Gov 312L Review Questions

What agencies and people are considered actors of foreign policy?

1. Two agencies -CIA: gathering of intelligence and information (John Brennan) -Directorate of National Intelligence: centralize the intelligence of a lot of foreign agencies scattered throughout the American government (James Clapper) 2. Two important people -National Security Advisor (Susan Rice) -American Ambassador to the UN (Samantha Powers)

How does Obama view the use of unilateral versus multilateral means?

-multilateral military action. -we have to work with others because collective action in these circumstances is more likely to succeed, more likely to be sustained, less likely to lead to costly mistakes.

What are the main characteristics of a liberal international order?

-Activist foreign policy -Projection of American power -Quite a bit of military conflict, variety of areas around the world -Expansive rather than narrow -Global engagement -Sees security as collective in nature rather then one state -Idealism not realism Collective security system through League of Nations -Eliminate problem of war National self-determination (anti-imperialism) 1. Focused on empowering people living under imperial rule to determine their own political fate 2. Sought to undermine traditional European governments

What is the logic that underlies this grand strategy?

-American interests abroad are global -Expansive -Security is achieved unilaterally through preponderant American power -Opposite of SE and LI -Very suspicious of multilateral -Reliance on military power -Extraordinary military and economic power -Premium of military hard power -Can be marked by emphasis from a worldview that is primarily realist (material) or idealist (values) -Realist school of international relations -However, big emphasis on idealist values

What is the logic that underlies this grand strategy?

-American interests abroad are still global but not unconstrained -American power has limits -U.S. must prioritize its interests and bring them in line with capacity -U.S. must partner with regional powers

What is the logic that underlies this grand strategy?

-American threats abroad are global Key features 1. Security is collective and achieved through multilateral organizations and alliances -Multilateral: To create a liberal international order -Emphasize multilateral over unilateral: -Great value in UN and NATO -Hardly ever go at it alone -Work with allies 2. Security is best achieved in a world based on Western values: free markets, democratic regimes, protecting human rights a. Security is seen as contextual b. American inspired values c. Obama and West Point speech 3. American intervention (with military and economic power) used to establish an American-led liberal international order

What are the targets of foreign policy?

-Usually other governments like Russia, Egypt, or Iran but also International organizations like the United Nations that often possess powerful and independent bureaucracies -Can also target private contractors

Compare and contrast the Utilitarianism framework and the Common Good framework to practical ethics. How are they similar and different?

-Both Utilitarianism and Common Good emphasize collective values Common Good approach: Concerned with definition of community and provision of public goods like security, public health, clean environment -Defining the community, who is in and who is out -Focuses on the provisions of public goods -Everyone in a community would benefit from Utilitarianism: Maximizing benefit/minimizing harm for most people -Protecting the common good of public safety for the American community (Common Good approach) vs. Maximizing good/minimizing harm for the greatest number of people (Utilitarianism)

Explain how the Yemen crisis represents three different levels types of dilemma for U.S. foreign policy?

-Current Crisis in the Arabian peninsula -Yemen is home to the most dangerous branch of Al-Qaeda 1. Immediate Dilemma: US lost a partner in counter-terrorism in the region 2. Broader regional dilemma: No good options, no viable partners, multiple threats 3. Strategic Dilemma: No strategic plan, no grand strategy

What are the arenas in which the U.S. has important national interests?

-Domestic arena -International arena

Is containment a grand strategy?

-Example of a comprehensive US foreign policy that defines a target -Post world war II presidents all practiced containment of Soviet Union -Different brands of containment and that's where different strategies of Grand Strategy come in -Truman: Liberal internationalism Reagan: Primacy

What is Selective Engagement (SE) or Offshore Balancing?

-Goal is to better align capacity and interests. Both are limited. -Solving great power wars -Largest and strongest states in the system

What is primacy?

-Goal is to use unilateral means to establish American hegemony over all rivals -Avoid emergence of strong rival to American Power

What is the chief critique of Liberal Internationalism?

-LI can be too expansive and perceived as imperialism -Perceive LI as a form of liberal imperialism

What does President Obama argue about the role and necessity of American leadership on the world stage?

-Military cannot be only component of leadership -Transparent -Strengthen and enforce international order -Act on behalf of human dignity

How is George W. Bush's grand strategy a neo-conservative variant of primacy?

-Moralism associated with neoconservatism not necessary for primacy -Primacy about dominance not values to which dominance might be used to promote -Preventing emergence of any new peer competitor

What is the chief critique of Selective Engagement?

