Trans-Regional Security Organisations and Statist Multilateralism in Eurasia

This paper argues that there is an emerging trans-regional security complex reaching from Russia through Central Asia to China. Shared security norms have resulted in statist multilateralism, that is, state-directed cooperation on shared interests while closely guarding distinct identities and specific political features. The paper outlines member states' key political values and shows how they ‘framed’ shared understandings about security. It then explains how security norms inform the institutional designs of the two main multilateral security organisations thereby directing the nature of cooperation, testing the argument in two key conflicts: in Kyrgyzstan and Afghanistan.     

试析中国的多边制度外交——以中国参与国际反贪腐制度为例

近十多年中国参与了诸多国际制度,中国参与多边制度外交是审视中国多边外交的视角之一。中国在参与国际反贪腐制度时采用了更加灵活多元的多边外交方式,体现了中国多边外交从形式到理念的新特点。     

The final triumph of the Pax Americana? Western intervention in Yugoslavia and Russia's debate on the post-Cold War order

This paper addresses the question of world order by considering how Western military actions in Yugoslavia were perceived from a different cultural perspective. It traces how the NATO-led bombing campaign during March–June of 1999 affected various visions of world order that had existed in Russia before the campaign and describes the discursive change this campaign produced. The argument is made that Russia's foreign policy elites, from Westernizers to Neo-Communists and Expansionists, perceived Western goals in Yugoslavia differently from their counterparts in the West. However, they differed in their recommendations regarding Russia's response and lessons to be drawn from the Kosovo crisis. The paper also identifies several points where the different perspectives can converge. More specifically, all Russian schools of thought viewed the NATO campaign as a dangerous precedent potentially destabilizing the existing world order. They also shared the conviction that Russia should play a larger role in world affairs and that without Russia's involvement there could be no peace and stability in the Balkans and in Europe. They point to the United Nations as the only forum for debating the legitimacy of military interventions and for preventing interventions carried out without the approval of the UN.     

Compliance and non-compliance as sources of recognition: Slovakia and NATO

This article argues that there is a difference in what constitutes the sources of recognition prior to countries' membership in the Euro-Atlantic community represented by NATO and after countries become its members. While prior to membership, countries are recognized for their compliance with NATO standards and policies, upon membership countries get the opportunity to promote specific interests legitimately and may seek recognition via non-compliance with NATO mainstream.The paper explores this dynamic of recognition on the issue of Kosovo independence where Slovakia went from supporting NATO in its effort to protect civilians in Kosovo in the late 1990s to non-recognition of Kosovo in defiance of the majority of NATO member states less than a decade later. The crucial point proposed here is that there was a shift in how recognition by NATO worked prior to Slovakia's membership and upon membership in these frameworks. While prior to membership recognition was achieved by compliance and identification with NATO standpoints, policies and actions, upon membership, recognition is achieved by differentiation from these patterns. More generally, the study shows that NATO membership is a powerful source of conditionality in relation to future members and a powerful source of legitimacy in relation to current members' actions. While this has been discussed in the literature, the point here is that recognition in its various forms is an important driving force in these conditionality processes.     

No humanitarian intervention in Asian genocides: how possible and legitimate?

Abstract

This article addresses an important empirical puzzle: why has the United States, without exception, chosen not to intervene in the six humanitarian catastrophes in post-war Asia, namely in Indonesia, East Pakistan/Bangladesh, Cambodia, East Timor, Sri Lanka and Myanmar? We use an eclectic approach that blends arguments about the international normative structure and geostrategic interests to examine what has made the absence of humanitarian intervention in Asia by the US possible and legitimate. Specifically, we focus on the paradox between calls for humanitarian intervention and the historically and geographically contingent social construction of the norms of humanity, national sovereignty and United Nations-backed multilateralism in conjunction with US and Chinese concerns over their regional geostrategic interests. The normative narratives about race, ‘communists’, ‘terrorists’, international order and inclusive multilateral processes, and the geostrategic interests of the US and China, combine to make non-intervention possible and legitimate.     

