Defense, this core objective has remained intact.27 Whatever the terms used to describe it, US policy has without doubt retained a clear global scope under both Republican and Democrat administrations since 1989. It is in this context that US defence and military posture and policies are best seen. Cuts in force levels and in the defence budget have been made; yet the US has been markedly reluctant to slim down its military capability to a level that post-Cold War strategic and economic realities make sensible in the view of many analysts. As a result, some have seen a serious gulf developing between the levels and kinds of forces which the US is officially committed to retaining and the financial resources being made available to support the military.28 It is not yet clear whether, or how, this discrepancy might ultimately be resolved; whether by more significant cuts and strategic rethinking or else by the allocation of even more resources to the defence budget. Arguments that the US has been losing its superpower appetite have certainly been put forward, particularly during the early years

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of the Clinton administration in 1993 and 1994. Often these were focused on Clinton’s steady retreat from the rhetorical doctrine of ‘assertive multilateralism’, based on the more extensive American utilisation of, and participation in, United Nations peace operations, and proclaimed during his 1992 presidential election campaign and during the first months of his administration. It is doubtful, however, that American UN policy should be seen as some kind of general litmus test of US willingness to remain globally active and engaged. Clinton’s then ambassador to the UN, Madeleine Albright, stated in May 1994 that ‘we see UN peace-keeping as a contributor to, not the centerpiece of, our national security strategy’.29 This principle has held true for all administrations both during and following the Cold War. In military terms the US has remained the most complete global power. But even here it is not, as is sometimes implied, an absolute, singularly dominant or hegemonic power in the sense in which that term is often used. Allies will almost certainly be highly desirable, if not essential, for major US-organised global military operations in the future. The Economist noted in the immediate aftermath of the Gulf war that the US ‘could barely have afforded the battle without plentiful free oil, yen and D-marks’.30 For both financial and political reasons, in future operations of any size the US will require allies. Politically the need to find allies is motivated partly by concerns about international legitimacy. There have also been domestic concerns motivated by congressional resistance to the idea of the United States bearing the burden of international operations on its own. The political impact of these concerns may be judged by the time spent by the Clinton administration during 1994 on constructing an international coalition of states from the Caribbean and elsewhere to take part in a possible invasion of the island of Haiti to unseat that country’s military rulers. This was an operation which, if conducted alone, would probably have required only a few hundred American troops. Allies, especially major ones, are unlikely to join US-led coalitions without attaching strings in the form of demands for input and influence over coalition policy. In that sense the operations in the Persian Gulf may prove to have been an exception and not the norm. This was because two of the largest financial backers of the US – Germany and Japan – took no part in the military operations in and around Kuwait and Iraq for their own domestic political and constitutional reasons.

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Domestic Politics and Ideology Domestic problems and their impact on American power have become increasingly controversial issues in the years since 1989. Two important strands of thinking can be identified. Some have argued that the end of the Cold War consensus on the main goal of US foreign policy (containment of the Soviet Union) will make it even more difficult for government, based on the constitutional system of checks and balances, to function effectively and coherently in international affairs, with the risk that American superpower status will be undermined in consequence.31 Others have preferred to focus on social problems and in particular the allegedly worsening position of black people and of economically disadvantaged groups generally in American society.32 The arguments that American power has been debilitated by these factors have not been conclusively proven and some thoughtful observers have questioned them or admitted to doubts. Professor Joseph Nye, for example, has cast doubt on the general proposition that internal decay and external decline are linked. He has also sought to refute the specific arguments about the drawbacks of the constitutional system of checks and balances.33 Professor Jack Spence has, meanwhile, candidly admitted that whilst he feels that there probably is a link between the United States’ domestic social problems and its ability to project power and influence internationally, he has not been able to work out either what that linkage is, or what impact it has actually had.34 The most interesting and persuasive argument that these factors do matter has been put forward by scholars who have argued that domestic problems, if left untreated, could begin to undermine the United States’ attractiveness as a model which other countries and their leaders can be persuaded to emulate or follow. Zalmay Khalilzad, an analyst working for the American RAND Corporation and a former senior official in the Pentagon, has argued that: Although it faces no global ideological rival, and although movements such as Islamic fundamentalism and East Asian neoConfucian authoritarianism are limited in their appeal, the social problems of the United States are limiting its attractiveness as a model. If the social crisis worsens, it is likely that, over the long term, a new organizing principle with greater universal appeal will emerge and be adopted by states with the power and the desire to challenge the erstwhile leader.35

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A related argument has been developed by Charles William Maynes who has argued that instances of American inability and/or unwillingness to consistently live up to the high ethical and moral standards which its leaders frequently declare to be embodied in US society have the effect of undermining the country’s ability to lead by example. Maynes suggests that this matters to American stature in the world because, at the end of the day, the US has neither the resources nor the will in the post-Cold War era to lead effectively other than in an exemplary way.36 Evidence to suggest that the concerns articulated by analysts like Khalilzad and Maynes do have foundation can be gleaned from the so-called ‘Asian values’ debate. Some Asian leaders during the 1990s, especially in Malaysia and Singapore, have argued that a distinct set of Asian ideological values is discernible and that these distinguish Asian countries and societies from ‘the West’ in general and the United States in particular. Some of the leading Asian participants in the debate have taken as their starting-point an increasing sense of irritation with what they see as persistant attempts by American leaders to lecture them on matters such as democracy and human rights at a time when problems and shortcomings within the United States itself have seemed increasingly apparent. So, for example, Kishore Mahbubani, Permanent Secretary in Singapore’s Foreign Ministry, has argued that domestic problems such as increasing drug-related crime and a rising divorce rate ought to persuade American leaders and commentators to abandon the ‘deeply engrained belief . . . in the American mind that the US mission in East Asia is to teach, not to learn’.37 The Bush administration’s attempts to fashion a post-Cold War ideological justification for continued American engagement in the world never really advanced beyond the vague concept of the new world order. It was left to Bush’s successor to really begin the process of articulating a clearer raison d’être for such engagement. A concerted attempt to do so was initiated in September 1993, when the President and his senior international affairs advisers made a conscious effort to set out an ideological framework for American foreign policy in the post-Soviet world. This ‘Clinton Doctrine’ was first defined in a lengthy speech delivered by then National Security Adviser Anthony Lake at the Johns Hopkins University in Washington D.C. Lake appeared well aware of the importance of a clear and appealing globalist ideology in preserving American claims to superpower status. He stated that ‘engagement itself is not enough. We also need to communicate

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anew why that engagement is essential. If we do not . . . individual setbacks may appear to define the whole . . . and America could be harmed by . . . the erosion of US influence abroad’. The Clinton administration would do this, Lake said, by adopting a new doctrine: ‘the successor to the doctrine of containment must be a strategy of enlargement – enlargement of the world’s free community of market democracies’.38 This new doctrine did not represent a summons, Lake stated, to a worldwide democratic crusade. Rather, ‘a strategy of enlargement suggests our principal concerns should be strengthening our democratic core in North America, Europe and Japan; consolidating and enlarging democracy and markets in key places; and addressing backlash states such as Iran and Iraq’.39 There is no doubt that the outline doctrine contained grey areas. The major ones were over the precise definitions of the ‘democratic core’ (which states were included within the rubric of ‘Europe’ for example?) and also the ‘key places’ where the US had an interest in ‘consolidating and enlarging democracy and markets’. In attempting to tackle these questions, the Clinton administration’s follow-up work after September 1993 was concerned principally with defining ‘three basic categories of national interests’. Category one in this typology embraced traditional ‘vital interests’. These have been defined as those ‘which are of broad overriding importance to the survival, security and vitality of our national entity’. Clinton policy statements have made plain that the regions of the world in which US vital interests are at stake are: Western Europe, Russia and Ukraine (sometimes bracketed together as ‘Europe’); South-East and North-East Asia, with China and North Korea looming large in policy calculations in addition to Japan; the Middle East with its crucial oil resources; and the Americas. Category two in the Clinton typology has embraced ‘cases in which important but not vital US interests are threatened’. These have been defined as interests which ‘do not affect our national survival, but they do affect importantly our national well-being and the character of the world in which we live’. Haiti was often named by Clinton officials as an area of such interest. The former Soviet republics, apart from Russia and Ukraine, have also effectively been included in this category by US foreign policy in practice since 1993. The third and final category defined by the Clinton administration involved ‘primarily humanitarian interests’. Here the emphasis was placed on minimising US involvement, certainly in the military sphere, and on the role of allies and the international community

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generally in tackling such problems. US policy with regard to the former Yugoslavia under both Bush and Clinton before the summer of 1995 offered the best example of this kind of American approach in practice, although after that time Bosnia was effectively moved up to category two status, demonstrating that a degree of fluidity has existed in the Clinton typology. 40 Since being first articulated in 1993, the Clinton Doctrine has been criticised on several grounds. One is on the grounds of vagueness.41 A second and related criticism focuses on the alleged attempts by the Clinton administration to combine both ‘traditional’ (i.e. military) and ‘new’ security issues such as the challenge of environmental degradation with the enlargement doctrine within a single overarching framework. ‘In the end’, one critic charges, ‘the administration’s strategy report is a catchall policy document that attempts to address all contingencies by hedging America’s bets in the face of wildly uncertain odds and conditions’. This critic concludes by arguing that ‘whatever its political merits, such an approach remains a poor substitute for a focused and coherent strategic vision’.42 A third strand of criticism points to the complexities of the post-Cold War world and suggests that this makes it simply impossible to devise a new core doctrine capable of guiding policy and attitudes in a similar way to Cold War containment.43 Finally, it has been argued that, at the time of its articulation, the Clinton Doctrine rested on the faulty premise that intervention in ‘peripheral’ areas could be undertaken for the specific aim of promoting American values. Such intervention, in the critics’ view, rests on shaky foundations because neither Congress nor the American public are likely to support it unless they can see that more concrete US national interests are at stake.44 Many of the criticisms are overstated. With regard to vagueness and generality, it can reasonably be argued that ideologies by definition, and especially international ones, are intended to provide only the broad and general principles within which specific foreign policies are formulated and carried out. Given the disparate nature and agendas of the actors and coalitions which participate in the foreign policy-making process in modern industrial democracies, attempts to draw narrower and more specific ideological guidelines might very well promote discord and lead to less efficient and hence less effective policy-making. Suggestions that the new Clinton Doctrine gave insufficient emphasis to US national interests also do not really stand up. As the analysis above has

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shown, in fact the new doctrine has been based on a three-part conception of US interests and the fact that much commentary and media analysis tended to focus on the third – humanitarian – leg should not be allowed to obscure the other two. A separate strand of criticism sees Democratic Enlargement as being little more than a cloak for covering aggressive American attempts to force open new economic and commercial opportunities throughout the world. Commercial considerations undoubtedly did play an important role in the formulation of the Clinton Doctrine, and the pursuit of commercial opportunities has been a long-time core goal of American foreign policy, as noted elsewhere in this study.45 Yet to assert simply that ‘the Clinton Doctrine is trade’46 or to paint a picture of aggressive global imperialism and very little else47 fails to do justice to the mixture of motives which have shaped American foreign policy. A more fully-rounded view has been presented by Michael Hunt who has argued persuasively that, in addition to commercial factors, US foreign policy has been shaped since the eighteenth century by ‘the deep and pervasive impact of an ideology’ which embraces three distinct elements: the pursuit of national greatness by promoting freedom abroad, a tendency to view other nations in terms of a ‘racial hierarchy’ and, finally, an inherent suspicion of revolutionary change and those who promote it.48 More specifically, Kathryn Sikkink has demonstrated the influence which the ‘principled idea’ of human rights has had on US (and European) foreign policy-making since the Second World War.49 It is certainly possible to see elements of the first and third elements of Hunt’s typology together with ideas about promoting human rights in the Clinton administration’s Democratic Enlargement doctrine. What is important in the context of these discussions is that the United States has consciously sought since 1989 to maintain and refine a post-Cold War global role. However erratically this may sometimes have been applied in practice, it remains fair to say that no other country or group of countries has developed anything which compares with it. In the ideological arena, as in the military, the United States has remained in a special category of power by itself. In exploring the American status and global position further, the discussions in Section 2 below are focused on US policy towards, and relations with, states in three main identified regions of vital interest: the Americas, Europe and Asia. These are by no means exclusive areas of importance. In the Middle East, for example, sudden crisis may well require immediate priority. They are, however,

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the underlying core regions of principal interest to American foreign policy-makers.

THE UNITED STATES IN THE WORLD SINCE 1989 The Americas Successive US leaders have come to see their country’s policies in the Americas as being an important litmus test against which they expect to be judged by outsiders on the strength, cohesion and effectiveness of their foreign policy as a whole. As Harold Molineu has put it: the perception that the United States honors its commitments and stands by its friends is important to US policy-makers. If the US will-to-act is lacking in an area where US influence is preeminent, it is difficult to convince others in the world of the reliability of the United States.50 In part at least this exemplary function of US relations with the rest of the Americas may help to explain why, notwithstanding much talk about the region being the United States’ ‘backyard’, and undoubted instances of US heavy-handedness in particular dealings with Latin American countries, the US has not seriously attempted to establish the degree of hegemonic domination which would turn the region into a permanent collection of mere satellite states. Molineu supports and illustrates this point by comparing traditional US policy towards Latin America with Soviet policy towards its Warsaw Pact allies during the Cold War. He points to de facto US toleration of the existence of the Castro regime in Cuba since 1962, the only limited and ultimately unsuccessful attempts to overthrow the Sandinista regime in Nicaragua during the 1980s and, finally, the frustrating and increasingly messy efforts by the Bush administration to persuade the Panamanian leader, General Manuel Noriega, to relinquish power in 1989.51 During the Cold War years some observers saw US policy towards its regional neighbours as one subordinate part of its worldwide ideological and military contest with the USSR. As such they expected US policy-makers to lose interest in the region once the Cold War ended. This has not happened, however, which suggests that the

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litmus-test argument put forward by Molineu and others remains valid. As one contemporary observer, Andrew Hurrell, has put it, Latin America remains ‘a test of the United States’ ability . . . to act decisively in support of its values, [and] to assert its authority over recalcitrant or delinquent states’.52 The Clinton administration has certainly appeared swayed by such considerations. In perhaps the best-known example, early in 1995 it defied congressional obstruction and took the lead in organising an international financial bailout for the hard-pressed Mexican government. When Congress refused to approve a US financial contribution to the package, Clinton pressed ahead and authorised it on his own executive authority. The importance which the administration attached to the Mexico bailout transcended purely economic considerations. This had been made plain when Secretary of State Christopher appealed to Congress for support in February 1995. ‘The package is about far more than Mexico’s future’, he argued, ‘it is about American leadership in this hemisphere and beyond’. He went on to claim that ‘by extending this aid package to Mexico, the United States will demonstrate its unwavering commitment to lead this hemisphere toward stability and prosperity . . . Only the United States has the capacity to offer this leadership’.53 Just before the Mexican crisis erupted, the Clinton administration had also decided to do something about the military regime in Haiti which had recently deposed an elected president in a coup. The change of regime posed no tangible strategic or commercial threat to the US or its interests, yet the administration decided that the Haitian military must give up power: why? It seems clear that a large part of the answer can be found in administration perceptions that Haiti had become the first real-world challenge to the doctrine of Democratic Enlargement. National Security Adviser Lake admitted as much in September 1994. He argued then that there is a great deal at stake here. First is the essential reliability of the United States . . . we must make it clear that we mean what we say . . . Haiti is a critical test of our commitment to defend democracy, especially where it is most fragile.54 Even some critics of the Clinton Doctrine have reluctantly conceded that it did help to shape US policy towards Haiti at least in part during 1994 and 1995.55 In the event US-led international intervention in Haiti in the

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autumn of 1994 was widely seen to have been a less-than-unalloyed demonstration of strength. President Clinton appeared hesitant and uncertain right up to the eleventh hour about whether to resort to military measures or else continue to rely on diplomatic persuasion. The President made significant concessions to Haiti’s military rulers in order to persuade them to relinquish power and then almost immediately dispatched 20 000 American troops to Haiti to give the impression of resolution and strength, an impression unconvincing to many observers.56 It would be erroneous, of course, to deny that factors other than those intimately bound up with ideology and values have helped shape US foreign policy in South America. With regard to Mexico, for example, the Clinton administration had closely related political and commercial considerations in mind. In the autumn of 1993, the President and his foreign policy team fought a determined and ultimately successful battle to have the draft North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) ratified by Congress. For Clinton and his advisers, NAFTA was seen to be about establishing the conditions for a renewed US leadership role in the Americas. In this respect the tie-in with Mexico was critical. By supporting NAFTA and, by inference, the incumbent Mexican government, the administration could claim to be supporting and assisting at least a measure of democratisation and economic liberalisation in a key South American state. This mattered in the context of the recentlyproclaimed Clinton Doctrine. If the United States had proved unable or unwilling to promote democracy and economic liberalism in its own backyard then one might justifiably have asked whether Democratic Enlargement would mean very much further afield. But an element of commercial reasoning was also in play. By getting Mexico into the NAFTA camp, the Clinton administration ensured that it would be difficult, if not impossible, for Latin American countries to negotiate a serious region-wide free trade agreement or other commercial arrangements which excluded the United States.57 A mixture of political and commercial concerns has, in fact, been behind most US policy initiatives towards Latin America since 1989. A speech in June 1990 by President Bush proposing what was called the ‘enterprise for the Americas’ initiative involving the creation of a free-trade area covering the whole of the Americas (i.e. including the US) came hot on the heels of an announcement by four South American countries, Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay, that they had agreed to establish the ‘Mercado Comun del Sur’ (Mercosur)

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– a southern common market – amongst themselves, with a view to inviting other South American countries to join in due course. That the US has not been invited to join, coupled with the fact that the Mercosur countries together do more trade with the European Union than with the US,58 has fuelled concerns in Washington about ending up on the outside of important regional commercial and economic arrangements. In this context it is surely significant that President Clinton has made the accession of Chile his first objective for the enlargement of NAFTA. Chile is not currently a member of Mercosur. It is also a state which the existing Mercosur members have indicated they would like to bring into their own arrangement. There is certainly potential here for an international squabble as Mercosur states have also indicated that they will not take kindly to US attempts to ‘impose the NAFTA model’ on them.59 The US has two additional and specific reasons to want to remain actively engaged – and at least a reasonably co-operative player – in Latin American affairs. These are the trade in illicit drugs and the waves of southern migrants seeking to enter the US illegally. The drugs issue in particular has been the source of some friction in relations between the US and individual Latin American governments, although respected analysts have noted that the occasional public rows have masked significant behind-the-scenes co-operation, even if this has not been as effective in halting the drugs trade as many US leaders would have liked.60 In summary it can be said that arguments which suggest that the Americas, and Latin America in particular, are simply the United States’ backyard in general paint too crude and simplistic a picture. The influence of the US is certainly felt throughout the region but it is not as permanently dominating a presence as the backyard image suggests. Influence can be two-way. During the early 1990s the Mexican government made effective use of the threat implied in the phrase ‘take our goods or take our people’ in lobbying US leaders in favour of the successful negotiation and ratification of NAFTA. US policy, in the commercial arena at least, has tended to be as responsive to the perceived risk of the US being shut out of regional arrangements such as Mercosur as it has been concerned with actively corralling its American neighbours into arrangements such as NAFTA in which it is itself the dominant partner.

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Europe The term ‘Europe’ as used in official United States foreign policy thinking and statements since 1989 has been ambiguous. Generally it has been used to refer to the West European members of NATO and the European Community/Union (EC/EU). More narrowly it has sometimes been used to denote the EC/EU alone. From 1994 a further refinement was observable, with Central European countries moving increasingly into the picture. The discussions in the present section will focus on US policy towards Western and Central Europe, as appropriate according to the shifting priorities of the Americans. US policy towards the region as a whole since 1989 has been dominated by two issues: firstly how to respond to the evolution of the West European integration process in the EC/EU and secondly how (not whether) to keep the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) in business as a viable international institution. US policy on European integration has traditionally been caught on the horns of a dilemma. As Christopher Layne put it in 1989: the United States has always rhetorically and occasionally concretely lent its support to the concept of West European unity. Yet the closer that goal has come to reality, the deeper American misgivings have grown about the prospect of a politically unified, economically buoyant, and independent Western Europe.61 American misgivings can be traced back at least to the early 1970s. According to the memoirs of Henry Kissinger, the completion of the original EC common market project, and attendant fears in the US about the formation of a protectionist regional economic bloc, led some US government departments at that time to go so far as to advocate ‘a declaration of war . . . even on the concept of the European Community’. 62 More recently, notable American political scientists, such as Professor Samuel Huntington, have argued that a truly united Western Europe would be the power most likely to take over from the United States as the world’s pivotal power.63 This helps to explain why a competitive edge to relations between the US and the European Community/Union is always likely to be present. It also helps to explain why successive administrations have, since 1989, been ardent in their desire to preserve NATO. The basic reason was explained by Paul Gebhard, a Pentagon policy planner, in 1994:

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in security matters, the US is a full member of the primary security institution in Europe, NATO; in economic matters, however, the US is an outsider to discussions in the EC . . . the US cannot exercise influence in Europe unless there is a demand for it to participate in European security.64 During the Cold War period, the impact of US–West European economic and commercial competition was modified, indeed overshadowed, by the security co-operation developed and practised through NATO. This was significantly assisted by the evolution of a basic principle of transatlantic relations, that security and economic discussions be kept on separate tracks so that the consequences of competition and potential dispute in the latter did not affect essential co-operative activities in the security arena. During the early 1990s the United States, under both Bush and Clinton, directly challenged this principle. The catalyst was the deep deadlock in negotiations in the Uruguay Round of GATT in the years 1990–3. The main problem was a series of disputes between the European Community (which negotiated as one in GATT) and the United States. Indications that the Americans were prepared to break the traditional separate tracking understanding in order to try to pressure the EC into a deal began to emerge during the final year of the Bush administration in 1992. Speaking at a highlevel NATO conference in Germany in February of that year, Vice-President Dan Quayle was quoted as saying that ‘I cannot emphasise enough the importance we attach to this economic issue, because it is a security issue’. At the same conference a senior Republican Senator, Richard Lugar, went further and predicted that a GATT failure ‘would seriously undermine our relationship with NATO’.65 The incoming Clinton administration in 1993 initially advanced similar views. In October of that year, for example, Secretary of State Christopher said, ‘let me restate that preserving common security across the Atlantic requires us to focus not only on NATO but on a successful conclusion of the Uruguay Round’.66 He had also taken to telling the EC of the importance which the Clinton administration attached to links with countries in Asia. This can scarcely have been designed to do anything other than constitute a coded threat to the Europeans that failure to compromise in GATT risked a refocusing of American commitment and resources elsewhere.

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It remains an open question whether the US really would have been prepared to undermine NATO for the sake of a GATT agreement. To be sure, a successful outcome to the trade negotiations was felt to be of vital importance by the Clinton administration, but so too was the preservation of NATO as a significant international institution. In view of the importance which successive US leaders have attached to their core security ties to countries in both Western Europe and Asia, many have doubted that the coded threats made in 1992 and 1993 would ever have been carried through in practice. Further, it is suggested, allied leaders knew this and hence the US threats lacked credibility. As Kurt Tong has written: A security commitment is only respected to the extent that it is viewed as a reliable pledge and not as a commitment that is subject to removal on short order. Thus the US security commitment would be weakened by its use in this manner, with or without progress on economic issues. The other obvious flaw with a security-related big-stick strategy is that it assumes the US forward deployment is an altruistic gift . . . But [such] deployment is clearly something the United States wants to maintain. Thus perceptive [allies] who understand US interests may not view American threats to fold up the ‘security umbrella’ as credible. Tong was writing specifically about US–Japanese relations but his basic arguments apply equally to US security links with NATO allies in Europe.67 The essential truth in these arguments can be gleaned from the speed with which the Clinton administration changed its tune in late 1993. In an interview with European newspapers in early December for example, Christopher was quoted as saying that I would not want . . . to suggest that it [a GATT failure] would affect United States troops in Europe because I would hope that we would address that in security terms. Our forces are here because we think that contributes to US security as well as the security of Europe.68 There is little evidence that the US tactic had a significant impact on the Europeans in any event. The US appeared to make the relatively greater concessions in order to secure the GATT agreement which was eventually concluded in December 1993. It

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also accepted the idea originally put forward by Canada and the EC for the establishment of the World Trade Organisation to replace the GATT. The WTO was envisaged by the West Europeans and the Canadians as being a stronger international structure with a greater capacity to rein in US tendencies towards exerting unilateral pressure in the global trade arena. As the end-game of the final GATT round approached, the Americans moved with great haste away from the trade–security linkage, as noted. It has not reappeared on the official transatlantic agenda since 1993. The linkage did not prove successful for the US because it was simply not credible for it to seriously threaten to undermine NATO. The Clinton administration appeared to conclude in 1993 that, in the economic and commercial sphere, the US had no real choice but to deal with the EC on the basis of a relationship of equals, with compromise and give-and-take being necessary tools if agreements were to be secured. After the GATT settlement, US economic relations with Western Europe became noticeably less fraught than its relations with the Japanese, as both the US and the EU sought to put in place diplomatic machinery designed to prevent a similar impasse from occurring again. These efforts yielded a 15-page ‘Joint US–EU Action Plan’ in December 1995. This document pledged new or enhanced transatlantic co-operation across a wide range of issue areas but its crux was undoubtedly the agreed statement that both parties recognised their ‘special responsibility to strengthen the multilateral trading system, to support the World Trade Organization and to lead the way in opening markets for trade and investment’.69 From the beginning of 1994, the Clinton administration seemed determined to shift the focus away from trade disputes and on to NATO and its future. This found expression at the Brussels NATO summit meeting which was convened on US initiative and held in January 1994. From the American perspective, shifting the focus made good sense. Whereas in economic matters, it felt obliged to deal with the EU on equal terms, within NATO the US was clearly the leading power, enjoying a status best encapsulated in the phrase often used to describe the relationship between British Prime Ministers and their Cabinet colleagues, primus inter pares or first among equals. By directing attention to NATO, therefore, the Americans were focusing on the main area of strength in their overall relations with Western Europe. The feeling within the Clinton administration that the United

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States needed to reassert itself as the leading power in European security affairs was evidently a palpable one at the summit. In subsequent congressional testimony Stephen Oxman, the then Assistant Secretary of State for European and Canadian Affairs, stated that sitting in the room at the NATO Summit and watching the President of the United States make his intervention, I think every leader in that room felt the reassertion, the reemergence of American leadership in the Alliance, and I think that is a very good thing for our country.70 Clinton had asserted himself at the summit chiefly to gain allied agreement to an American proposal for the organisation of programmes of military and political co-operation between NATO and its member states and the ex-Warsaw Pact states in Central Europe and the former Soviet Union. This, the so-called ‘Partnerships for Peace’ initiative, would build upon an existing co-operative framework put in place largely at the initiative of the Bush administration in 1991–2. More importantly for the longer-term, the US succeeded in gaining allied agreement to the inclusion of a statement in the summit communiqué that the Western allies expected and would welcome the expansion of NATO to take in Central European countries. Many West European governments had initially been reluctant to see such a statement included and the US had to lobby hard for it. It was the lobbying on this issue to which Stephen Oxman had been referring when he spoke of the reassertion of US leadership in his congressional testimony. The NATO summit decisions are significant here to the extent to which they marked a reformulation of the official US view of ‘Europe’ in a way that moved beyond the boundaries of the EU and NATO’s existing memberships and envisaged at least some Central European countries being included. American thinking was moving forward in tandem with the Clinton administration’s evolving views on the future of the global economy. The US Commerce Department had recently identified Poland as one of the ‘Big Emerging Markets’ of the world and, as such, an important part of US foreign policy. Since early 1994, American support for the expansion of NATO has been developed in no small measure with the Polish desire to join in mind.71 The desire to keep the Poles on side at times appeared to conflict with the persisting doubts amongst existing European members of

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NATO about whether, how far and how fast NATO should be expanded. In January 1994, most European NATO members had accepted the inclusion of the statement that new members would be welcome in principle but had balked at the idea of laying out specific terms and conditions, still less a timetable for expansion or a list of Eastern countries eligible to apply. On a visit to Warsaw in July of that year, however, Clinton publicly told the Poles that the time had come for the existing NATO members to get together and decide what the next steps in an evolutionary expansion process should be. This statement was made without prior consultation with other NATO members, most of whom were in no hurry to think about any new steps, especially as it was becoming clear that opinion in Russia was swinging increasingly against NATO expansion. Clinton was faced with the choice of either promising to do something to speed up the expansion process to please the Poles, or letting it lie to avoid disrupting relations with the West European allies. In the event he chose the former option, a choice resented by the German government. This was of especial significance. Not only had the Germans been hitherto the only really firm supporters of eventual NATO expansion in Western Europe, but Germany had long been recognised in the US as being the pivotal European NATO member. In November 1994 a memorandum to Bonn, written by the German Ambassador to NATO, was leaked to the press, quite possibly with official connivance. In this memorandum the ambassador warned that ‘cracks are appearing in the cohesion of the alliance’. He blamed American unilateralism, chiefly on the issue of speeded-up NATO expansion. The memorandum suggested that the US had been endeavouring to negotiate directly with countries in Central Europe with a view to presenting existing NATO allies with a fait accompli on expansion.72 The Clinton administration had clearly underestimated the extent of the backlash in Western Europe, and Germany in particular. In retrospect this may have been a significantly chastening experience. Clinton invited the German leader, Helmut Kohl, to a summit meeting in Washington in February 1995 and agreed a compromise over NATO expansion. This, ratified by the NATO membership as a whole the following May, stipulated that US-led study groups would be established within NATO to consider ‘how and why’ questions relating to eventual expansion, and would examine ‘who and when’ later. This was an obvious fudge. It allowed the US to claim, for the benefit of Central European audiences, that NATO had

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begun to grapple in earnest with the modalities of expansion. At the same time no real progress towards actual expansion could be made until timetables and the identities of potential new members had been clarified and agreed by the existing membership. During 1995 and the first part of 1996 it appeared that the compromise had successfully dampened down the transatlantic discord which had been evident in the second half of 1994. Attention within NATO shifted for a time to Bosnia, over which the US chose to assert itself from the summer of 1995. US leadership on the Bosnian issue had a knock-on effect and helped the Americans to push their allies forward towards NATO expansion. The half-yearly meeting of allied foreign and defence ministers in December 1996 marked a crucial step forward in the process by announcing the convening of a fresh NATO summit meeting for Madrid in July 1997 at which, amongst other things, ‘one or more’ Eastern countries would be invited to open accession negotiations. The first six months of 1997 in NATO circles were, therefore, dominated by negotiations amongst existing member states over who should be invited to join. The three core ‘Visegrad’ states of Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic were always widely regarded as being favourites, although individual NATO members championed other countries’ claims as did France with Romania and Italy with Slovenia. The Clinton administration consistently supported a limited expansion embracing just the Visegrad three in a first round due for completion by the spring of 1999, whilst keeping the door officially open for a possible second round in the future. That this position was accepted in Madrid in July 1997 without real dissent by NATO allies offers further evidence of US leadership on the expansion issue being maintained. Some may feel it to be an oversimplification to suggest that, having been balked (albeit temporarily as it turned out) on one important European security issue, the US in the summer of 1995 consciously sought and found another one with which to reassert its position of leadership vis-à-vis its NATO allies. But there is certainly a neat coincidence of timing between the formal blessing of the diplomatic fudge on the expansion issue and the American-led stepping-up of Western military and diplomatic pressure for an end to the ongoing civil war in Bosnia. Less than three months after the May NATO Council meeting at which the expansion compromise was formalised, the United States successfully pressed its NATO allies to agree to authorise and (in the case of the British, French, Italians and Dutch)

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take part in a concerted campaign of airstrikes against Bosnian Serb positions around the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo. At the same time the US, acting through the then Assistant Secretary of State for European and Canadian Affairs, Richard Holbrooke, brought concerted diplomatic pressure to bear on the Serbian government in Belgrade to negotiate for a peace settlement based on a unitary but federated Bosnian state. The outcome of this pressure was the accord negotiated between Serbia, Croatia and the Bosnian government at Dayton, Ohio, in November 1995, followed by the first deployments of troops of a NATO-led Implementation Force (I-For) the following month. In (successfully) arguing the case for a sizeable American contribution to the I-For in a televised address to the nation in November 1995, Clinton stated that: The only force capable of getting this job done is NATO . . . And as NATO’s leader and the primary broker of the peace agreement, the United States must be an essential part of the mission. If we’re not there, NATO will not be there; the peace will collapse; the war will reignite; the slaughter of innocents will begin again. A conflict that already has claimed so many victims could spread like poison throughout the region, eat away at Europe’s stability, and erode our partnership with our European allies.73 Two observations can be made on the basis of this statement. Firstly, it made clear the effective elevation of the Bosnian civil war from a category three issue in American foreign policy (i.e. a humanitarian one not involving appreciable US interests) to at least category two. The key interest at stake in the administration’s view, as Clinton indicated, was to prevent the erosion of the US–West European security alliance through NATO. Secondly, reading between the lines of the statement, and the Clinton address as a whole, the administration was effectively claiming that Western Europe by itself was not equal to the task of managing and settling the Bosnian crisis. In short, the Bosnia crisis moved up the Clinton agenda during 1995 mainly because the administration had come round to the view that it represented both a means for, and a test of, a fresh assertion of American leadership in European security affairs. In this respect critics of the Clinton approach, such as John Hillen,

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have missed the point. Hillen has argued that ‘many Americans question the utility of alliances in which the imperative of leadership forces the United States into operations and actions it might not otherwise undertake’. With specific regard to Bosnia, Hillen asserts that ‘clearly, the alliance and US leadership were not functioning as the means to the ends of US foreign policy, but became the end in themselves’.74 Yet leadership as a foreign policy goal in itself is exactly what one would expect from a superpower, as is involvement in far-flung operations and activities. In regard to Bosnia since 1995 the United States under Clinton has behaved largely how one would expect a functioning superpower to behave. A similar argument has been made with regard to the US-led intervention in Haiti discussed earlier. Although, as noted, the Clinton Haiti policy has been seen by some as unnecessarily vacillating, Robert Rotberg for one has drawn an important conclusion from the fact that the US did act: America’s global interests are broader than those of any other nation; America diminishes itself when it refuses to accept the challenges presented by a case like Haiti and when it pretends that its own fate is not affected by major threats to world civility and order. A superpower must act like one or lose its global leadership, as the United States finally demonstrated in Haiti.75 Overall, the years since 1989 have not witnessed any significant development of the European Community/Union which might result in West European governments being able to adopt and implement autonomous policies and postures on major security issues. The United States has continued to loom large in European security affairs. Unlike in the economic and trading spheres, its security relations with the West Europeans have not constituted a partnership of equals. This is not to say that the US has been able to dominate NATO and rely on always getting its way on important issues. The disputes and compromises made over the pace of NATO expansion during 1994 and 1995 show that this has not been the case. Nevertheless, the United States has remained the predominant, if not pre-eminent, power in NATO. Moreover, successive administrations have continued to desire this status, as a key component of the United States’ overall world superpower role. This was demonstrated, perhaps a little churlishly, in the autumn of 1995 when the US

