The perils of a trade-first US foreign policy

The end of the Cold War, the advent of globalisation, and new horizons in trade theory, all seem to point out to the need for a new American economic strategy. Indeed, for many they beg for the implementation of economism as the new US foreign policy doctrine. The managed trade policy (1993-1996) of forcibly opening foreign markets for the benefit of corporate America showed much of what is wrong with a trade-first agenda in foreign affairs: it accomplished nothing in terms of economic gain while creating dangerous spillovers into other foreign policy areas--such as political and security bilateral relationships--thus endangering the broader goals of US foreign policy. A foreign policy that puts trade at the top of the agenda is unwarranted, probably unsustainable, and ultimately counterproductive. Moreover, it is hardly the most important tool by which the economic wellbeing of most Americans can be enhanced. The return of low productivity figures and a slowing American economy may well rekindle calls for a policy of managed trade. Such calls must be rejected and the lessons of the recent past must be heeded.     

中国传统对外关系研究刍议

本文认为,以重大事件为中心的中国古代对外关系史研究,和以帝国主义侵华为话语的中国近代对外关系史研究,在当代带有严重的视域局限性.基于参与现代和对话现代的需要,它们可以归并到中国传统对外关系体系之中.而开展对中国传统对外关系的研究,不仅要考察朝贡体制在历朝的演变轨迹,还应关注封贡关系行为与对外政策、涉外思想三者之间的互动.     

Strategic taboos: chemical weapons and US foreign policy

This article examines US President Barack Obama's foreign policy rhetoric on Syria, specifically in relation to the threat of chemical weapons and the prohibitionary taboo surrounding their use. It contends that Obama's rhetorical construction of the taboo is not simply a commitment to the control of these horrific weapons (where such arms have been comprehended as so extensively vile as to preclude their employment), but that this also represents the strategic linguistic exploitation of these normative ideals in order to directly shape policy. By analysing of presidential speeches made during the conflict, it demonstrates that Obama has manipulated pre‐existing conceptions of chemical weapons as taboo, and also as forms of weapons of mass destruction, to deliberately construct policy in line with his own political ambitions—most notably as a way of forcing a multilateral solution to the situation in Syria. This article challenges existing perceptions of the chemical weapons taboo as an inherently normative constraint, arguing that this instead comprises a more agency‐driven construct. Static notions of the taboo must be abandoned and subsequently replaced with a framework of understanding that recognizes how the taboo can be used as a deliberate driver of foreign policy.     

Return to reason: reviving political realism in western foreign policy

Twenty‐first‐century political crises stretching from Europe to the Middle East and the Asia–Pacific have undermined the worldview that governed post‐Cold War western thinking about a liberal end of history. This worldview assumed that shared norms and transnational institutions would transform the state based‐order. In this context, the use of force is considered appropriate only for humanitarian ends meeting a set of predetermined axioms laid down in chapter 7 of the UN Charter. Yet for any strategy to be effective—in an international order subject to change—a clear political aim is required, which might deviate from the general rule. Preoccupied with universal postulates, legal normativism has lost sight of the particular. The argument put forth in this article is that the failure of contemporary western foreign policy in the twenty‐first century to address this limitation or to prioritize political ends has led to strategic confusion from Afghanistan to Syria and Ukraine. In this context, it might be useful to reappraise the utility of abstract rationalist approaches to global governance and return instead to an earlier understanding of statecraft that avoided premature generalizations and treated norms as maxims of prudence rather than axioms requiring universal application.     

Major foreign policy challenges for the next US President

President Obama has been elected to office in the United States during a crisis of confidence in America's capacity to exercise effective leadership in world afairs. National self-indulgence, greedy financial irresponsibility and an unnecessary war have discredited that leadership, a situation that has been compounded by the current global economic crisis. Added to these self-inflicted wounds, this article suggests, are two transformational developments on the world political scene. First, the 'global political awakening' to issues such as climate change, health and social inequality; and second, a shift in the distribution of global power from the West to the East. However, although this shift is occurring, it is a slow process and in the foreseeable future there is no state, or combination of states, that can replace the role America plays on the international scene. What is also clear is that without an American recovery, there will be no global recovery. The American recovery will be a monumental task. But four small, telling words—unify, enlarge, engage and pacify—summarize the essence of the needed response. There needs to be an effort to re-establish a sense of unity between America and Europe; an enlarged coalition of principal players is necessary to promote more effective global management; dialogue engaging a wider circle of partners key to global geopolitical stability should be promoted and maintained; and a deliberate effort not to get bogged down politically and militarily in the Middle East is essential.     

