In their most recent book, John Mearscheimer and Sebastian Rosato
argue that theories that seek to explain international relations are
central to how leaders make policy decisions. Some are open about
this, some deny the role of theory and some are themselves unaware of
the extent their own thought processes rely on theories to achieve
desired results. In the case of the US, they argue: “…America’s foreign
policy since the Cold War has relied on the same theories that populate
academia. The United States adopted a policy of liberal hegemony
after the superpower competition ended and the world became unipolar.
That policy was based on the “big three” liberal theories of
international relations: liberal institutionalism, economic
interdependence theory and democratic peace theory. Its aim was to
extend membership in the international institutions that where created
in the West during the Cold War, foster an open world economy and spread
democracy around the world, all in the hope that such measures would
create a safer and more prosperous world. The main critics of liberal
hegemony where informed by realism, and policy debates between the two
sides were often conducted in the language of those rival theoretical
traditions.” (How States Think; pp.43)
Over the last weekend former president and current front runner for
the Republican nomination in this years’ elections, Donald Trump,
created a firestorm of controversy by once again questioning the
relevance of NATO and the US commitment to it, including Article 5, the
commitment to come to the defense of a member if attacked. The debate
over NATO’s continuing relevance has been ongoing since the dissolution
of the Warsaw Pact Treaty Organization that ended the Cold War and
especially since the crisis in Ukraine.
Your assignment is to examine the controversy over the continuing
relevance and role of NATO through these two different theoretical
frameworks, putting yourself first into the shoes of a liberal and then,
in a separate section, to look at the same issues from the perspective
of realism. The point of this assignment is above all to demonstrate
your understanding of these theoretical frameworks. In a conclusion
you should explain which theory (if any) you find more convincing and
why. In the conclusions you can also suggest alternative points of
view (Marxism, constructivism…) if you feel they can contribute to our
understanding of the situation. As students interested in Global
Politics I assume you have been following the developments but if you
have not you may want to review recent developments. Again, the point
is to demonstrate your understanding of the paradigms we explored in the
first weeks of this course. To help getting you going there are links
to articles on the role of NATO and the related crisis in Ukraine
below. Keep in mind that there are no wrong or right answers in this
assignment, but rather answers that demonstrate a critical understanding
of course concepts and answers that to some extent fall short of doing
so.
While no further research is required you are of course welcome to
include sources not on the syllabus if relevant. Your essay should be
no longer than 2000 words (excluding citations) and you should cite all
your sources.
From Columbia University Prof. Jeffrey Sachs:
From the Globe & Mail today:
NATO: Blair’s office does not directly address Trump threat (to not come to aid of members not paying their 2% dues)
The Globe and Mail (Ontario Edition)
Feb 12, 2024
Read more at:
https://globe2go.pressreader.com/article/281642490082751
Donald Trump says he once threatened to “encourage” Russia to invade
U.S. allies that fail to pay their share of NATO costs, an assertion
that is sending alarm through the alliance as leaders grapple with the
rising possibility of the former president returning to the White House.
The
threat lands as Ukraine warns it is running out of money and weapons to
hold back Moscow’s invasion and President Joe Biden’s effort to send
more aid remains stuck in Congress.
At a campaign rally on Saturday
evening in South Carolina, Mr. Trump recounted a conversation with the
president of an unnamed “big country.” The other leader, Mr. Trump said,
asked whether the United States would protect his country from a
Russian attack if the country missed its targets on NATO spending.
“No,
I would not protect you. In fact, I would encourage them to do whatever
the hell they want. You gotta pay, you gotta pay your bills ,” Mr.
Trump said he told the leader. “And the money came flowing in.”
Mr.
Trump has long complained that most countries in the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization have failed to honour a 2014 pledge to spend 2 per
cent of GDP on defence. Canada, for instance, spends about 1.38 per
cent.
But his Saturday comments were the strongest indication yet
that, if he gets back into office, Mr. Trump might violate NATO’s
Article 5 collective defence commitment and allow Russia to invade
vulnerable members of the alliance.