Between Russia and a Hard Place: Great Power Grievances and Central Asian Ambivalence

Abstract

This essay asks how Central Asian states have responded to Russia’s intervention in Ukraine and salvos against the West, as a means to assess how Russia and the Central Asian states understand their national interests and exercise state power. It argues that the post-Soviet region shares a cynical and geopolitically driven view of the exercise of global power. Yet Russia has sometimes deployed its resources to advance short-term ideological objectives, whereas Central Asian foreign policy is pragmatic and opportunistic. The Ukraine crisis threatened to coerce the Central Asian states into conformity with Russia’s interests; ironically, their dependence on Russia has enabled their freedom of action in foreign policy, within limits. The essay highlights the ways that geography enables and constrains the execution of foreign policy, and considers the ambiguous role ideology plays in the formulation of national interests and the prospects for international cooperation.     

From Intervention to Retrenchment: Poland's Strategic Culture and the 2011 Libyan Campaign

Abstract

The willingness of successive Polish governments to support and participate in US-led multilateral military interventions—such as the 2003 invasion of Iraq—has been explained in terms of Poland's prevailing strategic culture. Yet in 2011 Poland opted to exclude itself from participating in the NATO campaign against Libya. It is argued that this was not a counter-cultural decision, but was instead a case of one strategic subculture supplanting another. The support that the government received from opposition politicians and the press can be taken as evidence that the policy did not represent a radical departure from Poland's strategic culture.     

新时代中国外交理论建设与外交实践笔谈

从方法论、理论意义和制度创新三个角度把握新时代中国外交理论的丰富内涵和发展方向,是深化新时代中国外交战略和外交理论研究的重要保证。人类命运共同体思想不仅丰富了中国的国际关系理论,也有力推动着理论范式的创新。这种创新表现为中国国际关系理念与价值创新、思维创新、模式创新和话语创新。我们需要深刻辨识中国全球伙伴关系战略对开创国际关系新模式的理论意义和高质量共建"一带一路"对世界共同现代化的制度创新价值。21世纪的国际竞争具有新的特点,更多体现为纵向竞争、间接竞争、错位竞争。由于美国视中国为长期性的竞争对手,这使得国际体系中的大国战略竞争呈现长期化态势。我们应从更广阔的战略图谱中定位竞争,从管控竞争、化解竞争的角度去应对竞争,其中包括推动实现"真正的多边主义"。     

Russia and the Iraq War: was Putin's policy a failure?

Although Russian President Vladimir Putin has been faced with numerous crises since coming to office in 2000, most importantly the war in Chechnya, the Iraq War was the first major international crisis with which his administration was confronted. As in the case of Kosovo for Yeltsin, and the Gulf War for Gorbachev, the Russian President had to deal with conflicting domestic pressures and apparently still more conflicting Russian national and international interests. Indeed, one result of such a situation was a post-war accusation that Putin actually had no policy or at least no consistent policy with regard to the Iraq crisis [Golan, G., 1992. Gorbachev's difficult time in the Gulf. Political Science Quarterly 107 (2), 213–230]. One may remember similar accusations of Gorbachev's “zigzaging” in the Gulf War and claims that the Yeltsin government failed to forge a Kosovo policy altogether [Levitin, O., 2000. Inside Moscow's Kosovo muddle. Survival 42 (1), 130]. Yet, a certain pattern did appear to repeat itself in the Iraqi crisis, namely, pre-war efforts to prevent a military conflict from breaking out, then gradual escalation of rhetoric if not actual involvement, and finally gradual but relatively rapid retreat to conciliatory posture toward the United States (in all three crises). Moreover, Putin was indeed consistent throughout the pre-crisis, crisis and post-crisis periods in his opposition to the Americans' use of force against Iraq and in the need to remain within a United Nations framework. Actually, one might ask (and we shall below) why Putin did not abandon the first part of this policy, in order to maintain the second component, when it became certain that the U.S. was going to attack with or without UN Security Council approval.     