US foreign policy and the pragmatic use of international institutions

The use of international institutions by the United States is characterised by pragmatism. US officials approach institutions as instruments of convenience across time, across regions, and across economic and security issues. US political rhetoric since the end of World War II has emphasised the importance of multilateralism. But in practice, the US approach reflects a process of trial and error and a tendency to focus on what works in terms of US domestic and foreign policy interests. Successive US administrations have proved flexible in modifying, expanding, neglecting and even discarding those institutions whose initial instrumental purpose is no longer essential. These twists and turns have proved frustrating to America's economic and security allies who have been forced to bear the brunt of adjusting to the changing institutional preferences of their more powerful partner.     

The reformation of Iraq's foreign relations: new elites and enduring legacies

Iraq has not enjoyed regular foreign relations since 2003, and arguably for several years before. Looking ahead, Iraq is now in a position to develop its foreign relations fully, yet how these relations will be constructed remains unclear. As with all states, Iraq's foreign policy remains conditioned by geopolitical factors— and in particular control of resources, access to waterways, and its geographical location between the Arab world, Turkey, and Iran. There are also the legacies of the Ba'athist regime to consider—and especially the way foreign policy was constructed, and how ‘foreign’ was defined in terms of foreign to the regime, rather than to Iraq. Layered on top of these geopolitical determinants and legacies is the reality of the post‐2003 state. With the removal of the structures of the Ba'athist regime and the emergence of new political elites under the guidance of the US, Iraq's foreign relations are now clearly different, yet some of the patterns of the past still remain very much in place.     

The Islamic State lexical battleground: US foreign policy and the abstraction of threat

This article suggests that President Obama's consistent references to the extremist Sunni group as ‘ISIL’ (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) is not a trivial matter of nomenclature. Instead, the Obama administration's deliberate usage of the ISIL acronym (as opposed to other commonly‐used terms such as ‘Islamic State of Iraq and Syria’ or ‘ISIS’, ‘Islamic State’, ‘IS’, ‘so‐called Islamic State’ and ‘Daesh’) frames the public perception of the threat to avoid engagement with the requirements of strategy and operations. Both the labelling and the approach could be defended as a response to the unique challenge of a transnational group claiming religious and political legitimacy. However, we suggest that the labelling is an evasion of the necessary response, reflecting instead a lack of coherence in strategy and operations—in particular after the Islamic State's lightning offensive in Iraq and expansion in Syria in mid‐2014. This tension between rhetoric, strategy and operations means that ‘ISIL’ does not provide a stable depiction of the Islamic State. While it may draw upon the post‐9/11 depiction of ‘terrorism’, the tag leads to dissonance between official and media representations. The administration's depiction of a considered approach leading to victory has been undermined by the abstraction of ‘ISIL’, which in turn produced strategic ambiguity about the prospect of any political, economic or military challenge to the Islamic State.     

Experimental history: the appeal of postmodemism in historiography

Use, truth and time constitute the basic elements of the epistemological structure of history. That structure went through three stages: pre-modern (from ancient times to the late eighteenth century, before the professionalization of history took place), modern (the period of professional history, from the late eighteenth century to the 1970s), and post modern (post 1970s). In these three stages, use, truth, and time successively occupied the core of the epistemological structure of history. Postmodernist history, which puts time at the core of its epistemology, is an extreme form of historicism. Even more than historicism, it has emphasized the determining effect of time and change on historical truth and historical consciousness. The privatization of historical narrative and reading has prodded history to become experimental. Experimental history no longer proclaims the truth about the past. Instead, under specific historical circumstances, it strives to produce texts that will be recognized by individual historians and provides these texts to readers, who will make their own judgments. Whether these texts are true will be decided through the uses they produce. In this way, any historiographical practice will be an experiment conducted by an historian in the present and that will consist in searching for the truth about the past. The success of this experiment will depend entirely on the experimental environment, that is, on the conditions provided by the reading environment. __________ Translated from: Beijing Shifan Daxue Xuebao 北京师范大学学报 (Journal of Beijing Normal University), Vol. 5, 2004     