Poland, Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania have all expressed fear of Russian aggression.
“Any
suggestion that allies will not defend each other undermines all of our
security, including that of the U.S., and puts American and European
soldiers at increased risk,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg
said in a statement after Mr. Trump’s speech.
Poland’s Defence
Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz warned on social media that “the
entire NATO” would be weaker if any member failed to defend the others.
Canadian Defence Minister Bill Blair’s office touted the value of NATO but did not directly address Mr. Trump’s threat.
“For
almost 75 years, NATO has kept all of its members safer than they would
be on their own,” spokeswoman Diana Ebadi wrote in an e-mail on Sunday.
“In the face of Russia’s illegal and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine,
NATO’s mission is more important than ever.”
Ms. Ebadi would not say
when or if Canada planned to meet its spending commitment. “Our
contributions and defence investments remain on an upward trajectory,”
she wrote. Since 2014, Canada’s NATO contributions have fluctuated
between 1.01 per cent and 1.44 per cent of GDP, according to the
alliance’s figures.
Thierry Breton, the European Union commissioner
for internal market, said the conversation Mr. Trump was referring to at
his rally occurred in 2020 with Ursula von der Leyen, the president of
the European Commission, in Davos, Switzerland. During the meeting, at
which Mr. Breton was also present, he said Mr. Trump told Ms. von der
Leyen: “If you think that NATO will defend you, you’re wrong.”
Mr.
Breton, speaking on French news channel LCI, said Mr. Trump appeared to
be having “a little memory problem” in incorrectly recalling his
interlocutor as a male country leader rather than the female chief
executive of the EU.
Mr. Breton said that Europe had to prepare for
the possibility of the U.S. cutting off funding for NATO or military aid
to Ukraine. “We no longer have the choice to not increase our defence
production capacity,” he said.
In his campaign platform, Mr. Trump
promises a “re-evaluating” of “NATO’s purpose and NATO’s mission.” He
also pledges to end the war between Russia and Ukraine in 24 hours but
does not say how exactly he would do that. This has stoked fears that he
plans to either abandon both NATO and Ukraine or force Kyiv into a
settlement that involves large concessions to Russia.
Polling of the
likely presidential election matchup shows Mr. Trump tied with or
leading Mr. Biden, a Democrat, nationally and in key swing states.
Mr.
Biden and a bipartisan majority in Congress have so far sent
US$75-billion in aid to Ukraine. But the next tranche of funds has been
held up by far-right Republicans despite warnings from Ukrainian
President Volodymyr Zelensky that a lack of continuing help from the
U.S. will doom his country’s war effort.
The Senate on Sunday
continued work on a US$95-billion military aid package for Ukraine and
Israel but it remains unclear whether it will ultimately pass Congress.
Nikki
Haley, Mr. Trump’s only remaining opponent for the Republican
nomination, said that the U.S. must use other means to press the rest of
NATO members into meeting their commitments.
“We do want NATO allies
to pull their weight,” she said on CBS. “But there are ways you can do
that without sitting there and telling Russia, ‘Have your way with these
countries.’ ”
_______________________________________________
By our colleague Aurel Brown, also from todays’ Globe & Mail:
In bizarre Tucker Carlson interview, Putin drew on Soviet propaganda
The Globe and Mail
12 Feb 2024
AUREL BRAUN
OPINION
Aurel Braun is a professor of political science and international
relations at the University of Toronto and an associate at Harvard
University’s Davis Center.