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vetoed the appointment of Ruud Lubbers, the Dutch candidate for NATO Secretary-General, who had been the choice of a consensus of West European governments. American officials offered a variety of unconvincing arguments against the Lubbers candidacy, when it appeared that they were simply objecting to West European governments agreeing on a candidate amongst themselves before consulting with the US. Asia The traditional basis of US Asia policy was neatly encapsulated by the then Secretary of State James Baker in a 1991 article as ‘maintaining commercial access and preventing the rise of any single hegemonic power or coalition hostile to the United States and its allies and friends’.76 This approach has not applied only to American policy in Asia of course, but what has distinguished Asia policy from US policy towards Western Europe has been the relative absence of multilateral institutions and organisations in Asia, either ones built around the US or else regional blocs capable of dealing with the Americans on a basis of equality in some areas, as does the European Union. In this context a significant development in Asia during the 1990s has been the evolution of the Asia–Pacific Economic Co-operation forum (APEC). The Bush administration had given little priority to this from its creation – at Australian initiative – in 1989 but Clinton and his advisers have taken significantly greater interest. Clinton took the initiative in suggesting that APEC members (18 in 1997, including all the major South-East and North-East Asian countries plus the United States) convene annually for summit meetings as well as establishing a number of working groups to consider specific questions, chiefly the eventual creation of an Asiawide free trade area. The US hosted the first APEC summit in 1993 in Seattle. Doubts about the real significance and importance of APEC have persisted, however. Members formally committed themselves in 1994 to the creation of an APEC-wide free trade area early in the twentyfirst century but the continuing absence of agreed and firm schedules or timetables for progress towards this goal has led many to doubt whether it will actually be achieved. Some have also argued that no APEC member state, including the US, has shown a sincere and consistent commitment to the organisation per se. The US, for

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its part, has continued to deal with serious economic and commercial matters, such as its bilateral trade relationship with Japan, outside the multilateral framework. Military security issues have been kept off the APEC agenda altogether and the US has again dealt directly on such matters with the Asian countries concerned together with their regional patrons if necessary, as in the case of the North Korean nuclear crisis during 1994. In 1995 fresh questions about the depth of US commitment to APEC were raised when President Clinton opted not to attend the annual summit, citing domestic pressures. It can fairly be argued that the absence or relative weakness of multilateral arrangements in Asia has contributed to the somewhat sporadic and crisis-driven nature of US policy towards the region. US leaders are sometimes accused, not least by American Asia specialists, of lacking consistent interest in the region and of only becoming seriously engaged when there is an immediate crisis to be dealt with, before lapsing back into a relative lack of interest once the problem has been resolved or defused. James Kelly, for example, has called for a more consistent US policy-focus on the region and written that ‘proud and more assertive Asian countries want attention more often than once or twice each year’. Meanwhile, G. Cameron Hurst has argued that since the eleventh-hour deal which settled the automobile dispute with the Japanese in 1995, the US has shown little sustained interest in its overall relationship with Japan.77 The Bush administration never really formulated a clear or coherent Asia policy. In this sense the most significant regional development during its watch was the negotiated termination of the US military presence in the Philippines during 1991 and 1992. The military consequences of this withdrawal were less important than the political and psychological ones, with many regional leaders concluding that it marked the beginning of the end of an American security presence in the region. The Clinton administration’s Asia policies were prone, early on, to rather abrupt changes. This can be illustrated with regard to US relations with Japan which were blighted by an impasse caused by trade disputes during 1993 and 1994 and came close to serious rupture before a deal was reached in the spring of 1995, prior to entering a relatively constructive period when the spotlight shifted to the revamping of the bilateral security treaty during 1996 and 1997. Relations with China have also been subject to significant policy

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shifts under Clinton. Until mid-1994 the annual renewal of China’s ‘Most Favoured Nation’ trading status with the United States was linked explicitly to signs of improvements in its human rights record. In May of that year, however, a memorandum drafted by Winston Lord, Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, was leaked to the press. The Lord memorandum reportedly criticised both the tone of American rhetoric and the substance of US policy towards Asia, and China in particular. The crux of Lord’s argument was that the overall American approach hitherto risked giving ‘ammunition to those charging that we are an international nanny, if not bully’.78 The Lord memorandum, coupled with other pressures, did help persuade the President and his foreign policy advisers to begin to take a more focused and long-term view of US–Asia relations.79 An early result of this was Clinton’s announcement in the second half of 1994 that, to the chagrin of congressmen, he was effectively de-linking human rights questions from the issue of Sino-American commercial and business relations. To be sure there has still been some turbulence in Sino-US relations, most especially an armed stand-off in the Taiwan Straits in the spring of 1996, but, by the time it was announced in 1997 that Washington would host the first summit between the two countries leaders’ since 1985, it was clear to at least some informed commentators that a more consistent and positive approach to the relationship on the American side had been adopted.80 The visit of the Chinese President to Washington in October 1997 and Clinton’s return visit to Beijing the following June were both widely judged to have been successful demonstrations of the US President’s ability to walk the fine line between speaking out on human rights issues, and thus satisfying domestic lobbies critical of China, whilst at the same time fostering a general rapprochement with the Chinese leadership. Clinton achieved this second objective by telling the Chinese leaders what they wanted to hear on issues such as US policy towards Taiwan (no support for a possible Taiwanese declaration of independence) and China’s accession to the World Trade Organisation (US support in principle subject to satisfactory terms of entry being negotiated). The only structure currently even approximating to a region-wide security framework in Asia is not APEC but rather the so-called ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF). This was established in 1994 by the then six members of the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) as a grouping of themselves81 and larger powers with a

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presence or an interest in Asian security affairs. The ARF has in the past been a rather cumbersome and limited arrangement. Since being created in 1967, ASEAN itself has been an intentional grouping of smaller Asian countries who have sought to preserve the forum as a place where they can deliberate without the overshadowing presence of regional or global great powers. This is why the ARF, which does include the latter, is kept separate from ASEAN proper and meets immediately after ASEAN get-togethers. The ARF is also a disparate grouping. It brings the ASEAN member states together with the US, Canada, Russia, China, Japan and the European Union, amongst others. The US is unused to being relegated to what is, in effect, second-tier membership of an international organisation and has not yet really worked out what it expects to both contribute to and get from its institutionalised relationship with ASEAN. Developments at the annual ARF meeting in July 1997 looked as if they might prove to be significant. Here it was agreed to, in effect, mandate ASEAN as an organisation to enter into a process of ‘constructive engagement’ with Burma and Cambodia in an effort to bring about greater political freedom, stability and respect for human rights in those two countries. This would represent an important departure for ASEAN for two reasons. Firstly, for the first time the ASEAN members, by accepting the mandates, implicitly accepted the right of Asian states to intervene (albeit at this stage only politically and diplomatically) in the internal affairs of other Asian states. Secondly, by not opposing the granting of the mandates, the United States dropped previous objections to ASEAN attempts to develop a regional approach towards Burma which differed from its own. Several observers saw in this an important US concession.82 Yet even as the ASEAN and ARF meetings were taking place the onset of the financial and currency crises which were to seriously affect many countries in East Asia during 1997 and 1998 was becoming apparent. This, plus ASEAN’s failure to make any real headway in fostering political progress in either Burma or Cambodia, suggested to some that the prospects of ASEAN and its associated institutions playing much of a role in tackling turmoil and crisis in its own region were limited. Current opinion seems divided between those who have virtually written off the various regional associations as even a potentially significant form of co-operation and others who take a more optimistic long-term view and suggest that ASEAN,

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the ARF and APEC retain the potential to evolve into important institutions for fostering co-operative habits and hence regional stability.83 Having offered a brief overview of key elements in US Asia policy since 1989, this study will now consider the prospects for developments which might result in the US being seriously challenged by one or more regional great powers in Asia. As things stand there are only two countries which could mount such a challenge individually: Japan or China. There is, additionally, one other consideration to be borne in mind. This is the possibility of an emerging SinoJapanese axis. It is to the potential challengers that the discussions now turn. Japanese Power on the Rise? Perhaps the most important obstacle to Japan becoming either a global superpower or assuming regional primacy in Asia is an ideological one. Successive Japanese governments since 1945 have made no serious or systematic attempts to flesh out and propagate a set of beliefs and principles with claimed universal or general validity. In view of the consequences of the last Japanese attempt to establish their ‘Greater Asia Co-prosperity Sphere’ in the 1930s and 1940s this deep-seated aversion is eminently understandable. But in the modern world this historical legacy has ensured, in the words of David Rapkin, that ‘when it comes to universalizable norms, values, and ordering principles that might serve as the foundation of future world order, Japan is seldom thought to be a likely source’.84 This is a key deficiency for any country which might seek to acquire global superpower or regional leadership status. The importance of would-be leaders being able and willing to articulate and ‘sell’ a system of principles and beliefs internationally has already been stressed in this study. Having said that, an initiative undertaken by the Japanese government at the beginning of 1997 might yet prove to have major significance for the future. During a tour of neighbouring countries by the then Japanese Prime Minister, Ryutaro Hashimoto, he called for the inception of regular summit meetings between the leaders of ASEAN and the Japanese Prime Minister to discuss commercial, financial and security issues. More profoundly, Hashimoto was quoted as saying in connection with this proposal that ‘the time has come for Japan to spread its own values’.85 These

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words represented a striking departure from past attitudes by a mainstream Japanese leader. They could be interpreted as an attempt to begin a process whereby Japan will try to set itself up as the embodiment of appealing ideological principles and norms – perhaps as the leader of a distinct ‘Asian values’ movement. If this had been the Japanese intention it was blunted by the response of the ASEAN countries which rejected the idea of an exclusive summit and opted instead for annual meetings which would include not only Japan and the ASEAN leaders but also those of China and South Korea.86 The ASEAN leaders’ motivations in rebuffing the Japanese initiative can be seen to have been a mixture of a desire not to risk offending the Chinese by being seen to tilt towards Japan but also reluctance to submit themselves to any risk of creeping Japanese hegemony. Including both the indigenous major powers in the arrangement would help to ensure that it would be very much more difficult for either one to assert itself into a position of clear leadership or dominance. Asian memories of Japanese wartime atrocities have, more generally, served to ensure that it has been impossible, to date (1999) for Japan to create a system of international alliances or other allegiances centred around itself, in the way that the two Cold War superpowers were able to do. This too is important. As Michael May has argued, ‘the ability to protect foreign clients against another superpower or its clients’ constitutes ‘a crucial dimension of superpowerdom’.87 Japan has engaged in trade with its Asian neighbours, not least China, to an increasing extent during the 1990s, but trading partners are not the same as superpower allies. There has been no question of Japan offering a security guarantee to its major trading partners in the way the US has done to its NATO allies, or indeed to Japan itself. Mention of the US–Japan Security Treaty serves as a reminder that, in military terms at least, Japan is not a self-standing military power but remains closely bound to the United States. Japan is by no means a military pygmy, being on some reckonings since the 1980s the world’s third largest spender on armaments. However, it is not a nuclear power, unlike the United States, China and Russia. Perhaps more pertinently, the possibility of deploying overseas the significant conventional military power which the country does possess has, until recently at least, remained anathema to a broad spectrum of Japanese political leaders, and to popular opinion at large. The depth of this post-1945 aversion can be gauged by the extent

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to which Japanese leaders have, during the 1990s, been prepared both to forego opportunities for enhanced influence in tackling regional and global crises and also to pay significant political and economic costs to maintain the security tie with the United States. In short, most Japanese leaders have wanted to remain in the shadow of the US in security terms. Ichiro Ozawa, leader of the opposition in the Japanese parliament, summed up the prevalent view in March 1996: Asia needs the American security presence, and the US–Japan security treaty provides the means for America not only to protect Japan but to remain involved with Asia. Furthermore, Japan’s own past record in Asia is not forgotten. We will be accepted and considered non-threatening by our Asian neighbours only to the extent that we retain a strong security relationship and economic partnership with the United States.88 There was evidently more to this than a desire amongst Japanese politicians to save money by relying on the US for defence. The Japanese have contributed more to the costs of basing US troops in their country than West European NATO members have for those in theirs. It also appears that they have been prepared to pay for US forces to be based elsewhere in Asia too. Late in 1991 it was reported that the Japanese government had offered the Philippines the equivalent of $1bn. in economic aid if the latter would agree to retain American bases on its soil.89 Further, as one American Asia expert argued in 1993, ‘if Japan were determined to preserve its free ride on the security order created by the United States, it should have sent at least some forces to support the international effort against Iraq’ in 1990–1. This particular analyst ascribed Japanese policy and attitudes chiefly to the continuing strength of the post1945 ‘anti-military culture’ amongst the Japanese people and their leaders.90 More recently, however, some have detected signs that this culture may be starting to change. Pivotal events would seem to have been the international crisis occasioned by North Korea’s refusal to open up all its nuclear facilities to international verification in order to prove beyond reasonable doubt that it is not engaged in clandestine nuclear bomb-making, coupled with indications of increasing Chinese assertiveness in South-East Asia. In the early stages of the Korean crisis Japan kept a reasonably low profile,

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leading many Western observers to portray its response as being entirely in keeping with its traditional post-1945 culture.91 Developments since 1994 have, though, encouraged an increasing number of analysts to suggest a more nuanced view. This envisages Japan slowly beginning to lift its security horizons beyond the only contingency which, since the Second World War, the Japanese armed forces have officially existed to deal with: the defence of the Japanese homeland itself.92 In this context an important departure in Japan’s official security policy became apparent in the summer of 1997 when details emerged of mutually-agreed revisions to the guidelines for implementing its bilateral security treaty with the United States. The key feature of these was that they provided, for the first time, for Japan to act in support of American forces dealing with a crisis or security breakdown in ‘areas surrounding Japan’, even if Japan itself was not directly threatened with attack.93 One should be cautious about reading too much into these revised guidelines, however. As Mike Mochizuki and Michael O’Hanlon have argued: ‘Japan’s military is still banned from conducting most dangerous missions outside its national territory’ and, perhaps even more importantly, ‘in effect, the new guidelines will simply help the alliance do better what it has done before – with the US in the clear lead role and Japan providing support’ [emphasis added]. 94 Notwithstanding the recent possible ‘straws in the wind’ discussed above in the ideological and security spheres, Japan’s power and global status in the 1990s has remained largely monodimensional, being based on its economic strengths and global commercial and trading activities. Yet even in this area of their greatest strength, the Japanese have operated within a global system which has been created and fashioned elsewhere, mainly in the United States. Here, too, Japan has seemed until recently unwilling (some would add unable due to the nature of its domestic political system) to assume a more pro-active or dynamic role. In a further indication of a possibly more assertive regional stance, during 1997 the Japanese government floated a proposal for a regional monetary fund for Asia, with itself as the leading contributor. This would be, said the Japanese, designed to help Asian countries affected by the onset of the currency and financial crises. When it became clear that the Japanese envisaged this arrangement acting separately from the established IMF, the US and other Western countries made clear their objections. These were undoubtedly

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motivated in large part by a desire to maintain the central role of the IMF in which the Western industrialised states, and in particular the US, have long played the lead role. By the autumn, pressure from the Americans had reportedly persuaded the Japanese to abandon their plan, to the chagrin of those ASEAN members, Malaysia in particular, who had picked up on and supported it.95 Despite much grumbling and no little resentment, the Asian countries most seriously affected by the economic crisis – Indonesia, Thailand and South Korea – all reached agreement with the IMF on conditional rescue packages.96 Although reluctant to persist with it once American doubts were made known, the very fact that a Japanese government put forward a proposal for a significant new regional financial institution in the first place was, nevertheless, still significant in view of Japan’s traditional tendency to avoid taking initiatives of its own and to defer to American leadership in international monetary and financial affairs. 97 It is too early to draw firm or reliable conclusions from the several tentative and hesitant indications of possible greater Japanese assertiveness discussed here. Taken together, should they be viewed as presaging a significant and permanent redefinition of Japan’s status and role on the international stage? Or are they unrelated and ad hoc straws in the wind, which do not as yet offer strong or clear enough signals to allow one to conclude that underlying changes are underway in Japanese attitudes and policy? The answer is at present unclear. Either way, Japanese leaders and policy-makers do now seem to be beginning to look again at some of the most important assumptions which have long underpinned their country’s place in Asia, if not yet the wider world. Chinese Power on the Rise? The view that China is the country most likely to challenge the United States in Asia and, a growing number have argued, on a global basis has come increasingly to the fore during the 1990s. It has been based mainly on China’s impressive annual economic growth rates since the 1980s, coupled with the ongoing development of a military capability which some believe will give China the ability to project force much more effectively both within Asia and beyond. Caution is in order in assessing the bases of Chinese power, however. With regard to its economic development it should first

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be noted that both assessments of present performance and predictions for the future vary widely. In addition it should be borne in mind that China commenced its economic development from a long way back when compared to the United States, Japan and the major economies of Western Europe. As a result its growth, whilst impressive in itself, can look less so in comparative perspective.98 Over and above this, China is not yet a member of all the key institutions for the management of the global economy. This has impaired its ability to influence the overall shape and direction of the global economy. It has also placed China at something of a disadvantage vis-à-vis the United States, especially so since the Chinese government applied to join the World Trade Organisation in 1994. Because the US is still, in effect, chief steward of the world economy’s key institutions, it has been able to sit in judgment, with the EU and Japan in support, on China’s progress towards meeting the standards of trade liberalisation judged necessary for membership of the WTO. American officials have not been afraid publicly to rebuke the Chinese for lack of progress. In October 1995, for example, then US Trade Representative Mickey Kantor was quoted in the press as saying that ‘I don’t know of any major trading nation that’s been impressed by the Chinese offer so far’. Such criticism has evidently had some impact on China, although the wisdom of what some see as an unduly confrontational American approach has been the subject of debate.99 Nevertheless, in the instance cited, just over a month after Kantor made his remark the Chinese government announced a major package of cuts in trade tariffs and import quotas clearly designed to meet the US-orchestrated international criticism.100 Given the relative preponderance of Western economic thinking within global economic institutions, some believe that China’s early admission to the WTO will in fact increase the ability of the US and its allies to influence its economic policies as, they argue, Chinese accession to the World Bank and IMF has done already.101 Ideologically-speaking the Chinese have been, and remain, in a weak position. In the wake of the collapse of communism in Central Europe and the disappearance of the Soviet Union, MarxismLeninism has scarcely been an attractive creed for international export. The demise of communist regimes elsewhere in the world has also served to undermine the Chinese leadership’s own ideological self-confidence.102 Both these factors would serve to seriously limit China’s ability to persuade other states to become its ideological

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clients or allies, even if there were evidence that Chinese leaders had been making a conscious effort to project influence in this way. There is, in fact, little evidence that such efforts have been made. Chinese leaders have taken to referring to their guiding ideology as ‘socialism with Chinese characteristics’ which does not suggest an ideology which is intended for export. The current Chinese leadership have, in this way, shown themselves to be the heirs of a centuries-old tradition of introversion in Chinese culture. Historically the Chinese have sought much more to shield themselves from the influences of the outside world than they have attempted to project their own influence abroad.103 Many Western observers and experts do not, in any event, expect the Chinese communist system to endure. They argue that eventually a political system based on a high degree of state regimentation and control will have to be replaced if it is not to become a serious obstacle to continuing economic growth. Others have drawn attention to the relentlessly rising population and argued that the sheer weight of numbers and new mouths to be fed will ultimately overwhelm a rigid Marxist-based system.104 London-based China expert Gerald Segal, amongst others, has noted the uneven economic development of China’s coastal provinces when compared to its interior and has argued that the more prosperous coastal regions have sought, and been granted, increasing autonomy and in some cases virtual independence from central government control as they thrust ahead. In addition Segal has published evidence of increasing frictions in China, both between the more prosperous provinces and the central authorities, and amongst the disparate provinces themselves. Some have gone further than Segal and used such evidence to develop arguments that the future of China as a single state is becoming increasingly uncertain.105 It is not necessary here to enter the debates about whether or not China is likely to survive as a single state. The important point from the perspective of this discussion is that the various internal strains and problems noted above are likely to encourage the Chinese leadership to maintain a predominantly introverted focus with comparatively little energy left over to seek to project power and influence further afield – certainly beyond Asia. Within Asia, however, some have foreseen a different scenario unfolding. It has been argued that China both aims at, and may well attain, the status of the dominant power in Asia. Those who argue along these lines have drawn attention to a number of things:

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China’s economic growth and, in particular, the dramatic-looking increases in Chinese defence spending during the 1990s, the lack of domestic political restraints on Chinese military development when compared to Japan, and also to what some perceive to be an ongoing military disengagement from Asia by the United States.106 However, a number of caveats can be entered against these assumptions. To begin with, Kyung-Won Kim reminds us that it is ‘overly simplistic’ to assume that ‘the size of a country’s economy equates with its degree of strategic strength’. He argues that ‘of course, wealth defines the limits of military power. At the same time, however, effective military power is impossible without elements such as political will, organisation, technology and strategy’.107 The extent of both Chinese military development and the strategic withdrawal of the US are also open to question. Western specialists who have taken a close look at the state of the Chinese armed forces have concluded that much of their military equipment is of relatively poor quality and not suitable for projecting power beyond China’s borders in a sustained way. In a detailed analysis of China’s military capacity published in 1994, Michael Gallagher concluded that the Chinese would have some difficulty even in successfully prosecuting relatively low-level military operations in areas close to their own coastline in view of their equipment deficiencies, the military capabilities of likely opponents and the near-certainty of US intervention if China made any significant attempt to overturn the regional status quo. Other prominent Western China-watchers, such as Robert Ross, have drawn similar conclusions.108 Drawing several threads together, Joseph Nye points out that, although China’s military strength undoubtedly is growing, the US is not standing still and it is, in particular, unlikely to be challenged by China or anybody else in terms of its lead in information technology, which Nye considers will be crucial to warfare in the ‘information age’.109 Nye summarised his views about China’s rise vis-à-vis the US in a think-piece which he contributed to The Economist in June 1998: ‘China will not be a global challenger to the United States, nor will it be able to exercise regional hegemony so long as the United States stays involved in East Asia.’110 Much then depends on the position of the United States. Predictions of an American disengagement from Asia are premature to say the least. Those who have argued otherwise have tended to read too much into the US military withdrawal from the Philippines. The more significant US garrisons in both Japan and South Korea

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have been maintained and overall troop numbers have been declining only relatively marginally; from 135 000 in 1990 to 102 000 in 1995. Further, since the Clinton administration in 1994 declared its wish to see the troop presence stabilise in the region of 100 000, the deployment level has become a relatively uncontroversial issue in the US Congress. There is thus little hard evidence of overall US military disengagement from Asia. For as long as the US remains engaged, China may well periodically test the depth of its commitment to maintain peace and stability in the region, and honour security pledges to specific states. The Chinese military exercises in the vicinity of Taiwan in March 1996 can be interpreted at least partly in this way. But it is unlikely that the Chinese will risk seriously provoking the United States. Japan and China Together? An alliance or axis between Japan and China would bring together the two most important and powerful states in Asia. Such a rapprochement could create a partnership capable of dominating at least regionally if not globally; not least because for this scenario to come about presupposes the end of the US–Japanese security alliance and the withdrawal of American troops from Japan. Those who foresee a Sino-Japanese axis in the making can point to evidence of growing economic links between the two. Between 1988 and 1992 Japanese investment in China grew from the equivalent of $296m. to $1.7bn. whilst two-way trade grew by 31 per cent in 1993 alone. In 1996 the latter was reportedly worth the equivalent of $624bn., with China being Japan’s second-largest trading partner after the US and Japan being China’s largest export market.111 Interestingly, these developments have been accompanied by indications of American concern.112 This suggests that some American leaders see a potential Sino-Japanese axis as the development most likely to undermine their own country’s position in Asia. It is far from clear that closer economic ties will, by themselves, lead to the development of a more comprehensive Sino-Japanese understanding, however. Differences in political outlook and ideology, an unresolved territorial dispute in the East China Sea, China’s memories of Japanese wartime atrocities (coupled with the insensitivity of some Japanese politicians to the feelings of the Chinese) and the Chinese government’s tendency to test and exercise its military forces with scant regard for the sensitivities of its Asian

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neighbours are all factors which are likely to mitigate against the formation of a broad alliance or understanding between the two in the foreseeable future. Plus of course Japan is still very much a military ally of the United States. Indeed the 1997 revisions to the US–Japan security treaty discussed above were greeted with open hostility by the Chinese government, most especially when it became clear that the Japanese refused to pledge that the Taiwan Straits would not be counted as one of the ‘areas surrounding Japan’ in which it would be prepared to support American forces in a crisis.113 Gerald Segal has gone so far as to suggest a ‘coming confrontation between China and Japan’. This is an extreme view perhaps but many others see the two as being natural rivals and competitors rather than partners.114 Whilst a Sino-Japanese war would be in no-one’s interest, it can be argued that a situation where the two stand-off, with neither strong enough nor willing to claim clear primacy, would be the scenario most conducive to the continuation of a pivotal United States role in Asia.

THE UNITED STATES IN A UNITRIPOLAR WORLD It has been a central argument of this chapter that the United States remains the world’s pivotal power. It is in this sense that the label ‘superpower’ remains valid. A leading American commentator, Flora Lewis, has justifiably argued that although there is earnest talk from all sides of the trilateral relationship – Japan–United States–Europe – the relationship is not really a triangle . . . The geometry linking the three Western centers of power is more like a single line, with the United States in the center tied on one side to Europe and the other to Japan.115 What is of particular interest here is not Lewis’s view that the US, Western Europe and Japan are the three key centres or poles of power in the post-Cold War world so much as her depiction of relations between the leading international powers as being akin to a single line with the United States in the centre. Charles Kegley and Gregory Raymond have used a different formula to make the same basic point. They have argued that international relations amongst the leading powers in the next century are likely to resemble

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the structure of an atom; with the US at the centre and the other powers constructing their relations and defining their own power around the American core.116 It is in this sense that the word ‘pivotal’ is used here as an appropriate description of the American place and status in the post-Cold War world. More than any other power, the United States remains the one around which international life revolves. The term ‘unipolar’ does not accurately describe the post-Cold War world, however. This is because the US is more constrained by the agendas of other important countries and international centres of power, as well as by its own position and roles in international economic, commercial and security institutions, than the idea of a single dominant power allows for. Equally though, the discussions in this chapter support the view that the world is not truly ‘multipolar’ either, at least if this term is understood to imply that the US is just another important power. Because the US has occupied a special category of power by itself it is felt that a ‘uni’ element should be retained. The ‘unitripolar’ concept which is suggested here draws on the thinking of Professor Huntington who in congressional testimony during 1990 spoke of the emergence of a ‘unimultipolar world’.117 In this chapter it has been argued that since 1989 three main international poles of power have emerged, not least because the Americas, Europe and Asia have been the main focus of US foreign policy in this period. The United States has been the only power to play a leading role within all three, hence the concept of a unitripolar world. It is likely that the key challenge for US policy-makers in the early years of the new millennium will be to manage relations with the three key regions in ways which both preserve international peace, order and stability and, by inference, the United States’ pivotal international role. Whether and how the present administration and its successors will rise to this challenge remains to be seen. The tasks for the remainder of this study will be to continue the story of the emergence of the unitripolar world since 1989 by focusing on the power and ambitions of Russia – the successor to the Americans’ Cold War superpower rival the USSR – in Chapter 4. In Chapter 5 attention will turn to Western Europe, the focus of the Cold War superpower stand-off.

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4 Succeeding the Soviet Union When the Soviet Union formally ceased to exist at the end of 1991, 15 nominally independent republics emerged in its place.1 Since then a varying number (though never all) of these states have participated in the loose post-Soviet collective arrangement called the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). This chapter focuses principally on the position of Russia and assesses what the available evidence suggests about the nature and direction of that country’s attempts to define a new role for itself as a leading power in international life. Section 1 of the chapter is focused on the Russian state and nation. The analysis here looks at the strengths and weaknesses of post-Soviet Russia in terms of its actual or potential power resources as well as its desired regional and/or global roles. Following on from this, Sections 2 and 3 look at Russian policy on both a regional and a global basis since its re-emergence as an independent state.

RUSSIA ‘IN ITSELF’ AND ITS FOREIGN POLICY PRIORITIES The eagerness with which Russia’s leaders, principally President Boris Yeltsin and the then Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev, sought to assure their country’s status as the internationally-recognised successor to the Soviet Union from December 1991 is noteworthy. Kozyrev hinted at the hard lobbying which had been conducted to this end in a contemporary interview, when he said that ‘it seems to many people that Russia became the legal successor of the USSR automatically, but this was by no means the case’.2 Yeltsin and Kozyrev were prepared to take on additional economic burdens in the form of responsibility for most of the USSR’s foreign debts, including substantial sums of money owed to the United Nations, in order to ensure the other former Soviet republics’ acquiescence in this claim. The successor status clearly mattered a great deal to the Russian leadership. 97

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It mattered principally because it was viewed as underpinning Russia’s status as a great power in the eyes of the United States and the international community generally. Yeltsin and Kozyrev believed that the reborn Russian state could and should effectively slip into the defunct USSR’s shoes to the maximum extent possible in terms of assuming the latter’s international status and rights. Its responsibilities and obligations were accepted as the necessary flip-side to the coin. Some Western analysts have, in this context, found the term ‘continuing state’ rather than successor state to be the most accurate means of describing Russia’s post-Soviet position.3 Most Russian government officials have generally preferred to avoid using the term continuing state. This is because of their desire to reassure the United States in particular that Russia has not aspired to be simply the Soviet Union under a different name. Nevertheless, the way in which the Russian Foreign Ministry and political leadership set about trying to secure the ex-Union’s international assets at the beginning of 1992 certainly suggested that a strong element of continuity was desired, in fact if not in name. In one of its first significant post-Soviet acts, in January 1992, the Russian Foreign Ministry invited foreign governments to ‘view the former USSR’s diplomatic and consular missions accredited in their countries as diplomatic and consular missions of the Russian Federation’.4 Yeltsin and Kozyrev were especially keen to secure rapid international agreement that Russia should occupy the USSR’s permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council. The Russians encountered no opposition to this suggestion from the other permanent members, despite its rather dubious legality in terms of the provisions of the UN Charter. In January 1992 the first and, to date (1999), only summit meeting of Security Council members was convened in New York. This was intended largely to demonstrate to the world at large that Russia had been accepted as one of the Permanent Five. Russia’s leaders were also keen to carry on with the USSR’s role as chief negotiating partner for the US, particularly in the realm of nuclear arms control and disarmament. This role emphasised Russia’s one undoubtedly pre-eminent power resource in the postSoviet era: possession, along with the United States, of the world’s largest arsenals of nuclear weapons. In the nuclear arena, if in no other, Russia still occupies a special category of power resources along with the US and ahead of anybody else. Russia remains the only country with the military capacity to destroy the United States, as American leaders are well aware.

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Right from the time of its re-creation as an independent state, Russia and its leaders across the spectrum have claimed a status amongst the ranks of the leading powers with the means and the right to project influence beyond the country’s own national boundaries. What remains less clear is whether they have continued to conceive of Russia as being a superpower in the traditional sense. In the early years of Russia’s independent existence, Andrei Kozyrev generally preferred to use the term ‘normal great power’, a status shorn of Soviet-style ideological claims.5 More recently, amidst indications of cooling Russian-US relations, the term ‘superpower’ has crept back into usage on occasion, even amongst relatively liberal members of the Russian elite such as Kozyrev himself. In an article published in Izvestia in March 1994, for example, the Russian Foreign Minister wrote that Russia . . . will remain a superpower not only insofar as nuclearmissile and military might as a whole are concerned but also in space exploration and the creation of the latest technologies, not to mention in terms of natural resources and geostrategic position. He also wrote that, in terms of its relationship with the United States, Russia ‘can only be an equal partner, not a junior one’.6 Statements such as these carried clear echoes of the consistent desire of Soviet leaders to be accorded equal status in the Cold War bilateral relationship with the United States. Russian officials have tended to resort to use of the term ‘superpower’ when they have been speaking of their country’s relations with the US. Whether that specific term has been used or not, most Western analysts believe that what James Sherr calls a ‘great power ideology’ has continued to shape the views and attitudes of nearly all Russian leaders.7 Since 1992 the growing influence of a set of ideas supporting the development of multi-directional Russian influence on a regional and global basis has become progressively more apparent. These ideas have been frequently described as being ‘Eurasianist’ in orientation. Historically, three main schools of thought have been present with regard to Russian foreign policy priorities: those of the Westernisers, the Slavophiles and the Eurasianists. The first school has basically believed that Russia’s vocation is principally to be a European power. As such it argues that Russia should aim to integrate itself to the greatest degree into the West and should measure

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its progress and development according to Western norms. The Slavophile school has rejected this and argues instead that Russia’s destiny is to be the leader of the Slavic nations in Eastern and South-Eastern Europe. This makes it the narrowest of the ideologies in terms of scope and focus. The Eurasianist school sees a role for Russia on a wider global basis, with a mutually balancing focus on relations with Asia, Europe and the United States. A clear and influential articulation of Eurasianist thought has been provided by Sergei Stankevich, until 1994 a key adviser to President Yeltsin on political affairs. In the spring of 1992, Stankevich was evidently keen to disseminate his ideas to the widest possible audience at a time when the new Russian state was still finding its feet. Virtually identical articles under his name were published at that time both in Russia and the United States. In these pieces Stankevich distilled the essence of the Eurasianist argument into a number of related propositions. He rejected arguments that Russian foreign policy should be completely de-ideologised. Whilst agreeing with Kozyrev and others that the ‘messianic’ (i.e. overtly expansionist) qualities of Soviet ideology should not be revived, Stankevich nevertheless argued that Russia’s geographical position endowed it with a special ‘mission’ in the world. This mission was to act as a kind of bridge between the civilisations of Asia and the West or, as Stankevich put it, ‘to initiate and maintain a multilateral dialogue of cultures, civilizations and states’. Stankevich argued that discharging the mission effectively depended upon avoiding an over-concentration of Russian foreign policy efforts on relations with the US and the West, though he did not argue for the adoption of a hostile posture towards them. Stankevich also added a distinct element to traditional Eurasianism, and one specifically relevant to Russia’s position in the post-Cold War world. He argued that Russia’s relative impoverishment, when compared to the US, made it the natural leader of the developing world in Latin America, Africa and Asia. Finally, and closer to home, Stankevich maintained that Russia had a ‘legitimate and natural’ role in ‘stabilising’ relations between and within the other newly-independent post-Soviet states. This role was especially important, argued Stankevich, in view of the presence of millions of ethnic Russians living within the borders of these states.8 Some saw ideas such as these as being sharply at variance with the ‘Atlanticist’ (i.e. US-focused) foreign policy being pursued by Yeltsin and Kozyrev during 1992 and 1993. Stankevich himself

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described Atlanticism and Eurasianism as ‘opposites’. A closer examination does, however, suggest that the Yeltsin/Kozyrev policy was never as exclusively focused on the US and the West as the critics implied, even during the early months of Russia’s independent existence. In the spring of 1992, Andrei Kozyrev was writing that ‘Russia is a great . . . Eurasian power in all its aspects – European, Asian, Siberian and Far Eastern – a power that in its domestic life and foreign policy refutes the pessimistic prophecy of Rudyard Kipling that East and West will never meet’.9 In the following months, Kozyrev rejected the charge that he was neglecting Russian interests in the other former Soviet republics; the countries of the ‘near abroad’ as Russians were starting to call them. He asserted that ‘probably 80 per cent’ of his time was being taken up with near abroad matters.10 Certainly, without persistent Russian interest the fledgling Commonwealth of Independent States would not have survived in any shape or form during these early months. In 1992 the Russians were particularly anxious to create a CIS collective security pact and this was promoted consistently, if with only limited success. Widely predicted in the West as a candidate for imminent demise, the CIS in fact convened 18 times at heads of state or government level during 1992, and during the course of the year over 100 agreements were signed. Had Russia not been driving the CIS process along, it is extremely unlikely that this record of achievement would have been attained. Many of the agreements were, it is true, not subsequently implemented by the CIS member states. But this in itself does not seriously detract from the main point here. The last American ambassador to the USSR, Jack Matlock, has suggested a good reason why Russia has tried to push the development of the CIS along. He has argued that no mainstream Russian leader can afford either to ignore or to undervalue the CIS because if it were ever allowed to collapse or if its legality was successfully challenged, this would open up embarrassing questions for Russia, such as its basis for occupying the seat in the UN Security Council formerly held by the Soviet Union, not to mention its membership of other international organizations as an independent country and the legality of its own borders.11