India,developmental multilateralism and the Doha ministerial conference

Despite its growing status as an ‘emerging’ power, perceptions of India’s current and future role in multilateral organisations continue to be overshadowed by its reputation for blocking rather than supporting progress in multilateral negotiations on grounds of national sovereignty and Third Worldism. In this article we suggest a more positive interpretation of India’s role through a close analysis of its diplomacy during the 2001 Doha Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organisation (wto). The Indian delegation attempted proactively to shape the agenda of the negotiations and to promote a form of developmental multilateralism that might correct the perceived imbalances within the substantive commitments to and structure and processes of the wto. India failed to get its way at the time, but the ongoing deadlock at Doha demonstrates the continuing salience of such alternative conceptions of global justice.     

Financing the UN development system and the future of multilateralism

This article seeks to accomplish four tasks. It explores the historical relationship between the financing instruments that dominated different phases of the evolution of the UN development system and the understanding of the concept of multilateralism. Bearing in mind this historical context, it seeks to analyse the defining characteristics of multilateral finance in the context of the UN, in particular the characteristics that make a financial instrument more or less multilateral. It then explores a number of new financial instruments and their possible impact on the future shape multilateralism takes in the UN system. The article concludes with some thoughts on financing for a new multilateralism. In order to go beyond the core/non-core stalemate, it is necessary to develop a new variable geometry based on function, which brings into play assessed, negotiated pledges, voluntary core and non-core instruments.     

Prospects for Russia-NATO relations: The SWOT analysis

Despite recent changes in international relations and lapse of time since the fall of the USSR, the issue of Russian membership in NATO has been an ongoing fact. Hence, the principle scope of the paper is SWOT analysis of potential Russian membership in NATO from the perspective of the Russian Federation. Through the introduction and evaluation of advantages and disadvantages of such membership in the light of latest geopolitical events in Eurasia suggested by academic and professional circles in NATO countries and Russia, we proceed with identification of fundamental strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats that Russia might face. Taking into account such determining factors as the size of its territory, shifting geopolitical conditions in the world, modern understanding of security and a potentially frozen dispute in Ukraine, we come to the conclusion that benefits potentially brought by Russian membership in NATO could be sustained while drawbacks could be eliminated by incorporation of NATO to OSCE and a change in voting procedures of the Alliance.     

Russia and the Collective Security Treaty Organisation: Multilateral Policy or Unilateral Ambitions?

Ambivalence and misconceptions surround the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO). Relying upon the literature on multilateralism, state–IGO relations, regionalism and security governance, this study examines: which goals Russia is pursuing in its CSTO policy; how Russia engages with its individual members within the organisation; how Russia uses it in five foreign policy situations and with which results. It shows that Russia’s CSTO policy is more mixed and complex than is usually assumed. Russia uses the CSTO in pursuit of unilateral ambitions but it is also searching for partners. Russia’s policy has resulted in the formation of instrumental multilateralism within the CSTO.     

Kosovo: Where It All Began

Kosovo, a largely ethnically Albanian province of the Serbian republic, played an important role in Yugoslavia's troubles in the last two decades of the twentieth century. Shortly after Tito's death in 1980, disturbances in Kosovo set the Albanians and the Serbs on a collision course and also polarized the country politically. Ironically, when Yugoslavia began to disintegrate in 1991, and as it fell into four years of warfare, Kosovo remained relatively calm. Only after the Dayton peace, in late 1995, did Kosovo's Albanians opt for a militant policy toward the Serbs. Meanwhile Serbs escalated their oppression of the local population. International diplomatic intervention failed to defuse tensions, and ultimately, NATO initiated military action to stop Serbia. NATO prevailed in the seventy-eight day engagement in 1999, while Kosovo acquired greater autonomy and was put under UN protection.     

Processes of democratization in the East Central European and Balkan states: sovereignty-related conflicts in the context of Europeanization

This paper discusses the Central and East European democratic transitions as parts of the global democratization process, including their both external and domestic aspects. The analysis covers six East Central European (ECE) and six Balkan states. It provides a systematic overview of these twelve states with a classification of their external and internal developments. The paper classifies these states according to the three stages of systemic change and according to their EU (association and accession) and NATO (PfP and membership) relationships. In the New World Order, the sovereignty-related conflicts appear in this systematic overview through the analysis of the bilateral and multilateral relations between and among these states as restructuring follows the requirements of the EU and NATO. These multinational organizations actually rearrange both regional structures and neighbourhood relationships. The ECE and Balkan states, based on the parallel criteria of external and internal developments, form four groupings: (1) new entrants—the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovenia; (2) late-comers to democratization—Slovakia, Croatia, Romania and Bulgaria; (3) “semi-protectorates” of great powers and international organizations (Bosnia and Macedonia); (4) unsettled countries or conflict-seeking states—Serbia and Albania.     