For several days, Tucker Carlson’s smiling face was ubiquitous
Links to an external site. on the Russian state and social media. Visiting Moscow, he received wall-to-wall coverage, rock-star treatment, and praise
Links to an external site. as
possibly the sole credible Western “journalist.” His interview with
Vladimir Putin, who has an arrest warrant issued against him by the
International Criminal Court, has been portrayed by the Kremlin as an historic event
Russia is also the country where Western journalists, including Evan
Gershkovich from the Wall Street Journal, remain jailed on the most
dubious espionage charges, and where more than a thousand independent
journalists had to flee abroad as the Kremlin introduced draconian
censorship laws in the wake of Russia’s all-out aggression against
Ukraine in February, 2022. Moscow criminalized even the use of the term
“war,” with only Mr. Putin’s euphemism “special military operation”
Links to an external site. permitted.
On Thursday, Mr. Putin sent a message in his long, passive-aggressive
and rather bizarre interview to what he calls “the collective West,”
and also to his own people before the predetermined March presidential
elections. He aimed to damage Ukraine and help Donald Trump. Here, both
the message and the messenger are crucial, and context as well as
content are vital to appreciate the Kremlin’s aims.
In its conflict against Ukraine, Russia is using a hybrid approach,
and information warfare is pivotal to this. For the latter, the Putin
regime has reached back to the old KGB concept of “reflexive control,”
which hinges on a type of Soviet disinformation, maskirovka
Links to an external site., that
combines denial and deception, but fundamentally plays on the
predilections of the target to induce a favoured predetermined decision.
Here, reflexive control plays on the West’s justified fear of war, its
aversion to escalation and popular distrust of government. In the
implementation of this concept, the messenger is key.
Since February, 2022, the Kremlin has turned down requests for
interviews with Mr. Putin by a variety of distinguished journalists from
Western media outlets, including the BBC and CNN. So why would they use
Mr. Carlson? After all, Mr. Carlson, who had the largest viewership
across Fox News, was abruptly fired last April, since his
conspiracy-laden and defamatory broadcasts made him too toxic and expensive
Links to an external site..
Once he lost his privileged perch at Fox, his influence declined
precipitously, even though he subsequently built his own streaming
service and distributes a talk show
Links to an external site. on X (formerly Twitter).
There are at least three reasons why the Kremlin would still use Mr.
Carlson. First, he is extremely close to Mr. Trump. The latter even
stated that he would consider Mr. Carlson as a running mate
Links to an external site.. Second, Mr. Carlson has voiced his admiration for Mr. Putin, has been rooting for Moscow
Links to an external site. and called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky a “sweaty and rat-like” dictator
Links to an external site..
He has been a propaganda gift for the Kremlin, especially for the past
two years. Third, Mr. Carlson ideologically represents what I would call
the Lindbergh-nativist
Links to an external site. fringe
of the Republican party, which promotes crude isolationism and tends to
admire authoritarian leaders. Those fringe Republicans are instrumental
to blocking critical aid to Ukraine in Congress.
It takes an Occam’s razor to cut through Mr. Putin’s manipulative
morass of distortions, brazen rewriting of history and Orwellian
inversions in the interview. He illuminated, though, two key themes. He
portrayed Russia as the perennial victim, threatened by NATO and
Ukraine, fearful of aggression. His approach, however, was more mafia
than Machiavelli; he blamed Ukraine, the actual victim, for the
devastation it has suffered from Russian aggression – essentially for
not surrendering sovereign territory quickly enough and refusing to
readily commit political suicide. The solution Mr. Putin proposed,
including the West abandoning Ukraine, involves vast territorial
concessions by Kyiv and a neutered sovereignty that would result in a
dismembered and defenceless Ukraine – likely a prelude to new Russian
demands in Europe. The message was also directed at his own population,
telling them that just as Russia can move with immunity internationally,
the unassailable Putinite regime can act with impunity domestically.
Yet, this may not turn out to be quite the information warfare coup
that Mr. Putin envisions. Using Mr. Carlson, who is so close to Mr.
Trump, is such a clear attempt to manipulate the American elections that
it might just fuel new concerns about Russian interference and thereby
harm Mr. Trump’s prospects with the larger American public and even
boost Congressional support for Ukraine. Should Mr. Trump win in 2024,
he might not be the “Manchurian candidate”
Links to an external site. that
Mr. Putin hopes. More of an extreme narcissist than an ideologue,
history shows that Mr. Trump can turn from lavish praise to blind hatred
in a New York minute.