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Russia has, therefore, been consistently and actively engaged with CIS affairs from the first few months of its independent existence. Neither was Russia disinterested in Asian matters at the outset of its history as a reborn state. During the second half of 1992, much of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s time was taken up with the planning of an Asian grand tour for President Yeltsin. This was to take in South Korea, Japan, China and India. As an indication of the seriousness with which Yeltsin and his advisers viewed this trip, it emerged that they were apparently prepared to offer major concessions to the Japanese on the previously intractable problem of the disputed Kurile Islands. Situated off the northern tip of the main Japanese islands, the Kuriles had been occupied by Soviet/Russian forces since 1945 but had consistently been claimed by the Japanese. In the event a backlash from nationalist opponents within Russia to any prospective deal forced Yeltsin to postpone the Japanese leg of his visit and, in the process, damaged Yeltsin and Kozyrev’s fledgling Asian strategy. Nevertheless enough of it survived to demonstrate that at least some effort to balance Russian policy between the West and Asia was being made. In general, the record does not support the view that Yeltsin and Kozyrev wilfully neglected either the CIS or Asia during 1992 and 1993 in favour of an obsessive concentration on relations with the United States. Some have suggested that the Atlanticist preoccupation was only progressively modified after the unexpectedly strong showing of extreme nationalist candidates in the parliamentary elections of December 1993. In fact there were clear indications of a hardening of Russian attitudes towards the West before that date. On the question of the eastward expansion of NATO, for example, the views expressed by Yeltsin were already beginning to harden in September 1993. Nor is it clear that this occurred because Yeltsin was increasingly in thrall to hardline elements in the Russian military, as has also been suggested. It is worth noting that the 1994 defence budget, agreed just a few months after the army supposedly saved Yeltsin from the challenge thrown down by rebellious Russian parliamentarians in October 1993 by refusing to intervene on the side of the latter, reportedly gave the military less than half of what they were asking for. Scant evidence of military influence on the Russian President was available there.12 A better explanation for the indications of increasing assertiveness in Russian policy towards the US and the West since 1992 involves viewing these as being a natural and logical consequence

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of the Russian state and its foreign policy-makers finding their feet from the second half of 1992 onwards. In consequence, the Russian leadership was beginning to define and more clearly articulate distinct national interests for its country. James Sherr has persuasively analysed Russian foreign policy between 1992 and 1994 in these terms. He has concluded that there was an early period of virtually uncritical pro-Western policy, but that this was only brief. It was followed from late 1992 by a shift of focus to the near abroad (and Asia), together with a greater willingness by Russians to assert their interests, even in the face of American opposition or disquiet.13 This being said, Russian foreign policy since 1992 has not evolved according to any generally-agreed master plan. Foreign policy-making in most states involves making compromises between and amongst the views of various distinct groups and interests. In Russia, the fragmented and fractious nature of the policy-making elite has been particularly pronounced. In April 1992 Andrei Kozyrev publicly admitted that as many as 60 per cent of the staffers in his own ministry were opposed to the policies which he was pursuing. A year later, Yeltsin approved the draft of a basic foreign policy concept for Russia which had been put together with input from eight separate executive and parliamentary ministries and agencies. Pressure from outside interests, such as business leaders, has further complicated the picture and added to the difficulties of framing consistent and coherent Russian foreign and security policies.14 Published accounts of the foreign policy concept document indicate that relative emphasis was placed on a role for Russia in ‘stabilising’ the near abroad and on its responsibility to the 25–30m. ethnic Russians still living in the former Soviet republics. The foreign policy concept also called for the maintenance of Russian influence in the wider regional and global context. The former Warsaw Pact countries in Central Europe were declared to be still within Russia’s sphere of interest. Relations with the West were accorded an important place, although so too were those with the Asia-Pacific region. 15 In sum, this conceptual document both reflected and solidified the Russian desire to remain an influential power of the first rank in the post-Cold War world. It defined regions and areas where Russia’s leaders expected and intended to exert influence. From 1993 many observers, both in Russia and the West, thus began to detect a new tone in Russian foreign policy. This was perhaps most clearly illustrated in the former Yugoslavia in February 1994, a period when NATO member states were for

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the first time threatening airstrikes against the Bosnian Serbs. Russia intervened to broker a deal which prevented the threat being carried out. The move was greeted by many in Russia as the first really significant sign that Russia was able and willing to put together and assert a distinct stance on an important issue, and directly influence the policy of Western powers as a result. Izvestia exulted that Russia ‘with one step put itself at the center of attention. It was at that moment that Russia found the important place that it alone can occupy and played the role that no one else could have played. Bravo!’ Commentaries such as this suggested that for many Russians the importance of the stand taken transcended the actual issues at stake in the former Yugoslavia and indicated something more generally significant about their leaders’ ability and willingness to bring influence to bear on important issues beyond the country’s borders.16 It would be a mistake, however, to assume that the articulation and assertion of distinct Russian interests since 1992 has yet proceeded to the point where a clear overarching framework for the pursuit of foreign and security policies has been created. In a wideranging review of Russia’s foreign policy published at the end of 1994, Sergei Rogov, a well-known Russian analyst of international affairs, criticised what he saw as a continuing failure on the part of the foreign policy elite to pursue a consistently clear line. As a result, Rogov argued, Russian policy had tended to be both negative and reactive. If this remains true it is important. It has been a premise of this study that reactive powers cannot be powers of the first-rank in international affairs.17 A second mistake would be to assume that the articulation of distinct Russian interests has been accomplished from a position of relative strength. In large part the reactive nature of Russian policy, evident to Rogov and others, can be ascribed to the country’s enduring economic and political weakness, especially vis-à-vis the United States and its major allies in the West. Stephen Covington has plausibly argued that since 1991 Russia has been pursuing what amounts to an ‘insecurity policy’, motivated principally by its own weakness relative to the West and its leaders’ concerns about its own internal strains. According to Covington, the pursuit of such a policy helps to explain the emphasis which has been placed on the CIS and the near abroad. Russia’s leaders want the countries concerned to be closely bound to Russia in order to both insulate them against feared Western penetration, and also to form a ‘strategic

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corset’ to help prevent possible disintegration of the Russian Federation itself. No less an authority than Mikhail Gorbachev has endorsed such a view in his memoirs, claiming that he warned Yeltsin that bringing the single Soviet state to an end would make it more difficult to keep the Russian Federation itself together.18 The Russian leaders’ appreciation of their relative weakness was almost bound to produce suspicion and distrust and lead to a shift away from a Western focus in Russian policy. Indeed the sense, justified or not, that a Western-oriented Russian foreign policy might tempt the United States to treat Russia as a junior partner and not as an equal seems to have been increasingly prevalent amongst Russia’s leaders since 1992. In analysing changes in Russian foreign policy in the spring of 1994 a leading Western commentator, Suzanne Crow, concluded that a sense of inferiority had been the main factor behind the hardening of Russian policy towards the West. Crow further concluded that the formulation of a distinct Russian foreign policy had got underway only when Russian leaders realised that Western powers were unlikely to challenge their assertion of a leading role in the near abroad.19 The argument which Crow made is particularly interesting and relevant in the context of this study. It suggests that increasing Russian foreign policy assertiveness was not motivated mainly by growing perceptions of strength or self-confidence inside Russia itself. On the contrary, the assertiveness developed on an incremental and opportunistic basis as the United States and its Western allies indicated areas and issues, such as hotspots in the near abroad, which they themselves did not consider affected their own vital or important interests. In this view Russia can be seen as a reactive power operating within the terms of an agenda which is essentially being defined and set by someone else. In terms of Russian strengths and weaknesses in the main resources of power, some have argued that Russian power has been, and remains, globally significant in the military arena if nowhere else. Since 1991, political attention in the West has frequently focused on the size, supposed conservatism and alleged discontent of the Russian military as an important factor necessitating support for democratic forces in Russia. Many specialists and experts have, in contrast, pointed to the debilitated state of the Russian armed forces and raised doubts about their ability to conduct sustained operations on any significant scale. The Chechnia experience following the Russian military intervention there in December 1994, and particularly

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the laboured and confused way in which the Russian military set about trying to subdue armed resistance in the early months of 1995 and again in 1996, seems to many to have further confirmed the inadequacies of the Russian armed forces. At the time of writing (1999) the prevalent view of the Russian military amongst Western experts is increasingly one of operational ineffectiveness, chronic lack of resources and rock-bottom morale amongst both officers and conscripted troops. One commentator summed this up with reference to the Chechen fiasco: ‘Russia . . . can no longer even invade itself’.20 On the economic front the picture looked as if it may be becoming less gloomy, though by no means rosy. A number of informed Western observers were detecting indications of economic recovery in Russia in the period from 1994. Opinions about the nature and extent of this varied widely, however. So much so that it was extremely difficult, if not impossible, to draw any firm conclusions about Russia’s actual or potential economic strength at the existing confused and uncertain juncture.21 In any event, by 1998 a markedly more pessimistic tone became apparent amongst informed commentators, largely due to perceptions that a financial and economic crisis was mounting in Russia. This came to a head in August when, despite another substantial aid package put together by the International Monetary Fund, the Russian government decided to effectively devalue the Rouble and declare a 90-day moratorium on its foreign debt repayments. Currency devaluations tend to be especially painful for governments in any situation because they can be interpreted as signalling the wider weakness and debilitation of a country and society. In Russia’s case this was compounded even further by the fact that, hitherto, the relatively stable Rouble had been regarded as one of the Yeltsin government’s few significant economic achievements. The devaluation decision only added to the increasingly gloomy prognosis about the economic and political future of Russia which had been increasingly in evidence since the spring.22 In view of Russia’s at best uncertain prospects in both the military and economic arenas, the importance of its leaders’ ideological claims to great power or superpower status becomes especially important. Douglas Blum rightly concluded in 1994 that ‘the problem of forging a coherent and widely accepted ideology will be a key factor in determining the outcome of Russia’s struggle to become consolidated’.23 In addition, ideology has played an important role

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in enabling Russian leaders to aspire to roles and responsibilities befitting a great power on the international stage. The extent that Russia has been and continues to be treated and regarded as a leading international power has had less to do with its power resources and been due more to the fact that its leaders have, since 1991, consistently claimed great power roles and responsibilities for their country. The discussions in the sections which follow examine the most important of these roles in some detail. These discussions will focus principally on Russian foreign policy towards key areas of interest and influence as identified in the Eurasianist concept outlined by Sergei Stankevich and others. This has represented the closest which Russia has so far come to developing a coherent foreign policy framework. Section 2 below will assess Russian policy and attitudes towards the near abroad. These states have been placed in a special category by themselves in the Russian foreign policy framework, and they are accorded their own section here. Section 3 will subsequently assess Russian policy in other key areas, principally asking whether Russia has a ‘special relationship’ with the United States and considering the formulation of Russian policy towards Asia.

RUSSIA AND THE FORMER SOVIET REPUBLICS To recap briefly, the term ‘near abroad’ was, in the early 1990s, ‘coined by Russians to distinguish between independent former imperial domains with Russian minorities and the rest of the world’.24 Dr Mark Smith, a researcher at the London-based Royal United Services Institute for Defence Studies, has offered a useful means to help in the analysis of Russian policy towards the countries of the near abroad. Writing in 1993, Smith argued that Russian policy had been and is likely to remain based on what he called ‘hegemonic presumption’. He argued that the current generation of Russian leaders, of whatever political hue, simply have no concept of the near abroad countries as independent sovereign states. An assumption of Russia as the dominant power in the former Soviet area, with other republics being firmly within its sphere of influence, has come instinctively therefore to many Russian leaders and policy-makers. Smith categorised Russian political debates on policy towards the near abroad as having been conducted largely between proponents of ‘loose hegemony’ and those who have advocated ‘tight hegemony’.

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Debates within Russian leadership circles on the near abroad have, he argued, tended to focus not on whether Russia should try to influence the states within this area. Rather the key arguments and dividing lines have been formed around the question of how influence and, perhaps, more direct control can best be exercised and maintained.25 The views of more conservative politicians, and in many quarters of the Russian military establishment, aptly fit into Smith’s tight hegemony category of thinking. Those who subscribe to it have argued that Russia should be recognised as being the dominant power within the former Soviet space (which they still tend to see as a single area) by both the other republics and the international community. They do not view most of the other republics as being viable states in their own right, either economically or in security terms. As such, they believe that Russia has justifiable, indeed wholly natural, rights and responsibilities for directing the economic and security policies of these states, and they argue that it should not shy away from exercising dominance in an intrusive and overt way if necessary. Many supporters of loose hegemony have also taken the view that the other CIS members, if not all the former Soviet republics (i.e. including the Baltic states which have never joined the CIS), remain within a Russian sphere of interest and influence. They believe that Russia has a right to expect its views to be taken into account on issues – principally the status and the position of Russian populations within the new states – which it believes are of legitimate concern to itself. Loose hegemonists, whilst not in most cases ruling out the option of using force in the final analysis, nevertheless stress a preference for the use of diplomatic methods to resolve disputes. Force, if it is to be used at all, should, they argue, only be used within the framework of a legitimate international agency such as the United Nations (UN) or the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). When the USSR was about to be wound up in December 1991, President Yeltsin and his key advisers seem to have been preoccupied with trying to salvage a ‘Slavic core’ of states which would maintain a close association with Russia. To this end, only representatives of Ukraine and Belarus were invited by Russia to the initial meeting which established the Commonwealth of Independent States. This approach contrasted with that which Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev had taken earlier in 1991 when he had tried to

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interest all the non-Baltic republics in a new, looser, Union Treaty to replace the existing USSR, with as many of the Soviet republics involved as possible. Protests by leaders of the Central Asian republics, especially the Kazakhs, soon forced a rethinking of the original December 1991 Russian position. At a second meeting convened three weeks after the first, the Central Asians plus Armenia, Azerbaijan and Moldova were admitted (Georgia joined later). This effectively diluted the original vision of Yeltsin and his advisers who had envisaged the CIS as being a tightly knit union of the core Slavic states which would be capable of dominating the former Soviet area, rather than the much looser and broader arrangement which it became following the admission of the other republics. As evidence of the original intention, Gennadii Burbulis, at that time a key Yeltsin adviser, asserted in December 1991 that the idea that the three-party Commonwealth would remain a loose confederation was ‘a myth’. He was also quoted as saying that the nascent CIS intergovernmental structures would over time assume supranational characteristics.26 These aspirations have not been fulfilled during the first halfdecade of the Commonwealth’s existence. Nevertheless, they have remained alive in the minds of some Russian leaders and there have been periodic attempts to inject new life into the expanded CIS. During 1995 and 1996, the possibility arose that the CIS, under Russian influence and leadership, might be remodelled as an Eastern equivalent of the European Union on the basis of the commercial and economic co-operation and integration being developed between Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.27 Yet during 1997 the Yeltsin government backed away from suggestions of reintegration between Russia and Belarus, despite pressure from the President of Belarus and earlier assertions that this objective was viewed favourably in Moscow. This led many analysts to the conclusion that previous Russian rhetorical support for reintegration had been little more than a tactical device, with reintegration being threatened as a counter-measure to NATO’s potential expansion into Central Europe.28 Their view appeared confirmed once the Yeltsin leadership grudgingly accepted the latter in May 1997. The Belarus reintegration project subsequently appeared to be dropped as an element of Russian foreign policy. It remains unclear whether and to what extent the CIS as a whole will be further developed. It is though fair to say that those who envisaged it is a potential tool for Russian/Slavic domination of

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the former Soviet area have not had these expectations realised, and are unlikely to do so. Many influential figures in Russia have continued to regard the near abroad as being a single space, with Russia as its core and leading power. This has been reflected in the attitude of Russian leaders to the external borders of other near abroad countries. Many Russians have evidently regarded the borders of the ex-USSR as still extant. In September 1993, the then Minister of Defence General Pavel Grachev was quoted in the Russian press as saying that ‘we discussed the idea of moving the former Soviet border to Russia’s present border, but then we abandoned those ideas’. At the same time, President Yeltsin was quoted as stating that the external borders of the CIS countries as a whole ‘are essentially the border of Russia’.29 In an interview with Western journalists in June 1994, Andrei Kozyrev, regarded in the West as being amongst the most liberal members of the Russian political elite, himself argued that ‘the only border we can maintain is the old Soviet border around these [near abroad] countries’.30 These words found expression on the ground in the dispatching of Russian military and police personnel to help patrol the external borders of CIS countries. By September 1994, ‘of the CIS states, only Azerbaijan and Moldova guarded their external frontiers without Russian assistance’.31 Russia’s attitude to CIS borders gives a clear demonstration of its leaders’ desire to be, and to be seen internationally, as the heirs to the USSR’s international position and status. Russian leaders have balked at being seen as governing a shrunken state relative to the old USSR, in geographical or in other terms. The remarks quoted above, and the fact that Russian personnel continue to guard the external borders of nominally independent states in the near abroad, offer powerful evidence for the proposition that post-Soviet Russia has not been a satisfied state, content within its own national borders and relatively unconcerned with influencing or dominating its neighbours.32 For Russian leaders across the spectrum, the near abroad has occupied a special status in the country’s foreign policy as a region of primary Russian interest and influence. Only for a brief period in the spring and early summer of 1992 did it appear that this might not be the case. In some of his pronouncements at the time, Andrei Kozyrev did appear to come close to writing off the importance of Russian interests in the region. In an interview with Izvestia published in June 1992, for example, he seemed to suggest that

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even the highly emotive matter of ensuring respect for the rights of Russians living in the other republics was something with which they should not expect much help from Russia itself. The Russian Foreign Minister argued then that the Russian minorities should safeguard their own position by living as ‘honest citizens’ and ‘accepting the [host] country’s laws and sovereignty’.33 Even in those early months of 1992, however, Russian policy towards the near abroad was not, in the words of Suzanne Crow, ‘marked by tact or diplomacy’. Crow argued then that ‘Russia has not made much effort to demonstrate to the former republics that it recognizes its new neighbors as sovereign states’. As supporting evidence she cited a recent Yeltsin announcement, made without consulting the Ukrainian government, that ex-Soviet nuclear missiles based in the Ukraine had been taken off alert status. She also noted some heavy-handed Russian diplomatic and economic moves with regard to the Baltic states.34 In retrospect, the apparent disinterest in near abroad affairs evidenced by some of Andrei Kozyrev’s early statements can be explained mainly by reference to the policy vacuum which existed in the early months of 1992. Two events were of particular importance in moving Russian policy beyond this stage. One was the appointment, in the summer of 1992, of Fyodor Shelov-Kovedyayev as the First Deputy Foreign Minister with special responsibility for CIS affairs. The second, more general, factor had to do with the growing chorus from senior political and academic figures demanding that Russia pursue a more assertive foreign policy. Soon after his appointment, Shelov asserted that ‘with documents or without’, Russian minorities in the near abroad ‘are under Russia’s protection’. He added that Russia would protect them ‘by all available means’ if necessary, implying the possible use of military force.35 Behind such truculent rhetoric, however, Shelov seems to have supported the idea of relatively loose hegemony as the main characteristic of Russia’s relations with its neighbours. Certainly he was pilloried in conservative quarters and eventually driven to resign from the foreign ministry. The critics’ main bone of contention with Shelov was over the issue of the use of force. Shelov had argued that this should only be considered as a last resort and then only in close co-ordination with responsible international organisations, and not by unilateral Russian decision. Shelov had given a comprehensive outline of his views in a July 1992 interview. In doing so, he provided one of the best statements

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by a senior Russian policy-maker of what loose hegemony might mean in practice. His ideas as set out in this interview scarcely qualified for the label ‘hegemony’ at all, in the sense in which that term has been defined and used in this study to denote assertive international dominance. ‘Only informal leadership is possible’, Shelov said. He defined this as ‘leadership that . . . must be confirmed every day by better results than those of our neighbors’. Shelov argued that Russian leadership of this, exemplary, kind could be exercised most effectively with Russia accepting and not seeking to undermine the sovereignty and independence of the other republics. He said that the fatherland is surrounded by states that are just as independent and just as much subjects of international law as Russia is . . . Correct relations with them can be built only on the basis of generally recognised principles and norms . . . pressure involving force can lead only to grave complications, nothing more.36 These views were at variance with those of a growing number of influential critics. In July 1992 Sergei Stankevich, whilst basically agreeing with the approach of using diplomacy where possible to settle problems involving ethnic Russians in the near abroad, nonetheless called for Russia’s political and military leaders to articulate more clearly a doctrine of selective military intervention, without necessarily seeking international sanction, in cases of persistent human rights violations as determined by Russia. 37 Andranik Migranyan, a senior academic and soon to become a leading adviser to President Yeltsin, penned, in August 1992, a frank call for Russia to ‘declare to the world community that the entire geopolitical space of the former USSR is a sphere of its vital interests’. Migranyan explicitly likened such a declaration to the long-standing ‘Monroe Doctrine’ asserting the United States’ hemispheric primacy in the Americas.38 Thereafter, the notion of a Russian Monroe Doctrine was taken up by a number of senior Russian figures. At the highest level, the thinking of those who, like Migranyan, favoured an explicit Russian droit de regard over near abroad affairs was reflected in a February 1993 statement by President Yeltsin in which he called for the international community to effectively delegate to Russia ‘special powers’ as ‘guarantor of peace and stability’ in ‘the former USSR’. Yeltsin too drew a parallel with the position of the US in order to claim a comparable right of intervention. He stated that

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we recognise the specific role of the USA in this sort of multilateral action in the regions of its vitally important interests, and expect the USA to take a similar approach towards the role of Russia on the basis of reciprocity.39 Like Migranyan and others, Yeltsin asserted that the whole of the territory of the former USSR, not just the CIS membership, fell within Russia’s sphere of influence. This included the Baltic states and, at that time, Georgia. All of these countries were intensely irritated and also concerned by any suggestion that they were not recognised as being fully sovereign states. In addition Yeltsin appeared to be suggesting that future Russian military operations in the near abroad would not necessarily be conducted in close co-ordination with international agencies. Finally, by drawing an explicit parallel with the United States, Yeltsin was clearly asserting that the US and Russia enjoyed a special, joint and pre-eminent status in the international community in terms of their right to designate and manage spheres of influence and interest. At the time, the Russian Foreign Ministry was not prepared to go so far. It was quick to issue a statement ‘clarifying’ Yeltsin’s remarks and trying to claim that Russian military intervention in the near abroad would not take place without either the consent of the international community or of the individual republics concerned. Yet the fact that this step was judged to be necessary suggests that the relative moderates in the ministry were being progressively sidelined in the decision-making process. They had apparently not been involved in the drafting of Yeltsin’s speech in the first place. Later, in the autumn of 1993, President Yeltsin approved a document setting out a core military doctrine for the Russian armed forces. Apparently largely drafted by the military themselves, the doctrine granted the Russian military the de facto right to intervene in the near abroad (including the Baltic states and Georgia). It did so by identifying the ‘suppression of the rights, freedom and lawful interests of Russian citizens in foreign states’ as a source of ‘military danger and threat’. In addition, the doctrine appeared to seek to restrict the freedom of manoeuvre of the former Soviet republics in their security policy-making by also identifying as a threat the ‘expansion of military blocs and alliances to the detriment of Russian military security’. This provision might theoretically be used to justify potential Russian action, including by military

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means, to prevent one or more of the former Soviet republics from seeking to join NATO.40 In February 1994 Foreign Minister Kozyrev, the man who less than two years previously had appeared to cast doubt on whether Russia could and should do anything practical to help ethnic Russians in the near abroad, was quoted as saying that the country should in fact maintain a standing military presence in the other republics, at least where ‘there is a danger to the lives of both Russian-speaking and native populations’.41 Kozyrev appeared here to be arguing that Russia did have a right to intervene militarily in order to restore what it deemed to be stability in the former Soviet area – and not just for the specific purpose of protecting its compatriots (as evidenced by the reference to ‘native populations’). Kozyrev also caused something of a stir in the spring of 1995 when he declared that possible Russian action in response to violations of the rights of ethnic Russians abroad could range ‘from expressing faint dissatisfaction in the form of a statement by an anonymous spokesman for the Foreign Ministry to the use of force, meaning not only political or economic but also armed force. I don’t rule it out.’ No mention was made of this being done under the hat of the UN or the OSCE, indeed later Kozyrev spoke disparagingly of the ‘double standards’ allegedly employed by the Western powers in the OSCE. Although Kozyrev was not really saying anything which others had not said before, some clearly felt, Russians as well as Westerners, that it was significant that such views were now being expressed by one of Russia’s few remaining influential liberals.42 Russian concerns about the position of ethnic Russians in the near abroad have not been without foundation. There have been real problems, especially in the Baltic republics of Estonia and Latvia. Russian concerns came to focus in particular on a draft 1993 Estonian ‘Law on Aliens’ which was intended to provide a legal basis for determining who would be permitted to reside in Estonia. Some Russian leaders feared that the adoption of this law could lead to the mass expulsion of ethnic Russians living in that country. Regarding Latvia, meanwhile, the Russians objected in particular to proposals put forward during 1993 and 1994 to introduce annual quotas limiting the numbers of ethnic Russians who could apply for Latvian citizenship.43 Western governments have been aware of the genuine grounds for Russian concern which have existed. International institutions

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have been utilised extensively to try to find a means of addressing legitimate Russian concerns whilst at the same time seeking to headoff the prospect of unilateral Russian intervention in the Baltics. UN fact-finding missions have visited both Estonia and Latvia on several occasions since 1992. Both the Council of Europe (CoE) and the CSCE/OSCE have been used to provide forums within which proposed legislation by Estonia and Latvia on citizenship and residency issues could be subjected to international legal scrutiny. An indication of the extent to which local ethnic Russians were feeling insecure can be gauged from the fact that the first UN mission to Latvia in October 1992 reported having received over 300 petitions from ethnic Russians and other minority groups complaining about ‘arbitrary and discriminatory practices in the registration of Latvia’s inhabitants’.44 Neither the UN, nor the OSCE nor the CoE found evidence that ethnic Russians in the Baltics were being systematically or seriously discriminated against by those countries’ governments. At the same time the Balts’ draft legislation was not always found to be wholly compatible with prevailing international norms and standards. During 1993 it was reported that the President of Estonia had proposed 27 amendments to the draft Law on Aliens, based on recommendations made by the CSCE and the CoE.45 Latvia’s problems in trying to join the Council of Europe are also noteworthy in this context, in view of the fact that an important requirement for entry is the possession of citizenship laws which accord with international norms. Lithuania and Estonia were both admitted to the Council in 1993, whereas Latvian membership was delayed until 1995. Aside from genuine humanitarian concerns for their compatriots outside Russia, Russian leaders have also been alarmed about the potential for ethnic Russians in the near abroad to head for Russia itself if they are displaced from, or choose to leave, their existing homes. Russian leaders have seen those refugee influxes which have come as in themselves offering strong support for suspicions that ethnic Russians living in the near abroad are indeed the victims of discrimination by governments there. In April 1995, for example, Andrei Kozyrev claimed that over 250 000 people had migrated into Russia from near abroad countries during the previous year. He further argued that this represented ‘the most palpable proof’ of an ‘unsatisfactory’ attitude to ethnic Russian rights by the authorities in many of the other republics.46

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The refugee issue has come to be seen by many Russian leaders as being particularly likely to be exacerbated by instability and conflict between and within the other republics. The impact of the civil wars in Tajikistan, which have raged on and off since 1992, has been particularly significant in this respect. Russian concerns are eminently understandable if estimates of the displacement of Tajikistan’s ethnic Russian population are accurate. According to one such, of the estimated 370 000 ethnic Russians living in that republic in 1989, some 300 000 had moved into Russia by the middle of 1993.47 In this context, the claims of Russian leaders to be genuinely interested in promoting stability and managing conflicts in the near abroad seem persuasive, and they have proved convincing to some Western analysts. Mark Webber for instance has agreed with the view that Russia’s ‘prime objective in the region is stability not power projection’.48 With specific regard to Central Asia, Alvin Rubinstein has written in similar vein that: there is little to substantiate the thesis, increasingly heard in Western commentaries, that the empire is striking back, that a more forceful Russian policy seeks to reimpose Russia’s rule. Moscow has not destabilized any of the republics (in contrast to its quite different behavior in the Caucasus), nor has it intruded itself directly into factional struggles, except in Tajikistan. Even there, Moscow may have been drawn into the civil war by the specter of Islamic fundamentalism . . . and by the increasing boldness of cross-border attacks from Tajik fundamentalists in Afghanistan. At present, Russian troops serving in the Muslim republics are there at the request of the host governments.49 Many outside observers would, however, dispute the view that overt Russian interference in and manipulation of local political processes in the name of stability in the near abroad is desirable or justified. As Rubinstein suggests, examples of such activity allegedly taking place have been cited for the civil wars in Moldova and Georgia and in the case of the ongoing dispute and conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Undoubtedly Russians have been extensively involved in political manoeuvring in all these places. Whether these have been Russians reliably controlled and directed by Moscow is another matter. In an article published in a 1993 issue of the American quarterly Foreign Policy, Thomas Goltz assessed the activities of Russian forces in Georgia and Azerbaijan, based on

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his extensive travels in these regions. He found, despite his own hunches on the matter, no conclusive evidence to support the view that Russian activity was being orchestrated by the central authorities in Moscow. Indeed the mass of observations and impressions which he included in his piece gave rather the opposite impression: that local Russian forces in these regions had been operating as freebooters for hire to the highest bidder or else in pursuit of their own parochial objectives.50 General Aleksander Lebed, commander of the ‘Russian’ 14th Army in Moldova from 1992–5, sought in particular to stress his independence from Moscow or anyone else who challenged his right to set his own agenda. In February 1993, Izvestia quoted him as saying that ‘people in the Kremlin, the White House [the Russian parliament building] or somewhere else may get indignant over this and adopt all manner of decisions but no orders or arbitrary decisions will help’. Six months later he was telling The Economist that ‘I’m a cat that likes to walk by itself . . . theoretically we are under the orders of the commander-in-chief of ground forces in Moscow. In practice, we take decisions here’.51 Stressing the extent of their independence from central Russian command and control authorities does not justify the activities of rogue Russian forces in the near abroad. It does though caution against the view that these forces have been consciously engaged in re-establishing Russian dominance according to some predetermined plan directed from Moscow. This brief overview of Russian thinking about, and activity in, the near abroad has not been included with a view to passing judgment on Russian approaches per se. Rather, the purpose has been to explore the reasons why the other former Soviet republics have occupied a special place in Russian foreign policy. On the basis of these discussions it would be unjustified to suggest that Russian leaders have simply been motivated by the desire to re-establish Soviet-style imperial control over the other republics. Many Russians undoubtedly have continued to view the territory formerly occupied by the Soviet Union as being part of a single space, with Russia as the leading or dominant directing power. At the same time, Russians have held genuine concerns about instability in this proximate region and also about the position of their ethnic compatriots living in the near abroad. The tendency of some Russians to see the other republics as being less-than-fully sovereign or independent states has also been

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reflected in official views on the other side of the fence. A persuasive case can be made that by no means all the former Soviet republics have been seeking full sovereignty and independence from Russia in the first place. An American analyst, Martha Brill Olcott, made the case in 1995. In a comprehensive overview she concluded that, of the 14 former Soviet republics apart from Russia, only the 3 Baltic republics, Ukraine, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan have been committed to full sovereignty and independence. Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan are, she argued, likely to be content with ‘quasi-sovereignty’. In practical terms this means that these republics have been willing to rely on Russia to underpin their security and to provide what they hope will be generous economic support. Olcott’s arguments about these states were supported when Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan negotiated their ‘Eastern common market’ with Russia in the spring of 1996. Since then the Belarussian President has gone so far as to request full reintegration with Russia. Finally Georgia, Moldova and Armenia have, in Olcott’s view, been undecided about which path to take. Some, such as Russian journalist and analyst Aleksander Tsipko, have gone further than Olcott and argued that only the three Baltic states are really fully committed to maintaining and consolidating their independence.52 It is not hard to understand the economic attraction of continued dependence upon and integration with Russia for at least some of the other republics. The legacy of Soviet economic organisation has left Russia as the only one of the 15 republics with anything approaching a balanced economy. It has also left virtually all the others impoverished and critically dependent on Russia for vital imports, especially oil and gas supplies, and Russian leaders have not been averse to trying to exploit such dependency to lever political concessions out of governments in the other republics which, as Rubinstein notes, is ‘consistent with the influence that a strong power can usually exercise over a weak power that is located in its perceived sphere of influence’.53 In the first six months after the Soviet collapse, Russia reportedly exported the equivalent of $2.2bn. worth of commodities to the other republics, exports which the latter had no hope of paying for.54 By September 1993 it was estimated that Russia was effectively transferring the equivalent of 10 per cent of its Gross Domestic Product to the other republics in the form of loans and subsidised exports. Sevodnya quantified this as being the equivalent of $76bn.55 Russia’s pivotal position in the affairs of the former Soviet space has not come cheap.

