Understanding US Foreign Policy
Through the Lens of Theories of
International Relations
Dave McCuan
Masaryk University &
Sonoma State University
Fall 2009
Introduction to USFP & IR Theory
* Let's begin with recent history by considering whether
our understanding of international relations was
changed by the events of 9/11.
* Here's the outline:
­ Critical Approaches to IR
­ Liberalism
­ Realism
­ The John Mearsheimer Thesis ­ Bandwagoning Effects
­ The Francis Fukuyama Thesis
­ Main Points & What to Think About for Next Week
Critical Approaches to IR
* Constructivists are likely to be kept busy thinking about
how al-Qaida has become the new Soviet Union, and
the implications of this social fact for the rest of
international relations.
* Marxists have tended to interpret the rise of Radical
Islam as resistance on the part of traditional societies
and the disenfranchised to the sweeping dictates of
global capitalism.
* Samuel Huntington is also sympathetic to this view.
* A variation on this thinking suggests the primary reason
for the rise of Radical Islam and the terror attacks lies
in the demographic facts of the developing world,
where very large numbers of educated young men are
unemployed with few prospects.
Critical Approaches (cont'd)
* Robert Cox and Stephen Gill have written of a
more intolerant, disciplinary form of global
hegemony.
* In this hegemony, global riot control linked
with quasi-military missions become the
primary role for the U.S. military.
* Postmodern thinkers have started to debate the
idea that the reaction of the United States to
the terror attacks represents the start of a new
age of empire, although how this empire works
is far from clear.
Liberalism
* The post-Cold War era was a time of triumph for Liberalism in IR
Theory
* The Cold War was won by the liberal-capitalist-democratic
alliance. Globalization offered a secular and materialist culture to
all. Conflict no longer seemed inevitable. It seemed that everyone
now wanted to embrace these values.
* Francis Fukuyama suggested history had ended with the triumph
of liberal democracy.
* The rise of Radical Islam, and the involvement of Radical Islamists
in the terror attacks of 9/11 and 7/7 suggest the optimism of
Fukuyama's early 1990s formulation was misplaced.
* Although the sense of progress toward a better order has been
challenged by the reality of the terror attacks, Liberal thinking
embraces the role of ideas in shaping international relations. The
non-state character of terror groups like al-Qaida can also be
assimilated by Liberals.
Liberalism (cont'd)
* The Democratic Peace Thesis, which emerges
from Liberal thinking, might be applied to
explain the hostility between liberal and nonliberal
states (Mr Bush's, "axis of evil").
* However, the Neo- synthesis versions of
Liberalism that embrace anarchy, and
therefore the centrality of states, are less suited
to the analysis of the war on terror because
they marginalize non-state groups like al-
Qaida.
Realism
* Since the fall of the Berlin Wall in late 1989, Realism as the
dominant IR theory was in crisis.
* Waltz asserted that unipolarity could not survive. Inevitably,
alliances of opposing states would appear to challenge the United
States.
* John Mearsheimer went further, suggesting we would soon miss
the stability a binary balance of power gave us during the Cold
War.
* When 9/11 occurred it was clear that Realists had their war back.
The terror attacks reinforced Realists in their view that state
survival is always an issue, and in the importance of security
measures.
* But the attacks represent a major challenge for Realism and NeoRealism
because the threat, as it is understood, is primarily a nonstate
one.
Realism (cont'd)
* Realism/Neorealism, as you may know, says that it is the
existence of a world of states, in a context of anarchy that sets the
basic parameters of the system for all states. If 9/11 really matters,
Realism seems to have an explanatory problem.
* Perhaps the strongest point Realists might contribute to the debate
about the global war on terror and America's position in it, is the
insight from their 1980s debate about the supposed decline of
American hegemony.
* This debate, best captured in Paul Kennedy's The Fall and Rise of
the Great Powers (1988), suggested that the costs of leadership,
especially when other states do not support the actions of the
dominant state, can become a burden and sap the leadership
ability of the hegemonic state.
* Kennedy suggested that unilateral actions by hegemonic states
tend to reduce their hegemonic capacity in dealing with other
great powers.
* The war on terror on Kennedy's logic might be a distraction from
the development of future conflict with states like China, Russia
and even the EU.
John Mearsheimer
* The invasion of Iraq was bitterly opposed by
many prominent Realist thinkers.
* The Realists placed an advertisement in the
New York Times on September 26, 2002
asserting that war with Iraq was not in the U.S.
national interest.
* Mearsheimer has argued that the logic of
regime change in Iraq must be that Saddam
could not be deterred from using Weapons of
Mass Destruction (WMDs).
Mearsheimer (cont'd)
* But Mearsheimer suggests that Saddam was
not suicidal. His thirty year rule of Iraq
demonstrated his longevity.
* While he had used WMDs against Iraqi citizens
these people had no weapons to deter him.
* The US could deter a nuclear Iraq as it had
deterred a nuclear USSR.
* He concludes that a "compelling strategic
rationale is absent" in the calls for war.
Mearsheimer (cont'd)
* Since the invasion Mearsheimer has gone on
to identify a power-based motivation.
* Preference for use of US military force allows
for an independent or unilateral policy.
* Mearsheimer says this confidence in using US
military power is based on view that
"bandwagoning" logic underpins international
relations.
* "Bandwagoning" suggests that states that
might threaten a powerful state will throw in
their lot with the powerful state rather than be
defeated. They will jump aboard the American
bandwagon.
Mearsheimer (cont'd)
* Bandwagoning logic assumes the US can quickly
deploy small capable forces, as hypothesised in the
Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) supported by
former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.
* Unfortunately, the importance of nationalism was
ignored and bandwagoning did not work in Iraq.
* In an effort to overcome the insurgency that followed
invasion the US has abandoned RMA with the 2007
military surge. The surge has effectively put paid to
further unilateral US policy efforts at regime change.
Fukuyama
* Mearsheimer suggested that in addition to the power argument,
the US administration also had idealist motivations. These are
considered closely by Fukuyama.
* Francis Fukuyama's book on the Bush Administration and the
invasion of Iraq suggests we have to take seriously what he calls
neoconservative thinking in international relations.
* Fukuyama identifies four principles or themes in this
neoconservative thought.
* The first, following philosopher Leo Strauss, is that the "internal
character" of regimes matters (Fukuyama 2006; 48). The point is
that the character of the regime matters for its' external behavior.
* The second principle is that American power should be used for
moral purposes. The U.S, has a "special responsibility" in security
(eg. WWII, Cold War).
Fukuyama (cont'd)
* Third, skepticism about social engineering, which
perhaps explains hostility to Saddam's Baathist social
policies and the lack of post-war planning for Iraq.
* Last, the view that international law and institutions are
poor generators of peace and security.
* These principles underpin the assertion, suggests
Fukuyama, of the right of the United States, in National
Security Strategy 2002 (NSS 2006: 18), to take
"anticipatory action."
* More specifically, to "act preemptively in exercising
our inherent right of self-defense."
Fukuyama (cont'd)
* Preemption almost necessitates active United
States participation in regime change.
* These unilateral ideas are breathtakingly
ambitious.
* They are very much at odds with the prevailing
Realist orthodoxy in IR.
* Missing in the Bush doctrine are the constraint
of anarchy, the norm of sovereignty and
respect for the power of deterrence and
balance of power.