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291. Strategy and contingency

Author:
Hew Strachan
Publication Date:
11-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Chatham House
Abstract:
Strategy is oriented towards the future. It is a declaration of intent, and an indication of the possible means required to fulfil that intent. But once strategy moves beyond the near term, it struggles to define what exactly it intends to do. Part of the problem is generated by the conceptual shift from what current NATO jargon calls 'military strategy' to what the United States calls 'grand strategy' (and which other states, as the US once did, have come to call 'national strategy'). The operational plans of military strategy look to the near term, and work with specific situations. Grand strategy, on the other hand, can entertain ambitions and goals which are more visionary and aspirational than pragmatic and immediate. It is as much a way of thinking as a way of doing. By using the same word, strategy, in both sets of circumstances, we create an expectation, each of the other, which neither can properly fulfil. The shift from 'military strategy' to 'grand strategy' is particularly fraught: it suggests that the latter, like the former, is underpinned by an actionable plan. If strategy is a matter of combining means, ways and ends, what are the ends towards which a state, nation or group is aiming when it cannot be precise about the future context within which its means and ways are being applied? Answering that question is the central conundrum of grand strategy, and being able to do so sensibly is correspondingly more difficult the more extended the definition of the future which grand strategy uses.
Topic:
Military Strategy
Political Geography:
United States

292. The self-limiting success of Iran sanction

Author:
Ray Takeyh and Suzanne Maloney
Publication Date:
11-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Chatham House
Abstract:
Economic sanctions have often been considered an important tool for disciplining adversaries and compelling them to offer important concessions. History, however, suggests otherwise. Economic penalties rarely cause states to abandon important national assets. After decades of struggling under punitive financial measures, Iran has persisted with its objectionable policies ranging from terrorism to proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. All this suggests that ideological regimes that put a premium on their political priorities and which are seemingly insensitive to the mounting costs of their belligerence may not be suitable candidates for the type of cost-benefit analysis that sanctions diplomacy invites.
Political Geography:
Iran

293. The chance for change in the Arab world: Egypt's uprising

Author:
H.A. Hellyer
Publication Date:
11-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Chatham House
Abstract:
The Middle East and North African region has been a focus of interest for a very long time. For many decades in the more recent past it has been the hub of key political issues, controversies and crises; much further back in history, the civilizations, states and empires recognized worldwide as the earliest known to humanity were established in this region. Where Iraq lies today, Mesopotamia, considered by many to be the cradle of human civilization, gave rise to the Sumerians, the Akkadians, the Babylonians, the Assyrians; elsewhere in the region the ancient Egyptians and Phoenicians rose to power and widespread influence.
Political Geography:
Iraq, Middle East, Arabia, North Africa, and Egypt

294. The 'China model' and the global crisis: from Friedrich List to a Chinese mode of governance?

Author:
Shaun Breslin
Publication Date:
11-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Chatham House
Abstract:
The global financial crisis reinvigorated ongoing debates over whether China has its own distinct and separate 'model' of political economy and/or development. There is much that connects this Chinese model with previous systems of national political economies; partly in terms of specific policy preferences, but also in terms of shared basic conceptions of the distribution of power in the global order. Like these previous systems, China has come to stand as an example of an alternative to following dominant (neo-)liberal models of development. In this respect, what the China model is not and what China does not stand for might be more important than what it actually is and what it does stand for. However, the idea of a coherent and unique Chinese model has considerable purchase, and is both informed by and also feeds into considerations of China's uniqueness and difference from the norms, ideas and philosophies that dominate the rest of the world
Political Geography:
China

295. China and global oil: Vulnerability and opportunity

Author:
Roland Dannreuther
Publication Date:
11-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Chatham House
Abstract:
China has grown increasingly dependent on imports of oil and, as a consequence, has become a major and very visible player in the international energy markets. For a country which has traditionally been strongly committed to the principle of self-reliance, this dependence on foreign oil has been a source of vulnerability and anxiety. But it has also been a strategic opportunity for China to chart its own ambitions and objectives as a global economic and political actor. This article addresses the various ways in which China has incorporated its energy import needs within its foreign policy. There are, it is argued, three dimensions to this. There is, first, integration and cooperation with the West and other large oil-importing countries and a shift away from neo-mercantilism to a growing reliance on international markets. Second, there is a complementary strategy of balancing, which seeks to develop the energy resources close to its borders, in Russia and Central Abstracts Asia, which are not so vulnerable to western intervention. And third, there is the construction, though preliminary and nascent at the moment, of a hegemonic order which challenges the US and the West in the critical maritime routes from the Pacific to the Indian Ocean and through to the Persian Gulf region
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, China, India, and Asia