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RUSSIA IN THE WIDER GLOBAL CONTEXT Russia and the United States: Partners in Leadership? From the outset, Russian leaders have sought to preserve the unique two-power top table relationship with the United States which the USSR had attained during the Cold War years. It was this relationship which constituted one of the USSR’s most obvious claims to superpower status.56 As such, Russian eagerness to preserve it demonstrates a continuing desire amongst Russian leaders to have their state viewed as a superpower too. Since 1991, regular US-Russian bilateral summit meetings have replaced US-Soviet ones. The statements and communiqués issued at these meetings have clearly reflected the continuing Russian desire to be accorded a co-equal status with the US, as have the number of such meetings (Presidents Yeltsin and Clinton met 12 times between 1993 and 1997). After a Yeltsin–Clinton summit in January 1994, the Russian President’s press secretary summed things up in a significant phrase when he said that the basis of such meetings was the assumption that ‘nothing can be done in the world without Russia and the United States’.57 Those words were particularly significant because they were a verbatim repetition of the basic doctrine which became the cornerstone of Soviet foreign policy from the early 1970s as noted in Chapter 2. As such, their repetition offered the strongest evidence both that Russian leaders wanted and expected the same kind of relationship with the United States that Soviet leaders had had, and also that the former considered their state to be the heir to the USSR’s status as the superpower co-equal with the Americans. Despite this, a growing consensus of opinion in both Russia and the West views US–Russia relations as having become more strained and difficult to manage. The phrase ‘the honeymoon is over’ has increasingly been used on both sides. Another element of continuity from the Soviet era is relevant here. Cold War commentators often drew attention to the traditional apprehension of Soviet leaders that the United States would never really be content with a relationship of equals and would strive continuously to try to get ahead of the USSR and achieve a position of dominance for itself. Both Soviet and Russian leaders have used the term ‘hegemony’ in this context; to denote a hypothetical situation in which one power, the United States, is pre-eminent to the extent where it can dominate and direct international affairs by itself.58

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Most mainstream Russian leaders have not asserted that their own country should become hegemonic or that the United States should cease to play a role as a leading international power. In March 1994, Foreign Minister Kozyrev wrote that ‘while the notion of American hegemony is dangerous, there remains an urgent need for American leadership, given the special position of the United States in the Group of Seven and in NATO’. What Kozyrev and others, even amongst the relative moderates in Russia, have balked at are any indications that US leaders may try to dominate rather than lead, with the former implying little or no consultation with Russia. Kozyrev wrote that ‘the United States does not have the capability to rule alone’, and argued that ‘the nature of modern international problems calls for solutions on a multilateral basis’.59 Many Russians have been increasingly willing to believe that the US is treating their country as, at best, a junior partner or that it has plans to deliberately weaken Russia so that it occupies a subordinate position. Widespread suspicions have been reported inside Russia that American programmes designed officially to promote economic assistance are really designed as a cover for the plunder of Russia’s resource wealth and to weaken the country in its relations with the United States.60 In January 1995, Vladimir Polevanov, a leading Yeltsin economic aide, went so far as to call publicly for the expulsion of all Western economic advisers. He alleged that many of them were engaged in ‘economic espionage’.61 Not only Russians have criticised prevailing western policies. Noam Chomsky has attacked the extent to which, in his view, US ‘aid’ programmes in Russia are actually geared more towards opening doors for US businesses to make money there rather than providing genuine assistance to Russian businesses and workers.62 A leading British Russian specialist, Neil MacFarlane, has written of ‘the arrogant intrusiveness of Western economic advisers’ playing an important role in fostering ‘widespread resentment of the West’ in Russia. In the US, Stephen Cohen of Princeton University told the House of Representatives’ Committee on Foreign Affairs in 1993 that, in his opinion, the degree of intrusion has been abysmal . . . We should not be traipsing around on the Russian political landscape doing what a lot of American officials and other citizens are doing . . . Just imagine if Russian funds were being used for those kinds of purposes in our country. Just imagine the reaction.63

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Closely related to the Russian complaints about undue Western intrusiveness has been unhappiness over alleged American attempts to tilt the military and security balance of power against Russia. Two particular concerns have been expressed by those who make such complaints: over the prospect of the eastward expansion of NATO, discussed above, and also over alleged American attempts to interfere in the near abroad and specifically to wean powerful neighbours such as the Ukraine away from Russian influence and towards the Western camp. During 1993 it emerged that the Clinton administration was considering, as part of an ongoing review of peacekeeping policy, offering to ‘mediate’ in future disputes between Russia and other former Soviet republics. This suggestion was damned by most of the Russian press, indicating extreme sensitivity inside Russia to the notion that the US might seek to intervene in near abroad affairs even in the diplomatic arena. The State Department moved to head-off the prospect of a political storm by stressing that the US would only get involved if all parties, including Russia, were to agree.64 Little has been heard of this idea since. Russia did in fact subsequently agree to an American suggestion which provided for direct input from the US on a matter of great sensitivity, and long-standing deadlock between Russia and key neighbours. This was the issue of persuading Ukraine and Kazakhstan to finally declare themselves non-nuclear states and to agree to remove all ex-Soviet strategic nuclear warheads from their territory and into Russia. The matter was complicated by the fact that the actual dismantling of the weapons could only realistically be done in Russia. Before agreeing to this, the Ukrainians had demanded not only economic aid from the US, but also security guarantees. In January 1994 a compromise agreement was reached whereby the Ukrainians would consent to the dismantling of the nuclear arms in return for compensatory payments for the nuclear components, economic aid from the US and European Union and ‘security assurances’ from Russia and the US. Although these were not the stronger guarantees which the Ukrainians had been seeking since 199265 Russia had, by this agreement, formally accepted that the United States had a declared interest in the security of Russia’s most important neighbour. During 1995 the terms of the agreement were further solidified when, at American suggestion, a Russia–US–Ukraine trilateral commission was created to oversee the nuclear dismantling process. In addition, France and the United

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Kingdom joined in by also giving security assurances to Ukraine. The fact that these developments occurred with relatively little debate or opposition evident within Russia serves as testimony to the willingness of leaders to treat nuclear issues as special cases. This means that Russian leaders have been prepared to put stability ahead of other concerns at least when such powerful weapons systems are the subject at issue. At the start of 1994, briefly, it seemed that the Clinton administration was interested in offering Russia a de facto trade-off involving what would effectively be a free hand for Russia in the near abroad in exchange for Russian acquiescence in the limited expansion of NATO into Central Europe. Immediately after a NATO summit meeting in January of that year, President Clinton journeyed to Moscow for his meeting with President Yeltsin. It was at this meeting that the initial accord with regard to Ukrainian nuclear disarmament was signed. Overall the US leader was in a conciliatory mood, including on near abroad issues. In an appearance on Russian television, the US President seemed to go out of his way to dispel the impression that the US regarded Russia as anything other than coequal. He spoke of the US wanting ‘very much to be your equal partners and genuine friends’ and of the American desire for a ‘genuine, equal partnership with a strong and free Russia’. Later in his address he tackled the issue head on: I’m amused when I come here in the spirit of genuine partnership and respect and some people say, well, the United States is trying to dictate our course. Nothing could be further from the truth. Believe me, my friends, it’s all we can do to deal with our own problems. We don’t have time to try to dictate your course. This was a shrewdly political statement. Not only was the US President strongly denying any intent to try to dictate to the Russians, he was also, by admitting to ‘problems’ in the US, attempting to deflect allegations that Americans were patronising or condescending in their attitudes to Russia. After his speech, Clinton took questions from the invited Russian audience. One such was about US views of Russian military activity in the near abroad. In his reply, Clinton stated that I think there will be times when you will be involved [in the near abroad] and you will be more likely to be involved in some

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of these areas near you, just like the United States has been involved in the last several years in Panama and Grenada near our area.66 Clinton’s remarks in this broadcast, coupled with his generally respectful demeanour towards Yeltsin at the summit, suggested that a conscious attempt was underway by the Americans to recreate the feeling that Russia and the US were essentially co-equal powers and that they did have unique responsibilities to manage areas of the world between them. But it was not to last. The main problem proved to be opposition within the United States to Clinton’s socalled ‘Russia First’ policy. This was reflected in a number of critical articles by former officials and prominent academics such as Zbigniew Brzezinski. In a widely read article published in Foreign Affairs shortly after the Moscow summit, Brzezinski accused the Clinton administration of effectively giving the Russians carte blanche for military intervention in the near abroad and thus effectively limiting the sovereignty of the other former Soviet republics vis-à-vis Russia.67 Press commentaries in a similar vein had also started to appear.68 These criticisms were to a large extent unfair. Brzezinski’s, for example, was based on selective use of the words quoted above from Clinton’s answer to the question about the near abroad. He omitted to mention that the President had gone on to state that the thing I think that we have to try to do [is to ensure that] where there is an involvement beyond the borders of the nation, that it is consistent with international law and, wherever possible, actually supported through other nations either through the United Nations or through some other instrument of international law. Nevertheless, the criticisms evidently did hit home. Soon after the Moscow summit a shift in the Clinton administration’s line became apparent. This was signalled by Strobe Talbott, recently appointed to be, in effect, Clinton’s ambassador-at-large for Russian and near abroad affairs. In congressional testimony in March 1994, Talbott consciously tried to damp down the passions raised by Clinton’s apparent endorsement of Russia’s leading role in the near abroad given two months earlier. Let me make it clear [Talbott stated] that we do not, under any circumstances, consider the issue of ethnic Russians in the

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so-called ‘near abroad’ to be a legitimate pretext for Russian military intervention, political intimidation or economic coercion of those states.69 An important and specific aspect of the revised US policy was an emphasis on fostering a better relationship with Ukraine. To an extent this would probably have occurred in any event, in view of the economic and other inducements offered to the Ukrainians in order to persuade them finally to renounce nuclear weapons. Nevertheless, the language being used by Talbott and others suggested that Russian fears that the US might be shifting towards balanceof-power thinking, with a pivotal position for a Western-oriented Ukraine (or at least one detached from the Russian orbit), might not be without foundation. In February 1995, Talbott made a speech which seemed to identify the progressive diminution of Russian influence over Ukraine as an objective of US policy. If Ukraine could truly develop into ‘an independent, sovereign nation, secure in its current borders’, he said, this would be the ‘key to stability in Central Europe’. In this same speech Talbott claimed that the US-supported programme of economic reforms which the Ukrainian government had recently embarked upon ‘will help cement the bonds of nationhood’, contributing to Russian suspicions that there were indeed hidden agendas lurking behind US aid programmes.70 As American policy shifted, so relations with Russia worsened overall. From 1995 predictions of a new era of strategic rivalry between the two began to appear, with some arguing that Russia was likely to become more assertive in the support and defence of declared and perceived interests on both a regional and global basis.71 Early indications that such a process might indeed be underway could be found in the new Russian interest in establishing or reestablishing Soviet-era influence in areas close to, and sensitive to, the United States. In March 1994 it was reported that Andrei Kozyrev had called for a global role for the Russian navy. ‘Our presence on the word’s oceans must be expanded’, he was quoted as saying, ‘our partners will only respect us all the more’. Kozyrev referred specifically to Latin America as being a possible object of Russian naval interest, leaving little doubt as to which country’s ‘respect’ he had principally in mind.72 The ongoing upgrading of Russian relations with the Castro regime in Cuba is particularly significant in this context. Soviet leaders from Khrushchev to Gorbachev were very conscious of the extent

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to which the survival of Castro needled the Americans. Over and above this, as noted in Chapter 2, during the Cold War years close relations with Cuba constituted an important element of Soviet claims to global interests and a global role. The Russian government seems to have had both considerations increasingly in mind in formulating its own Cuban policy since 1991.73 In one of the first indications, in November 1994, that Russia was willing to devote substantial resources to developing this relationship, Sevodnya reported that General Mikhail Kolesnikov, the Chief of the Russian General Staff, had recently visited Cuba and signed an agreement to lease a Soviet-era intelligence-gathering centre for the equivalent of $200m. per annum. The military obviously considered this to be a price worth paying for the lease on what had been the Soviet Union’s most sophisticated intelligencegathering facility outside its own borders. The press report stated that, thanks to its new Cuban base, the Russian army now had the means to ‘record and subsequently analyze a large portion of telephone and radio traffic on the North American continent’.74 In a well-publicised follow-up visit in October 1995, a Russian delegation headed by First Deputy Prime Minister Oleg Soskovets signed a series of agreements on technical and commercial co-operation with the Cuban government. The most important of these was a deal to complete the construction of a Soviet nuclear reactor in Cuba, at a reported cost to the Russians of the equivalent of $349m. To many in Russia, as another Sevodnya editorial put it, these initiatives have been seen as ‘mainly a political demarche to spite the United States’. Drawing on a statement by Soskovets during his October 1995 visit, that ‘Russia regards Cuba as a strategic partner’, a later edition of the same paper speculated that ‘if NATO starts preparing in earnest to deploy nuclear weapons in Poland, our missiles may turn up on the approaches to Cuba again’.75 The Russians have been keenly aware that Cuba remains an issue of prime sensitivity in US foreign policy. By taking ostentatious steps to develop their own relations with the Castro regime, therefore, they know that they are pressing on an American sore spot. In this sense it is perfectly plausible to suggest that Russian leaders really have drawn a link between NATO expansion and the Cuba–Russia rapprochement. The latter also serves as a useful way of demonstrating to the US that Russia is able and willing, despite economic and military difficulties, to project significant influence over long distances across the oceans into the Americans’ backyard.

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By doing this Russia’s leaders evidently feel that they can demonstrate effectively to their American counterparts that Russia, like the Soviet Union, is a global power with global interests, and not merely, as some have suggested, a regional one. Nevertheless, the Cuban relationship in itself is unlikely to be sufficient to underpin Russia’s claims to be a truly global power in the post-Cold War era. The discussions thus far have focused mainly on Russia’s relations with and policy towards the other former Soviet republics and Central Europe. Both of these are regions proximate to itself in the South and the West. The next sub-section examines the state and the nature of Russia’s Asian policy since 1991. This is important not just as a means of assessing the extent to which Russian foreign policy overall really can be described as being Eurasianist in orientation. It will also help in the assessment of the extent to which Russia’s post-Cold War interests and influence have extended beyond relatively limited confines in Europe. Russia and Asia For most of the Soviet period, that state’s leaders appeared to have relatively little regard for the notion of the USSR as an Asian as well as a European power. The overwhelming ideological focus of Soviet policy was the United States, and the main military and security focus was the armed stand-off in Europe. Asia was seen as a subsidiary region where the Soviet Union might hope to score tactical advantages over the US, by supporting the North during the civil war in Vietnam for example. But Soviet leaders remained reluctant to develop their Asian interests to the extent where a serious provocation of the United States might be threatened. This attitude was evident from the time of the Korean War in the early 1950s. In July 1986, Mikhail Gorbachev had broken new ground when he emphasised the USSR’s role as an Asian power in both economic and security terms in a speech in Vladivostok. Gorbachev’s new emphasis on Asia was motivated mainly by a wish to develop the resource-rich but economically backward Siberian and Far East regions of the USSR. His speech was followed-up by a number of practical Soviet initiatives designed to establish the USSR as a more significant economic and commercial power in Asia. Yet little real progress towards this goal was made in the period up to December 1991.76 Russia thus had little foundation to build on in Asia, either in the economic and commercial spheres or the security arena, fol-

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lowing the demise of the Soviet Union. Then Foreign Minister Kozyrev and a team from his ministry first visited the region during the summer of 1992. The tangible results of this trip were meagre, however, not least because the Russian delegation did not appear to have any coherent set of policy priorities or clear sense of what it expected to either contribute to Asia or gain from it. Assessing the visit, Rossiiskaya Gazeta claimed that foreign ministry officials had appeared ‘uncomfortable and unassured’ and that far too little time had been spent in meetings with representatives of individual Asian states to allow anything really productive to be accomplished.77 Notwithstanding this failure to secure an early breakthrough, the Yeltsin government continued to attach importance to relations with Asia during 1992. The foreign ministry planned its Asian grand tour for President Yeltsin at the end of the year, although this had to be truncated when, as noted, Russian domestic pressure forced the cancellation of the Japanese leg. Since that time, Russian policy towards Asia has often appeared hesitant and uncertain. Russian leaders have been consistently hesitant about following-up Mikhail Gorbachev’s 1986 agenda and developing the potential of what is now Russia’s Far East region. To do this, large-scale injections of foreign money and expertise would be required, with China and Japan almost certainly providing the bulk of any such funding. Russian leaders, fearing a possible weakening of ties between the Far East and Moscow if this happened, have been reluctant to encourage such a development.78 More generally, Russian hesitancy has both led to, and been reflected in, a lack of confidence amongst Russian diplomats and officials regarding the country’s standing in Asia. Even apparent successes, such as Russia’s accession to membership of the ASEAN Regional Forum in 1993, seem to have produced more foreboding than confidence. At the time of this success, for example, one foreign ministry official was quoted in the Russian press as saying that ‘we could mess everything up as soon as we start hammering out specific economic agreements and carrying them out’.79 Russian diplomatic initiatives in Asia have generally been of only limited importance and have often been ignored by other powers. One such was the Russian proposal in 1994 for a six-party international conference on the problem posed by North Korea’s evident backtracking on the question of international inspection of its alleged nuclear bomb-making facilities. The Russian proposal, endorsed by President Yeltsin, envisaged a conference bringing together the two

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Koreas with Russia, the US, China and Japan. The idea generated negligible support in Asia, with the United States showing its own attitude by pressing ahead with its (successful) attempts to defuse the threatened crisis through bilateral and trilateral diplomacy. In this, Russia played no significant role. 80 By then few, if any, Russian commentators were showing much confidence or faith in their country’s approach to Asian affairs. Writing in Izvestia in March 1994, for example, Sergei Agafonov stated that ‘Russian diplomacy is evidently out of the game in Asia’. He felt that this was the case mainly because, ‘to all appearances, Moscow still has no coherent concept’. In November two other Izvestia writers, Vladimir Mikheyev and Aleksander Platkovsky, bemoaned Russia’s continuing absence from the increasingly important AsiaPacific Economic Co-operation forum, noting that the Russian government had failed even to submit a formal application for APEC membership. Overall they argued that Russia’s isolation from economic activity in the region ‘seems like just desserts for a country that, instead of making a breakthrough into Asia, has on its hands a dying Trans-Siberian Railroad and moribund business activity in the Russian Far East’.81 The best prospect for Russia to establish itself as a major player in Asia would almost certainly be for it to do so through the forging of a strong partnership or alliance with one of the leading indigenous powers in the region, in effect either Japan or China. Little needs to be said about the state of Russian relations with Japan, simply because they have continued to be effectively stymied by the ongoing dispute over the Kurile Islands.82 The impact of reactionary opinion on this question within Russia was noted above with regard to Yeltsin and Kozyrev’s attempts to organise a grand tour of Asian capitals in 1992 and early 1993. Yeltsin did eventually visit Tokyo later in 1993 but no significant long-term improvement in Russo-Japanese relations followed from this. There has been some Japanese interest in participating in the economic development of the Russian Far East but this has been greeted with no great enthusiasm in Moscow, for reasons noted above, and hence not followed-through. Little else has happened to suggest that a significant improvement in Russo-Japanese relations is likely in the foreseeable future, although some have detected a glimmer of hope in recent Japanese statements on the Kuriles issue.83 The prospects for the positive development of Russia’s relations with China have appeared to many to be a different matter. Important

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moves forward in Sino-Russian relations were apparent during 1996. In February an agreement was announced whereby the Russians would supply the expertise and parts necessary for China to build the modern and capable Su-27 fighter aircraft. Two months after the aircraft deal was announced, a high-profile Sino-Russian summit took place in Beijing. Here a series of bilateral agreements was signed, ranging from the creation of a ‘hot line’ between the two capitals to the settlement of long-standing border disputes. That the Yeltsin government was keen to make progress in relations with China, despite reports of opposition from within the Russian military to the prospect of the Chinese being given access to sophisticated military technology under the aircraft deal,84 suggests that it was less concerned about the prospect of China developing as a military rival than about Russia’s need to establish itself more securely as a partner with, arguably, Asia’s most powerful indigenous country. The Russians were also seeking to develop relations with the Chinese as a means of demonstrating diplomatic independence from the United States and, in the longer term, holding out the possibility of a Sino-Russian axis emerging as a powerful counter to US international influence. A number of analysts, both Russian and Western, have been according great significance to developments in Sino-Russian relations since the beginning of Russia’s post-Soviet existence in 1991. In 1994 Renée de Nevers claimed that ‘Russian–Chinese relations have not been so good in 50 years’, whilst in 1995 Eugene Bazhanov noted that ‘a positive policy toward China . . . is probably the only issue upon which there is a consensus within the turbulence of Russian society’.85 Yet, notwithstanding signs of progress, important grounds remain for questioning the extent to which a broad Sino-Russian partnership or alliance could be developed over the longer term. Relations with the Chinese in the Tsarist and Soviet periods were generally cool, save for the years from 1949 to around 1960, when a rapprochement was based on ideological affinity between the world’s two largest communist states. Such affinity is currently not present. Indeed, some influential observers have seen ideological differences as being a key underlying problem in relations between the two. Writing in 1992 Vladimir Lukin, a senior Russian political figure and at that time his country’s ambassador to the United States, argued that considering the divergent paths of our political and economic development, it is hard to foresee a radical improvement in

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Russian–Chinese relations during the next few years. Given Russia’s decisive break with communism, the temptation to view that relationship in overly ideological terms will continue on both sides.86 Others have noted the ideological disorientation which the collapse of communism in both Central Europe in 1989 and the Soviet Union itself during 1991 has had on the Chinese leadership. Many Russian liberals were irritated by China’s support for the attempted coup in Moscow by a variety of reactionaries in August 1991 and hence have not viewed China as being a potential ally or close partner. This has cut both ways. In a February 1994 commentary, Izvestia suggested that China has in turn been ‘in no rush to defend the interests of a Russia that is unstable and not entirely understood’. 87 The 1996 rapprochement can therefore be seen as being mainly in the nature of a tactical alliance of convenience for both sides, motivated principally by a desire to try and gain greater diplomatic and strategic leverage in their relations with the United States. Some senior figures on the Russian side made a link between potential NATO expansion and the development of better Sino-Russian relations, on the assumption that in terms of its own Asian policy the United States will not want to see a potentially powerful axis develop between these two states. In November 1995, Defence Minister Grachev was quoted as making what amounted to a diplomatic threat when he said that ‘if NATO looks east then we will also look east and find allies with whom we can solve security problems’.88 A number of analysts and commentators have, in summary, seen recent developments in terms of tactical manoeuvring by both the Russians and Chinese, of attempts by both to play a significant ‘card’ in their diplomatic games with the US.89 It has often been pointed out that in economic and commercial terms especially, both parties have had and still do have far more invested in relations with the Americans than with each other. Signs of a more coherent Russian attempt to develop its relationship with China from 1996 are important, but not in themselves sufficient to counter a distinct impression that Russia remains a weak and relatively marginalised influence in Asia, especially if one accepts the view that the evolution of relations with China to date clearly reveal Russia to be the weaker partner.90

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RUSSIAN POWER IN THE POST-SOVIET ERA Since the demise of the USSR, the term ‘superpower’ has sometimes been used by Russian leaders to describe their state, although not as frequently or as universally as it was used by Soviet leaders. Russian diplomatic activity and foreign policy since 1991 has offered clear evidence to support the view that, whatever term might actually be used in official statements and pronouncements, Russian leaders across the spectrum have wished their country to be treated, in terms of its international power and status, as the de facto continuation of the Soviet Union. The evidence supporting this argument can best be seen in the significant elements of continuity which have been apparent between Soviet attitudes and policy up to 1991 and Russian attitudes and policy since then. Several such elements have been identified and discussed in this chapter. Vitally important has been the Russian desire to preserve the bilateral status which the USSR had with the Americans. Just as with their Soviet predecessors, the leaders of Russia have sought formal US concurrence with the view that nothing of significance in the world can be decided without the consent of both powers. Like their Soviet predecessors too, Russia’s leaders have been extremely sensitive to American behaviour which could be seen as suggesting that Russia is regarded as a junior partner and not as an equal by the United States. Russia’s quest for wider influence has been reflected in a number of other areas. Soviet leaders were aware that an important part of the basis for their state’s recognised superpower status rested on its claims to a global role and global influence. The ideological underpinning for the Soviet global role obviously disappeared with the collapse of the USSR and its communist regime. Nevertheless the Russians have not abandoned all claims to a global role for their state, as evidenced by the development of increasingly significant links with Cuba. Notwithstanding the reservations discussed above, better relations with the Chinese might yet presage the evolution of a more coherent and effective Russian Asian policy, after a period of uncertainty and drift between 1992 and 1996. The question arises as to whether such developments, taken together, permit one to conclude that a Russian global role is in the making which is likely to be capable of replacing the Soviet role of leader of the now-defunct international socialist movement. No comparable role has, in fact, so far been evident. Russian foreign

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policy has been essentially reactive and defensive, based fundamentally on Russian perceptions of what the Americans have been thinking and doing. The Russians have not yet really developed anything more positive or genuinely independent. They have no big idea to give to the world. Some, such as Professor Kenneth Waltz, have argued that Russia has effectively lost the ability which the Soviet Union possessed of holding the United States in check and that it is in this area that Russia is most obviously a diminished power when compared to the Soviet Union.91 Since Waltz made this argument in 1993, Russian opposition coupled with Western European disquiet has proved ultimately ineffective in frustrating the Clinton administration’s professed desire to expand NATO, notwithstanding side-deals which were made. Over Bosnia, the US demonstrated that it is prepared simply to ignore likely Russian opposition when it feels that it is imperative to follow a particular course of action. This happened in the summer of 1995 when NATO, marshalled by the Americans, initiated its campaign of concerted airstrikes against Bosnian Serb military positions. The Russians, who would almost certainly have opposed such a move had their views been invited in advance, were simply not consulted, despite their status as one of the five countries in the Contact Group which was supposed to be overseeing international attempts to deal with the Yugoslav crisis. Arguments about the absence of checks on the international behaviour of the United States are sometimes overdone, and Russia has been able to frustrate the Americans on occasion. Nevertheless, Russia is a less powerful presence in post-Cold War international affairs than the Soviet Union was during the Cold War years. Rather than being a second global superpower, Russia has emerged during the 1990s as one among several important regional powers, with its main sphere of interest being in the near abroad and to an extent in Central Europe, but making only a weak and relatively insignificant global impact. 92

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5 What Next for Europe? This chapter is focused on Western Europe, the area which was, effectively, the focus of the ideological and military stand-off between the two Cold War superpowers. Western Europe is also the area which many have regarded as likely to produce a new or evolving power of global significance in the post-Cold War era. The discussions here will concentrate on the status and the prospects for the development of the European Union into a significant global power. Some would argue that asking the question whether or not the EU will become a superpower is inappropriate. It can be argued that it has never really aspired to become a superpower in the accepted sense, and that, in any event, the ending of the Cold War has rendered this concept increasingly redundant. In this study the superpower concept has been found to be still useful and relevant as a means of assessing American and Russian foreign policy. The main identified superpower attributes remain the most obvious and valid benchmark against which claims to global status, power and influence can be assessed. Thus, although the simple question ‘is the EU becoming a superpower?’ is avoided here, the Union is nevertheless assessed principally within an overall framework provided by the superpower concept.

WESTERN EUROPE AS A ‘CIVILIAN POWER’ Anyone who has studied the Cold War history of the European Community1 will know that it developed no military role during the Cold War period, although its leading member states did of course maintain powerful military capabilities themselves. The Community itself was completely overshadowed by the two established superpowers in the military arena. Few observers during these years viewed the prospects of the Community emerging as a third militarised superpower as being likely or, indeed, desirable. When, in the early 1970s, Johan Galtung became one of the few to argue that the EC was in fact a ‘superpower in the making’, he made clear that he did not welcome such a development.2 Other observers and commentators from the late 1960s had been 133

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developing the view that the Community might instead be emerging as a significant international power of a different type to the US or USSR. Those who argued from this perspective often pointed to Western Europe’s perceived advantages in the realm of ideas and ideologies. One of the first was the British journalist and writer Anthony Sampson who, in 1968, argued that the Community was likely to develop as an increasingly important international power chiefly on the basis of its member states’ ‘overflowing inventiveness in devising new kinds of society, new political ideas, [and] new philosophies’.3 But it was the name of a Frenchman, Francois Duchene, the then Director of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, which came to be most closely associated with the view that the EC was a new kind of power. Duchene suggested in the early 1970s that ‘the nuclear and superpower stalemate in Europe has devalued purely military power and given much more scope to the civilian forms of influence and action’. He went on to argue that ‘one of these, and perhaps the most important, is economic, and it so happens that Western Europe (unlike its eastern sister) remains one of the four major economic centres of the world’. Duchene’s argument did not just rest on taking economic rather than military strength as the preferred measurement of raw power. He also advanced the view that Western Europe, acting together through its Community, had unrivalled potential to promote international co-operation. This reflected elements of older strands of thinking which held that Europe’s relative level of development in the cultural and political fields both fitted and obliged it to undertake a unique civilising mission in the world. In the more contemporary setting such thinking seemed to some to offer an appealing alternative to the prospect of the seemingly permanent bipolar division of the world into armed and ideologically hostile camps led by the two militarised superpowers.4 Evidence that this kind of thinking had some influence was apparent from the earliest days of Western European government-level interest in establishing an institutional means by which the EC might be enabled to articulate common foreign policy stances. In 1970, in one of their first collective reports on the subject, the foreign ministers of the six founder members5 of the Community created the so-called ‘European Political Co-operation’ (EPC) process as a mechanism by which such policies might be agreed upon. They took as their starting point the premise that

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United Europe, conscious of the responsibilities incumbent on it by reason of its economic development, industrial power and standard of living, intends to step up its endeavours on behalf of the developing countries with a view to setting international relations on a basis of trust. The so-called Luxembourg Report also declared that the EPC’s main objective in providing a common policy-making mechanism was ‘to demonstrate to all that Europe has a political vocation’.6 Some did question just how influential civilian powers could be. The best-known critique was put forward in the early 1980s by the Oxford Professor, Hedley Bull. He argued that civilian powers of the kind identified by Duchene and others could not aspire to be international powers of the first rank. As Bull put it, the influence of such powers would be ‘conditional upon a strategic environment provided by the military power of states, which they did not control’. Bull believed that military power remained, and was likely to continue to remain, the final arbiter in international politics. Therefore, he argued, the international agenda would be set by those countries which possessed the most significant military resources. This was not to say that civilian powers could not have influence in their own right. They could do so, however, only within a framework established by others; in Cold War terms the two established superpowers.7 Notwithstanding such criticisms, the attraction of civilian power proved enduring for many European Community leaders right up until the end of the Cold War period. In part this was because member states had never been able to find a way to deal with military matters within the Community framework. Various factors lay behind this: a belief that military affairs were NATO’s remit, negative memories of the abortive attempt to establish a European Defence Community (EDC) in the 1950s and the neutral status of Eire, which joined the EC in 1973, were all important ones. There was also undoubtedly an aversion to the militarisation of the Community. The founding fathers in the second half of the 1950s, after the failure of the EDC project in 1954, had consciously sought to establish a new kind of power. Hence they had deliberately opted to develop the process of European integration in the economic and commercial spheres first, hoping that wider political integration would follow. Defence and military affairs were not mentioned at all in the EC’s founding Treaty of Rome.

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Taken together all these factors helped to ensure that West Europeans, working through their EPC process from the early 1970s, found that they were sometimes able to put together and implement joint policies in the diplomatic, commercial and economic fields, but that consensus and unity fell apart whenever the issue at hand threatened to develop a military dimension. This was the case, for example, with regard to Community policy-making towards the volatile region of the Middle East. More specifically, it characterised the EC stance during the Falklands crisis of 1982. The EC was united and appeared strong for as long as it seemed that a diplomatic solution to this crisis might be found. As it became clearer that the military option was likely to be used, however, the Community stance fragmented and disunity gave rise to the appearance of weakness in the international arena.8 In 1985–7, members of the EC negotiated the Single European Act (SEA). For the first time, ‘security’ was explicitly included within the overall remit of the EC. Strikingly, however, the military component of security was deliberately left out. The SEA referred only to its political and economic aspects. Undoubtedly the absence of a reference to the military dimension in part reflected opposition from some member states, especially – for different reasons – the UK and neutral Eire. Yet there is little evidence of a determined effort being made by any member state to have the military dimension included at this time. The terms in which security issues were incorporated into the SEA undoubtedly did reflect, in addition to other factors, persisting civilian power thinking during the 1980s. The notion that the Community might influence others by the force of its example and by the influence of European ideas plus its relative economic prosperity and strength, rather than by the use or threat of armed force, remained an appealing one in many influential quarters. Right at the end of the Cold War period in October 1989, Jacques Delors, the then President of the EC Commission, was arguing that the very existence and example of ‘a Community based on the rule of law, a democratic entity and a buoyant economy’ was acting as the main catalyst for the changes taking place in Central Europe and the Soviet Union.9 In the atmosphere of near-euphoria and sheer surprise which attended the dramatic collapse of communist regimes throughout Central Europe in the autumn of 1989 many assumed that, from henceforth, military power would become significantly less important as a factor determining international status and

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influence. In short, it seemed that ‘superpower’ as traditionally understood and exercised had had its day. Such views were severely shaken during the summer of 1990, however. The catalyst was the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, and the American role in orchestrating and leading the international response to this act of aggression. The European Community’s response to the Kuwait invasion offered a further good example of the relative strengths and weaknesses of civilian power. During the immediate aftermath of the invasion, when the emphasis was on organising the imposition of diplomatic and economic sanctions against Iraq, the EC was at the forefront of the international response. A collective sanctions package was promptly agreed; so promptly in fact that the EC found itself at one point during August 1990 ahead of the Americans who were trying to negotiate and push their own sanctions resolutions through the UN Security Council.10 During the autumn the EC continued to be in the vanguard of international efforts to broker a diplomatic settlement to the crisis, whilst the United States spent most of its time organising a military buildup in the Gulf. The Community and its member states were more prepared than the Americans to respond to indications from the Saddam regime that it would consider withdrawing from Kuwait in exchange for a comprehensive regional peace settlement in the Middle East, including a resolution of the Palestinian question. When these efforts stalled from November 1990 the emphasis began to shift to the military arena. The Community was increasingly unable to maintain an important or distinct role and it was at this point that the US began to dominate all aspects of the international response. As with previous international crises, the EC and its member-states were unable, or unwilling, to maintain an effective united front once it appeared likely that military power would be used. Residual unity was shattered just before the opening of hostilities in January 1991 when France, frustrated at not being able to reach agreement with its EC partners on one last diplomatic push for a peaceful outcome, chose to pursue its own eleventhhour initiative without any prior consultation with other Community members. When war did come the Community itself was rendered impotent as participating member-states such as France, the UK and Italy each organised their own military contribution on the basis of bilateral arrangements with the United States, whilst Germany sat it out.11 The EC Commission was silent during the actual Gulf war. It

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was not until hostilities there were almost concluded, in early March 1991, that Jacques Delors used the opportunity presented by a highprofile speech in London to suggest publicly some lessons for the Community. Giving the annual Alastair Buchan Memorial Lecture to the International Institute for Strategic Studies, Delors accepted that ‘the Gulf war has provided an object lesson – if one were needed – on the limitations of the European Community’. What Delors considered the main limitation to be was made clear later in the speech when he argued that in the last resort, security means the ability to defend oneself by force of arms. If the Community is to contribute to the new world order, it must accept that this presupposes participation, where necessary, in forces which are given the task of ensuring respect for international law, when all other attempts to create a basis of understanding and co-operation between nations have failed.12 Delors was arguing, in effect, that in order to play a more credible and effective international role, the EC should become more, rather than less, like a traditional superpower, despite the ending of the Cold War. More generally during 1991, the political fall-out from the Gulf crisis undoubtedly gave a new impetus to ideas which had already been germinating in some West European capitals, especially Paris and Rome, for the Community to be endowed with its own defence and security wing. The Gulf crisis was rapidly followed by the beginning of the progressive disintegration of federal Yugoslavia. To say that the Community failed totally and abjectly in former Yugoslavia, as has sometimes been asserted in the European and American media, would be unfair. As with the crisis in the Gulf the EC did manage to effectively decide and implement a collective response during the early stages, when it still seemed possible that all-out war could be avoided between or within any of the Yugoslav republics. Diplomatic efforts by the so-called ‘Troika’ of EC members’ foreign ministers and the European Commission did play a role in managing the peaceful transition towards independence of Slovenia and also in damping down hostilities in Croatia, which were threatening to erupt into full-scale civil war in the summer and autumn of 1991. The most obvious contribution which the EC made was the deployment of multinational teams of observers to both Slovenia and Croatia during 1991 to monitor local ceasefires which had been

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negotiated. Although sometimes derided as ‘ice cream men’ on account of their distinctive white uniforms as well as the fact that they did not carry even side-arms, informed analysts believe that their deployment did make a difference. Simon Nuttall from the European Commission later wrote that ‘the fact that the ceasefires in Slovenia and Croatia broadly held, and that there were not more serious incidents outside Bosnia, can to an appreciable extent be attributed to their presence’. Nuttall also argues that: The institutional significance of the observer mission for the Community internally has been seriously underestimated. Quite apart from its contribution to the Community’s diplomatic efforts, here was an international force, wearing a white uniform and the blue brassard of the European Community. The mission was recognizable as the embodiment of the Community on the ground in just the same way as the UN troops were recognizable by their blue berets as the embodiment of the United Nations on the ground; and this at a time when the Community had still not succeeded, after 40 years, in reaching agreement on a common armed European force displaying the same insignia.13 Unfortunately, after this promising start events began to slip beyond the control of the EC. The Community’s response during 1991 rested heavily on attempting to bring to bear civilian power influence in the economic and political fields. From the start the EC diplomatic effort was premised on trying to persuade the fractious Yugoslav republics to stay together in a looser federal system, based on a mix of integration and intergovernmental co-operation which resembled that practised in the Community itself. Incentives were offered in the shape of proposed packages of economic aid and assistance to the republics. In short, the EC was trying to sell itself as a model which the Yugoslav republics might profitably try to copy in their relations with one another. By late 1991, however, it seemed increasingly clear that the EC approach would not succeed as the authorities in Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia continued either to declare or to press for independence from what remained of Yugoslav federal structures. Critics of the EC approach have argued that the EC Commission and member-states became too wrapped up in the idea that the Community should and could serve as a model for relations in a post-communist Yugoslavia. This, it has been argued, blinded them to the fundamentally different

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political, cultural and economic conditions which prevailed in the Balkans. In contrast, the exemplary approach coupled with the offer of economic and commercial inducements represented the Community’s only real option given that it did not possess the means, nor the will on the part of its member-states, to try to impose a settlement by military force.14 In fact during the late summer of 1991, those EC members which were also members of the Western European Union (WEU) did make a point of considering several options for the possible deployment of peacekeepers, or even the conduct of enforcement operations, in the former Yugoslavia. But these discussions always had the air of a bluff because there seemed no prospect of a consensus emerging in support of the deployment of any kind of operational force under the auspices of the WEU. Sensing this, the various factions and parties in Yugoslavia paid no heed to the potential threat of European military intervention.15 Two developments late in 1991 effectively spelled the beginning of the end for the EC’s role as the lead institution dealing with the Yugoslav crisis. The first came in November, when member states decided to take the question of organising a peacekeeping force to police the uneasy ceasefire in Croatia to the UN Security Council. This marked the formal beginning of United Nations’ involvement in Yugoslavia, and the EC had to agree, as part of the price for this involvement, to the UN becoming an equal partner in the search for peaceful solutions to the crisis. This was symbolised by the appointment of Cyrus Vance as UN negotiator to work alongside Lord Carrington, the EC’s appointee. Far more damaging to the Community’s credibility in Yugoslavia was the decision reached, under German pressure, in December to recognise collectively the independence of Slovenia and Croatia, at the beginning of 1992. Most expert observers rightly judge this move to have been a serious mistake. It inflamed the Serbs and effectively destroyed the EC’s claims to impartiality in its dealings with the squabbling republics and the ethnic groups within them. The decision also represented a wholesale retreat from the previous approach of trying to persuade the republics to maintain some kind of federal arrangement, without offering any other long-term strategy to take its place. No effective European approach to the escalating Bosnian crisis from the spring of 1992 was ever formulated. The United States eventually pushed its NATO allies into a sticks-and-carrots policy of combining sustained use of Western airpower against the Bosnian

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Serbs with diplomatic initiatives for a comprehensive political settlement in the summer and autumn of 1995. Whether or not the US-brokered accords provide for lasting peace, between August and November 1995 the Americans achieved more significant results than the EC/EU had in the previous four years. Martin Walker later wrote that ‘the impotence of Europe in Bosnia was almost as marked as the need for American military stiffening if anything decisive were to be achieved. Bosnia alone justifies the phrase that America remains the “indispensable nation”’.16 Although the US had proved extremely reluctant to use more than a fraction of its military resources in Bosnia, its diplomatic clout was underpinned by its unrivalled military capability. Once it proved willing to use that capability a diplomatic breakthrough was achieved. In Western Europe, a sufficient number of influential people drew a similar conclusion to Jacques Delors, with regard to the EC’s military deficiencies, to permit agreement to be reached at the Maastricht summit in December 1991 for the military component of security to be explicitly included within the new European Union’s official remit. The terms of its inclusion were both vague and hedged, however, with the agreed Maastricht Treaty being confined to looking forward to ‘the eventual framing of a common defence policy which might in time lead to a common defence’. The brevity and vagueness of this phrase reflected the extent to which it was the product of an uneasy compromise between the ‘Atlanticists’ and the ‘Europeanists’ amongst the EC/EU membership. The United Kingdom, under Margaret Thatcher and John Major, was in the vanguard of the Atlanticist camp with some support from the Dutch and, less reliably, the Germans. The Atlanticists believed that nothing should be done which would seriously threaten NATO’s established status as Western Europe’s primary security institution. Specifically they were opposed to any suggestions that the new European Union should develop a defence arm of its own. The Europeanists, led by France and Spain, favoured the development of an EU defence dimension which, they argued, was both possible and necessary if Western Europe was to develop a defence and security ‘identity’ autonomous from, if not independent of, the United States in the post-Cold War era. The Italian government had for a time been prominent amongst the Europeanists. Indeed the Italian Foreign Minister had been the first senior political figure in Western Europe to offer a public suggestion for how the new EU could acquire a ready-made defence component as it were.

