Mixing Grand Strategies: Trump and International Security

ABSTRACT

When a new President is elected in the United States, the first thing analysts do is define that President’s grand strategy; yet, naming Donald Trump’s grand strategy was a difficult task as his pre-election speeches often contradicted traditional US foreign policy norms. Trump’s ambiguous grand strategy combines two US foreign policy strategies: nationalism in the sense that his preference is for unilateral policies prioritising American interests, and a traditional foreign policy approach, as seen in the moves taken against China and Iran. Surprisingly, this grand strategy unintentionally contributes to cooperation in Eurasia, as actors like Russia, China, Turkey, India and the European Union continue to try to balance the threat from the United States instead of competing with each other, while smaller countries are reluctant to challenge the regional powers due to mistrust towards Trump.     

胁迫式外交:战略竞争时代美国对外战略的转型

以特朗普政府2017年《国家安全战略报告》和2018年《国防战略报告》为标志,世界进入美国启动的战略竞争新时期,地缘政治争夺和大国竞争再度成为世界政治的突出主题。美国重振和维护世界主导地位的目标未变,但"胁迫式外交"成为特朗普政府推行对外战略的常态,美国对外行为出现了冷战结束以来最为显著的变化,表现为重新激活战略军事威慑以压制战略军事竞争对手、以贸易热战和科技冷战方式打压战略经济竞争对手、以政治勒索方式逼盟友承担义务、以极限施压方式压制地区敌对国家、以退群和搅局方式阻挠多边外交。美国推行胁迫式外交与特朗普个人的执政风格相关,但根本性的原因是国际政治权力结构的重大变化和战略竞争时代的来临,推动美国对外权力输出发生了转型性变化。这也意味着美国对外权力输出方式正在发生从软实力向硬实力、从依赖制度优势向依赖实力优势的巨大偏转。美国所谓国际"领导力"正加速蜕变为维护美国特权的"胁迫力",美国权力输出的这种变化可能代表着未来美国外交发展的一种长期趋势。     

论卢布和外汇在俄罗斯经济发展中的作用

自俄罗斯独立以来,卢布汇率和外汇政策一直变化莫测。稳定卢布汇率,制定切实可行的外汇政 策,正确认识卢布、美元、欧元在俄罗斯经济中的地位。特别是在世界经济一体化的进程中,要发挥卢布对世界 经济的影响以及使俄罗斯尽快加入世界贸易组织,重返国际大家庭。     

German policy in a strategic triangle: Berlin,Paris, Washington … and what about London?

The article presents the German view on the current stand and future perspectives of the transatlantic relationship. It points to the caesuras that have defined the US–German relationship since the end of the Cold War. It also details the German role in both the Afghanistan and Iraq wars following the terrorist attacks of 9/11 and highlights the German discussion on its involvement in those wars. The historical strategic triangle of the US, Germany and France might develop into a Euro‐American ellipse to confront current global challenges, but, as of today, many hurdles remain, particularly the lack of a common vision and policy regarding the future political order of Europe. The article finally calls on the German government to continue its policy as a ‘civilian power’ and to repair its relations with the US after the Iraq war. International cooperation in multilateral institutions remains the main pillar of German foreign policy.     

An 'Aladdin's lamp' for free enterprise: Eisenhower, fiscal conservatism, and Latin American nationalism, 1953-61

This study explores the Eisenhower administration's efforts to promote free trade and investment policies in Latin America. US officials believed that private capital investment, rather than US foreign aid, would best promote Latin American economic development and improve its abiliry to purchase American products. By eliminating the need for foreign aid, Latin American economic autarky complemented Eisenhower's zeal for fiscal conservatism. Although most scholars have focused on the primacy of anti-communism in Eisenhower's inter-American policies, this study contends that economic nationalism posed the greatest threat to Eisenhower's policies. US officials eventually responded by expanding aid to Latin America, but the additional economic aid was always intended to complement private capital, rather than replace it. This article, based upon the papers of influential administration officials and State Department records, sheds considerable light as to why the United States promoted free trade and investment policies in the developing world, as it still does today.     

An ‘Aladdin's lamp’ for free enterprise: Eisenhower,fiscal conservatism,and Latin American nationalism, 1953–61

This study explores the Eisenhower administration's efforts to promote free trade and investment policies in Latin America. US officials believed that private capital investment, rather than US foreign aid, would best promote Latin American economic development and improve its abiliry to purchase American products. By eliminating the need for foreign aid, Latin American economic autarky complemented Eisenhower's zeal for fiscal conservatism. Although most scholars have focused on the primacy of anti-communism in Eisenhower's inter-American policies, this study contends that economic nationalism posed the greatest threat to Eisenhower's policies. US officials eventually responded by expanding aid to Latin America, but the additional economic aid was always intended to complement private capital, rather than replace it. This article, based upon the papers of influential administration officials and State Department records, sheds considerable light as to why the United States promoted free trade and investment policies in the developing world, as it still does today.     