从美苏之间到美欧俄之间——1989年后中东欧国家的外交战略与大国关系的互动

在中东欧国家由苏联"卫星国"向北约和欧盟成员的转变中,苏联、美国、北约、欧盟及俄罗斯对中东欧国家的政策及它们之间的关系起到了至关重要、有时甚至是决定性的作用。正是在美苏对峙格局崩溃,美国成为世界唯一的超级大国,美、欧、俄的博弈渐次展开但远未构成三足鼎立的情况下,中东欧国家以加入北约与欧盟为主要内容的"回归欧洲"战略得以确立和实施。中东欧国家加入北约和欧盟对美、欧、俄关系产生了一定的影响,但不会从根本上改变与美、欧、俄之间现有的关系格局。     

Review Article Loyalist Assassinations and Police Collusion in Northern Ireland: An Extended Critique of Sean McPhilemy's The Committee

Since 1995 Dr. Brendan O'Shea, a former European Union Monitor, has been studying developments in the Balkans with his predictive article, Kosovo—Another Bosnia in the Making, awarded the Seamus Kelly Literary Award in Ireland. Nine years after NATO troops first deployed in Bosnia, and five years after KFOR commenced operations in Kosovo, he once again examines the overall situation in the region and is ill at ease with his findings.     

The offensive posture of NATO's missile defence system

A compelling case can be made to develop a NATO's missile defence system in response to the advancement of missile technology and the danger of nuclear weapons. However, this development also undermines Russia's retaliatory capacity, and consequently heightens the offensive potential of nuclear weapons. This article explores the offence/defence posture of NATO's missile defence plans in terms of both capabilities and strategy. It is argued that NATO is incrementally increasing the strength and reach of its missile defence components, while rejecting any international treaty to regulate and limit their future expansion. This corresponds with a strategy of achieving invulnerability through counterforce and utilising NATO as an ‘insurance policy’ against Russia, to be activated when conflicts arise. We conclude that NATO has the capacity to distinguish between an offensive and defensive posture by discriminating between potential targets, but it has displayed no intention to do so.     

Uzbekistan among the great powers

Under the authoritarian regime of Islam Karimov, Uzbekistan has achieved independence and stability by exploiting its natural resources through a strategy of “staple globalism” and by balancing the great powers against each other. Since the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, the new regime first distanced itself from Russia and tried regional alliances, then accepted help from NATO, and most recently turned cautiously to Russia (and China). Throughout, Uzbekistan has managed to receive considerable assistance from international agencies and military aid from several outside powers, albeit relatively little private foreign investment, owing to its poor business climate. The country has also handled potential conflicts with neighbors without significant violence.     

Introduction

Central Eastern Europe (further CEE) has been thoroughly reconstructed during nearly a quarter of century since the fall of the Berlin wall and the end of the cold war. The CEE countries turned to the West for economic and technological advancement, for political and administrative models as well as for protection. The authors coming from eight different countries look at the place and role of the former member states of the Warsaw Pact in the new European and international constellation. This concept of CEE includes most pro-western states of the former ‘Eastern block’: the four countries of Central Europe (Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary) and the Baltic states (Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia). There were many tumultuous political developments in and around the region within the last decade, and especially during the last five years when the financial crisis started to take its toll. While the Atlantic link of Central and Eastern Europe is still strong, many commentators have pointed out its wearing strategic meaning. The balance between the focus on the USA and the EU has shifted in favour of Europe. However, this shift has rather been an incomplete one due to the region's own political and economic problems. The aim of this special issue is to analyse the new constellation by looking at the CEE countries themselves, at their ability to react and adapt, produce sound political strategies and act on as national actors: through bilateral ties, regional co-operation, NATO and the EU. Also, the main external actors - the USA, Russia and Germany - are looked at as they directly influence the way how the CEE countries shape their policies.