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His proposal involved the EU effectively taking over the already existing European joint defence organisation, the Western European Union, which had been in existence since 1948 and, in 1990, grouped together 9 of the then EC’s 12 member states. The key diplomatic shift in the period leading up to the signing of the Maastricht Treaty became apparent in October 1991 when the Italians and the British effectively met each other half-way in agreeing upon and putting forward the so-called ‘bridge concept’. This entailed the WEU acting as both the defence component of the European Union and the so-called ‘European pillar’ of NATO. As such, although the military aspect of security would be brought within its remit, the European Union would be denied a fully-fledged stand-alone defence wing. The bridge concept was accepted as a compromise between Atlanticist and Europeanist viewpoints at Maastricht and was included in the Treaty and an attached protocol on the status of the WEU.17 The problem was that no-one really knew how the WEU-as-bridge might actually work in practice. Even those who favoured an EU defence arm had few concrete ideas as to how, in practical terms, it could be brought into being. As a result, since 1991–2 the already vague common defence element has remained the least developed part of the Maastricht agreements. The same has applied in the main to the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) which was established under the Maastricht Treaty as a ‘distinct’ pillar of European co-operation. The CFSP has undoubtedly had some successes, as in 1995 when EU members launched a CFSP ‘joint action’ in favour of indefinite extension of the Nuclear NonProliferation Treaty which was up for renewal that year. This entailed systematic and co-ordinated efforts by most member states to discretely lobby other countries, on behalf of the EU collectively, to support such an extension. This objective was duly achieved with less opposition from states in the developing world than some had initially feared. It can be argued that the EU’s contribution to bringing this about demonstrated that civilian power can, from time-to-time, be effective. The European Union does, of course, include two nuclear powers – France and the UK – amongst its membership but it is doubtful whether individual lobbying by their governments would have made the same impact on other states. In addition, some have suggested that countries in the developing world might have been more inclined to listen to the European Union than to the United States mainly because the former is not a militarised superpower.18

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Yet such successes in themselves are unlikely to remedy the key deficiency in the EU’s collective power resources discussed above – its lack of a military component, or as yet of a reliable on-call military agency. Until such time as this deficiency is remedied it is most unlikely that the EU will be any better able to deal with all aspects of a future Yugoslavia-type crisis, should one erupt, than it was before. This section has aimed to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the EC/EU as an international power. The concept of civilian power has been found to provide a useful means of aiding this effort. The examples of EC responses to major international crises in the years after 1989 have offered evidence to support the views of those who have argued that civilian powers are ultimately limited by their lack of a viable military component. Other, more specific, obstacles on the road to the development of the EC/EU as a more complete and effective international actor have also been evident. These are examined in the sections which follow.

WESTERN EUROPE’S CORPORATE PERSONALITY During 1995, two leading West European analysts, Dominique Moiesi and Michael Mertes, wrote that: When the EU speaks with one voice, as during the negotiations for the Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, it ceases to be just a market and becomes an actor with worldwide influence. When, as in the Balkans, there are 12 foreign ministries and no foreign minister, the EU’s impotence resounds. The lessons of the war in the former Yugoslavia are clear and painful.19 Although Moiesi and Mertes perhaps underestimated the EC’s early success in framing common positions in relation to the former Yugoslavia, few would disagree with the main thrust of their argument. It goes to the heart of the question as to what the European Union actually is, and what it can aspire to become. In 1991 Peter Calvocoressi described the then EC as likely to remain ‘a permanent association of less-than-sovereign states’.20 This remains a valid description of the European Union. EU institutions share sovereignty with the member-states. A complicating factor arises from the fact

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that the sovereignty the member-states granted to the EC/EU over the years has been granted unevenly. As a result, the EU has a significantly greater likelihood of being able to ‘speak with one voice’ in some areas, principally those connected with the single market and external trade, than others. Even here, however, the necessary degree of intra-EU accord and solidarity is by no means automatic, as became clear during the ‘endgame’ phase of the GATT world trade negotiations in late 1993.21 Foreign policy and security have been areas where few supranational powers have been granted. As a result the corporate personality which the EC/EU has presented to the world has often encompassed a diverse variety of inputs. These have come from European institutions (principally the Commission), member governments acting co-operatively and sometimes individual member states acting to pursue what seem suspiciously like national agendas with a thin European gloss applied. The corporate personality presented to the rest of the world has been most clearly represented in the institutional device which was developed in the EC/EU from the early 1980s for use when there was felt to be a need to present a formal West European diplomatic face to the outside world. This was the so-called Troika, although this is a rather inaccurate name as it has often incorporated four, rather than three, components. It has become usual for a representative of the European Commission to participate alongside representatives of the member state currently holding the EC/EU Council’s six-month rotating presidency and the last and next states to hold that office. A number of criticisms have been made of the Troika system. Some point out that the stature and weight of the three member states involved in it at any given time may be relatively weak, with the result that the EU’s external personality is correspondingly perceived by outsiders as being relatively weak. It could be argued, for example, that had three more powerful EC members than Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands sat in the Troika between January and June 1991, then the feuding parties in Yugoslavia might have shown a greater willingness to listen to their proposals and representations at the outset of the Community’s involvement. Certainly it is fair to argue, as Jonathan Eyal has done, that EC efforts to persuade Slovenia and Croatia to delay moves towards independence in June 1991, partly on the grounds that neither would be ‘viable’ as an independent state, were scarcely enhanced by the

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fact that the holder of the EC Presidency, and hence also the effective head of the Troika mission to Yugoslavia at that time, was Luxembourg. Luxembourg is, of course, the EC’s smallest member state and is significantly smaller than either Slovenia or Croatia.22 Troika members have also sometimes been accused of being overly preoccupied with domestic concerns and hence not as effective or efficient as they should have been in galvanising and leading the EC response to international problems or crises. Italy, which held the EC Presidency in the second half of 1990 when the Gulf crisis erupted, has been so accused. The promptness of the Community’s diplomatic response to the invasion of Kuwait suggests that this lack of leadership was not significant initially, though it may have become increasingly so as time wore on and the US assumed preeminence in leading the international coalition against Iraq. Italy’s next stint in the Presidency, during the first half of 1996, coincided with a period of acute domestic political turmoil and the Italians evidently had little time for international affairs. During this period the EU failed to respond in any obvious way to the risk of a possible clash between Greece and Turkey over some disputed islets in the Aegean. This prompted the US State Department publicly to accuse Western Europe of ‘literally sleeping through the night’ as US envoys sought to mediate.23 Participants in the Troika might also use, or be suspected of wanting to use, the enhanced influence which Troika membership conveys to advance national interests rather than representing the interests of the Union, as a whole as they are officially supposed to do. Over the years Greece has been a source of particular concern in the eyes of many of its partners. Indeed, the Troika concept came into general use in the early 1980s largely on the back of Greece’s accession to the European Community. It was seen as a means by which the EC could seek to subsume and hence lessen the impact of possibly disruptive Greek influence on relations with Turkey which had long had an important bilateral relationship with the Community.24 In 1995 it was reported that the Contact Group, formed the previous year to oversee international attempts to settle the Yugoslav crisis, had been formed in part to by-pass the EU Troika which during the first six months of 1994 included Greece as the incumbent Council President. The Greeks were causing significant diplomatic embarrassment, both within the EU and internationally, by blocking EU recognition of Macedonia as an independent state in part on the grounds that it shared its name with a Greek province.25

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Perhaps the major weakness with the Troika system, however, has been the lack of continuity because its composition is guaranteed to change every six months. Long-range forward planning has been, in consequence, extremely difficult if not impossible. The result has been, as Simon Nuttall notes, that the EU’s foreign policy wing has tended to find that it ‘can only react to outside events’. 26 This is a serious impediment. First-rank international powers should be able to summon the means and the will to be proactive, to set the international agenda and shape the environment in ways conducive to themselves, as opposed to being confined mainly to the position of waiting for crises to blow up before moving into action. The lack of continuity has been identified by establishment critics of the existing system as a significant problem. Speaking about EU relations with Asia in September 1995, for example, Sir Leon Brittan, the EU Commissioner, noted that ‘the Presidency of the Council changes every six months but must deal with coordinators, for example, speaking for ASEAN on security in place for three years at a time’. This, he argued, put the Europeans at an immediate disadvantage in any long-term negotiations with their Asian partners.27 Brittan was unspecific about the kind of reforms he would like to see; others though were making suggestions. Some of these have been based on the creation of some kind of European ‘Security Council’ modeled on the UN. Like the UN version this could incorporate a permanent core of the most powerful EU member states, with the rest occupying additional places by rotation. Its main responsibility could be for both deciding upon and overseeing the implementation of agreed EU foreign and security policies.28 By the time representatives of the EU member states sat down to commence inter-governmental negotiations on possible amendments to the Maastricht Treaty in 1996, something of a head of steam had begun to build behind pressures for reform of the established EU ‘corporate personality’. The results of the negotiations were publicly unveiled when EU leaders signed the Treaty of Amsterdam in June 1997. This new treaty contained provisions for reform in three key areas. Firstly it tried to address the problems arising from having fourheaded representation, the composition of which changed twice a year. Under the terms of the draft Amsterdam Treaty (awaiting ratification at the time of writing), the EU will from henceforth be represented in the international arena formally by the state holding the rotating Council presidency, ‘assisted by’ the Secretary-General

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of the Council who is designated in the treaty as the ‘High Representative for the common foreign and security policy’. This reform seems intended to both simplify matters, by entrusting one state rather than three with the task of formally representing the Union to the wider world, and also to provide greater continuity by providing for the day-to-day oversight of the common foreign and security policy to be entrusted to a senior career official likely to be in post for a period of years rather than months. The second potentially significant reform agreed in Amsterdam aims to deal with the related difficulty of the EU in engaging in effective long-term foreign policy planning. The treaty provides for the creation of a political committee with responsibilities for monitoring the international situation in relevant areas, contributing to the definition of Union policy by ‘delivering opinions to the Council at the request of the Council or on its own initiative’ and monitoring the implementation of agreed policy. That the EU member states agreed to give this committee the right to make suggestions and proposals on its own initiative constitutes a significant development over past practice, when member states reserved the right of initiative in foreign and security affairs to themselves. Finally, in terms of decision-making the Treaty of Amsterdam contains a provision for what observers and commentators have dubbed ‘constructive abstention’. Under this provision, a member state can choose to abstain on a specific proposal for joint initiative or action rather than blocking it by voting against. Such abstainers ‘shall not be obliged to apply the decision, but shall accept that the decision commits the Union’ and will, under the terms of the treaty, refrain from activity which might conflict with or impede implementation of the Union’s decision.29 Although many media commentators, in the UK at least, downplayed the importance of the Amsterdam agreements, the provisions discussed above are potentially important. If fully and effectively implemented by EU member states, they could help the Union to both formulate and implement joint policies and activities in the wider foreign policy arena rather more effectively than has been the case so far. However, more specific problems with regard to the EU’s military security policy and capability were barely addressed in Amsterdam.

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THE EUROPEAN UNION’S SECURITY VOID Since 1991, as noted above, uncertainty and an air of unreality has surrounded the question of how the tripartite institutional relationship between NATO, the WEU and the EU could be made to work in practice. To begin with, not all EU members are full members of the WEU. This raises the crucial question as to what extent the European Union’s membership as a whole enjoys the protection of the joint security guarantee which is at the core of the WEU treaty. This is of obviously vital importance, particularly so as much has been made in some quarters of the fact that, in terms of what is actually written in the respective treaties, the WEU security guarantee is nominally stronger than that offered by membership of NATO itself. The core article 5 of the WEU’s founding Brussels Treaty states that ‘if any of the High Contracting Parties should be the object of an armed attack in Europe, the other High Contracting Parties will . . . afford the Party so attacked all the military and other aid and assistance in their power’. The corresponding article in the NATO Treaty, whilst stating that ‘the Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all’, only obliges each signatory to ‘assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force’. This leaves the door open in theory for NATO members to decide not to offer military aid to an ally under attack. 30 To date, no less than four distinct classes of participation in the WEU have been created. These are: full membership, associate membership, observer status and associate partnership. There are, currently, ten full members of the WEU: Germany, France, the UK, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Spain, Portugal and Greece. There are three associate members. This category was created specifically for the benefit of the European NATO states which are not currently members of the EU: Iceland, Norway and Turkey. The question of whether associate members are covered by the WEU’s security guarantee has been a source of continuing discussion and unresolved ambiguity.31 Most important though is the status of those members of the European Union who are observers in the WEU. They are not covered by the security guarantee. Until 1995 only two EU countries were in this position. These were Eire with its tradition of

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neutrality and Denmark which had opted out of the defence component of the Maastricht agreements. In January 1995, however, three other traditional European neutrals, Austria, Sweden and Finland, joined the European Union. They were soon granted observer status in the WEU and one or more of them may eventually become full members. But their present position means that fully one third (5 out of 15) of the current EU membership is not covered by a European security guarantee. These factors constitute the essence of the EU’s security void. Firstly, the Union itself has not been empowered to offer a security guarantee to its members. At Maastricht its member states obliged it instead to contract this vital task out to a separate organisation, and, although the Treaty of Amsterdam opened up the option in theory of the WEU being absorbed into the EU should member states so decide, there seems little prospect of the UK, for one, consenting to this in the foreseeable future. Over and above that, five members of the Union are currently not covered even by the WEU’s security guarantee. Indeed Eire, Austria, Finland and Sweden, not being members of NATO, are not covered by a joint security guarantee at all. The existing institutional relationship between the EU and the WEU has also given cause for concern in some quarters. A study group of members of the WEU’s Parliamentary Assembly, which reported in November 1994, argued that the security-related cooperation amongst the WEU core (the full members) was stronger and more cohesive than that taking place amongst the EU’s membership as a whole. The WEU study team felt that this gave rise to the possible ‘problem of a multi-speed Europe in relations between these two organisations’.32 Such a development could have significant institutional consequences. If the WEU were to develop as a more vibrant security organisation this could in turn enhance its own status and put off the day when the EU might eventually take it over, a move which some EU member states, such as France, continue to favour. In this context it should not be forgotten that the WEU already has its own separate administrative and military planning staffs and structures, albeit small ones when compared to NATO. Nevertheless, WEU staffers do not take it for granted that their organisation should eventually be swallowed up and they often appeared irked when this suggestion is put to them.33 Since the end of the Cold War, and notwithstanding the formal inclusion of defence and security in the Maastricht agreements, the

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EC/EU membership has, with one partial exception, when confronted with a choice generally preferred to avoid involving the EC/EU itself in any kind of operation involving a possible military dimension. The partial exception came in the immediate aftermath of the Gulf conflict in the spring of 1991. At issue was the position of the Kurdish population in Iraq following a failed Kurdish uprising against the regime of Saddam Hussein. West European states, acting through the European Community, took the lead in drawing international attention to the plight of the Kurds and organising a humanitarian response. This involved not only the dispatch of relief supplies to the Kurds but also the creation and policing of safe havens for civilian populations. As one German newspaper put it at the time, this initiative was widely seen as constituting the EC’s ‘comeback to the stage of world affairs’ following the Gulf war.34 Even here, however, it was revealing that once the actual relief and protection operations were launched, with the perceived requirement for military personnel and resources to be utilised, the United States moved into the lead, even though the initiatives upon which the operations were based had been European.35 Overall the West European aversion to EU or WEU involvement in actual military operations has remained pronounced, to the evident frustration of some. In November 1993 a report published by the WEU’s Parliamentary Assembly bemoaned ‘the total absence of political and logistic co-ordination between the member countries of WEU’ with regard to the international humanitarian relief and peacekeeping operations then being organised in Somalia. That situation, the report warned, left ‘little hope that the WEU Council will show the political determination to shoulder its responsibilities under the terms of the modified Brussels Treaty’.36 Another, strongly-worded, WEU Assembly report sharply criticised the reluctance of member states to countenance either the EU itself, or else the WEU, becoming involved in tackling the humanitarian crisis which had recently erupted in the Central African state of Rwanda. An initially equivocal West European response to a UN request to organise and deploy a small number of police personnel to the Bosnian town of Mostar was also singled out for criticism. The report’s authors argued that: The theoretical framework exists, but apparently the political will among the changing coalitions of member states to implement a policy to which everybody has agreed is still lacking. The reluc-

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tance to act, which is particularly manifest in the time-consuming beating around the bush and procedural battles in the Council, is tarnishing the image of the [WEU] organisation. This is especially exasperating when it concerns limited operations such as Mostar where swift action would be possible with a coalition of the willing. In short, member state behaviour was, said the report, characterised by ‘shuffling, reluctance, and hesitant, slow actions’.37 It would be unfair to claim that the WEU has been a complete bystander over the years. There must have been an element of embarrassment caused by criticisms such as the one just quoted because, since 1994, the WEU and its member states have been developing limited but nonetheless useful functions in organising and dispatching multinational teams of advisers and instructors to advise local authorities on how to reconstruct their police forces in the wake of conflict or serious turmoil. The first such teams were dispatched to the Bosnian town of Mostar in 1994 in order to support the work being done there by the EU-appointed international administrator. Their specific function was to help in the creation of a unified Bosnian-Croat police force for the town. The size of the WEU police advisory contingent increased to over 150 following the signing of the Dayton accords, before it finally handed over to local authorities in autumn 1996. WEU member states and associates obviously judged this operation to have been a success for they repeated it in 1997 when creating a ‘Multinational Police Advisory Element’ to be sent to Albania in the wake of the internal turmoil in that country. This operation had the same basic brief as that which had been sent to Mostar. On this occasion its remit embraced the reconstruction of the Albanian police force as a whole, although fewer personnel – around 100 in 1998 – were assigned to this task than had been sent to Mostar. Useful as these advisory operations may have been, however, they are by definition limited, in terms of size, resources committed and, of course, mandate. WEU statements about them have consistently stressed their ‘non-military nature’. There still seems to be an enduring lack of self-confidence within Western Europe to strike out beyond traditional Cold War civilian power parameters and grapple decisively with military security problems. The next section will consider in greater depth this important confidence issue.

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WESTERN EUROPE’S CONFIDENCE AND THE UNITED STATES The confidence issue is of especial importance in the context of this study because, since 1945, Western Europe’s self-confidence has been closely related to the actions and the position of the United States in world affairs. It has been both conditional on, and conditioned by, what the United States has been doing. From its earliest days, the foreign policy-making aspect of European co-operation has reflected both a perception of and a need for greater political self-confidence amongst EC/EU member states. The origins of the European Political Co-operation process can be traced directly back to the summit meeting of the leaders of the then six Community member states which took place at The Hague in December 1969. This gathering was conceived as a deliberate attempt to ‘relaunch’ the European integration process after the problems of the 1960s, which had been caused largely by the views and actions of French President Charles de Gaulle. With de Gaulle gone from the scene (he had resigned in April 1969) the Six, including the new French government under Georges Pompidou, felt that a reaffirmation of the process of constructing Europe was both necessary and desirable. The early tangible moves towards common foreign policy-making made up one important part of this overall effort. The declaration issued by the Hague summiteers was certainly full of confident-sounding language. They spoke of ‘paving the way for a United Europe capable of assuming its responsibilities in the world of tomorrow and of making a contribution commensurate with its traditions and its mission’. The European Community itself was lauded by its member states as ‘an exceptional seat of development, of progress and culture . . . world equilibrium and . . . peace’.38 A sense of self-confidence remained in evidence during the early years of the EPC process. The dominant issue on the agenda during the first years of the 1970s was the co-ordination of EC members’ positions with regard to the negotiation of a pan-European security arrangement with the Eastern bloc. This had first been suggested by the Soviet Union in the 1950s, and it eventually came to fruition when the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe was established in 1975. The EC’s specific agenda for this process was to try to secure recognition for itself from the Soviet Union and its allies and, in so doing, to secure influence in Central Europe. As EC Foreign Ministers put it in November 1971, they wanted ‘to

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lead East European countries to recognise the presence of the Community and for them to negotiate with it on matters within its competence’. This was a significant goal to aim at in view of traditional West European deference to the United States in matters regarding the overall conduct of East–West relations. In the early 1970s, however, the United States was barely lukewarm about the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE) negotiations. This left a policy vacuum on the Western side which the EC and its member states were eager to try and fill.39 It could be argued, therefore, that EC input into the CSCE negotiation process was influential by default, because the United States was choosing to take a back seat. Understandably, however, the EC and its member states preferred to take a different view. A landmark 1973 Community report on the development of the EPC process argued that ‘the reflex of coordination’ and ‘habit of working together’ on foreign policy issues which had been developed since 1969 were creating a ‘collegiate sense in Europe’ which was ‘becoming a real force in international relations’.40 By that time, the United States was becoming increasingly concerned about developments in the EC. American concerns were partly based on fears that the European common market might evolve into a protectionist trading bloc from which the United States was excluded. According to the memoirs of Henry Kissinger, as noted in Chapter 3, these reached such a pitch in the early 1970s that some inside the US government were advocating ‘a declaration of war . . . even on the concept of the European Community’.41 Kissinger and others within the Nixon administration had managed to fend off this pressure. By 1973 he was increasingly concerned, however, with the growth of EPC into areas which the US regarded as being both sensitive and of vital interest to itself. Chief amongst these was the Middle East, in which EC members were beginning to show a collective interest. Such American concerns revealed an important tension in the foreign policy of the Nixon administration. On the one hand leading allies in Western Europe and elsewhere were officially encouraged under the so-called ‘Nixon Doctrine’ to take more responsibility for their own security. On the other hand the administration quickly became disconcerted when its own central role and influence over key global strategic and commercial matters seemed under challenge by more autonomous or assertive allies. Kissinger’s infamous ‘Year of Europe’ speech in April 1973

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represented an overt American attempt to keep the EC in what the US considered to be its proper place. Kissinger showed what he considered to be one of the most important defining characteristics which separated superpowers from other international powers – the former’s global roles and interests. He asserted that this distinguished the US from the EC in both the economic and diplomatic arenas. ‘In economic relations’, he said, ‘the European Community has increasingly stressed its regional personality; the United States, at the same time, must act as part of, and be responsible for, a wider international trade and monetary system’. In the diplomatic field meanwhile, Kissinger asserted that ‘the United States has global interests and responsibilities. Our European allies have regional interests. These are not necessarily in conflict, but in the new era neither are they automatically identical’.42 For the rest of 1973 and into 1974 transatlantic relations deteriorated markedly as the EC and its member states made clear by their actions and statements that they were unwilling to be confined to a solely regional role as Kissinger wanted. Following the eruption of the Middle East war of October 1973, the EC membership collectively hurried to prepare and issue a statement which was consciously designed to represent a clear European position distinct from that of the United States. This was reflected most clearly in the degree to which the EC members accepted that any ‘just and lasting’ Middle East peace settlement would need to take account of ‘the legitimate rights of the Palestinians’. This not only went beyond what West European governments had previously been prepared to state collectively, it was also well beyond anything which the United States was prepared to countenance at the time. The EC statement further distanced Western Europe from the US by stressing the potential role of the United Nations in brokering a settlement to the conflict at hand. This placed the EC in a position directly at variance with the Americans who were largely ignoring the UN and seeking to put together a ceasefire based on direct bilateral contacts with the warring Israeli and Arab parties and with the Soviet Union.43 The 1973 Middle East crisis was significant chiefly because it represented the first occasion on which the EC members had collectively negotiated a position distinct from the one taken by the United States on a major foreign policy issue. EC influence in the CSCE preparatory negotiations was being exercised, as noted, to a large extent in a vacuum created by the virtual absence of American

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interest. The Americans were certainly not disinterested in the Middle East crisis and yet the EC still chose to go ahead and frame a consciously distinct policy platform. As such the 1973 statement, and a follow-up declaration issued in Venice in 1980, constituted important indicators of greater West European self-confidence in the international arena. In March 1974 the then European Commission President, Francois-Xavier Ortoli, had this in mind when he told the Americans that you cannot applaud the sight of Europe taking wing and at the same time insist that she clips her wings, meaning that she denies herself her concepts and her policy. Europe wants to be adult and mature. This must be understood and acknowledged.44 The cracks in the transatlantic relationship were substantially repaired during 1974, mainly due to the EC member states agreeing to brief US representatives in future about the content and outcome of EPC meetings. As time progressed, and when at the start of the 1980s East–West relations worsened and military security issues came increasingly to dominate the agenda, the United States began to reassert its role as leader of the Western alliance. Indicative of this was the changing pattern of Western consultations with regard to the CSCE. The European Community and its EPC process were increasingly overshadowed as the main collective consultative forum by NATO as American agendas became more prominent in the late 1970s and early 1980s.45 The 1973 crisis nevertheless set the tone for what was to become a consistent underlying feature of EC attempts to define a place in the world. These have generally been made with at least half an eye on the position of the United States. Whether the West Europeans have supported the US position or not, the starting point for their attempts to define common policies and responses has been American attitudes and positions. In 1991, the EC and its member states felt prompted to involve themselves in trying to deal with the emerging crisis in Yugoslavia largely in the belief that they could prove to the world, the Americans and indeed themselves, that the Community was capable of dealing with a crisis in its own backyard without US assistance. This sentiment was reflected perfectly in the recklessly boastful statement of Luxembourg’s Foreign Minister Jacques Poos, as he departed on an early Troika mission to Yugoslavia, that ‘this is the hour of Europe, not the hour of the

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Americans’. Likewise Jacques Delors said shortly afterwards that ‘we do not interfere in American affairs [and] we trust that America will not interfere in European affairs’. 46 Nevertheless, it would be both unfair and inaccurate to suggest that the EC/EU has had nothing more positive to motivate its desire to establish a more significant role for itself in the world than the wish to distance itself from the United States. In the early period of optimism following the conclusion of the Maastricht agreements at the end of 1991, EC leaders did attempt to flesh out a positive ideological basis to underpin their new Common Foreign and Security Policy and hence future attempts to project West European influence beyond the existing boundaries of the Community. A set of basic principles was agreed upon at the EC summit meeting held in Lisbon in June 1992. These included ‘strengthening democratic principles and institutions, and respect for human and minority rights’, ‘contributing to the prevention and settlement of conflicts’ and ‘promoting and supporting good government’. 47 These Lisbon Principles constituted an attempt to define and flesh out a ‘Democratic Enlargement’ ideology for the EC some 15 months before the Clinton administration undertook a similar exercise in the US. Given that the incumbent Bush administration was preoccupied with the impending presidential election during the summer of 1992, the EC at this stage was ahead of the Americans in trying to define a basic post-Cold War foreign policy ideology. West European confidence in the foreign policy arena appeared higher than for some considerable time, notwithstanding the escalating Yugoslav crisis. In 1993 member state leaders decided effectively to go beyond what they had agreed in Lisbon. There the focus had been on establishing and nurturing democracy in countries and regions geographically proximate to the Community. In 1993, however, EC leaders decided specifically that the transition from apartheid in South Africa offered an excellent opportunity to implement their emerging democratic enlargement ideology further afield. By identifying South Africa as the focus of both political and economic aid the EC/EU and its members were, therefore, consciously setting up ‘a test case for the experimental exercise of the CFSP and Europe’s ambitions to be a global actor’.48 Between 1993 and 1997, however, notwithstanding the partial success of the EU’s South Africa policy (the election supervision leg of the policy was successful although attempts to negotiate

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economic and commercial agreements became bogged down), much of the post-Maastricht self-confidence appeared to be draining away. Already during 1992 and 1993, a number of seasoned observers and commentators had noticed, and begun to comment on, this.49 Two principal factors, they thought, were responsible: persisting inability to stem the tide of violence in Bosnia, coupled with protracted and increasingly bitter disputes and wranglings among (and within) EU member states over the future shape and nature of the Union itself. Internal and domestic disputes were increasingly absorbing time and attention resulting in little of either being left over to devote to the matter of consolidating the Union’s overall place in the world. More fundamentally, it has been argued that ideology had often coexisted uneasily with the European integration process. In making this case, Stanley Hoffmann has claimed that ‘the original theory of West European integration had seen the decline of ideology and the prevalence of economic management as a boon for supranational unity’. Following on from this he accounts for periods of ‘Eurosclerosis’ (i.e. little or no progress in the integration process) in terms of lack of ideological vision: ‘managers are not innovators, and if there had not been the ideological drive that animated the [Jean] Monnet group, or Jacques Delors, little would have been accomplished’.50 How might one tell if and when the European Union and its member states succeed in making a new effort to assert the EU as a leading global actor? Anthony Smith has argued that identities are forged out of shared experiences, memories and myths, in relation to those of other collective identities. They are in fact often forged through opposition to the identities of significant others, as the history of paired conflict so often demonstrates. Smith suggests that it is unlikely that ‘Europe’ will seek to assert a stronger collective identity in opposition to the United States; his worry is that this is more likely to take place vis-à-vis the developing world.51 Other observers, especially those critical of the European Union’s development, have seen grounds for concern in terms of EU–US relations. Noel Malcolm for example has written that ‘the only consistent and distinctive theme of “European” foreign policy’ is ‘graceless anti-Americanism’.52 It is not necessary here to enter directly into these particular

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debates. Nevertheless, in view of the argument presented above about the extent to which EC and EU external policy-making has been influenced by the position and actions of the United States and also in view of the US’s pivotal position in post-Cold War international politics, it is likely to be worthwhile looking for evidence of increased EU activity or a heightened profile in areas and regions which are particularly important to the US. Outside of Europe itself, two such come into this category: the Americas and Asia. The European Union and Latin America The European Community was developing a formalised regional relationship with Latin American countries from the early 1980s. A breakthrough occurred in 1984 when a ministerial conference was convened in Costa Rica, bringing together the then ten EC states plus candidate members Spain and Portugal on the one hand, and Mexico, Columbia, Panama, Venezuela, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua on the other. The dialogue was later extended to embrace Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Peru. Although the practical results of the process, in terms of obviously enhanced West European influence in Latin America, have not so far been great, the links have nevertheless been judged by some to be of especial importance simply because of the fact that the Americas have long been regarded by the United States as being within its own sphere of special influence.53 Publications and statements, especially by the European Commission, have sometimes hinted at the possibility of the EU and Latin American countries working together to further common interests in, for example, future world trade negotiations. Although left unsaid, it is generally fairly easy to discern that at least part of the rationale for such international alliances would be to bring pressure for change to US policies and positions which they consider undesirable. In April 1997, for example, Commissioner Leon Brittan gave a speech in the Chilean capital Santiago in which he praised the informal cooperation which had taken place between the EU and Latin American states in putting together a joint call for a new round of world trade talks at the first WTO ministerial meeting in December 1996. Both Western Europe and Latin America had by doing this put themselves at variance with the US where the Clinton administration and the Congress have been lukewarm at best about the desirability of convening a WTO ‘Millennium Round’.54 Although

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the US has, to date, not shifted its stance in response to the Europe/ Latin America position the formation of the latter could possibly open the door for similar, more frequent joint position-forming in the WTO and, perhaps, other fora in the future. The end of the Cold War and the formation of Mercosur in 1990 encouraged some in Western Europe to the viewpoint that a new era of co-operation may be opening up, based both on improved commercial links and a perceived desire in Latin America to see the EC/EU as an exemplary model of regional integration. Commission documents have argued that ‘the Union must . . . have a presence in the world’s emerging regions, of which Latin America is one’. They have also argued in favour of the EU taking up a role in promoting and helping to consolidate democracy in Latin America and in promoting social justice and human rights. However limited the impact of such fine-sounding sentiments may have been in practice to date it is nevertheless noteworthy that the Commission evidently believes that the 1992 Lisbon Principles should not be forgotten or shunted to one side, and even more significant that the Commission should suggest a role for the EU in promoting them in the United States’ own backyard. This could be read as implicit criticism of the US for not having been sufficiently proactive itself in helping to establish and consolidate democratic and human rights norms in the region, and thus effectively abdicating a measure of leadership responsibility.55 In some respects, the EU would seem to be in a good position to further develop its presence, profile and influence in Latin America, in the commercial arena especially. The EU has emerged as Mercosur’s main trading partner and its exports to Latin America as a whole have doubled during the 1990s – increasing by 41 per cent alone between 1990 and 1993 according to European Commission figures. EU officials are also quick to point out that the Union and its member states give more official development aid to Latin American countries than does the US.56 In contrast, important obstacles remain to the development of a more thoroughgoing partnership. The growth in Latin American exports to Western Europe has not kept pace with the spectacular increase in the volume of exports heading the other way with the result that most Latin American countries have experienced a trade deficit with the EU. This has caused some resentment and allegations that the Europeans are too slow in opening up their internal markets. Knowledgeable observers have pointed to this and related obstacles