中美关系的未来：走向“新冷战”抑或战略合作重启？（英文）

The China-US relationship has long transcended the bilateral sphere and is of global significance and impact. With likely adjustments to American foreign policy under a new US administration, China holds expectations for the bilateral relationship. While maintaining the overall stability of economic ties, the two countries should resume collaboration in response to non-traditional security challenges and strengthen cooperation on traditional security issues.     

American and foreign terrorists: an analysis of divergent portrayals in US newspaper coverage

American news coverage of terrorist activity consistently portrays the attacker as abnormal, but the mechanics of this othering process are entirely dependent on the nationality of the attacker in question. Coverage of domestic terrorism stresses the attacker’s personal instability and contrasts the perpetrator with his or her victims, painting the terrorist as an anomaly in American society. Foreign attackers, with whom journalists more frequently apply the terrorist label, are othered in US news media through heavy emphasis on their association with distant groups and conflicts. To explore how framing techniques differ throughout coverage of domestic and foreign terrorists, two separate corpora of articles from popular American newspapers were systematically compiled. One corpus contained articles about American attackers, while the other contained articles about foreign terrorists. The corpora were processed using both corpus linguistics software and a comparative analysis of texts. Exploring the American media’s framing choices illuminates how popular biases and perceptions of terrorist violence came to be; framing theory asserts that communicating entities inevitably shape the story they relay, influencing the reactions of those who experience the event second-hand. Not only does news coverage use distinct framing patterns for American and foreign perpetrators, but those patterns foster a populace that conceptualises American and foreign terrorists differently.     

The Declining Appeal of Diasporic Connections: African American Organising for South Africa,Haiti and Rwanda*

Throughout the 20th century, African Americans challenged US foreign policies towards Africa and the Caribbean. In the first half of the century diasporic connections, particularly shared oppression and ancestral ties, triggered responses. When the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), an informal organisation of African American congressional representatives, became the key architects of African American foreign policy in the early 1970s, civil rights tactics were wedded to diasporic appeals to motivate African Americans to help shift US foreign policy towards South Africa and Haiti. Diasporic ties, however, worked against a campaign on behalf of Rwanda. This article argues that black globality, a broader framework that encompasses diasporic connections as only one of many possible ties between African Americans and Africa and African diasporic communities, will better serve the CBC in its goal to move African Americans to act on foreign policy issues concerning Africa and African diasporic communities in the 21st century.     

The imperial moment: A European view This article is based on developments up through June 9, 2003, the date it was submitted for publication

This article will first review the essential characteristics of the old exceptionalism in US foreign policy, then compare it with the specific features of the new strategy of the Bush administration and finally address the challenges and risks that this enterprise entails. The article provides an analysis of realist and liberal critiques of the Bush administration's foreign policy in terms of both objectives and results. It concludes that the war in Iraq constituted a truly imperial moment in US history. Preventive war is a flawed strategy, which runs against US principles in world affairs and against its security interests in the current international environment. For this reason, Bush's imperial policy will not last. The author writes here in a personal capacity, and not in the name of the European Union Institute for Security Studies.     

An unwilling client: how Hosni Mubarak's Egypt defied the Bush administration's ‘freedom agenda’

When the George W Bush administration announced the ‘freedom agenda’ in the Middle East, officials claimed it marked a major break in United States (US) foreign policy. In 2005, the administration intensified efforts pressuring Egypt, a client state, to democratize. However, the US continued pursuing security cooperation with and providing military aid to Egypt. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak repelled US reform efforts by exploiting the normative inconsistency between democratization and security in the war on terror. This paper reviews Mubarak's ‘balking’ strategy (Stephen Walt, Taming American power, New York: WW Norton, 2005), including feigning compliance through nominal legal changes and counter-arguments to buy time until the inconsistencies in US policy came to a head. By 2006, the US had abandoned the freedom agenda and the Egyptian regime had embarked on a repression campaign. As I argue, the implications of the contradictions in US policy towards Egypt demonstrate that weaker client states may enjoy increased agency vis-à-vis a weakly committed patron hegemon.     

Theodore Roosevelt: Imperialist or Global Strategist in the New Expansionist Age?

This article argues that as the first modern US president and an innovative shaper of American foreign relations, Theodore Roosevelt launched the rising United States on the world stage as a major actor in power politics, that American diplomacy came of age with him and not with Woodrow Wilson, and that the secular pragmatist who succeeded because he was abreast of the times should not be begrudged the laurels that are so often bestowed on the religious-minded visionary who failed because he was ahead of his time. In American historiography Wilson has often eclipsed—unfairly and erroneously—the geopolitical and diplomatic skills, professionalism and expertise in foreign policy of Roosevelt. Even as ex-president, Roosevelt would be a force to be reckoned with. The use and misuse of a misconstrued legacy that some have tried to confiscate for their own benefit is perhaps best illustrated by presidential candidate John McCain's reverential claim that he is “a Teddy Roosevelt Republican” rather than a neo-Wilsonian.     

