Grand Strategies for Dealing with Other States in the New, New World Order
Abstract
The art of statecraft has often involved efforts to improve the security of one state by taking advantage of the power and influence of other states. This is, for example, why a state typically seeks to forge military alliances with others. It is also why some states provide economic and military support to client or dependent states and why some advocate the formation of multistate trading blocs. The theory behind the trading-bloc strategy is that cooperation on security matters is more likely when there are strong economic and other mutually beneficial connections among the members of the bloc. Among the tools that have been and are being used to influence other states are trade preferences, loans, loan guarantees, concessionary pricing for military sales, export-import financing, technical assistance, foreign aid, and international disaster relief. While humanitarian altruism is a major factor in foreign aid and disaster relief, statesmen often see the reduction of suffering as a method of improving the stability of a recipient state or as an inducement for a recipient state to cooperate more fully on security matters. Many ideas for making American foreign policy more effective have been offered in recent years. Some of them involve ways of prioritizing all forms of official, state-to-state assistance on those states whose stability or cooperation will most benefit the national interests of the United States. Obviously, there are many states that are already stable and already do generally cooperate with the United States. Canada, Japan, and the states of Western Europe (disagreements over the second war with Iraq notwithstanding) fall into this category. Certainly the economically advanced and politically stable states of the collective "West" have a common interest in suppressing the signal threat- global terrorism- of the new, new world order that sprang from the rubble of the World Trade Center and Pentagon on 11 September 2001.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 01, 2005
- Accession Number
- ADA522891
Entities
People
- James F. Miskel
Organizations
- Naval War College