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to further developments in relations, despite some optimistic talk from EU officials about the possibility of a free-trade agreement being concluded between the EU and Mercosur by 1999.57 Although Mercosur by its very name (‘southern common market’) invoked memories of the original European Economic Community of 1957–87, leaders and officials in the Mercosur countries have tended to stress that they are pursuing their own path to regional co-operation and integration. As one prominent Argentinian diplomat put it in 1995: there is no unique methodological model for countries that desire to work together to develop free trade at the regional level . . . The temptation to think of NAFTA, or at the other extreme, the EU, as models to follow would be a great mistake.58 Overall it can be said that a significant international partnership between the European Union and countries in Latin America remains a prospect rather than an actuality. Having said that, if a workable axis does develop in, for example, future world trade negotiations then this might have a significant impact. The EU and its member states do seem determined to stake and protect interests in Latin America and to resist any US attempts to undermine them. This was confirmed in 1996–8 during the disputes over the application of the Helms–Burton Act with regard to Cuba, as discussed in Chapter 3. The European Union and Asia The possibility of creating a new axis between the EU and Asia has occupied minds in Western Europe to an even greater extent than Latin America since the end of the Cold War. This has been particularly true within the European Commission, which has tried consistently to cajole member states into improving the EU’s links with Asian countries. Although the economic and commercial arguments for doing so have undoubtedly been important, so too have wider considerations about the Union’s overall place in the world. The Commission believes that the EU should be a recognised co-equal with the United States and Asia in a tripolar world. Initially, the Commission focused on enhancing links specifically with Japan. The member states had negotiated a bilateral EC–Japan Declaration in 1991, similar to one which had been agreed with

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the United States the previous year. The practical impact of this had been limited, however, certainly falling short of the Commission’s hopes. In a Review of the Community’s Relations with Japan published in 1992, the Commission argued that the EC and Japan should be natural allies: both are in many ways at a similar stage in taking up their responsibilities on the world stage. Japan because it is searching for ways of translating its economic power into political influence, the Community because it is adopting through the European Union institutions and mechanisms to enable it to play a stronger foreign policy role. In spite of this, the Commission report conceded that ‘the dialogue between the Community and Japan falls behind that between the Community and the United States in intensity, whereas the two should be more nearly on the same level’. Although the Commission document did not acknowledge it explicitly, its authors cannot have failed to be aware that EC–Japan relations had also fallen behind US–Japan relations by some margin of ‘intensity’, chiefly because the former had not included a security dimension.59 This has remained the case. By 1996 attempts to cultivate an effective bilateral relationship between the EU and Japan had, in the words of Simon Nuttall, the Commission’s former Director of Relations with East Asia, ‘still not reached the point at which it could significantly and consciously affect international affairs’.60 By 1994–5 a perceptible shift in Commission attitudes towards engagement with Asia as a region was becoming evident. This was partly due to the continuing failure of the bilateral relationship with the Japanese to develop as had been hoped. Also, there was the impact of the 1993 revitalisation of the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation forum under US leadership. The EU was not involved in APEC and few leading Europeans appeared to think that the US wanted it to become involved. From around this time the focus in thinking within the Commission shifted in the direction of trying to create a forum within which the EU and Asian countries could meet together collectively. Although officially denied, this was almost bound to be viewed in many quarters as Western Europe’s attempt both to copy the American APEC initiative and also to turn the tables by excluding the United States. Addressing an audience in London in September 1995, Sir Leon Brittan argued that

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Europe must pay full attention to its Asian partners. To do otherwise, to rely on a small power policy of relations only with our immediate hinterland, would certainly be a recipe for ever steeper decline in European prosperity and in European standing worldwide. Brittan specifically envisaged enhanced opportunities for the EU and Asia working together to balance the power and influence of the United States inside the World Trade Organisation more effectively, a view which he was later to echo with regard to the EU and Latin America, as noted above.61 Pressure from the European Commission, plus indications that Asian countries themselves would react favourably to such an initiative, helped convince EU members to agree to a ‘Euro–Asia’ summit meeting convened for Bangkok in March 1996. The Asians had supported the initiative partly because of a long-standing desire, at least amongst the smaller Asian powers, to balance the influence of the US in their region with that of other friendly outside powers.62 Thus, in the spring of 1996, leaders or senior ministers from the 15 EU member states, plus representatives of the European Commission sat down in Bangkok with the leaders of China, Japan, South Korea and the then seven ASEAN countries for what was called the first ‘Asia–Europe Meeting’ (ASEM). Few on either side appeared to be expecting dramatic breakthroughs but the fact that such a meeting was taking place at all for the first time was viewed in some quarters as being highly significant. Media analysis abounded which argued that the major long-term significance of the EuroAsia process would be to create a more genuinely equal three-sided relationship between the US, the EU and Asia by enhancing the relatively weak and underdeveloped links between Asia and the European Union.63 Whether the process develops in this way remains to be seen. The second ASEM summit duly took place in London in April 1998. Perhaps more significantly, by the time it was convened a number of other meetings had been held, bringing together ministers and, on occasion, senior officials acting on behalf of ministers. This suggests that ASEM might possibly evolve into an ongoing institutionalised ‘process’ rather than simply being confined to biennial set-piece summits. In contrast, links between Europe and Asia have a good deal of ground to make up in order to compare fully with those which have evolved between many Asian countries and the United States. As a perceptive piece in The Economist in March

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1996 pointed out, Euro-Asia relations are almost exclusively focused on questions of commercial access. There is currently nothing to compare with the security dimension of the American relationship with Japan, South Korea or other Asian states and the influence in the region generally which these links bestow on the United States. Nor, and again unlike the US, has the EU as yet shown any real sign of developing a more fully-rounded policy for Asia which extends beyond the commercial arena.64 Two other issues are also worth bearing in mind. One is the extent to which, as EU–Asia relations develop, the former risks rubbing up against the ‘Asian values’ debate. There have already been indications of frictions on this score, reflected mainly in the warnings given by some Asian leaders against any European attempts to use the dialogue initiated in the ASEM process as a means of trying to foist Western human rights norms and standards on Asian countries and societies.65 A further potential challenge to the EU’s role became apparent in 1996 when it was reported that both France and the UK were interested in the possibility of acquiring separate seats at future meetings of the ASEAN Regional Forum where currently the 15 member states were represented together by the Troika. Predictably, this was greeted with dismay by the European Commission.66 If followed through it would be somewhat ironic as indicating, on the one hand, that France and the UK are beginning to take European participation in the ARF seriously whilst, on the other, expressing their new level of interest by seeking direct input of their own and detracting from the EU’s collective role in the process.

EUROPEAN POWER SINCE 1989 The analysis and discussions in this chapter support the overall conclusion that arguments that the European Union is likely to develop into a fully-fledged global power of the first rank are, at best, premature. The European Union is not without all credibility as a candidate as a first-rank global power. In some areas it is, indeed, in most people’s reckoning already one. This is true in the economic and commercial fields in which the EU manages effectively and for most of the time to speak with one voice. In the 1986–93 Uruguay GATT round, the EC/EU was unquestionably one of the two most significant

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and influential players, along with the United States. EU member states collectively have established at least a tentative ideological basis for the projection of ‘European’ influence and values onto the wider international stage. This has been based, as subsequently was the American version, on the concept of enlarging the number of functioning democratic states in the world. It is to be expected that more will be heard about this now that negotiations on expanding the EU’s membership into Central and Eastern Europe have begun in earnest.67 That being said, however, important limitations have been evident on the EU’s ability to project power and influence. One has been the crisis of confidence which has increasingly affected the Union and its member states in the wake of the failure to cope effectively with the crisis in Yugoslavia. Another has been the emergence of domestic disputes over the future of European integration. This has been at least partially responsible for preventing the emergence to date of any coherent or overall strategy for building on the Union’s formal articulation of support for democratic enlargement and projecting European influence and values on a worldwide basis. The Union has been sporadically interested and involved with countries and regions far away from its own borders, most notably in Asia and Latin America. Things have certainly not evolved to the stage which can compare with American global engagement, however. Of fundamental significance also has been the European Union’s continuing security void. This has mattered because, for as long as it remains a civilian power without a matching military component, the Union cannot aspire to be more than a second-rank international power. For as long as military superpowers, or a military superpower, exist then the military dimension of power will be an indispensable attribute for those which aspire to a truly front-rank status in international life. It has not been the goal of this chapter to suggest that the European Union is an insignificant power per se. But it does currently lack the attributes which would enable it to be compared fully with the most complete power in the post-Cold War world, i.e. the United States. The final, concluding, chapter of this book attempts to draw together the threads of the discussions so far, and in doing so sketch out an overall picture of the distribution of power between the most important states and groupings in the post-Cold War era.

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6 Has the Winner Taken All? Earlier chapters have been concerned with the nature of power and how it has been exercised by leading states, especially in the years since 1989. This final chapter will draw the threads of these arguments together, formulate some conclusions arising from the analysis of these important issues and discuss their likely implications for the future.

SUPERPOWER This term remains in common use in international politics. Since the Cold War ended and the Soviet Union collapsed, the United States has frequently been described as the world’s sole remaining superpower. Russian leaders have laid claim to be the heirs of the defunct Soviet Union’s recognised superpower status, though with limited success. Some analysts have gone beyond this and argued that the ending of the Cold War has rendered the traditional concept of superpower obsolete and that the term should disappear from our international dictionary.1 Others have applied the descriptive phrase ‘rising economic superpower’ to the European Union, Japan and, more recently, China. This contemporary notion of a mainly economic superpower does not fit altogether easily with the traditional Cold War understanding of superpower. In introducing the concept in 1944, William Fox emphasised the relative pre-eminence of military power in making a superpower. Fundamental to Fox’s concept was an ability and willingness to project power and influence beyond national boundaries, indeed on a global basis. Given the wartime era in which his ideas were conceived, it appeared clear to Fox that the most effective means of projecting power were military-based ones. Some contemporary writers, such as the German scholar Hanns Maull, have supported the proposition that the term superpower has, since the end of the Cold War, lost its relevance as the economic attributes of power have seemed to come to the fore. Specifically, Maull has argued that Germany and Japan now stand as the ‘prototypes’ of ‘a new type of international power’. In fact Maull’s definition 165

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of the ‘new’ type of power draws on thinking articulated in Western Europe in the early 1970s about what Francois Duchene then called ‘civilian power’. The most important criticism of the civilian power concept was noted in Chapter 5. Whilst military power, and the willingness to use it, remains an important factor in the overall international equation, those who possess it in relative abundance will make the key decisions which shape the international climate within which civilian powers have to operate. For as long as civilian powers are unable or unwilling to develop and use significant military power of their own they cannot become fully-fledged first-rank international powers. Maull also argues, more convincingly, that ‘economic “power” . . . cannot be easily manipulated and targeted by governments . . . the resources of these forms of power are in the hands of economic actors such as firms or banks, which pursue their own objectives and strategies’.2 In essence this means that individual governments have economic power much less firmly under their own control to project or utilise than is the case with military power. Most modern economists and political scientists would agree with the proposition that contemporary international relationships, at least amongst the major industrialised powers and groupings, have become highly economically interdependent. Countries, even leading ones, are thus significantly constrained in their ability to utilise and project economic power for wholly or mainly national purposes. This last point could be extended to a degree to encompass military power too. It can be argued that not even the United States appears to be willing to mount purely national military operations on any significant scale: witness the amount of time and political capital which the Bush administration spent on constructing a multinational allied coalition to blockade and ultimately fight the Iraqis following the invasion of Kuwait in 1990–1. Similarly, the Clinton administration appeared determined to ensure that as great a contribution by as many countries as possible be made to the NATO-led Implementation Force deployed in Bosnia from late 1995. The phrase ‘diffusion of power’ became popular in academic and media circles during the first half of the 1990s. It has generally been used in support of the view that the military dimension of power has become significantly less important in itself, with international power coming to depend increasingly on resources and attributes in the economic, commercial and political/ideological

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arenas.3 The discussions in this book support the view that military power does, however, still remain important. Specifically, the military component is a key defining characteristic of the superpower. Ideological coherence and self-confidence are essential too. In short: economic prowess by itself is not enough to make a superpower. In this sense those who maintain that the label ‘superpower’ is inappropriate for countries or groupings – such as the European Union – which have chosen to rely solely or mainly on their economic resources, and little or not at all on military power, are correct. Overall, Japan has probably been the most-frequently suggested candidate for the role of new economic superpower since the 1980s (although increasingly China is being spoken of in this context too). Yet many Japanese themselves have equated superpower status with something more than the possession of one of the world’s most dynamic and important economies. In the summer of 1988 for example a leading Japanese foreign policy expert, Seizaburo Sato, argued that full superpower status required economic wealth coupled with military prowess, the political will to project power and influence, and a culture ‘that appeals to other people and can influence them’. According to Sato, Japan was not on the road to becoming a true superpower because of an unwillingness to project military power and influence on a global basis, coupled with an insular mindset and a related lack of wider appeal of Japanese culture and ideological values.4 The discussions throughout this study suggest that the notion of superpower has been closely bound up with the issue of roles. During the Cold War period the two superpowers both undertook the role of global leaders, organising and defending their own side’s international structures and political/ideological movements. The Cold War ended with the demise of one of the superpowers, taking with it the Warsaw Pact and virtually all of the international socialist movement. Some expected that the collapse of one of the Cold War superpowers would result in the progressive undermining of the other, as the United States’ role as leader and defender of the free world progressively lost relevance and meaning. Some indeed continue to see danger for the US. Samuel Huntington has recently written that: The fate of the Soviet Union offers a sobering example for Americans. The United States and the Soviet Union were very different, but they also resembled each other in that neither was

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a nation-state in the classic sense of the term. In considerable measure, each defined itself in terms of an ideology, which, as the Soviet example suggests, is likely to be a much more fragile basis for unity than a national culture richly grounded in history.5 In the years since 1989, however, US administrations under both Bush and Clinton have asserted a continuing global role, as discussed in Chapter 3. Assuming Huntington’s comparison with the USSR to be valid, the fact that the US has not gone the way of the Soviet Union, nor seemed in any real danger of doing so, suggests that a viable post-Cold War core ideology has been successfully developed to replace the successful Cold War one of containing communism. The Soviet Union collapsed not because of its reliance on an ideological underpinning per se, but rather because its ideology had become bankrupt to the extent that even many of its leaders had effectively ceased to believe in it, as noted in Chapter 2. During the Bush era American policy planners formulated the view that the main US foreign policy objective should be to prevent ‘hostile challengers’ to its vital interests from arising in key regions of the world: principally the Americas, Europe and Asia. This strategy was based on the assumption of continuing active US engagement with, and a presence in, the key regions. As policy was refined, the emphasis was placed on persuasive rather than coercive methods and means of achieving the overall objective. This presupposed a continuing American diplomatic engagement within global and regional international institutions as well as with leading states and groupings within each region. Also judged to be of great importance has been a continuing US military presence in Western Europe and Asia (principally in South Korea and Japan). This has been seen as a strong physical demonstration that the US is, and intends to remain, a leading player in both regions. The legacy of the Cold War years has left the United States enjoying a pivotal role in the network of leading international institutions. Susan Strange has quantified this by noting that ‘no initiative has yet been taken in international organizations that the United States has persistently resisted’.6 This has not meant that the US has been free to do just as it pleases, however. From taking office in 1993, the Clinton administration was relatively more strident than its predecessor in asserting US global economic and commercial interests, but it has stopped short of pursuing a unilateralist agenda that would seriously threaten the health of existing global

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institutions such as the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and its successor, the World Trade Organisation. American-led international institutions have remained a key component of international relations since 1989. Indeed their status and centrality has arguably increased due to the disappearance of the Soviet bloc and its own competing institutions, such as they were. This has resulted in there now being no real rivals to US-led institutions in either the economic or security fields. The practical consequences of this have been illustrated by the Chinese and Russian applications to join the WTO, by relentless pressure from a number of Central European countries for quick admission to NATO, and also Japanese interest in some kind of enhanced association with the latter organisation. As Samuel Huntington has argued, ‘a superpower has to stand for an idea with appeal beyond its borders’.7 However imperfectly the United States has sometimes discharged its post-Cold War role as custodian of a globalist ideal – that is the view that there are beliefs and principles and ways of doing things which have universal relevance and transcend national or even cultural boundaries – and its specific Clinton era doctrine of Democratic Enlargement, it remains difficult, if not impossible, at present to see any other country challenging it in the articulation and promotion of a similar global role. It is in this role-based context, coupled with its capacity to project military power more widely and effectively than any other country, and its still being one of the world’s most significant economies, that the United States can be called the most complete global power. Those who have tried to disprove this have failed to convince and have sometimes ended up contradicting themselves. Samuel Huntington did this in a recent book in which he set out to try to demonstrate that future world order will depend on relations between distinct ‘civilizations’ such as Western, Islamic, Sinic and Japanese. This thesis obliged Huntington to argue that ‘in the emerging world, global power is obsolete . . . No country, including the United States, has significant global security interests’. Yet later in the same book he wrote that the United States with some supplements from Britain and France, will alone be able to intervene militarily in almost any part of the world. And only the United States will have the air power capable of bombing virtually any place in the world. These are

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the central elements of the military position of the United States as a global power. These were elements which he foresees enduring well into the next century. Huntington did not explain why the US should have wished to continue to devote vast financial resources to maintaining a global military intervention capability if it no longer has ‘significant global security interests’ in the post-Cold War world.8 Continued US willingness to project power and influence based upon its military resources has also been questioned by some. Nevertheless the examples of the Gulf War and the carrot-and-stick approach to brokering a peace settlement in Bosnia during 1995 show that the Americans do remain willing to do so when (as was always the case) vital or important US interests are judged to be at stake. The essence of this aspect of the United States’ unique international status and power was well described by the British journalist Edward Mortimer when writing about Bosnia in February 1996: Why do people take more notice of the US than of Europe? ‘Because it is a super-power’. Yes, but that is not a statement about its material assets, which are not overwhelmingly superior to those of Europe. What is distinctive about the US is its ability and willingness to convert those assets into power, notably in the old-fashioned form of troops and weapons, and to deploy them around the world. If Serbs take notice of the US, it is because they know the US is prepared to bomb them. If [Croatian President] Tudjman does, it is because the US helped train and equip his army. The same goes, mutatis mutandis, for Greeks, Turks, Arabs, Israelis, even Chinese. 9 Those who argue that the United States in the 1990s has been the world’s only superpower have been correct in the sense that the US occupies a top-rank category of international power by itself. Those who have suggested that the term ‘superpower’ has itself become obsolete with the ending of the Cold War have failed to furnish an alternative label which would suffice to describe the position and role of the US. The Clinton administration has come closest with its increasing fondness for describing the country as ‘the indispensable nation’, a term which President Clinton used in both his second Inauguration Address and his annual State of the Union Address in 1997.10

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Others, like Hanns Maull, have argued that in the new era civilian powers like Japan and Germany will become increasingly prominent and move towards a position of equality with the United States. The discussions in this study suggest, however, that no other power is emerging which is capable of either displacing the US or even of sharing in its top-rank international status. All things considered, the continued use of the term ‘superpower’ to describe the position and role of the United States is justified.

THE UNITED STATES AS HEGEMON? A number of (mainly American) international relations theorists have described states in a position of pre-eminent global power as being ‘hegemonic’. Currently no state, not even the US, meets the arduous conditions widely deemed necessary to qualify for this theoretical status. No single state is able to dominate globally. Although it is, relatively speaking, the leading global power, the United States has continued to rely mostly on persuasive rather than coercive means in order to try to influence international economic and security relationships involving other important powers. The two powers on the next level down from the United States have been Japan and the European Union. They have been the United States’ chief interlocutors, and antagonists, in global economic bargaining. But both currently lack a truly globalist vocation or role to compare with that of the US. In addition, they are less genuinely multidimensional in terms of their power resources. Neither has demonstrated in the period since the Second World War concluded the means and willingness to project significant military power beyond their own boundaries. Two levels down from the US lie China and Russia. These have both demonstrated a willingness to be assertive with regard to their near neighbours, and both can lay claim to a measure of global influence by virtue of their permanent membership of the United Nations Security Council and their nuclear capabilities. Neither are, as yet, members of all the key global economic structures and institutions, however. Even so, since 1989 American leaders have not been able to dominate either of them in the sense of simply riding roughshod over their views and interests on important issues even when these have come up against US interests; as when Russian opposition (albeit supported by some of America’s Western allies)

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effectively held up President Clinton’s push for fast-track NATO expansion for almost three years from July 1994. The Chinese also caused the US to change course and adopt a more diplomatic approach during 1994 on the question of North Korea’s potential nuclear capability. Three main reasons are evident as to why the US has not been able simply to dominate international relations and impose its will unilaterally on other major powers. To begin with there is the risk of political and ideological embarrassment. Since 1993 the US has based its foreign policy activity on an ideology of enlarging the zone of international political and economic freedom. This in itself has imposed a certain degree of constraint on American leaders with them not wishing to be seen to be using heavy-handed or bullying tactics. Secondly, constraints have been imposed by the consequences of international interdependence and legitimacy, with the US being increasingly aware of the need for gaining other countries’ support for military operations. Although the US is the leading international power, it is not so far ahead of the other major powers or centres of power as to be immune from the impact of possible retaliation against unilateralism, especially in the financial and commercial fields. Thirdly, a heavy-handed approach might well risk bringing together other major powers in coalitions to oppose the United States. As Kenneth Waltz has argued, in a world where there are a number of major powers, ‘the skilful foreign policy of a forward power is designed to gain an advantage without antagonizing other states and frightening them into united action’.11 For all these reasons, a strategy of hegemonic dominance would be both extremely difficult for the United States to implement and probably undesirable in its consequences for all concerned, including the US itself. So far the Americans have not seriously or systematically tried to go down this road. Instead the US has maintained its ‘forward’ status in international life mainly by, in the terms used by Josef Joffe amongst others, acting as the central locus in a ‘hub and spoke’ system of international relations. As Joffe explains: ‘the hub is Washington, and the spokes are Western Europe, Japan, China, Russia, and the Middle East. For all their antagonism toward the United States, their association with the hub is more important to them than are their ties to one another’.12

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A UNITRIPOLAR WORLD As developed in this study, the term ‘unitripolar’ describes a world in which the United States is the pivotal international power – the leading power in key areas – without being fully hegemonic. It covers a number of related arguments which are summarised below. The United States occupies, relatively speaking, the central and pivotal position in the international arena. Because power is relative, being in the central position – the ‘hub’ – is of prime importance. The central power forms the effective benchmark by which the status and activities of other leading powers is largely measured and judged. It also possesses great influence in setting, and acting as the guardian of, the basic rules for international relations. The United States is not, however, a single, dominant, global power. The US has not been able to simply arrange international relations as it has seen fit. Compromises have had to be made with European and Asian powers, chiefly in the interests of preserving the global economic and security systems which underpin in significant measure the United States’ enduring claims to superpower status. In short, the international distribution of power is such that the world is not simply unipolar. Although the need to compromise and, by inference, allow others to influence US policy-making has doubtless proved irksome to some Americans, there is probably no real alternative if the overall goal of US policy is to maintain the country’s pivotal position. An overly dominant US approach would be likely to encourage other major powers to join together to balance-off what they would see as disturbingly excessive American power. If this happened the world might once again become essentially bipolar, as during the Cold War period, or tripolar. It follows from the discussions in Chapters 3, 4 and 5 that a further important overall conclusion of this study is that globally significant power and influence is concentrated mainly in three regions of the world. These regions are the Americas (overwhelmingly the US itself), Western Europe and Asia. The ‘uni-’ aspect of the unitripolar concept applies because the United States has been the only major power with leading status, presence and influence in all three key regions. The question of how best the United States can and should utilise and exercise its influence, and specifically how it should do so with a view to maintaining its central position in international affairs,

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has occupied many American minds since 1989. A common view has envisaged the US aspiring to an ‘honest broker’ role. In using this term Paul Nitze, one of the Grand Old Men of Washington officialdom, argued in 1990 that the basic objective of American foreign policy should be ‘the accommodation and protection of diversity within a framework of global order’. Such an approach would differ, according to Nitze and others, from American Cold War policy in that it would not be based on a perceived need to counter somebody else’s worldwide ideological threat. Nitze argued that future US global engagement should be ‘carefully selective’ and should not be premised on attempting to foist American ideological values on other states and peoples. In contrast, Nitze took the view that, by virtue both of the Cold War legacy and its own power resources, the United States is best qualified to take on the role of serving as custodian of a necessary overall framework of world order.13 The major weakness of the approach advocated by Nitze was his failure to articulate a set of ideological principles to take the place of Cold War containment. In rightly asserting that the US should not seek to force an ideology on other states and regions, he went too far in the opposite direction and failed to suggest any clear ideological underpinning for future American global policy. Nitze appeared to believe, without offering much evidence to support his case, that the honest broker role would be so self-evidently positive and valuable, and perceived as such by both Americans and others, that it would in itself be sufficient to generate legitimacy and support. In another relevant article, Jonathan Clarke argued in 1995 that the Clinton administration and its successors should pay more attention to developing what he called ‘the skills of international “triangulation”’. Clarke used this phrase to mean the ability and willingness of the United States either to balance one off against the other in its dealings with Western Europe and Asia on a regional basis, or to seek to do the same with the countries within these regions. Asia probably offers more scope for such an international ‘divide and rule’ strategy given the fact that it is significantly less cohesive and integrated than Western Europe.14 In a February 1995 newspaper article, former US National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft argued that the most effective foreign policy for the US, in terms of serving ‘important and enduring American interests’, would be to follow a middle course between outright

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unilateralism and what could be called placid multilateralism. The US has been, in Scowcroft’s view, reluctant to undertake the ‘hard work’ of exercising leadership. He argued that the Clinton administration had, since 1993, preferred to yield ‘to the positions of others simply in order to present a united front among allies or avoid a fight with Congress’.15 Scowcroft’s views carried echoes of ‘assertive multilateralism’, the phrase which was often used by highlevel Clinton officials during the first months of the administration in 1993. Since then, however, it has vanished from the official vocabulary, mainly because it suggested to many an open-ended commitment by the United States to undertake a singular ‘world policeman’ role. It was supplanted by the strategy of selective US engagement in vital or particularly important regions of the world, as developed under the doctrine of Democratic Enlargement and discussed in Chapter 3. The Clinton administration’s shift of emphasis is important for what it reveals about the kind of ‘globalism’ in which the US has been interested. On the surface it has appeared somewhat less genuinely global than was the case with the Cold War containment ideology, where the superpower role as leader of the free world set the United States up in competition for hearts and minds wherever in the world there was assumed to be a communist threat or challenge. In practice, the global vocation was unevenly followed-through during the years up to 1989. Africa, for example, was not a source of significant concern to successive American administrations even after the Soviet Union began to establish influence and a presence there during the 1970s. In addition, the communist challenge in Latin America preoccupied some US Presidents far more than others. Nevertheless, the American superpower role during the Cold War period was, as noted in Chapter 2, overtly premised on its worldwide ambit. The post-Cold War revisions to the role, initiated under President Bush and continued under Clinton, resulted in the United States adopting an officially selective global strategy. But, crucially, the concept of globalism has been retained. The United States continues to be actively and influentially engaged in regions outside its own hemisphere. This means that it can fairly be described as still having a global role even though a new global challenger to US vital interests has not arisen since the collapse of the Soviet Union. During the 1990s the idea that international relations have become progressively more polarised between a ‘core’ and a ‘periphery’ has been gaining ground.16 It has been reflected in the United States’

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policy of selective engagement. In this context the term ‘core’ can be used to describe the regions viewed by the Americans as crucial to their national interests. ‘Periphery’ essentially describes the rest of the world. This leaves grey areas, most notably the Middle East, where US vital strategic interests are clearly at stake. Yet this region is not always counted as being on a par with Western Europe and Asia, or included in definitions of core areas of vital interest, because it does not contain powers, or groups of powers, of comparable stature to those found in Western Europe or Asia.

WINNER TAKES ALL? POWER AND SUPERPOWER AFTER THE COLD WAR The central focus of this book has been on the key international role which the United States has played and is likely to continue to play in the post-Cold War world. Equally important has been the argument that the US has not claimed or acquired a position of international dominance or hegemony. To some this may not seem to be a particularly surprising conclusion. During the early 1990s a school of thought emerged which argued that the Cold War had essentially ended without a clear winner. If this view is accepted then it is perhaps to be expected that constraints on US power and influence would remain in place, although not perhaps in the same way or to the same extent as those which had existed in the years 1945–89 and were imposed chiefly by the presence of Soviet power in the international system. Such arguments are unconvincing, however. In Chapter 2 the Cold War was analysed mainly as a contest between two ideologies, each of which claimed global relevance and scope. One was championed by the United States and the other by the Soviet Union. By 1991 the international Marxist-Leninist ideology championed by the Soviet Union had been discredited to such an extent that the Soviet state itself, inextricably bound up with the ideology upon which it had been founded in 1917, literally came apart at the seams. The Cold War did have a winner. This was the non-Marxist ‘free world’ ideology defined and defended principally by the United States. Given its victory and the disappearance of the only other superpower, some in the early 1990s believed that the United States would be able to dominate in a unipolar world. The analyses in this book show that this has not happened. A number of contributory

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Table 6.1 Responses to Major International Problems, 1990–8 Problem area

Response leaders

Other key players

Persian Gulf 1990–1

United States

France, Britain, Saudi Arabia, Japan, Germany,1 Soviet Union2

Former Yugoslavia 1991–8

European Community 1991–2 United States 1995–8

Russia

Ukrainian nuclear disarmament 1992–5

United States, Russia

Ukraine, France, Britain3

North Korean nuclear sites 1993–4

United States, China

South Korea, Japan

Notes: 1 Japan and Germany were pressed by the US to each make sizeable financial contributions to the costs of the Gulf War. 2 The US devoted considerable time and effort to ensuring that the Gorbachev government went along with UN diplomatic and economic sanctions against Iraq, a state which previous Soviet regimes had supported. 3 Some accounts suggest that France and Britain joined with the US and Russia in offering ‘security assurances’ to the Ukrainian government.

reasons why this is so were discussed above: increasing global economic and security interdependence, the fact that the US does not possess a sufficient margin of superiority in key power resources, and American anxiety to avoid creating conditions where major regional powers might form coalitions or alliances in opposition to the US have been amongst the most important. The net effect has been to ensure that the United States, whilst demonstrating increased tendencies towards unilateralism in some areas in comparison to the Cold War period and certainly regularly claiming or filling a lead role for itself, has nonetheless shown itself to be basically unwilling to attempt to deal with important or particularly serious international problems on its own. Table 6.1. illustrates this point. The pivotal international position of the United States is well-

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illustrated by a perusal of the ‘Response leaders’ column. This shows the states which were instrumental in orchestrating and guiding the international community’s response on each issue. The United States is the only power which appears in the leader’s column for each of the problems and crises cited. In only one case (former Yugoslavia from 1991–2) was the United States not involved in a leading role from the start. Equally clear, however, is that the international responses have been far from exclusively American. In no case has the US been the sole major power involved, and in only one instance (the Persian Gulf) did it occupy the leader’s category on its own. Even here, the US went to considerable lengths to persuade the Soviet Union, Germany and Japan to play important roles in supporting and sustaining the anti-Saddam coalition even though none of these powers actually committed troops on the ground. There are good grounds for doubting whether the United States has in fact gained anything very tangible from its victory in the Cold War. Withdrawal from global interests and commitments has, thus far, been ruled out. The US has neither sought nor found the opportunity of a ‘quiet life’ by a retreat into isolationism. Successive administrations have balked at the possibility of a full-bloodied unilateralist approach too. Nor has much been saved on the defence budget since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Ronald Steel and others have argued that the US still spends as much on defence as all other countries combined, mainly because American leaders have perceived such levels of expenditure to be essential to maintain the US military edge, and hence the country’s superpower status. Overall, the United States has not been noticeably better or more able to get its way in international affairs in comparison to the Cold War years. In 1993 Professor Waltz noted that ‘with the waning of Soviet power, the United States is no longer held in check by any other countries or combination of countries’. But he also argued that this situation made it more likely that other major powers would act, individually or together, to balance the US and prevent an excess of American power from emerging.17 Until recently there were few indications of such balancing even beginning to take place. During 1996 the first signs began to emerge of potential balancing alliances or partnerships between China and Russia and also the European Union and Asian countries. In both cases, however, there has been little to suggest that developments

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are likely to proceed speedily and it is by no means clear that the impetus to co-operate will outweigh other factors. Not the least of these is the fact that all four of the countries or regions mentioned here have important links with the United States. They may well decide that maintaining and improving these links is more important than risking offending the Americans by developing other relationships which not only exclude the Americans, but could also be seen to be being formed against the United States. For their part the Americans have in general been careful to avoid provoking the other major powers or groupings into the kind of action just described. At the same time, successive US administrations have striven to ensure that the US remains a leading player in the regions where the other major powers are themselves located and involved, i.e. Europe and Asia. What implications does this have for international stability? Despite a number of pessimistic predictions about the likely increase in international instability following the end of the Cold War order, international relations overall have not become markedly more unstable or crisis-prone than during the years 1945–89. In those years, according to some estimates, there were close to 150 instances of armed clashes or conflicts below the superpower level. Moreover, it can be argued that the unitripolar world which has emerged during the 1990s is a more stable arrangement than the most likely alternatives. Many experts believe, as Fred Bergsten has noted, that a simple tripolar system ‘is the most unstable configuration’. This is because ‘history and game theory both suggest a strong tendency for each of the parties in such an arrangement to fear that the other two will line up against it permanently, leading each to adopt excessive policies’. In a situation where power is more-or-less evenly distributed amongst three poles (be they individual countries or regions), Bergsten believes that ‘given the inevitable self-perception of vulnerability on the part of each of the three parties, two will, in fact, tend to ally against the third’.18 In the contemporary unitripolar world, however, these dangers are reduced. The significant presence of the United States is a common factor in each of the regions. This can serve to promote stability in three ways. Firstly, the US, as an outside power in Europe and Asia, might act as an honest broker to facilitate the settlement of disputes both within and between the regions. Secondly, because the US has identified vital interests in both Europe and Asia it is

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highly unlikely that it would either itself agree to join with one against the other to the extent that its relations with the third party were damaged or undermined, or that it would fail to utilise its important economic and security-related influence in Europe and Asia to prevent significant ganging-up against itself. Finally, the common denominator of the American presence in each of the three regions acts as a brake on tendencies to a serious polarisation in relations between them as the US, of course, cannot ally against itself. In the interests of stability in the unitripolar world, it is important that the current US administration and its successors act internationally within multilateral frameworks and fora whenever possible. It is also, more specifically, in the Americans’ own interest to do so as this offers a strong guarantee against the prospect of other major powers seeking to form coalitions which would not be in the interests of the United States. In this context it is worth noting that both the putative Euro-Asia and Sino-Russian axes have had their roots in perceptions of American unilateralist tendencies. Much of the pressure from within the European Commission and amongst EU member states for the convening of the first Asia– Europe Meeting in 1996 sprang from West European irritation at apparent American unwillingness to negotiate seriously on specific world trade issues within the World Trade Organisation. In the Far East meanwhile Russian leaders were being quite explicit in stating that their interest in a rapprochement with the Chinese had grown in large measure from concerns about and irritation with US support for the expansion of NATO. The Chinese for their part were annoyed by what they saw as excessive and unreasonable American opposition to their accession to the WTO. If the United States does not continue to heed the virtues of the multilateral approach, there will be a danger of increasing international instability as other important countries seek to enhance their own status and power to balance that of the Americans. Under such circumstances a challenger or challengers to the US might appear, with potentially destabilising consequences. Some believe this to be inevitable anyway.19 The present authors do not. They do believe, however, that the interests of international stability into the next millennium will be best served by the winner of the Cold War refraining from trying to take all.