-Selective engagement is difficult to execute

What are the subsidiary ideas of grand strategy about?

-The nature of the International Political order -The principal sources of security threats faced by the US -The definition of American national interests -Arguments about the appropriate means to -Calculations about how to optimize these means and ends

Why does Posen in your article, "Pull Back," disagree with this depiction of President Obama's grand strategy?

-Unwilling or hesitant Liberal internationalist -Obama's faith in America's ability to make the world in America's image -Key element in LI -Obama is too much of a realist to be a LI -Offshore balancer camp -Reluctant to commit US military force to support humanitarian disasters Ex: Syria's use of chemicals -To skeptical to fashion outcomes and engage in nation building -He is no Woodrow Wilson or Truman -Not trying to be as expansive as possible

What is Liberal Internationalism?

-Use military power and international institutions to pursue a liberal international order -Things that are in the current American system: Political and economic liberty -Liberal internationalism 1. Liberal means prevalent in European politics 2. Emphasis on free and fair elections 3. Freedom of speech, etc 4. Civil right and equality 5. Free market economy 6. Both democrats and republicans are liberal in classic European sense

What is the logic that underlies isolationism?

1. American threats abroad are minimal compared to domestic problems -Weak military strengths to our North and South -Enjoys security provided by Atlantic and Pacific Ocean -Hard to launch an invasion -we have nuclear weapons 2. Foreign conflicts can infect domestic politics -can make things worse -Infuse our internal affairs with unnecessary strife 3. Foreign intervention itself can create a threat -Specifically military intervention -Hostile and lethal threats where none existed prior to military involvement 4. America first: scarce resources should be devoted to domestic problems -Wise use of resources -Foreign economic aid is wasteful and goes to corruption

What does Obama say about the main threats facing the United States and how the U.S. should approach these threats?2. Create more enemies s

1. Combat terrorism 2. Promote human dignity -More than just promote democracy (he wanted to differentiate against Bush at the beginning but now... 3. Strong economy at home 4. Cannot always rely on our military to get what we want -Creates problems because it creates backlash 5. Partner with regional countries -Train their military and use them to combat enemy -Strategy being employed to counter ISIS -This is why Yemen is a big deal

What are the main foreign policy actors within the executive branch?

1. State Department -House all of the diplomats responsible for the day to day interaction between the US government and all the other governments which the US has relationships with -Secretary of State (John Kerry) 2. Defense Department -Manages the armed forces (Chuck Hagel retired) 3. Treasury Department -Manages the coordination of monetary policies between the US and other states -Also has domestic responsibilities

What are the three main characteristics that define grand strategies and distinguish one grand strategy from another?

1. Geographic scope of interests: -National interests -Regional and narrow or global and broad Ex: Isolationism emphasizes physical security of homeland versus Liberal internationalism, security of allies as well 2. Choice of means: -Approach to means -Unilateralism (going alone, only U.S. power) v. multilateralism (working with partners and international organizations) -Type of means -Military force or other means (economic sanctions, diplomacy) 3. Hard v. soft power -Hard: military force -Soft: Economic level or diplomacy (Define the problem, scope of threat, nature of the threat)

Give some examples of values that come into conflict. How does this complicate ethical decision-making?

1. Individual versus community 2. Loyalty versus truth 3. Justice versus mercy 4. Short term versus long term -What complicates this ethical decision-making situation is that perfectly laudable values, perfectly good values can come into conflict with one another -Can't focus on both values at the same time

What dimensions help to determine preferences over outcomes?

1. Security interests -Protection of the homeland -Expect our government to provide for the political safeties 2. Economic interests -Since end of WWII, promote free trade order -Concrete interest that countries limit tariff barriers, ensure that we have reliable access to key raw materials like oil, and protect interest of American businesses around the world 3. Values -Protecting human rights and genocide and furthering democracy around the world

What are the aspects of foreign policy?

1. Shape target beliefs: -Beliefs as organizing ideas that foreign possess of American interests and their expectations of future American actions 2. Shape target capabilities -Capabilities as the relative balance of military power between two political organizations 3. Shape target interests -Interests as what states want (territory, wealth, nuclear weapons, more democracies around the world) 4. Shape target actions -Foreign policy as a device to alter behavior of other states

What are the five frameworks for approaching practical ethics and the metrics behind each one?