Article by Anatol Liven on NATO:
Russia Belongs at the Center of Europe
NATO and the European Union have reached their limits. Here’s what should come next.
Links to an external site., the director of the Eurasia program at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.
Vladimir Putin speaks during a press conference on the second day of
the G8 summit venue of Lough Erne on June 18, 2013 in Enniskillen,
Northern Ireland.
Vladimir Putin speaks during a press conference on the second day of
the G8 summit venue of Lough Erne on June 18, 2013 in Enniskillen,
Northern Ireland. WPA POOL /GETTY IMAGES
FEBRUARY 10, 2022, 3:36 PM
The Western attempt to expel Russia from Europe has failed. That
there was such an attempt was always implicit in the strategy of seeking
to admit every European country but Russia into NATO and the European
Union. In this context, the NATO slogan “A Europe Whole and Free” is an
explicit statement that Russia is not part of Europe.
But as French President Emmanuel Macron has reminded us, Russia is part
of Europe and is simply too big, too powerful, and too invested in its
immediate neighborhood to be excluded from the European security order. A
continued strategy along these lines will lead to repeated Russian
attempts to force its way back in. At best, this will lead to repeated
and very damaging crises; at worst, to war.
A structure needs to be created that can defend the interests of NATO
and the EU while at the same time accommodating vital Russian interests
and preserving peace. The solution lies in a modernized version of what
was once called the “Concert of Europe.”
The current security order has reached its limit. Until 2007-2008,
the expansion of the EU and NATO appeared to have proceeded flawlessly,
with the admission of all the former Soviet satellites in Central Europe
and the Balkans, as well as the Baltic states. Russia was unhappy with
NATO expansion but did not actively oppose it. Then, however, both NATO
and the EU received decisive checks, through their own overreach.
At the NATO summit in Bucharest, Romania, in 2008, the United States
and its allies, though denied an immediate Membership Action Plan for
Ukraine and Georgia because of the opposition of France and Germany,
procured a promise of those countries’ eventual membership. Seen from
Moscow, this created the prospect that NATO would include countries with
territorial disputes (and in the case of Georgia, frozen conflicts)
with Russia; that (as in the Baltic states) NATO would give cover to
moves to harm the position of local Russian minorities; and that NATO
would expel Russia from its naval base at Sevastopol and from the
southern Caucasus.
Later that year, the Russo-Georgian War should have sounded the death
knell of further NATO expansion, for it demonstrated beyond doubt both
the acute dangers of territorial disputes in the former USSR and that in
the last resort Russia would fight to defend its vital interests in the
region, and the West would not fight. This is being demonstrated again
today by the repeated and categorical statements from Washington and
Brussels that there is no question of sending troops to defend Ukraine;
and if NATO will not fight for Ukraine, then it cannot admit Ukraine as
an ally. It is as simple as that.
The rise of China is the other factor that makes the exclusion of
Russia unviable. For this project was developed at a time when Russia
was at its weakest in almost 400 years and when China’s colossal growth
had only just begun. This allowed the West possibilities that today have
diminished enormously, if as seems likely China is prepared to
strengthen Russia against Western economic sanctions.
The EU too has reached the limit of its expansion eastward. On the
one hand, there is Ukraine’s size (44 million people), corruption,
political dysfunction, and poverty (GDP per capita that’s one-third of
Russia’s). Perhaps more importantly, EU expansion to eastern Europe no
longer looks like the unconditional success story that it did a decade
ago.
Romania, Bulgaria, and other states remain deeply corrupt and in many
ways still ex-communist. Poland and Hungary have developed dominant
strains of chauvinist and quasi-authoritarian populism that place them
at odds with what were supposed to be the core values of the EU—and that
in some respects bring them closer ideologically to the regime of
Russian President Vladimir Putin. After this experience, there is no
chance that the EU will admit a country like Ukraine in any foreseeable
future.