庐陵史学特征及其在中国史学史上的地位

庐陵史学发达宏富,史备众体,尤其是在宋明时期,史学大家叠出,史学著作丰硕,史书类型繁多。诞生了龙衮、欧阳修、徐梦莘、罗泌、龙文彬等众多的史学家,编撰了《江南野史》、《新唐书》、《新五代史》、《集古录》、《三朝北盟会编》、《路史》、《西域行程记》、《广舆图》、《豫章书》和《明会要》等重要史学著作。庐陵史学重文献网罗、考证和历史经验总结,从整体上看具有父子同撰、通今博古、文史兼通、诗文咏史、金石证史等特征,有史料、校勘和辑佚价值。庐陵史学享誉海内外,口碑较好,在中国史学史上具有重要地位和作用。     

International relations and foreign policy in the Australian Journal of Political Science: A review

The Australian Journal of Political Science (AJPS) has evolved from a publication that deliberately relegated articles in international relations (IR) to a secondary status to one that has defined and encouraged leading-edge contributions to that field. This development can be attributed to successive AJPS editorial teams’ realisation that contemporary political problems are increasingly interconnected and that emerging approaches to IR reflect this condition. Several recent and key IR debates that have emerged within the journal’s pages are assigned special attention here: the linking of Australia’s domestic politics to that country’s foreign policy interests and behaviour; in-depth discussions that relate to ongoing trends in the international political economy; critical analysis of national defence and regional security postures; and diverse theoretical perspectives that are increasingly shaping the IR field’s paradigmatic identity. It is concluded that the AJPS is now a leading source of IR thought and discourse.     

Bush,Obama and a faith‐based US foreign policy

In a calculated move to appeal to his core constituency during his first term, President George W. Bush launched domestic and international faith‐based initiatives designed to leverage public finance for religious groupings to carry out social and welfare functions formerly performed by government or secular organizations. In December 2002 the Center for Faith‐Based and Community Initiatives (CFBCI) was extended to the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The Center's intention was to ‘create a level playing field’ for faith‐based and community groups to compete for foreign assistance funding. These presidential initiatives are problematic, however, calling into question the first amendment—the separation of church and state. Upon taking office Barack Obama set up the Office of Faith‐based and Neighborhood Partnerships, promising a greater emphasis on community/neighbourhood programs. The CFBCI remains a fixture in USAID and Obama shows as much enthusiasm for the initiative as his predecessor. Faith‐based international relations and political science scholars have sought to build on these initiatives and call for a greater role for faith in US foreign policy. On the eve of the 2012 presidential election, this article considers the claims for a faith‐based foreign policy by examining the construction of a faith‐based discourse by academics and successive presidents. Using faith‐based initiatives and USAID as a case–study, the article discusses criticisms of the policy and focuses on the role of a conservative evangelical organization, Samaritan's Purse, to illustrate the advantages and disadvantages of faith‐based approaches. The article argues that advocates of faith‐based foreign policy, in seeking special privileges for ecumenical religious actors, overlook their declining international significance and the opportunities afforded to less tolerant but more populist religious actors which have the potential seriously to harm US foreign policy objectives.     

The American system: US foreign and domestic politics since the Second World War

Historians, like politicians, need to find a language and frame of reference to connect with their audience or readership. In the current US presidential campaign the candidates, Senators John McCain and Barack Obama, are offering the voters a bridge between the troubled past and a more hopeful future. The works under consideration in this review article employ a similar method. All the authors share the widely held view of the broad shape of US foreign relations since the Second World War, in particular the ideological struggle with the Soviet Union known as the Cold War followed by the more amorphous attempt to maintain American primacy, which has characterized the last two decades. Throughout this longer period the processes and goals of US foreign policy have been controversial: there has not, of course, been complete consensus. One topic which was and remains debated is the role and value of individuals, either high‐level politicians or senior diplomats, in the conduct of foreign policy. Another area of debate, often fierce argument, is the impact of domestic forces upon policy‐making. In the present case the leading example is provided by the amalgam of influences which determine US policy towards that nexus of competing interests often optimistically short‐handed as the Arab–Israeli peace process. One link between these two topics is the role of the US in multilateral bodies; and American actions within the United Nations and towards other international organizations are also examined. These and other related issues are contextualized geographically through an examination of American policies in the Greater Middle East, in particular the predominantly Muslim states which stretch eastwards from Egypt to India. While not providing a partisan political programme for the incoming president to follow, the collective message of these texts offers guidelines, even injunctions for the future conduct of US foreign policy.