1. Utilitarianism: what causes the most benefit for the most people or avoids the most harm for the most people 2. Common good: how one defines their community plays a role, a common good could mean maximizing benefits for the most people (similar to utilitarianism), not the same because benefitting the common good also includes providing public goods and the long term benefit collective. Focus on this approach on the collective, on the community 3. Virtue: centrally focused on cultivating values that are deemed desirable by a society, tied to self-image 4. Rights approach: emphasizes the idea that every person has dignity and specific rights. Respects those people with rights, individualistic perspective 5. Fairness: justice and equal treatment, concerns with discrimination and inequality

What are the implications of the results of the recent parliamentary election in Greece?

Anti-Austerity -They need to renegotiate their debt

What is austerity and how do the politics surrounding Greece's austerity program threaten the stability of European Union?

Austerity: policies used by governments to reduce budget deficits during adverse economic conditions -Include spending cuts, tax increases, ro both

What does Obama say about the use of military force?

Cannot always rely on our military to get what we want -Creates problems because it creates backlash -Create more enemies -Costly

How is Woodrow Wilson a historical example of the liberal internationalist grand strategy?

Famous 14 point speech -Democracy -Free trade -Open navigation of the sea (for trade, challenges British naval hegemony) Problems -How to enforce the system? -Too challenging -Couldn't secure domestic support through Congress (sound familiar?) -Killed the league of nations as an international organization

What was the electoral platform of the victorious Syriza party?

Far left party (Syriza) secures victory in elections over weekend on anti-austerity agenda, pledge to pursue relief from int'l bond holders of Greek debt

What is balancing behavior in foreign policy?

Foreign policy efforts to prevent the concentration of power defined to include political, military, and economical power in any one state or group of states -Trying to concentrate balance of power -Refer to efforts to block the growth of power in international areas -Focus on great powers -Solve great power wars

What is foreign policy?

Foreign policy is actions and statements undertaken by the US federal government directed toward some foreign audience often other political organizations which are generally states

How are George Washington and his Farewell Address and Republican presidential successors to Woodrow Wilson in the 1920s historical examples of the isolationist grand strategy?

GW: -Set against wars associated with French Revolution -Jay treaty, French tried to undermine us -Warns against foreign entanglements: antipathies or alliances -Warned against factions -Helps to set up a tradition of isolationism by recommending detachment from Europe so democracy could be consolidated Republican successors to Wilson in 1920's (Heilbrun reading): -Rely on private economic influence, rather than political-military power -Frustrated with European powers of compliance with Versailles treaty -Tax cuts, demobilization, and limited political involvement in Europe

What is isolationism?

Goal is to reduce foreign interventions and avoid future commitments -Keeping outside world at a safe distance -Most constrained and most narrow (of Grand Strategies) -Prefers smallest role for the US

What is the national interest?

Goals set by the US: -guide policy: prevent terrorism, promote democracy -emerge from and define collective identity of Americans: Founding Fathers -compatibility set potential for conflict/cooperation with other states :allies like Canada/Conflict with Iran

What is neo-conservativism and what are its historical foundations?

Neoconservatism (an ideology not a grand strategy) -Politically started on far left, moved to center during and following social turmoil of 1960's; moved right during Carter and Reagan administrations -Original hero: Leon Trotsky (anti-Stalin; Stalin had perverted communist revolution); -Were anti-capitalist; anti-liberal in the United States, strong critiques of FDR -FDR was too conservative -They were socialists -Anti-Stalin views foundation for strong hardline stance against Soviet Union during Cold War -Pushed rightward by social upheaval of 1960's: deplored rise of cultural relativism; blaming of United States; "attack" on universities by student radicals; opposed affirmative action -Social life is simply too complex to reengineer -Contradiction with foreign policies under Bush administration -Political evolution of neoconservatism

How does grand strategy intersect with domestic partisanship?

Not a theory but an ideology, akin to domestic partisanship in the US -Important political component to them -Mobilize domestic political support around some set of foreign policies that they want to pursue Think of the debate about grand strategy as the international parallel to the domestic debates over partisanship -Promote some set of national interest while simultaneously providing a ready set, a policy recommendations capable of achieving those goals

Why does McDonald argue that Barack Obama's foreign policy also follows a liberal internationalist grand strategy?

Obama fits with liberal international camp -See support for multilateral cooperation in West Point speech -Work with partners to confront security challenges today (Mainly terrorism) -Still supportive of democracy: not a benchmark anymore to evaluate -Key values about humanitarian efforts -Economic liberty, equity, women's rights -Willing to use military force -Pulls back from Bush grand strategy of Primacy by withdrawing from Iraq (?) and drawing down (?) in Afghanistan (Bush-primacy)

How are Dwight D. Eisenhower and George H. W. Bush historical examples of the strategic engagement grand strategy?