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Notes 1

POWER

1. J. M. Rothgeb, Defining Power – Force and Influence in the Contemporary International System, p. 17, St. Martin’s, New York (1993). 2. K. Knorr, Power and Wealth: the Political Economy of International Power, p. 75, Macmillan, London (1973). 3. S. P. Huntington, ‘Why International Primacy Matters’, International Security 17 (4), pp. 68–83 (1993). 4. E. Luttwak, ‘Where Are the Great Powers?’ Foreign Affairs 73 (4), pp. 23–8 (26) (1994). 5. See the useful tables, summarising the views of a number of leading academic thinkers, in C. W. Kegley & G. Raymond, A Multipolar Peace? Great Power Politics in the Twenty-First Century, pp. 14–15, St. Martin’s, New York (1994). 6. Luttwak, op. cit. 7. For a more detailed and widely cited basic definition of what constitutes international economic power, see R. O. Keohane, After Hegemony: Cooperation and Discord in the World Political Economy, pp. 32–4, Princeton University Press, Princeton (1984). 8. E. H. Carr, The Twenty Years’ Crisis 1919–1939, pp. 132ff., Macmillan, London (1970). 9. K. E. Boulding, Three Faces of Power, Sage, London (1990). 10. A. Wolfers, Discord and Collaboration, ch. 7, pp. 103 & 106. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore (1962). 11. For a definition of influence in this way, see A. Rubinstein (ed.), Soviet and Chinese Influence in the Third World, ch. 1, Praeger, New York (1975). 12. A. Fenton Cooper et al., ‘Bound to Follow? Leadership and Followership in the Gulf Conflict’, Political Science Quarterly 106 (3), pp. 391–410 (1991). 13. R. Gilpin, ‘The Theory of Hegemonic War’, Journal of Interdisciplinary History XVIII (4), pp. 591–613 (1988). For another ‘single hegemon’ argument, this time in the context of the world economic system, see C. P. Kindleberger, The World in Depression 1929–1939, ch. 14, especially p. 305, Allen Lane, London (1973). 14. Thucydides, ‘History of the Peloponnesian War’, in R. M. Hutchins (ed.), Great Books of the Western World: Herodotus, Thucydides, p. 353, para. 15, Encyclopedia Britannica, Chicago (1952). 15. Ibid., p. 369, para. 81. 16. Ibid., p. 353, para. 18. 17. L. M. Johnson Bagby, ‘The Use and Abuse of Thucydides in International Relations’, International Organization 48 (1), pp. 131–53 (153) (1994). 18. Thucydides, op. cit., p. 378, para. 120.

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19. R. W. Cox, ‘Gramsci, Hegemony and International Relations: an Essay in Method’, Millennium: Journal of International Studies 12 (2), pp. 162–75 (171) (1983). 20. See G. J. Ikenberry & C. A. Kupchan, ‘Socialization and Hegemonic Power’, International Organization 44 (3), pp. 283–315 (1990). 21. A. J. P. Taylor, The Struggle for Mastery in Europe 1848–1918, pp. XXIV & XXXII, Clarendon, Oxford (1960). 22. Carr, op. cit., p. 109. 23. M. van Creveld, On Future War, p. 219, Brassey’s, London (1991). 24. M. Howard, War in European History, p. 37, Oxford University Press, Oxford (1976). 25. Ibid., pp. 62ff. & pp. 99–103. 26. C. von Clausewitz, On War, pp. 118–19, Penguin, London (1982). 27. W. Lippmann, US Foreign Policy, pp. 5–6, Hamish Hamilton, London (1943). 28. For an example of its more recent usage see S. P. Huntington, ‘Coping with the Lippmann Gap’, Foreign Affairs 66 (3), pp. 453–77 (1987/8). 29. P. Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, p. 81, Fontana, London (1990). 30. Ibid., p. 193. 31. See, for example, T. C. Smith, ‘Political Reconstruction’, in A. W. Ward et al. (eds), The Cambridge Modern History: the United States, pp. 648–9, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (1934). 32. Kennedy, op. cit., p. 316. 33. C. Layne, ‘The Unipolar Illusion: Why New Great Powers Will Rise’, International Security 17 (4), pp. 25–8 (1993). 34. Kennedy, op. cit., p. 313. 35. C. Degler, Out of Our Past: the Forces That Shaped Modern America, pp. 494–5, Harper & Row, New York (1984). 36. Ibid., pp. 5 & 95. 37. Quoted in G. P. Gooch, History of Modern Europe 1878–1910, p. 297, Cassell, London (1923). 38. J. M. Roberts, The Penguin History of the World, ch. 11, pp. 506ff., Penguin, London (1995). J. Keegan, A History of Warfare, pp. 289–96, Hutchinson, London (1993). 39. N. Davies, Europe: a History, pp. 931–2, Oxford University Press, Oxford (1996). 40. H. A. Kissinger, Diplomacy, p. 80, Simon & Schuster, New York (1994). 41. See inter alia Degler, op. cit., pp. 118–19. 42. Quoted in W. Collinge, ‘The Great Powers in Modern Times’, in W. Collinge & W. Murray (eds), European History: Great Leaders and Landmarks, pp. 22–4 (23), Gresham, London (1915). 43. Leon Gambetta, quoted in Gooch, op. cit., p. 63. 44. W. F. Reddaway, A History of Europe from 1715 to 1814, ch. 8, Methuen, London (1961). 45. On the Concert system see R. Jervis, ‘From Balance to Concert: a Study of International Security Cooperation’, World Politics 38 (1), pp. 58–79 (1985). Also Kissinger, op. cit., ch. 4. 46. Quoted in Gooch, op. cit., p. 130. See also p. 143.

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47. Quoted in Taylor, op. cit., p. 239. 48. Quoted in Gooch, op. cit., p. 6. 49. P. Calvocoressi, Resilient Europe: a Study of the Years 1870–2000, p. 6, Longman, London (1991). 50. Taylor, op. cit., pp. 29–30. 2

THE TWO COLD WAR SUPERPOWERS

1. J. Dos Passos, USA, pp. 1155–61, Penguin, London (1981). 2. W. T. R. Fox, The Super-Powers. The United States, Britain and the Soviet Union: Their Responsibility for Peace, p. 21, Harcourt Brace, New York (1944). 3. W. T. R. Fox, ‘The Super-Powers Then and Now’, International Journal XXXV, pp. 417–36 (418) (1980). J. Nijman, The Geopolitics of Power and Conflict: Superpowers in the International System 1945–1992, p. 31, John Wiley, New York (1993). 4. C. Jonsson, Superpower: Comparing American and Soviet Foreign Policy, ch. 1, Pinter, London (1984). 5. The classic articulation of this view remains C. P. Kindleberger, The World in Depression 1929–1939, Allen Lane, London (1973). 6. Figures taken from Statistical Abstract of the United States 1994, p. 446. US Government Printing Office (hereafter USGPO), Washington D.C. (1994). 7. On this see S. May, ‘Measuring the Marshall Plan’, Foreign Affairs 26 (3), pp. 457–69 (462) (1948). 8. Foreign Relations of the United States [hereafter FRUS] 1950, vol. I, p. 199, USGPO (1977). 9. On the historical US global strategy see C. Layne & B. Schwarz, ‘American Hegemony: Without an Enemy’, Foreign Policy 92, pp. 5–23 (1993). 10. On this see L. C. Gardner, ‘Old Wine in New Bottles’, in C. Kegley (ed.), The Long Postwar Peace: Contending Explanations and Projections, pp. 125–46 (130), Harper Collins, New York (1991). 11. N. Davies, Europe: a History, p. 1063, Oxford University Press, Oxford (1996). 12. R. Jervis, ‘The Impact of the Korean War on the Cold War’, Journal of Conflict Resolution 24 (4), pp. 563–92 (1980). 13. H. W. Brands, The Devil We Knew: Americans and the Cold War, p. 36, Oxford University Press, Oxford (1993). 14. D. F. Fleming, The Cold War and Its Origins 1917–1960, p. 415, Doubleday, New York (1961). 15. S. M. Lipset, American Exceptionalism: a Double-Edged Sword, p. 31, W. W. Norton, New York (1996). 16. Department of State Bulletin 85 (2095), pp. 1–2 (1985). 17. R. Reagan, An American Life, p. 219, Arrow, London (1991). 18. US Statistical Abstract, op. cit., p. 352. 19. T. Sorensen, ‘Rethinking National Security’, Foreign Affairs 69 (3), pp. 1–18 (9) (1990). 20. In 1989 the NATO membership comprised the US plus Canada, the

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21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26.

27. 28.

29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37.

38.

39. 40.

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UK, France, the FRG, the Benelux countries, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Denmark, Norway, Iceland, Greece and Turkey. R. O. Keohane, ‘The Big Influence of Small Allies’, Foreign Policy 2, pp. 161–82 (163) (1971). T. Kivimaki, ‘Strength of Weakness: American-Indonesian Hegemonic Bargaining’, Journal of Peace Research 30 (4), pp. 391–408 (1993). FRUS 1947, vol. III, p. 228, USGPO (1972). For background see ‘East–West Trade in Europe’, The World Today V (iii), pp. 98–108 (106) (1949). See W. Diebold, ‘East–West Trade and the Marshall Plan’, Foreign Affairs 26 (4), pp. 709–22 (718) (1948). Quoted in G. Partos, The World That Came in from the Cold, p. 19, BBC Books, London (1993). For a good and concise historical overview of the issues and debates surrounding the Marshall Plan from the perspectives of European governments of the time, see D. Reynolds, ‘The European Response: Primacy of Politics’, Foreign Affairs 76 (3), pp. 171–84 (1997). See ‘The World America Created’, The Economist 24 December 1988, pp. 44–6 (45). The phrase was coined in G. Lundestad, ‘Empire by Invitation? The United States and Western Europe, 1945–1952’, Journal of Peace Research 23 (3), pp. 263–77 (1986). See also G. J. Ikenberry, ‘Rethinking the Origins of American Hegemony’, Political Science Quarterly 104 (3), pp. 375–400 (1989). See inter alia FRUS 1948, vol. III, pp. 11 & 287, USGPO (1974). FRUS 1949, vol. IV, pp. 485 & 491–3, USGPO (1975). Figures taken from E. C. Ravenal, ‘Europe without America: the Erosion of NATO’, Foreign Affairs 63 (5), pp. 1020–35 (1026) (1985). Fox (1980), op. cit., p. 434. C. Wiebes & B. Zeeman, ‘“I Don’t Need Your Handkerchiefs”: Holland’s Experience of Crisis Consultation in NATO’, International Affairs 66 (1), pp. 91–113 (98–9) (1990). Ibid., p. 101. See D. U. Stikker, ‘NATO and Its Smaller Members’, Orbis XIII (1), pp. 324–31 (328) (1969). Stikker was a former Secretary-General of NATO. D. Healey, The Time of My Life, pp. 431–2, Penguin, London (1990). H. Schmidt, ‘Saving the Western Alliance’, New York Review of Books 31 May 1984, pp. 25–7. For a thorough account of West European views and influence on the US during the Cuban crisis, see T. Risse-Kappen, Cooperation among Democracies: the European Influence on US Foreign Policy, ch. 6, Princeton University Press, Princeton (1995). This paragraph draws on information obtained in interviews with current and former senior NATO officials. For a good recent study tracing the evolution and significance of European influence in NATO, see Risse-Kappen, ibid., ch. 7. Quoted in Partos, op. cit., p. 117. Department of State Bulletin LXIX (1792), p. 529 (1973).

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41. D. P. Calleo, ‘NATO’s Middle Course’, Foreign Policy 69, pp. 135–47 (144) (1987/8). 42. P. Dibb, The Soviet Union: the Incomplete Superpower, Macmillan, London (1988). 43. M. Gorbachev, Memoirs, p. 215, Doubleday, London (1996). 44. J. L. Gaddis, The United States and the End of the Cold War, p. 5, Oxford University Press, Oxford (1992). 45. Nijman, op. cit., ch. 4. 46. A. Nove, An Economic History of the USSR, pp. 289–95, Penguin, London (1982). D. Volkogonov, Stalin: Triumph & Tragedy, p. 531, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London (1991). 47. Both quotes taken from A. Gromyko, Memories, pp. 122 & 197, Arrow, London (1989). 48. FRUS 1955–1957, vol. XIX, p. 640, USGPO (1990). For general background, see J. Mueller, Retreat from Doomsday: the Obsolescence of Major War, pp. 145–7, Basic Books, New York (1989). 49. For an introduction to the Cold War debates, see N. Graebner (ed.), The Cold War: Ideological Conflict or Power Struggle?, Heath, Lexington (1963). See also Dibb, op. cit., pp. 15–16, & P. Shearman, ‘Soviet Foreign Policy, 1917–1991’, in Shearman (ed.), Russian Foreign Policy since 1990, pp. 15–17, Boulder, Westview (1995). 50. S. Talbott (ed.), Khrushchev Remembers, p. 493, Andre Deutsch, London (1971). Although some have doubted the authenticity of this volume, which claims to be based on taped reminiscences by the former Soviet leader, it is today widely accepted as genuine. It is treated as being so in this study. 51. F. Burlatskiy, ‘The Lessons of Personal Diplomacy’, Problems of Communism XLI, pp. 9–11 (1992). 52. S. M. Miner, ‘How Close We Came’, Foreign Affairs 76 (4), pp. 142–6 (144) (1997). 53. On this, see Miner, ibid., p. 145. 54. Quoted in 24th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, p. 31, Novosti, Moscow (1971). 55. For the text of the Basic Principles agreement, see Pravda 30 May 1972. Translated in The Current Digest of the Soviet Press (hereafter CDSP) XXIV (22), pp. 22–3. For the text of the Soviet concluding commentary, see Pravda 2 June 1972. CDSP XXIV (22), p. 25. 56. For good general surveys of Soviet policy in the 1970s, see V. V. Aspaturian, ‘Soviet Global Power and the Correlation of Forces’, Problems of Communism XXIX (3), pp. 1–18 (1980); R. S. Litwak & S. N. MacFarlane, ‘Soviet Activism in the Third World’, Survival XXIX (1), pp. 21–39 (1987). 57. Cited in J. Nye, Bound to Lead: the Changing Nature of American Power, p. 116, Basic Books, New York (1991). 58. R. Legvold, ‘The Nature of Soviet Power’, Foreign Affairs 56 (1), pp. 49–71 (58) (1977). 59. On this see G. Sokoloff, ‘Sources of Soviet Power: Economy, Population, Resources’, in Prospects of Soviet Power in the 1980s, Part 1 (Adelphi Paper No. 151), pp. 30–6, IISS, London (1979).

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60. W. I. Robinson, Promoting Polyarchy: Globalization, US Intervention and Hegemony, pp. 320–3, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (1996). 61. Gorbachev’s memoirs convey the degree of importance which he and his reformist associates attached to participation in G7 meetings. See Gorbachev, op. cit., ch. 28. 62. Z. Brzezinski, ‘The Soviet Union: Her Aims, Problems and Challenges to the West’, in The Conduct of East–West Relations in the 1980s (Adelphi Paper No. 189), pp. 3–12 (9), IISS, London (1984). 63. A. V. Obolonsky, ‘Russian Politics in the Time of Troubles: Some Basic Antimonies’, in A. Saikal & W. Maley (eds), Russia in Search of Its Future, pp. 12–17, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (1995). F. Fukuyama, ‘The Modernizing Imperative: the USSR as an Ordinary Country’, The National Interest 31, pp. 10–18 (1993). 64. Pravda 8 December 1988. CDSP XL (49), p. 3 (1989). 65. S. Woodby, Gorbachev and the Decline of Ideology in Soviet Foreign Policy, p. 56, Westview, Boulder (1989). 66. Visit of Mikhail Gorbachev to France, p. 63, Novosti, Moscow (1989). 67. For the purposes of this analysis the Soviet sphere in Europe describes the non-Soviet member states of the Warsaw Pact: the German Democratic Republic, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, Bulgaria and Romania. 68. Talbott, op. cit., p. 370. The new archival evidence was presented and discussed in a BBC-TV documentary, Russia’s Secret War, broadcast in the UK on 21 January 1996. 69. On this, see Volkogonov, op. cit., pp. 536–7. 70. P. Calvocoressi, Resilient Europe: a Study of the Years 1870–2000, p. 95, Longman, London (1991). 71. M. Walker, The Cold War, p. 109, Fourth Estate, London (1993). 72. E. Moreton, ‘Foreign Policy Perspectives in Eastern Europe’, in K. Dawisha & P. Hanson (eds), Soviet–East European Dilemmas: Coercion, Competition and Consent, ch. 11, p. 178, Heinemann, London (1981). 73. Ibid., pp. 181–4. See also S. L. Sharp, ‘National Interest: Key to Soviet Politics’, in Graebner, op. cit., pp. 70–7 (75–6). 74. Talbott, op. cit., pp. 514–15. 75. Pravda 26 September 1968. CDSP XX (39), p. 10 (1968). 76. For evidence of this see the article which appeared under the name of Yuri Frantsev in Pravda 22 September 1968. CDSP XX (39), pp. 6–8. 77. On this see C. Gati, The Bloc That Failed: Soviet–East European Relations in Transition, pp. 85–7, I. B. Tauris, London (1990). Also M. Povolny, ‘The Soviet Union and the European Security Conference’, Orbis XVIII (1), pp. 201–30 (205–6, 209, 216) (1974). 78. Reynolds, op. cit., p. 182. 79. For background, see J. M. Kramer, ‘Soviet–CEMA Energy Ties’, Problems of Communism XXXIV, pp. 32–47 (1985). 80. Gati, op. cit., p. 120. See also Dibb, op. cit., pp. 228–9. 81. Kramer, op. cit., pp. 43–4, provides an example. 82. Ibid., pp. 32–3. 83. This definition is fleshed out in E. A. Kolodziej, ‘The Cold War as

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84. 85. 86. 87. 88. 89. 90. 91.

92.

3

187

Cooperation’, in R. E. Kanet & E. A. Kolodziej (eds), The Cold War as Cooperation: Superpower Cooperation in Regional Conflict Management, ch. 1, Macmillan, London (1991). R. E. Kanet, ‘Superpower Cooperation in Eastern Europe’, in Kanet & Kolodziej, op. cit., pp. 99–100. C. E. Bohlen, Witness to History 1929–1969, p. 413, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London (1973). Wiebes & Zeeman, op. cit., p. 102. Talbott, op. cit., p. 498. Ibid., pp. 497–8. Bohlen, op. cit., pp. 283–5 (Berlin) & pp. 349–52 (Korea). See FRUS 1955–1957, vol. XVI, pp. 156–60, USGPO (1990). For a useful general overview of US–Soviet tacit co-operation and attempts to manage relations amongst the smaller powers in the Middle East, see G. Golan, ‘Superpower Cooperation in the Middle East’, in Kanet & Kolodziej, op. cit., ch. 5. The best-known academic argument along these lines is J. Mearsheimer, ‘Back to the Future: Instability in Europe after the Cold War’, International Security 15 (1), pp. 5–56 (1990). THE UNITED STATES: CAJOLER OR CONTROLLER?

1. ‘War of the Worlds: a Survey of the Global Economy’, The Economist 1 October 1994, p. 4. ‘The New World Order’, The Economist 8 January 1994, p. 23. 2. M. Walker, ‘Present at the Solution: Madeleine Albright’s Ambitious Foreign Policy’, World Policy Journal XIV (1), pp. 1–10 (9) (1997). See also ‘Brave New World?’ Financial Times 9 September 1997. 3. Economic Survey of the United States, November 1997. OECD website www.oecd.org – unpaginated. 4. ‘Japan’s Economic Plight’, The Economist 20 June 1998, p. 24. 5. See C. Layne & B. Schwarz, ‘American Hegemony: Without an Enemy’, Foreign Policy 92, pp. 5–23 (1993). Also S. P. Huntington, ‘America’s Changing Strategic Interests’, Survival XXXIII (1), pp. 11–13 (1991). 6. Text in US Department of State Dispatch (hereafter USDSD) 4 (9), pp. 115–16 (1993). 7. ‘Containing China’, The Economist 29 July 1995, p. 13. For an argument that Clinton was trying to change traditional foreign policy culture, see M. Cox, US Foreign Policy after the Cold War, ch. 3, Pinter, London (1995). 8. USDSD 4 (4), p. 46 (1993). 9. J. Bhagwati, ‘The US–Japan Car Dispute: a Monumental Mistake’, International Affairs 72 (2), pp. 261–79 (276) (1996). 10. Statement by President Clinton Concerning Implementation of the Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act, 16 July 1996, US Information Service website www.usembassy.org.uk.ukusis.html – unpaginated. 11. Briefing Given in Washington on Clinton Administration Position on EU’s WTO Challenge to the Libertad Act, 20 February 1997, US Information

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Service website www.usembassy.org.uk.ukusis.html – unpaginated. 12. Iran and Libya Sanctions Act (ILSA): Decision in the South Pars Case, US State Department Website www.state.gov – unpaginated. 13. House Foreign Affairs Committee, The Future of US Foreign Policy, Part I: Regional Issues, p. 121, US Government Printing Office (hereafter USGPO), Washington D.C. (1993). 14. See, for example, ‘A Prussian in the White House’, Financial Times 21 February 1994 & ‘Uncle Sam, Salesman’, Financial Times 16 May 1994. 15. Figures from ‘Priorities in World Trade’, Financial Times 28 April 1995. 16. See, for example, R. D. Hormats, ‘Making Regionalism Safe’, Foreign Affairs 73 (2), pp. 97–108 (1994). ‘WTO Chief Fears Wave of Protectionism’, Financial Times 7 July 1995. ‘Ruggiero Plea for US Faith in Multilateralism’, Financial Times 17 October 1995. ‘Brittan Urges US to Stop Use of Unilateral Trade Pressure’, Financial Times 20 March 1996. 17. ‘Geneva’s Trade Convention’, The Economist 23 May 1998, pp. 20–1. 18. On US problems with EU–Asia ties, see G. Hufbauer & J. Schott, ‘Toward Free Trade and Investment in the Asia-Pacific’, The Washington Quarterly 18 (3), pp. 44–5 (1995). 19. R. J. Art, ‘A US Military Strategy for the 1990s: Reassurance without Dominance’, Survival 34 (4), pp. 3–23 (7) (1992/3). 20. 75 per cent of US tactical aircraft and 40 per cent of its tanks. See ‘On Top of the World?’ The Economist 9 March 1991, p. 15. 21. P. Kennedy, ‘The American Prospect’, The New York Review of Books 4 March 1993, p. 42. 22. R. Steel, Temptations of a Superpower, pp. 52–62, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass. (1995). 23. See, for example, J. Clarke, ‘Leaders and Followers’, Foreign Policy 101, pp. 37–51 (46) (1995/6). 24. For the defence budget comparisons see M. Walker, ‘The New American Hegemony’, World Policy Journal XIII (2), pp. 13–21 (13) (1996). For the Shalikashvili statement, see Walker, ‘Present at the Solution’, p. 2. 25. See ‘US Strategy Plan Calls for Insuring No Rivals Develop’, New York Times 8 March 1992. 26. ‘Pentagon Drops Goal of Blocking New Superpowers’, New York Times 24 May 1992. See also A. R. Coll, ‘America as the Grand Facilitator’, Foreign Policy 87, pp. 47–65 (51) (1992). 27. M. Danner, ‘Marooned in the Cold War: America, the Alliance and the Quest for a Vanished World’, World Policy Journal XIV (3), pp. 3–4 (1997). 28. On this see A. Tonelson, ‘Superpower without a Sword’, Foreign Affairs 72 (3), pp. 166–80 (1993). A. H. Cordesman, US Defence Policy: Resources and Capabilities, RUSI, London (1994). 29. USDSD 5 (20), p. 315 (1994). 30. ‘On Top of the World?’ The Economist 9 March 1991, p. 15. 31. On this, see: P. G. Cerny, ‘Political Entropy and American Decline’,

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32.

33. 34. 35. 36. 37.

38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47.

48. 49.

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Millennium: Journal of International Studies 18 (1), pp. 47–63 (1989); and D. P. Calleo, ‘America’s Federal Nation State: a Crisis of PostImperial Viability?’ Political Studies 42, pp. 16–33 (1994). See also S. P. Huntington, ‘The Erosion of American National Interests’, Foreign Affairs 76 (5), pp. 28–49 (1997). On these issues, see, for example: R. D. Hormats, ‘The Roots of American Power’, Foreign Affairs 70 (3), pp. 130–49 (1991); and D. Gergen, ‘How is America Changing?’ in America’s Role in a Changing World (Adelphi Paper No. 257), pp. 11–14, IISS, London (1990/91). J. S. Nye, Bound to Lead: the Changing Nature of American Power, pp. 14–16 & 219–30, Basic Books, New York (1991). J. E. Spence, ‘Entering the Future Backwards: Some Reflections on the Current International Scene’, Review of International Studies 20 (1), pp. 11–12 (1994). Z. Khalilzad, ‘Losing the Moment? The United States and the World after the Cold War’, The Washington Quarterly 18 (2), pp. 87–107 (104) (1995). C. W. Maynes, ‘“Principled” Hegemony’, World Policy Journal XIV (3), pp. 31–6 (1997). K. Mahbubani, ‘The United States: “Go East Young Man”’, The Washington Quarterly 17 (2), pp. 5–23 (1994). See also S. P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, pp. 107–9, Simon & Schuster, New York (1996). USDSD 4 (39), pp. 658–9 (1993). Ibid., p. 663. For an outline of the Clinton typology, see A National Security Strategy of Engagement and Enlargement, p. 12, USGPO (1995). By Henry Kissinger amongst others. See his article ‘At Sea in a New World’, Newsweek 6 June 1994, pp. 6–8 (7). S. J. Del Rosso, ‘The Insecure State: Reflections on “the State” and “Security” in a Changing World’, Daedalus 124 (2), p. 195 (1995). R. N. Haass, ‘Paradigm Lost’, Foreign Affairs 74 (1), pp. 43–58 (1995). M. Mandelbaum, ‘Foreign Policy as Social Work’, Foreign Affairs 75 (1), pp. 16–32 (1996). For an insightful and balanced assessment of the formulation of the new doctrine see D. Brinkley, ‘Democratic Enlargement: the Clinton Doctrine’, Foreign Policy 106, pp. 111–27 (1997). As has Martin Walker. See Walker, ‘New American Hegemony’, p. 17. For examples of this kind of analysis of US foreign policy and international activity overall, see: W. Robinson, Promoting Polyarchy: Globalization, US Intervention and Hegemony, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (1996); and N. Chomsky, World Orders, Old and New, Pluto, London (1997). M. E. Hunt, Ideology and US Foreign Policy, chs 1–4, Yale University Press, New Haven (1987). K. Sikkink, ‘The Power of Principled Ideas: Human Rights Policies in the United States and Western Europe’, in J. Goldstein & R. O. Keohane (eds), Ideas and Foreign Policy, ch. 6, Cornell University Press, Ithaca (1993).

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50. H. Molineu, US Policy toward Latin America: From Regionalism to Globalism, p. 10, Westview, Boulder (1990). 51. Ibid., pp. 39–41. 52. A. Hurrell, ‘Latin America in the New World Order: a Regional Bloc of the Americas?’ International Affairs 68 (1), pp. 121–39 (130) (1992). See also R. A. Pastor, ‘The Latin American Option’, Foreign Policy 88, pp. 107–25 (1992). 53. USDSD 6 (5), pp. 57–8 (1995). 54. US Credibility at Stake in Haiti Moves, Lake Says, p. 5, US Information Service, London (1994). 55. Haass, op. cit., pp. 54–5. 56. See the two articles ‘Meet Jimmy Clinton’ and ‘Tangled in Haiti’, The Economist 24 September 1994, pp. 13–14. 57. See Hurrell, op. cit., pp. 127–8. Also P. Krugman, ‘The Uncomfortable Truth about NAFTA: It’s Foreign Policy, Stupid’, Foreign Affairs 72 (5), pp. 13–19 (1993). 58. M. Naim, ‘Latin America the Morning After’, Foreign Affairs 74 (4), pp. 45–61 (58) (1995). 59. See F. Pena, ‘New Approaches to Economic Integration in the Southern Cone’, The Washington Quarterly 18 (3), pp. 113–22 (21) (1995). Also ‘The Mirage That Won’t Go Away’, The Economist 10 May 1997, p. 70. 60. M. D. Hayes, ‘The US and Latin America: a Lost Decade?’, Foreign Affairs 68 (1), pp. 187–9 (1988/9). A. Lowenthal, ‘Rediscovering Latin America’, Foreign Affairs 69 (4), pp. 27–41 (29) (1990). 61. C. Layne, ‘Superpower Disengagement’, Foreign Policy 77, pp. 17–40 (21) (1989/90). 62. H. A. Kissinger, White House Years, p. 426, Little Brown, Boston (1979). 63. S. P. Huntington, ‘The US: Decline or Renewal?’ Foreign Affairs 67 (2), pp. 76–96 (93) (1988/9). 64. P. R. S. Gebhard, The United States and European Security (Adelphi Paper No. 286), p. 25, IISS, London (1994). 65. ‘US Warns Trade Dispute Could Imperil NATO’, The Independent 10 February 1992 (Quayle). ‘Trade Dispute Threatens the West’s Security Says Quayle’, Daily Telegraph same date (Lugar). 66. USDSD 4 (44), p. 762 (1993). 67. K. Tong, ‘Revolutionizing America’s Japan Policy’, Foreign Policy 105, pp. 107–14 (115) (1996/7). For a similar argument with regard to the US and NATO, see G. Lundestad, The American ‘Empire’, p. 79, Oxford University Press, Oxford (1990). 68. Quoted in ‘GATT Deal “Vital to US Link with Europe”’, The Independent 4 December 1993. 69. The New Transatlantic Agenda; Joint US–EU Action Plan, p. 9, US Information Service, London (1995). 70. House Foreign Affairs Committee, The NATO Summit and the Future of European Security, p. 2, USGPO (1994). 71. On the Big Emerging Markets, see J. Stremlau, ‘Clinton’s Dollar Diplomacy’, Foreign Policy 97, pp. 18–35 (1994/5). 72. For an edited English-language translation of the leaked memoran-

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73. 74. 75. 76. 77.

78. 79. 80. 81.

82.

83.

84. 85. 86. 87. 88. 89. 90. 91.

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dum, see ‘Cracks Are Appearing in the Alliance’, Financial Times 2 December 1994. Text in Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents 31 (48), p. 2062, USGPO (1995). J. Hillen, ‘Superpowers Don’t Do Windows’, Orbis 41 (2), pp. 241–57 (250) (1997). R. Rotberg, ‘Clinton Was Right’, Foreign Policy 102, pp. 135–41 (141) (1996). J. A. Baker, ‘America in Asia: Emerging Architecture for a Pacific Community’, Foreign Affairs 70 (5), pp. 3–4 (1991/2). J. Kelly, ‘US Security Policies in East Asia: Fighting Erosion and Finding a New Balance’, The Washington Quarterly 18 (3), pp. 31–4 (1995). G. C. Hurst, ‘The US–Japanese Alliance at Risk’, Orbis 41 (1), pp. 69–76 (1997). ‘Clinton Is Warned of Policy Flop in Asia’, Daily Telegraph 6 June 1994. For an insightful discussion of shifts in US policy during 1994, see H. Harding, ‘Asia Policy on the Brink’, Foreign Policy 96, pp. 57–74 (1994). ‘Greeting the Dragon’, The Economist 25 October 1997, pp. 17–18. During the Cold War period the members of ASEAN were Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. Vietnam became the seventh member in 1995 and Laos and Burma (Myanmar) joined in 1997. Cambodia’s accession was deferred in 1997 due to political instability in that country. See ‘ASEAN Given Initiative over Burma’, Financial Times 28 July 1997 & ‘US Starts to Dance in Tune with ASEAN Music’, Financial Times 30 July 1997. See also ‘Don’t Shout, I’m from ASEAN’, The Economist 26 July 1997, p. 66. For an example of the first argument, see ‘ASEAN’s Failure’, The Economist 28 February 1998, pp. 73–4. For the latter perspective, see J. T. Almonte, ‘Ensuring Security the “ASEAN Way”’, Survival 39 (4), pp. 80–92 (1997/8). D. P. Rapkin, ‘Japan and World Leadership?’ in Rapkin (ed.), World Leadership and Hegemony, p. 199. Lynne Rienner, Boulder (1990). ‘Hashimoto Designs a Grander Foreign Policy’, Financial Times 14 January 1997. See also ‘Not So Fast’, The Economist 18 January 1997, p. 67. Almonte, op. cit., p. 82. M. M. May, ‘Japan as a Superpower?’ International Security 18 (3), p. 186 (1993/4). See Ozawa’s article, ‘Reforming Japan’, The Economist 9 March 1996, pp. 19–21 (21). ‘Japan and US Struggle with Resentment’, New York Times 3 December 1991. T. U. Berger, ‘From Sword to Chrysanthemum: Japan’s Culture of Anti-Militarism’, International Security 17 (4), pp. 119–50 (131) (1993). See, for example, ‘East Asia’s Wobbles’, The Economist 23 December 1995, p. 82.

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92. On the impact of the North Korean crisis, see C. W. Hughes, ‘The North Korean Nuclear Crisis and Japanese Security’, Survival 38 (2), pp. 79–103 (1996). On the impact of Chinese bullishness, see M. J. Green & B. L. Self, ‘Japan’s Changing China Policy: From Commercial Liberalism to Reluctant Realism’, Survival 38 (2), pp. 42–5 (1996). 93. On these guidelines, see ‘A Sense of Security’ and ‘Can Japan Be Asia’s Policeman?’ The Economist 14 June 1997, pp. 16 & 81–2. 94. M. Mochizuki & M. O’Hanlon, ‘A Liberal Vision for the US–Japanese Alliance’, Survival 40 (2), pp. 129–30 (1998). 95. ‘ASEAN’s Failure’, The Economist 8 February 1998, p. 74. 96. For details and analysis of the IMF’s role in responding to the Asian crisis, see S. D. Sharma, ‘Asia’s Economic Crisis and the IMF’, Survival 40 (2), pp. 27–52 (1998). 97. See ‘Japan Presses Ahead with Regional Rescue Plan’, Financial Times 23 September 1997 & ‘An Asian IMF?’ The Economist 27 September 1997, p. 114. For an exploration of traditional Japanese policy, see K. E. Calder, ‘Japanese Foreign Economic Policy Formation: Explaining the Reactive State’, World Politics XL (4), pp. 517–41 (1988). 98. For a sampling of recent assessments and analysis of the Chinese economy and its prospects, see: ‘How Poor Is China?’ The Economist 12 October 1996, pp. 79–81; ‘China’s Economy “to Overtake US”’, Financial Times 22 April 1997; ‘China “Heading to Be Biggest Economy”’, Financial Times 7 August 1997; ‘China’s Next Steps’, The Economist 13 September 1997, pp. 23–6. 99. For two different views, see the successive articles: R. S. Ross, ‘Enter the Dragon’, Foreign Policy 104, pp. 18–25 (1996); & G. Mastel, ‘Beijing at Bay’, Foreign Policy 104, pp. 27–34 (1996). See also D. Wall, ‘China as a Trade Partner: Threat or Opportunity for the OECD?’ International Affairs 72 (2), pp. 329–44 (1996). 100. Kantor quote: ‘China “Fails to Make WTO Grade”’, Financial Times 23 October 1995. Chinese response: ‘A Great Leap Forward?’ The Economist 25 November 1995, p. 22. See also N. Chomsky, World Orders, Old and New, pp. 175–6, Pluto, London (1997). 101. Ross, op. cit., pp. 23–4. 102. On this, see: M. Oksenberg, ‘The China Problem’, Foreign Affairs 70 (3), pp. 1–16 (9) (1991); J. L. Domenach, ‘The Loosening of China’, in Z. Laiedi (ed.), Power and Purpose after the Cold War, ch. 6, p. 138, Berg, Oxford (1994). 103. See: J. M. Roberts, The Penguin History of the World, pp. 128–42 & 442–8, Penguin, London (1995); & L. W. Pye, ‘China: Erratic State, Frustrated Society’, Foreign Affairs 69 (4), pp. 56–74 (1990). 104. Good on these arguments is J. A. Goldstone, ‘The Coming Chinese Collapse’, Foreign Policy 99, pp. 35–52 (1995). 105. G. Segal, China Changes Shape: Regionalism and Foreign Policy (Adelphi Paper No. 287), IISS, London (1994). See also: ‘China’s Feuding Regions’, The Economist 20 April 1996, pp. 63–4; ‘China’s Rebellious West’, The Economist 15 February 1997, pp. 69–70; ‘China’s Rebellious Province’, The Economist 23 August 1997, pp. 49–50. For a questioning of Segal’s views on growing economic disparities, see Y. Huang,

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‘Why China Will Not Collapse’, Foreign Policy 99, pp. 54–68 (1995). 106. For arguments along these lines, see: Almonte, op. cit., pp. 83–4; L. M. Wortzel, ‘China Pursues Traditional Great Power Status’, Orbis 38 (2), pp. 157–75 (1994); D. Roy, ‘Hegemon on the Horizon? China’s Threat to East Asian Security’, International Security 19 (1), pp. 149– 68 (1994); R. Bernstein & R. H. Munro, ‘The Coming Conflict with America’, Foreign Affairs 76 (2), pp. 18–32 (1997). 107. K. W. Kim, ‘Maintaining Asia’s Current Peace’, Survival 39 (4), pp. 52–64 (56) (1997/8). 108. M. G. Gallagher, ‘China’s Illusory Threat to the South China Sea’, International Security 19 (1), pp. 169–94 (1994). R. S. Ross, ‘Beijing as a Conservative Power’, Foreign Affairs 76 (2), pp. 35–8 (1997). 109. J. S. Nye, ‘China’s Re-emergence and the Future of the Asia-Pacific’, Survival 39 (4), pp. 65–79 (70) (1997/8). For Nye’s views on the increasing importance of information technology as a source of power, see J. S. Nye & W. A. Owens, ‘America’s Information Edge’, Foreign Affairs 75 (2), pp. 20–36 (1996). 110. ‘Clinton in China’, The Economist 27 June 1998, p. 25. 111. ‘Japan Seeks Better Links with China’, Financial Times 19 March 1994. ‘Concern as Japan Surplus Crosses Pacific’, Financial Times 20 April 1994. ‘Japan in the Balance’, Financial Times 3 September 1997. 112. See ‘US Seeks Closer Economic Ties with EU’, Financial Times 19 December 1994. 113. On the diverse factors listed here, see: R. Horlemann, ‘Japan’s Changing Policy on China’, Aussenpolitik 46 (iv), p. 390 (1995); D. Roy, ‘Assessing the Asia–Pacific “Power Vacuum”’, Survival 37 (3), p. 55 (1995); ‘Japan’s Unspoken Fears’, The Economist 7 October 1995, pp. 93–4; T. J. Christensen, ‘Chinese Realpolitik’, Foreign Affairs 75 (5), pp. 37–52 (1996); ‘Japan’s War with China, Revisited’, The Economist 6 September 1997, pp. 73–4. 114. G. Segal, ‘The Coming Confrontation between China and Japan?’ World Policy Journal X (2), pp. 27–32 (1993). See also ‘Asia’s New Great Game’, The Independent 18 January 1994. 115. F. Lewis, ‘The “G7 12” Directorate’, Foreign Policy 85, pp. 34–5 (1991/2). 116. C. W. Kegley & G. Raymond, A Multipolar Peace? Great Power Politics in the Twenty-First Century, pp. 195–6, St. Martin’s, New York (1994). 117. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Relations in a Multipolar World, p. 185, USGPO (1990). 4

SUCCEEDING THE SOVIET UNION 1. These are Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, Moldova, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. 2. Nezavisimaya Gazeta 1 April 1992. Translated in The Current Digest of the Post-Soviet Press (hereafter CDPSP) XLIV (13), p. 4 (1992). 3. M. Webber, The International Politics of Russia and the Successor States, pp. 108–9, Manchester University Press, Manchester (1996).