北约介入阿富汗战争前景浅析

北约介入阿富汗战争是其走出地区实践全球化职能的一次大规模行动。北约联军现已深陷阿富汗战争泥潭,急欲寻找出路。然而,尽管北约成员国正按盟主美国的退出战略积极行动,试图采用政治、经济、军事手段并举的方式,在完成战略安排后从阿富汗全身而退,但阿富汗问题已经积重难返,不可能在短期内解决。北约联军在阿富汗的民心取向、阿富汗政府的治理能力、阿富汗安全部队的素质,以及北约在阿富汗的撤军时间表及相关的过渡性安排,均存在不利因素或不确定因素,这使得北约联军的阿富汗战争将无取胜可能,只是争取体面撤军问题。     

When and why is civil society support “made-in-America”? Delegation to non-state actors in American democracy promotion

One of the United States’ main strategies of democracy promotion involves supporting civil society abroad. According to original data, most of the money spent by the United States on that task supports American NGOs working abroad rather than local NGOs in transitioning and non-democratic countries. Yet there are also significant variations across countries in donor officials’ reliance on American NGOs. Why do American donor officials fund American NGOs as a strategy of aiding democracy abroad more in some cases than in others? This paper argues that donor officials find it easier to observe American NGOs than other NGOs and that American NGOs are more likely to share donor officials’ preferences. Donor officials are therefore more likely to pursue a strategy of “made-in-America” democracy support in countries that are salient for U.S. foreign policy. Evidence from a new data set of democracy assistance programs supports the argument. The findings have implications for the study of American foreign policy, foreign aid effectiveness, and NGOs in world politics.     

美元的信用下降与中国的策略选择

全球经济正在经历着一场前所未有的变革,而美元则站在这场变革的前沿。可以看到,随着美元的不断贬值,美国物价上涨的速度有时会超过收入增长的速度。随着美元购买力的下跌,美国人以不变价格计算的真实收入实际上在下降,他们不得不用更多的美元去购买相同的东西,相对落后的收入增长却无法弥补价格的膨胀。在国际贸易上,美国的贸易赤字不断扩大,而且还会继续扩大,美国已成为世界最大的债务国,美国经济中的泡沫加剧了美国经济的滑坡,令人遗憾的是,美国无法就此刹车,美元的国际信用下降是不可遏制的。美元信用下降将给全球带来巨大影响,我国必须对此做出策略选择。     

The primacy of national security? American responses to the British financial crisis of 1949

The financial crisis of 1949 threatened to bankrupt Britain and destroy the American economic and political system constructed after 1945. The US government was unable to respond effectively to this challenge. Truman's administration was split, as the Treasury and State Departments advocated diametrically opposing responses. Only the secret British decision to devalue sterling, a judgement not shared with the Americans until much later, stopped Washington from offering aid packages to London that would have totally changed US postwar foreign, economic and strategic policies. Therefore, this episode questions the assertion that national security concerns dominated the American government in the early Cold War.     

Franco‐American relations: a historical–structural analysis

This article sketches a historical‐structural picture of Franco‐American relations from a French point of view. The historical approach is chosen because it allows understanding of how mutual visions and images develop. Franco‐American mutual images are traced from the time of French involvement in the birth of the US, through the period when France and the US were the first two grand republics with universalist claims. The difficult relationship between these two states with remarkably similar universalist self‐images is seen against a background of a rising US and declining France, with the fall of France in 1940 seen as a turning point. The Gaullist project of removing this humiliation marks the Franco‐American relationship, as compared with that of Britain (declined but undefeated), and a Germany reborn within the Euro‐Atlantic institutions after the cataclysm of 1945.     

A Visit to New Zealand

The financial crisis of 1949 threatened to bankrupt Britain and destroy the American economic and political system constructed after 1945. The US government was unable to respond effectively to this challenge. Truman's administration was split, as the Treasury and State Departments advocated diametrically opposing responses. Only the secret British decision to devalue sterling, a judgement not shared with the Americans until much later, stopped Washington from offering aid packages to London that would have totally changed US postwar foreign, economic and strategic policies. Therefore, this episode questions the assertion that national security concerns dominated the American government in the early Cold War.     

Dual engagement: France and the Persian Gulf

With the end of the Cold War international relations began anew without the bipolar constraints of two ideologically opposed superpowers. The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait on 2 August 1990 represented the first challenge to the nascent post‐Cold War Persian Gulf security environment. Within the region, France is once again increasingly active in the economic, political and military fields. The re‐evaluation of Washington's ability to remain engaged at its current levels within the Gulf may be attributed in large part to a growing sensitivity in Riyadh and other Arab capitals to the visible US presence coupled with an American foreign policy which is, at times, inconsistent. The net future effect of contemporary trends may be one in which the Gulf Sheikhdoms welcome French ascendancy and US decline. France has experienced its own foreign policy transformation marked by the leadership of President Chirac. Where President Mitterrand sought the role of power broker in regional affairs, President Chirac seeks increased influence and importance.