President Eisenhower -sought to alter the nature of Americas military commitments to Europe in 1950s -Push more responsibility for defense of Europe on Europeans to make Cold War sustainable at home -Pull back ground troops, rely on allies -Increase reliance on nuclear weapons -Prevent resurgence of isolationism in US -Did not want to spend a lot of resources in Europe unlike Truman -Attributes of supporting SA 1. Advocate the transfer of nuclear weapons in West Germany, pull back from an extensive commitment, in terms of conventional forces in Europe 2. Worried about isolationists at home, thought could increase risk of war with Soviets President H.W. Bush -Cautious with impending collapse, did not hasten or expand US influence in E. Europe -Resisted calls at home to seize Gorbachev's weakness -Tried to bolster Gorbachev through diplomacy -German threat of unification -Relied on NATO (created in response to USSR) to reassure USSR and manage German unification -Argued that we can rely on NATO in the future to constrain Germany foreign policy so does not become threatening to USSR -Classical realist -Stable great power relations -Preserve peace in an era of rapid change -Remarkable job -Contrast with Clinton and NATO expansion -Expands NATO to include countries in Eastern Europe -Were previous a part of the Warsaw pact -Deterioration of US and Russian relations -When Russia was weak, Clinton put the boot on the throne

What is the chief critique of primacy?

Primacy can lead to overreach and isolation -Too ambition and costly -Unwilling to work with global community

How do the differences between Republican politicians John McCain and Rand Paul illustrate the differences between grand strategy and domestic partisanship?

Rand Paul versus John McCain -Very different grand strategies Paul is tied to isolationism -Tempering that now because of 2016 elections -Less military action around the world and cuts ton the foreign aid budget -American military involvement around the world can accentuate security problems for the US by creating new enemies McCain is a supporter of the use of military force to promote democracy abroad -Supports surges in Iraq and Afghanistan -Supports use of military force in Libya, Syria, and now Western Iraq -More troops on the ground to prevent ISIS Very different views of grand strategy even though both are Republicans

What are the difference between selective engagement and Liberal internationalism?

SE engagers are willing to operate through multilateral means, and traditional alliance structures -Similar to LI with this -Unilateral -Isolationist and primacy -Key differences 1. Willingness for internationalists to root American grand strategy, and American foreign policies in the values that we associate with classical liberalism -Promoting democracy, promoting free markets 2. Instead, SE are much more realist and their much more agnostic about these things, and George Kennan during Cold war quote

In what ways did Moser suggest that President Obama's foreign policy diverge from Liberal Internationalism? (See clip from John Oliver.)

Steadily advance interests of American people -Might not be sexy -Avoids errors -Received criticism from democrats too

What is the primary critique of isolationism?

The primary objection to isolationism, especially in the current environment, is that the U.S. is a global superpower, for right or wrong, and as such has global interests and faces global threats -Physical barriers like oceans that may have once kept us safe will no longer do so -In short, we simply cannot afford to turn away from the world because the world's problems, if left unchecked

What is grand strategy?

The set of overarching ideas that guide the conduct of foreign policy -way of clumping a group of foreign policy ideas -big ideas: Containment, democracy promotion, counter nuclear proliferation -4 visions: Isolationism, Selective Engagement, Liberal Internationalism, and Primacy

What is foreign policy designed to influence?

These policies are designed to shape the beliefs, capabilities, interests, and other actions of their targets

Bush and primacy?

i. Clear willingness to use military force to promote fp goals 1. Iraq; Afghanistan 2. After 9/11 ii. Skepticism of international institutions (Bolton) 1. Too constraining in an era of new threats that need immediate response iii. Democracy promotion iv. Preserve military dominance over peers 1. Dramatic post-9/11 buildup v. Shock of 9/11 important vi. Candidate Bush as offshore balancer

What are the foreign policy view of neoconservatives?

i. Influenced by Wohlstetter during Cold War 1. Nuclear balance delicate, not stable; push arms races ii. Big supporters of Reagan and his characterization of Soviet Union as evil empire; rollback (not Containment) 1. Frustration in 1985-86 iii. Post 1991: embrace vision of American primacy that fuses American power with pursuit of liberal ideals 1. Use American power to promote liberalism/democracy around the world 2. US should purse moral foreign policy (supported Clinton interventions in Haiti, Bosnia)