296. The new resource politics: Can Australia and South Africa accommodate China?

Author:
Mark Beeson, Mills Soko, and Wang Yong
Publication Date:
11-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Chatham House
Abstract:
The material transformation of the Chinese economy is forcing a concomitant process of political adjustment—and not just in China. Other states are being forced to accommodate the 'rise of China'. In this context, this article first presents a comparative analysis of China's impact on two countries, Australia and South Africa, which have little in common other than a wealth of natural resources and a possible status as middle powers; this is a particularly useful exercise because these states are geographically distant and have very different political structures and general developmental histories. Second, the authors consider how China's bilateral ties look from a Chinese perspective in these two very different relationships. Such an analysis serves as a reminder that resource dependency is a two-way street. The article argues that underlying material realities are constraining and to some extent determining the domestic and foreign policies of three very different states that otherwise have little in common
Political Geography:
China, South Africa, and Australia

297. British nuclear weapons and NATO in the Cold War and beyond

Author:
Martin A Smith
Publication Date:
11-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Chatham House
Abstract:
NATO has been a source of influence on British nuclear policy and strategy since the 1950s. The nature and extent of its influence has, however, been kept limited by successive British governments. This article considers how and why this has happened. It discusses evolving British attitudes towards NATO command and planning, and shows how these were reflected with regard to strategic nuclear issues from the late 1950s. The evolution of the key notion that the United Kingdom is a second centre of nuclear decision within NATO is traced, and both its utility and contradictions are examined. Overall it is argued that, both during and since the Cold War, NATO has neither been a central factor in shaping British nuclear strategy and policy, nor have British nuclear weapons been other than of limited importance and relevance for most NATO members.
Political Geography:
United Kingdom

298. The US debate on NATO nuclear deterrence

Author:
David S Yost
Publication Date:
11-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Chatham House
Abstract:
NATO's nuclear deterrence posture has since the late 1950s involved risk- and responsibility-sharing arrangements based on the presence of US nuclear weapons in Europe. Since 1991 gravity bombs, deliverable by US and allied dualcapable aircraft, have been the only type of US nuclear weapons left in Europe. Although many other factors are involved in the alliance's deterrence posture and in US extended deterrence-including intercontinental forces, missile defences, non-nuclear capabilities and declaratory policy-recent discussions in the United States about NATO nuclear deterrence have focused on the future of the remaining Abstracts US nuclear weapons in Europe. The traditional view has supported long-standing US and NATO policy in holding that the risk- and responsibility-sharing arrangements based on US nuclear weapons in Europe contribute to deterrence and war prevention; provide assurance to the allies of the genuineness of US commitments; and make the extended deterrence responsibility more acceptable to the United States. From this perspective, no further cuts in the US nuclear weapons presence in Europe should be made without an agreement with Russia providing for reductions that address the US-Russian numerical disparity in non-strategic nuclear forces, with reciprocal transparency and verification measures. In contrast, four schools of thought call for withdrawing the remaining US nuclear weapons in Europe without any negotiated Russian reciprocity: some military officers who consider the weapons and associated arrangements unnecessary for deterrence; proponents of ambitious arms control measures who accept extended deterrence policies but view the US weapons in Europe as an obstacle to progress in disarmament; nuclear disarmament champions who reject extended nuclear deterrence policies and who wish to eliminate all nuclear arms promptly; and selective engagement campaigners who want the United States to abandon extended nuclear deterrence commitments to allies on the grounds that they could lead to US involvement in a nuclear war.
Political Geography:
United States and Europe

299. Extended nuclear deterrence in East Asia: redundant or resurgent?

Author:
Andrew O'Neil
Publication Date:
11-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Chatham House
Abstract:
A number of commentators have claimed that the strategic relevance of extended nuclear deterrence is declining in the twenty-first century. This claim is based on three key arguments. First, that the positive effects of extended nuclear deterrence have been exaggerated by its proponents; second, that the rational actor logic underpinning extended nuclear deterrence is increasingly redundant; and third, that extended deterrence using conventional weapons is equally, if not more, effective as extended nuclear deterrence. This article applies these arguments to East Asia, a region where nuclear weapons continue to loom large in states' security equations. In applying each of the above arguments to the East Asian context, the analysis finds that not only is extended nuclear deterrence alive and kicking in the region, but also that in the coming decades it is likely to become more central to the strategic policies of the United States and its key allies, Japan and South Korea. Despite predictions of its demise, US extended nuclear deterrence remains a critical element in East Asia's security order and will remain so for the foreseeable future
Political Geography:
United States, East Asia, and South Korea

300. The Russian social contract and regime legitimacy

Author:
Aleksei Makarkin
Publication Date:
11-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Chatham House
Abstract:
The social contract in Soviet and post-Soviet Russia has concerned not classical political rights but socio-economic issues. Loyalty is accorded to the powersthat-be partly from fear of repression, but also in return for new opportunities of advancement—whether resulting from social upheaval or from educational expansion—and for modest improvements in living standards. The Soviet era Abstracts ended when such benefits could no longer be delivered, on account of lower oil prices, arms-race burdens and lagging productivity and innovation. After the turmoil of the 1990s, the contract was re-established under Putin in the early 2000s. Public opinion accepts relatively authoritarian rule if economic stability appears guaranteed in return. Moreover, world events from 2008 onwards have dampened economic expectations. Nonetheless, the sustainability of the present contract is doubtful, with economic modernization likely to prove elusive in the absence of effective democratic institutions.
Political Geography:
Russia and Soviet Union