An acknowledgment of these obvious truths (which are acknowledged in
private by the overwhelming majority of Western officials and experts)
should open the way to thinking about a new European security
architecture that would incorporate NATO and the EU while reducing the
hostility between these organizations and Russia. We should aim at the
creation of this new system as part of the solution to the present
crisis, and in order to avoid new ones.
This requires a return to a more traditional way of thinking about
international politics. For a key problem of the West’s approach to
Russia since the end of the Cold War is that it has demanded that Russia
observe the internal rules of behavior of the EU and NATO without
offering EU and NATO membership (something that is in any case
impossible for multiple reasons).
In recent years and in the wider world, the U.S. establishment by
contrast has loudly announced “the return of great-power politics”—and
this is true enough as far as it goes. Certainly the idea of a
monolithic “rules-based global order,” in which liberal internationalism
acts as a thin cover for U.S. primacy, is now dead.
The problem is that most members of the U.S. establishment have
become so wedded to belief in both the necessity and the righteousness
of U.S. global primacy that they can see relations with other great
powers only in confrontational and zero-sum terms. Rivalry, of course,
there will inevitably be; but if we are to avoid future disasters, we
need to find a way of managing relations so as to keep this rivalry
within bounds, establish certain genuine common rules, prevent conflict,
and work toward the solution of common problems. To achieve this, we
need to seek lessons further back in diplomatic history.
The essential elements of a new, reasonably consensual pan-European
order should be the following: a traditional nonaggression treaty
between NATO and the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization
(CSTO), by which both sides pledge not to attack the other militarily.
As a matter of fact, neither side has any intention of doing so, and to
put this on paper would reduce mutual paranoia and the ability of
establishments on both sides to feed this paranoia for their own
domestic purposes.
Full diplomatic relations should be established or reestablished
between NATO and the CSTO and between the EU and the Russian-led
Eurasian Economic Union. On the basis of this, intensive negotiations
should be launched to achieve two goals: new arms control agreements in
Europe, starting with nuclear missiles, and economic arrangements
Links to an external site. that
would allow nonmembers of the EU and the Eurasian Economic Union to
trade freely with both blocs, rather than forcing on them a mutually
exclusive choice of trading partners.
When it comes to the avoidance and solution of conflicts, however,
institutions involving all European countries are too large and too
rigid to be of much use. The Russian establishment has also decided—not
without reason—that these are simply excuses for Western countries to
agree to a common position and then present it to Russia as a fait accompli.
The need is for a regular, frequent, but much smaller and less formal
meeting place for the countries that really count in European security:
the United States, France, Germany, and Russia (plus the United Kingdom,
if it survives as one state and emerges from its post-Brexit
bewilderment).
Such a European security council would have three goals: firstly, the
avoidance of new conflicts through early consultation about impending
crises; secondly, the solution of existing conflicts on the basis of
common standards of realism—in other words, who actually controls the
territory in question and will continue to do so; and thirdly,
democracy—the will of the majority of the local population, expressed
through internationally supervised referendums (a proposal put forward
by Thomas Graham
Finally, a European security council could lay the basis for security
cooperation outside Europe. Here, the present situation is nothing
short of tragicomic. In Afghanistan, the United States, NATO, the EU,
Russia, and the CSTO have an identical vital interest: to prevent that
country from becoming a base for international Islamist terrorism and
revolution. And for all the greater complexity of the situation, this is
also true in the end of the fight against the Islamic State and its
allies in the Middle East and western Africa.
Among the other benefits of such a new consultative institution would
therefore be to remind both the West and Russia that while Russian and
NATO soldiers have never killed each other and do not want to, there are
other forces out there that have killed many thousands of Americans,
Russians, and West Europeans, would gladly kill us all if they could
find the means to do so, and see no moral difference whatsoever between
what they see as Western and Eastern infidel imperialism.