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4. Izvestia 4 January 1992. CDPSP XLIV (1), p. 23 (1992). 5. See, for example, A. Kozyrev, ‘Russia: a Chance for Survival’, Foreign Affairs 71 (2), pp. 1–16 (1992). 6. Izvestia 11 March 1994. CDPSP XLVI (10), p. 2 (1994). 7. J. Sherr, Russian Great Power Ideology: Sources and Implications, Conflict Studies Research Centre (hereafter CSRC), Camberley (1996). 8. S. Stankevich, ‘Russia in Search of Itself’, The National Interest 28, pp. 47–51 (1992). See also Nezavisimaya Gazeta 28 March 1992. CDPSP XLIV (13), pp. 1–4 (1992). For an assessment of Eurasianist ideas see G. Dijkink, National Identity and Geopolitical Visions, ch. 8, Routledge, London (1996). 9. Kozyrev, op. cit., p. 14. 10. Kozyrev, CDSP XLIV (13), p. 5 (1992). 11. J. F. Matlock, ‘Dealing with a Russia in Turmoil’, Foreign Affairs 75 (3), pp. 38–51 (47) (1996). 12. ‘Army Cuts “Threaten Russia’s Security”’, Daily Telegraph 17 March 1994. More generally, see B. D. Taylor, ‘Russian Civil-Military Relations after the October Uprising’, Survival 36 (1), pp. 3–29 (1994). 13. J. Sherr, Russia Returns to Europe, CSRC, Camberley (1994). 14. Kozyrev, CDSP XLIV (13), p. 5 (1992). See also: S. J. Blank, Towards the Failing State: the Structure of Russian Security Policy, CSRC, Camberley (1996); S. Garnett, ‘Russia’s Illusory Ambitions’, Foreign Affairs 76 (2), pp. 64–5 (1997). 15. See the report in Nezavisimaya Gazeta 29 April 1993. CDPSP XLV (17), pp. 13–15 (1993). 16. Izvestia 24 February 1994. CDPSP XLVI (8), p. 29 (1994). See also: J. Sherr, ‘Doomed to Remain a Great Power’, The World Today 52 (1), pp. 9–10 (1996); & Webber, op. cit., pp. 260–7. 17. Nezavisimaya Gazeta 31 December 1994. CDPSP XLVII (1), p. 23 (1995). 18. S. R. Covington, Moscow’s Insecurity and Eurasian Instability, CSRC, Camberley (1994). M. Gorbachev, Memoirs, p. 688, Doubleday, London (1996). 19. S. Crow, ‘Why Has Russian Foreign Policy Changed?’ RFE/RL Research Report (hereafter RFE/RL) 3 (18), pp. 1–6 (1994). 20. M. Danner, ‘Marooned in the Cold War: America, the Alliance, and the Quest for a Vanished World’, World Policy Journal XIV (3), pp. 1–23 (5) (1997). For a sample of Western analysis of the Russian military’s difficulties see: J. Erickson, ‘Fallen from Grace: the New Russian Military’, World Policy Journal X (2), pp. 19–24 (1993); C. J. Dick, A Bear without Claws: the Russian Army in the Nineties, CSRC, Camberley (1996); T. R. W. Waters, Crime in the Russian Military, CSRC, Camberley (1996); M. J. Orr, The Current State of the Russian Armed Forces, CSRC, Camberley (1996). 21. For a sample of views on the state of and prospects for the Russian economy see: A. Kennaway, An Economy of Russia in June 1994, CSRC, Camberley (1994); A. Aslund, ‘Russia’s Success Story’, Foreign Affairs 73 (5), pp. 58–71 (1994); A. Stent, ‘Russia’s Economic Revolution and the West’, Survival 37 (1), pp. 121–43 (1995). ‘Russia Five Years On’, The Economist 24 June 1995, pp. 43–4; ‘In Search of Spring: a Survey

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22.

23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36.

37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42.

43.

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of Russia’, The Economist 12 July 1997, pp. 3–18; D. Remnick, ‘Can Russia Change?’ Foreign Affairs 76 (1), pp. 35–49 (1997). For a sampling of Russian and Western views during this period see: Nezavisimaya Gazeta 13 May 1998 (CDPSP 50 [19], pp. 6–7 [1998]); Izvestia 9 June 1998 (CDPSP 50 [25], pp. 7–9 [1998]); ‘The Price of an Icon’ & ‘Russia’s Crisis’, The Economist 11 July 1998, pp. 15–16 & 21–5. D. W. Blum, ‘Conclusion’ in Blum (ed.), Russia’s Future: Consolidation or Disintegration? p. 147, Westview, Boulder (1994). A. Rubinstein, ‘The Geopolitical Pull on Russia’, Orbis 38 (4), pp. 567–83 (571) (1994). M. Smith, Pax Russica: Russia’s Monroe Doctrine, RUSI, London (1993). See A. Sheehy, ‘Commonwealth of Independent States: an Uneasy Compromise’, RFE/RL 1 (2), pp. 1–5 (2) (1992). On this see ‘Trick or Treaty?’ The Economist 30 March 1996, pp. 43–9. See M. A. Smith, Russia and the Near Abroad, pp. 9–10, CSRC, Camberley (1997). Also ‘Yeltsin Floats Idea of Merger with Belarus’, Financial Times 14 January 1997. Sevodnya 16 September 1993. CDPSP XLV (37), p. 22 (1993). ‘An Interview with Russian Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev’, RFE/ RL 3 (28), p. 38 (1994). Webber, op.cit., p. 176. See also: Izvestia 18 February 1994. CDSP XLVI (7), p. 25 (1994); ‘New States Are Finding Russian Embrace Tough to Resist’, Wall Street Journal 2 March 1995. In support of this view, see: M. Smith, ‘Anchoring Russia’, The RUSI Journal 137 (2), p. 31 (1992); ‘Russia Resurgent’, The Economist 4 December 1993, p. 17. Izvestia 30 June 1992. CDPSP XLIV (26), p. 4 (1992). S. Crow, ‘Russian Federation Faces Foreign Policy Dilemmas’, RFE/ RL 1 (10), pp. 15–19 (1992). Izvestia 26 June 1992. CDPSP XLIV (26), p. 20 (1992). Nezavisimaya Gazeta 30 July 1992. CDPSP XLIV (30), p. 8 (1992). For more on Shelov’s views, see J. Lough, Defining Russia’s Role in the ‘Near Abroad’, pp. 6–9, Soviet Studies Research Centre, Camberley (1993). Izvestia 7 July 1992. CDPSP XLIV (27), pp. 10–11 (1992). Rossiiskaya Gazeta 4 August 1992. CDPSP XLIV (32), pp. 1–4 (1992). Quoted in ‘Peacekeeping: Russia’s Special Role’, RUSI Newsbrief 13 (4), p. 25 (1993). C. J. Dick, The Military Doctrine of the Russian Federation, p. 5, CSRC, Camberley (1993). This monograph includes a condensed translation of the published text of the doctrine document. See the interview with Kozyrev, ‘Caging Russia’s Monsters’, Newsweek 14 February 1994, p. 56. Kozyrev’s remarks are reprinted in ‘Fate of the Russian-Speaking Population of CIS and Baltic Countries’, International Affairs (Moscow) 6, pp. 107–15 (113–14) (1995). On reaction in Russia see Izvestia 20 April 1995. CDPSP XLVII (16), pp. 15–16 (1995). The arguments made in this paragraph and the ones which follow

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44. 45. 46. 47. 48.

49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63.

64.

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draw substantially on the authors’ earlier work. See K. J. Aldred & M. A. Smith, ‘Imperial Ambition, Humanitarian Concern, or What?: Russia and its “Near Abroad”’, Journal of Humanitarian Assistance (website journal: www-jha.sps.cam.ac.uk/a/a004.htm.). See R. Krickus, ‘Latvia’s “Russian Question”’, RFE/RL 2 (18), p. 30 (1993). Izvestia 10 July 1993. CDPSP XLV (28), p. 24 (1993). Kozyrev, ‘Fate’, p. 109. S. Marnie & W. Slater, ‘Russia’s Refugees’, RFE/RL 2 (37), p. 49 (1993). M. Webber, ‘Coping with Anarchy: Ethnic Conflict and International Organisations in the Former Soviet Union’, p. 42. Paper presented to the annual conference of the British International Studies Association, December 1995. Rubinstein, op. cit., p. 573. T. Goltz, ‘The Hidden Russian Hand’, Foreign Policy 92, pp. 92–116 (1993). Izvestia 26 February 1993. CDPSP XLV (9), p. 27 (1993). ‘The Threat That Was’, The Economist 28 August 1993, p. 19. M. B. Olcott, ‘Sovereignty and the “Near Abroad”’, Orbis 39 (3), pp. 353–67 (1995). A. Tsipko, ‘A New Russian Identity or Old Russia’s Reintegration?’ Security Dialogue 25 (4), pp. 443–55 (443) (1994). Rubinstein, op. cit., p. 573. Izvestia 16 September 1993. CDPSP XLV (37), p. 23 (1993). ‘Great Russia Revives’, The Economist 18 September 1993, p. 41. Sevodnya 28 September 1993. CDPSP XLV (39), p. 27 (1993). P. Shearman, ‘Russian Policy toward the United States’, in Shearman (ed.), Russian Foreign Policy since 1990, p. 113, Westview, Boulder (1995). Quoted in M. Smith, Russia and the USA, p. 2, CSRC, Camberley (1994). On Soviet-era concerns see V. V. Aspaturian, ‘Soviet Global Power and the Correlation of Forces’, Problems of Communism XXIX (3), pp. 5–9 (1980). ‘No Sensible Choice But a True US–Russia Partnership’, International Herald Tribune 19 March 1994. A. Kozyrev, ‘The Lagging Partnership’, Foreign Affairs 73 (3), pp. 59–71 (63) (1994). G. Arbatov, ‘A New Cold War?’, Foreign Policy 95, p. 96 (1994). See M. Smith, Chechnya and the Yeltsin Presidency, p. 3, CSRC, Camberley (1995). N. Chomsky, World Orders, Old and New, pp. 153–4, Pluto, London (1997). S. N. MacFarlane, ‘Russia, the West and European Security’, Survival 35 (3), pp. 3–25 (20) (1993). For Cohen see House Foreign Affairs Committee, The Future of US Foreign Policy, Part I: Regional Issues, pp. 213–4, US Government Printing Office, Washington D.C. (1993). Pravda 7 August 1993. CDPSP XLV (32), p. 21 (1993). Krasnaya Zvezda 10 August 1993. CDPSP XLV (33), pp. 10–11. See also ‘Directive 13: Clinton’s New Russia Policy’, RUSI Newsbrief 13 (10), pp. 75–6 (1993).

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65. On the nature of what was on offer see E. Mortimer, European Security after the Cold War (Adelphi Paper No. 271), pp. 25–6, IISS, London (1992). 66. Remarks by the President in Live Telecast to Russian People, White House Office of the Press Secretary – website text – www.whitehouse.gov/ WTH/html/briefroom.html – unpaginated. 67. Z. Brzezinski, ‘The Premature Partnership’, Foreign Affairs 73 (2), pp. 67–82 (70) (1994). 68. See, for example, ‘Toward the Brezhnev Doctrine’, The Wall Street Journal 24 January 1994. ‘The West Underwrites Russian Imperialism’, The Wall Street Journal 7 February 1994. 69. US Department of State Dispatch 5 (14), p. 191 (1994). 70. Ibid. 6 (10), pp. 175–6. 71. See, for example, L. Buszynski, ‘Russia and the West: Towards Renewed Geopolitical Rivalry?’ Survival 37 (3), pp. 104–25 (1995). 72. Quoted in Nezavisimaya Gazeta 16 March 1994. CDPSP XLVI (11), p. 28 (1994). 73. For good general background on Russia’s Cuba policy see Y. Pavlov, ‘Russian Policy toward Latin America and Cuba’, in Shearman, Russian Foreign Policy, pp. 257–64. 74. Sevodnya 12 November 1994. CDPSP XLVI (45), pp. 23–4 (1994). 75. Sevodnya 13 & 17 October 1995. Both in CDPSP XLVII (42), pp. 6–7 (1995). 76. For an abbreviated version of the text of Gorbachev’s lengthy speech see Pravda 29 July 1986. CDSP XXXVIII (30), pp. 1–8 (1986). On Soviet follow-up see S. W. Simon, ‘Superpower Cooperation in Southeast Asia’, in R. E. Kanet & E. A. Kolodziej (eds), The Cold War as Cooperation, pp. 352–4, Macmillan, London (1991). 77. Rossiiskaya Gazeta 6 August 1992. CDPSP XLIV (31), p. 16 (1992). 78. On this see M. Applegate, Siberia and the Russian Far East, CSRC, Camberley (1994). 79. Quoted in Sevodnya 30 July 1993. CDPSP XLV (30), p. 22 (1993). 80. See C. Harada, Russia and North-East Asia (Adelphi Paper No. 310), pp. 62–5, IISS, London (1997). 81. Izvestia 26 March 1994. CDPSP XLVI (12), p. 26 (1994). Izvestia 9 November 1994. CDPSP XLVI (45), p. 22 (1994). 82. For background and discussion see R. Menon, ‘Japan–Russia Relations and North-East Asian Security’, Survival 38 (2), pp. 59–78 (1996). 83. See ‘Bear Hug’, The Economist 9 August 1997, pp. 54–6. 84. ‘China to Build Top-Class Russian Fighters’, The Independent 8 February 1996. 85. R. de Nevers, Russia’s Strategic Renovation (Adelphi Paper No. 289), p. 69, IISS, London (1994). E. Bazhanov, ‘Russian Policy toward China’, in Shearman, op.cit., ch. 8, p. 166. For a nuanced but still generally positive assessment see R. Menon, ‘The Strategic Convergence between Russia and China’, Survival 39 (2), pp. 101–25 (1997). 86. V. Lukin, ‘Our Security Predicament’, Foreign Policy 88, pp. 57–75 (61) (1992). 87. Izvestia 1 February 1994. CDPSP XLVI (5), p. 26 (1994).

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88. Quoted in ‘Russia Looks East for Allies’, Financial Times 16 November 1995. 89. Harada, op.cit., ch. 2, ‘Russia and China’, The Economist 26 April 1997, pp. 21–3. 90. For evidence in support of this proposition see Blank, op. cit., pp. 8–12. 91. K. N. Waltz, ‘The Emerging Structure of International Politics’, International Security 18 (2), pp. 44–79 (52) (1993). 92. Samuel Huntington shares this conclusion. See his The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, p. 164, Simon & Schuster, New York (1996). 5

WHAT NEXT FOR EUROPE?

1. The term ‘European Community’ is used in this study for the period prior to the entry into force of the Treaty on European Union (the Maastricht Treaty) in November 1993. ‘European Union’ is used thereafter. 2. J. Galtung, The European Community: a Superpower in the Making, Allen & Unwin, London (1973). 3. A. Sampson, The New Europeans, p. 207, Hodder & Stoughton, London (1968). 4. F. Duchene, ‘The European Community and the Uncertainties of Interdependence’, in M. Kohnstamm & W. Hager (eds), A Nation Writ Large? ch. 1, Macmillan, London (1973). 5. These were: the Federal Republic of Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg. The UK, Eire and Denmark joined the Community in 1973. Greece joined in 1981, and Spain and Portugal in 1986. Most recently Austria, Sweden and Finland joined the post-Maastricht European Union in 1995. 6. See the text reprinted in Bulletin of the European Communities (hereafter BEC) 3 (11), p. 10 (1970). 7. H. Bull, ‘Civilian Power Europe: a Contradiction in Terms?’ Journal of Common Market Studies XXI (1/2), pp. 149–64 (1982). See also R. Dahrendorf, ‘International Power: a European Perspective’, Foreign Affairs 56 (1), pp. 72–88 (1977). 8. On the Middle East: R. Rummel, ‘Political Perceptions and Military Responses to Out-of-Area Challenges’, in J. Coffey & G. Bonvicini (eds), The Atlantic Alliance and the Middle East, p. 217, Macmillan, London (1989). On the Falklands: G. Edwards, ‘Multilateral Coordination of Out-of-Area Activities’, ibid., p. 234 and S. J. Nuttall, European Political Co-operation, pp. 207–13, Clarendon, Oxford (1992). 9. BEC 22 (10), p. 117 (1989). 10. Nuttall, op. cit., pp. 264–5. 11. See: M. Brenner, ‘The Alliance: a Gulf Post-Mortem’, International Affairs 67 (4), pp. 670–5 (1991); D. Buchan, Europe: the Strange Superpower, pp. 34–6, Dartmouth, Aldershot (1993); T. Salmon, ‘Testing Times for European Political Co-operation: the Gulf and Yugoslavia, 1990–1992’, International Affairs 68 (2), pp. 236–48 (1992).

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12. J. Delors, ‘European Integration and Security’, Survival XXXIII (2), pp. 99–102 (1991). 13. S. Nuttall, ‘The EC and Yugoslavia: Deus ex Machina or Machina sine Deo?’ Journal of Common Market Studies 32 (annual review), pp. 11–25 (21–2) (1994). 14. For critical assessments of the EC’s approach to the Yugoslav crisis, see: M. Brenner, ‘The EC in Yugoslavia: a Debut Performance’, Security Studies 1 (4), pp. 586–609 (1992); J. Eyal, Europe and Yugoslavia: Lessons from a Failure, RUSI, London (1993). For a more sympathetic view, see J. Gow & L. Freedman, ‘Intervention in a Fragmenting State: the Case of Yugoslavia’, in N. Rodley (ed.), To Loose the Bands of Wickedness, ch. 4, Brassey’s, London (1992). 15. A. G. Kintis, ‘The EU’s Foreign Policy and the War in Former Yugoslavia’, in M. Holland (ed.), Common Foreign and Security Policy: the Record and Reforms, ch. 4, pp. 150–1, Pinter, London (1997). See also Nuttall, op. cit., pp. 22–3 (n. 13). 16. M. Walker, ‘Present at the Solution: Madeleine Albright’s Ambitious Foreign Policy’, World Policy Journal XIV (1), pp. 1–10 (9) (1997). 17. For good overviews of the debates and key issues involved, see: A. Menon et al., ‘A Common European Defence?’ Survival 34 (3), pp. 98–118 (1992); and S. Duke, ‘The Second Death (or the Second Coming?) of the WEU’, Journal of Common Market Studies 34 (2), pp. 167–90 (1996). 18. See H. Mueller & L. van Dassen, ‘From Cacophony to Joint Action: Successes and Shortcomings of the European Nuclear Non-Proliferation Policy’, in Holland, op. cit., ch. 3. 19. D. Moiesi & M. Mertes, ‘Europe’s Map, Compass, and Horizon’, Foreign Affairs 74 (1), pp. 122–34 (124) (1995). 20. P. Calvocoressi, Resilient Europe: a Study of the Years 1870–2000, p. 184, Longman, London (1991). 21. See S. Hoffmann, ‘Europe’s Identity Crisis Revisited’, Daedalus 123 (2), pp. 1–23 (6) (1994). 22. Eyal, op. cit., p. 76. 23. Italy and the Gulf crisis: Salmon, op. cit., p. 237. Italy in 1996: ‘Italy Takes It on the Chin for Poor Presidential Leadership’ & ‘One Last Chance to Get Back on Track’. Both in The European 22 February 1996. 24. Buchan, op. cit., p. 52, Nuttall, European Political Co-operation, p. 19. 25. ‘Each State for Itself’, Financial Times 6 January 1995. 26. Nuttall, op. cit., p. 316. 27. L. Brittan, ‘Europe and Asia: the Case for Convergence’, RUSI Journal 140 (5), p. 4 (1995). 28. On this idea, see: Calvocoressi, op. cit., p. 252; and ‘“Security Council” Proposed for EU’, Daily Telegraph 28 January 1995. 29. All quotes taken from Draft Treaty of Amsterdam. European Union website – www.europa.eu.int/ – unpaginated text. 30. WEU Treaty: Western European Union: Brussels Treaty, p. 5, WEU Secretariat, London (1969). NATO Treaty: The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation: Facts and Figures, p. 377, NATO, Brussels (1989).

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31. On this see Changes to the Charter and Rules of Procedure, WEU Assembly, Paris (1995). 32. A European Security Policy, pp. 12–13, WEU Assembly, Paris (1994). 33. On this, see the comments of the then WEU Secretary-General, Willem van Eekelen, reported in Menon et al., op. cit., p. 106. Author interviews with WEU officials have also borne out this point. 34. Hannoversche Allgemeine 10 April 1991. Translated in The German Tribune 1464, p. 2 (1991). 35. For a good general account of the debates and operations see L. Freedman & D. Boren, ‘“Safe Havens” for Kurds in Post-War Iraq’, in Rodley, op. cit., ch. 3. 36. Political Relations between the United Nations and WEU, p. 9, WEU Assembly, Paris (1993). 37. A European Defence Policy, pp. 23–6, WEU Assembly, Paris (1994). 38. BEC 3 (1), p. 12 (1970). 39. BEC 4 (12), p. 26 (1971). On early US lack of interest in the CSCE, see Nuttall, op.cit., p. 57. 40. BEC 6 (9), p. 14 (1973). 41. H. A. Kissinger, White House Years, p. 426, Little Brown, Boston (1979). 42. Text reprinted in Survival XV (4), p. 189 (1973). For an interesting contemporary insight into American thinking, by an anonymous author, see ‘Z’, ‘The Year of Europe?’ Foreign Affairs 52 (2), pp. 237–48 (1974). 43. For the text of the EC’s statement, see BEC 6 (10), pp. 105–6 (1973). 44. BEC 7 (3), p. 7 (1974). 45. Nuttall, European Political Co-operation, pp. 152–3. See also K. E. Birnbaum, ‘Alignments in Europe: the CSCE Experience’, The World Today 37 (6), pp. 219–23 (1981). 46. Poos: ‘War in Europe’, The Economist 6 July 1991, p. 11. Delors: N. Malcolm, ‘The Case Against “Europe”’, Foreign Affairs 74 (2), p. 68 (1995). 47. BEC 25 (6), p. 19 (1992). 48. M. Holland, ‘Bridging the Capability–Expectations Gap: a Case Study of the CFSP Joint Action on South Africa’, Journal of Common Market Studies 33 (4), pp. 555–72 (559) (1995). 49. See, for example: W. Goldstein, ‘EC: Euro-Stalling’, Foreign Policy 85, pp. 129–47 (1991/2); M. Brenner, ‘EC: Confidence Lost’, Foreign Policy 91, pp. 24–43 (1993); G. Hodgson, ‘Grand Illusion: the Failure of European Consciousness’, World Policy Journal X (2), pp. 13–18 (1993). 50. Hoffmann, op. cit., p. 16. 51. A. D. Smith, ‘National Identity and the Idea of European Unity’, International Affairs 68 (1), pp. 55–76 (75–6) (1992). 52. Malcolm, loc. cit. 53. For good background, see W. Grabendorf, ‘Relations with Central and Southern America: a Question of Over-Reach?’, in G. Edwards & E. Regelsberger (eds), Europe’s Global Links: the European Community and Inter-Regional Cooperation, ch. 6, Pinter, London (1990). 54. See the text of Brittan’s speech: Europe and Latin America: Partners in a Global Economy, European Union website – www.europa.eu.int/ – unpaginated text.

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55. For a good presentation of Commission thinking, see the report The European Union and Latin America: the Present Situation and Prospects for Closer Partnership 1996–2000, CABIII/164/95-EN. European Union website – www.europa.eu.int/ – unpaginated text. 56. Ibid. 57. See M. Naim, ‘Latin America the Morning After’, Foreign Affairs 74 (4), pp. 57–8 (1995). Also ‘EU–Mercosur Pact “Set for 1999”’, Financial Times 15 September 1997. 58. F. Pena, ‘New Approaches to Economic Integration in the Southern Cone’, The Washington Quarterly 18 (3), pp. 113–22 (120) (1995). 59. A Consistent and Global Approach: a Review of the Community’s Relations with Japan, pp. 3 & 11, European Commission, Brussels (1992). 60. S. Nuttall, ‘Japan and the European Union: Reluctant Partners’, Survival 38 (2), pp. 104–20 (112) (1996). 61. Brittan, ‘Europe and Asia’, pp. 1–5. 62. M. Mols, ‘Cooperation with ASEAN: a Success Story’, in Edwards & Regelsberger, op. cit., p. 71. See also ‘Asia Warns EU on Human Rights’, Financial Times 7 February 1996. 63. See, for example: ‘Door Open to Wider Europe–Asia Links’, Financial Times 26 February 1996; ‘As Europe Meets Asia’, The Economist 2 March 1996, p. 18. For a more nuanced, scholarly view, see D. Sing & G. Segal, ‘Getting Serious about Asia–Europe Security Cooperation’, Survival 39 (1), pp. 138–55 (1997). 64. ‘Has Europe Failed in Asia?’ The Economist 2 March 1996, pp. 63–5. 65. For evidence of frictions see ‘EU and ASEAN Face a Testing Encounter’, Financial Times 12 February 1997. 66. ‘EU Angry at UK, France on ASEAN Move’, Financial Times 24 July 1996. ‘Not the ASEAN Way’, The Economist 26 October 1996, p. 94. 67. During 1998 accession negotiations commenced with Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Slovenia and Cyprus. 6

HAS THE WINNER TAKEN ALL? 1. For an expression of this view see W. Pfaff, ‘Redefining World Power’, Foreign Affairs 70 (1), pp. 34–48 (1990/1). 2. H. W. Maull, ‘Germany and Japan: the New Civilian Powers’, Foreign Affairs 69 (5), pp. 91–106 (1990/1). 3. For examples of diffusion of power arguments see: Z. Laiedi, ‘Power and Purpose in the International System’, in Laiedi (ed.), Power and Purpose after the Cold War, ch. 1, p. 12ff., Berg, Oxford (1994); and J. S. Nye, Bound to Lead: the Changing Nature of American Power, pp. 182–8, Basic Books, New York (1991). 4. See ‘Now the World is Japan’s Co-Prosperity Sphere’, The Economist 13 August 1988, pp. 41–2. 5. S. P. Huntington, ‘The Erosion of American National Interests’, Foreign Affairs 76 (5), pp. 28–49 (35) (1997). 6. S. Strange, States and Markets (second edition), p. 240, Pinter, London (1994).

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7. S. P. Huntington, ‘The US – Decline or Renewal?’ Foreign Affairs 67 (2), pp. 76–96 (92) (1988/9). 8. S. P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, pp. 156 & 186, Simon & Schuster, New York (1996). 9. See Mortimer’s article, ‘Time for a Larger Role’, Financial Times 14 February 1996. 10. See 20.01.97 Text: President Clinton’s Inaugural Address & 04.02.97 Text: Clinton’s State of the Union Address. US Information Service website – www.usembassy.org.uk/ukusis.html – unpaginated. 11. K. N. Waltz, ‘The Origins of War in Neorealist Theory’, Journal of Interdisciplinary History XVIII (4), pp. 615–28 (622) (1988). 12. J. Joffe, ‘How America Does It’, Foreign Affairs 76 (5), pp. 13–27 (21) (1997). 13. P. H. Nitze, ‘America: an Honest Broker’, Foreign Affairs 69 (4), pp. 1–14 (1990). 14. J. Clarke, ‘Leaders and Followers’, Foreign Policy 101, pp. 37–51 (49) (1995/6). 15. ‘Going It Alone and Multilateralism Aren’t Leadership’, International Herald Tribune 4/5 February 1995. 16. For a good discussion of the core-periphery concept, see J. M. Goldgeier & M. McFaul, ‘A Tale of Two Worlds: Core and Periphery in the Post-Cold War Era’, International Organization 46 (2), pp. 467–91 (1992). 17. K. N. Waltz, ‘The Emerging Structure of International Politics’, International Security 18 (2), pp. 52–3 (1993). 18. C. F. Bergsten, ‘The World Economy after the Cold War’, Foreign Affairs 69 (3), pp. 96–112 (102) (1990). 19. See, for example, C. Layne, ‘The Unipolar Illusion: Why New Great Powers Will Rise’, International Security 17 (4), pp. 5–51 (1993).

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Index Asia European Union and, 146, 160–3 Soviet Union/Russia and, 102, 126–30 US and, 58, 65, 82–6, 179–80 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum (APEC), 82–3, 161 Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN), 84–7, 163 Bonaparte, Napoleon, 8, 14 Brezhnev, Leonid, 36, 37, 44 Brzezinski, Zbigniew, 38–9, 123 Bush, President George, 52, 60, 65, 67, 71, 77, 82, 83, 156, 166, 168 Calvocoressi, Peter, 16, 42, 143 Carr, E. H., 2–3, 7, 10 China as potential superpower, 90–4 relations with Japan, 94–5 relations with Russia, 128–30 relations with US, 83–4, 93–4 civilian power European Community/Union as, 134–7 Japan and Germany as, 165–6 limitations of, 135, 143, 164, 166 Concert of Europe, 14–17 Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act (US), 55–6 Cuban missile crisis, 29, 30, 35–6, 47–8 see also Khrushchev, General Secretary Nikita defence spending Soviet Union, 32 United States, 24, 29, 60–1 doctrines (foreign policy) Brezhnev, 44

Clinton, 65–8, 70 Nixon, 153 Truman, 22 Eisenhower, President Dwight, 34, 47 Fox, William T. R. (originator of superpower concept), 18–20, 24, 29, 31, 165 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), 38, 54, 74–6, 143–4, 163–4 see also World Trade Organisation Gorbachev, President Mikhail, 32, 38–40, 105, 108–9, 126 Gromyko, Andrei, 33, 36–7 Gulf conflict (1990–1), 4, 59–60, 63, 137–8, 177–8 Huntington, Professor Samuel, 1, 73, 96, 167–8, 169–70 ideology defined, 3 Chinese Marxism-Leninism, 91–2 European Union (‘Lisbon Principles’), 156–7, 159 in history, 12–14 Soviet Marxism-Leninism, 13, 23, 33–6, 38–41, 42–3, 176; see also doctrines (foreign policy), Brezhnev; Gorbachev, President Mikhail US, 12, 13, 23–4, 39 see also doctrines (foreign policy), Clinton influence, 3 International Monetary Fund (IMF), 29, 38, 51–2, 89–90, 91, 106

203

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204 Iran and Libya Sanctions Act (US), 55–7

Japan as potential superpower, 86–90, 167 relations with China, 94–5 relations with European Union, 160–1 relations with Russia, 128 relations with US, 87–9 Kennedy, Professor Paul, 9–11, 60 Khrushchev, General Secretary Nikita, 34–6, 41, 42–3 see also Cuban missile crisis Kissinger, Dr Henry, 13, 31, 73, 153–4 Korean war (1950–3), 22, 41–2, 48, 126 Kozyrev, Andrei, 97, 99, 101, 103, 110–11, 114, 115, 120 Latin America Europe and, 158–60 Soviet Union/Russia and, 35–6, 124–6; see also Cuban missile crisis US and, 69–72 leadership defined, 4 Cold War Soviet 46 Cold War US, 22, 27, post-Cold War US, 54, 61, 70, 172, 177–9 legitimacy defined, 3 Thucydides on, 5–6 and US foreign policy, 63, 172, 174

Russian attitudes to, 102, 103–4, 121, 125, 130, 171–2, 180 US–European relations in, 26–31, 78–9, 81–2 US post-Cold War policy on, 73, 77–9 Nuclear weapons underpinning superpower status, 19 Soviet Union/Warsaw Pact, 30–1, 35–6, 37; see also Cuban missile crisis United States/NATO, 25, 30 power defined, 1 economic, 2 hegemonic, 4–7, 21, 63, 69, 82, 107–8 120, 171–3 military, 2, 7–11, 25, 33, 38–9, 42, 52, 59–61, 93 political, 2–3, 33, 34, 37; see also ideology Reagan, President Ronald, 24–5, 39, 53, 60 Russian ‘near abroad’, 107–18 Shelov-Kovedyayev, Fyodor, 111–12 Stalin, Josef, 32–3, 41–2 Stankevich, Sergei, 100–1, 112 Superpower continued relevance of concept, 167, 170–1 defined, see Fox, William T. R. Taylor, A. J. P., 7, 8, 10, 17 Thucydides (ancient Greek soldier/writer), 4–6 Troika (European Union), 144–6

Marshall Plan (US), 21, 27–8, 45 Nixon, President Richard, 37, 153 North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) European attitudes to, 141–2, 169

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Ukraine, 121–2, 124 unitripolar concept, 95–6, 173 von Bismarck, Otto, 15–16 von Clausewitz, Carl, 8 Warsaw Pact, 42–6

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Index Western European Union (WEU), 140, 148–51 World Trade Organisation (WTO), 54–6, 76, 158–9, 162, 168–9 see also General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade

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205

Yeltsin, President Boris, 97, 102, 108, 112–13 Yugoslav conflicts (1991–?) European Community/Union and, 138–41, 144–5, 155–6 Russia and, 103–4, 132 US and, 79–80

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