Post-Cold War Flashcards
Dumbrell, J - Clinton’s Foreign Policy: Between the Bushes
What were the key foreign policy objectives between the Bushes?
1992-2000 : Iraq, Bosnia, Kosovo
Dumbrell, J - Clinton’s Foreign Policy: Between the Bushes
What was core to the success of Clinton’s FP according to David Sanger
David Sanger - Clinton’s success was rooted in “clear-headed focus on the interpenetration of global free trade, American internationalism, and the historic march of democracy”
Dumbrell, J - Clinton’s Foreign Policy: Between the Bushes
Hitchens
” no big plans, no grand thoughts, no noble dreams”
Dumbrell, J - Clinton’s Foreign Policy: Between the Bushes
What was the paradox of unipolarity?
- Stephen Walt - “Paradox of unipolarity” occurred in the post-Cold War uncertainty
- Against a background of “strategic uncertainty, a disengaged public and a narrowly nationalist Congress - Clinton kept America credibly nationalist (Walt)
- NATO found new purpose, WMD proliferation was contained (what about India and Pakistan though?
Dumbrell, J - Clinton’s Foreign Policy: Between the Bushes
What was the state of America in the 1990s?
- 1990s situation - economy - 40% larger than anyone else
- Defence spending - 6x above anyone else combined
- America had “enormous influence but has little idea what to do with its power or even how much effort it should expend”
- 1992 - people elected a president to focus on domestic affairs
- Elected a Congress with ‘distain for foreign affairs’
Dumbrell, J - Clinton’s Foreign Policy: Between the Bushes
What is notable about the Clinton personnel?
- Notable things about Clinton’s FP personnel:
- Despite reputation for cronyism, few friends actually in FP
- Striking continuation of Carter administration - due to apprehension of Republican staff
- True Clinton team style - cut political teeth in the antiwar campaigns of Bobby Kennedy and McGovern
Dumbrell, J - Clinton’s Foreign Policy: Between the Bushes
What did the Soviet negotiator quip in 1987?
- Soviet negotiator Georgi Arbatov warned Washington in 1987 that Moscow, in bringing the Cold War to an end, would be doing a ’terrible thing to you - we are going to deprive you of an enemy”
Dumbrell, J - Clinton’s Foreign Policy: Between the Bushes
What was the no-rivals plan?
- 1992 - Pentagon - “No Rivals” plan - looked forward to a world with endless American primacy
- Many voiced concerns about the imperial temptation
- Bush Snr - halfway between isolationism and globocop
- Emergence of NAFTA saw rejection of FP spending - Jerry Brown - “would not give a penny’ to foreign aid ‘until every farmer, businessman and family’ in America was relieved of debt”
- Post-Vietnam caution over troop deployment prevailed despite the success in the Gulf by Bush.
Mahapatra, C - The US Approach to the Islamic World
Where does India sit in the new global dynamic?
- Hosting the second largest Muslim population, typically against America
Beeson, M - Bush and Asia
Why did transitioning to militarian Bush make sense?
- Bush administration reorientation around FP is not surprising - approval ratings were low, had little direction
- “Unilateral, preemptive, even imperial”
- “and the apparent Renaissance of the American economy in the 1990s, the United States has come to occupy an evermore dominant position in the world. Indeed, another word has emerge to describe this unprecedented power - unipolarity
Beeson, M - Bush and Asia
What was the impact of 9/11 on US foreign policy, according to Beeson
- Impact of 9/11 - US foreign policy that is “more moralistic, more risk acceptant and less wedded to particular institutional arrangements”
Beeson, M - Bush and Asia
What was the impact of 9/11 on US foreign policy, according to Beeson
- Impact of 9/11 - US foreign policy that is “more moralistic, more risk acceptant and less wedded to particular institutional arrangements”
Beeson, M - Bush and Asia
What does Wohlforth define as ‘unipolarity’?
- “refers to the distribution of material capabilities - one that overwhelmingly favours a single state (Wohlforth 1999)”
Beeson, M - Bush and Asia
How can we see the diminishing of unipolarity?
- Evidence of relative US decline- means imposition of hegemony is no longer a possibility, requires complex interdependence with Asian economies
Beeson, M - Bush and Asia
How can we see the diminishing of unipolarity?
- Evidence of relative US decline- means imposition of hegemony is no longer a possibility, requires complex interdependence with Asian economies
Beeson, M - Bush and Asia
What does Wesley see in multilateralism under Bush?
- Rather than eschewing multilateralism, the “Bush administration has simply adopted a more vigorously US-centric approach to multilateralism”
- Bush admin as “strengthening of bilateral relations with Japan, China, Thailand, the Philippines and Singapore”
Beeson, M - Bush and Asia
How has Japan, according to Mulligan, aligned itself on the world stage?
- “Japan has positioned itself within the US hegemonic order in East Asia. Even when Japan’s rise to economic pre-eminence enabled it to mount a a nascent challenge to US predominance in East Asia, it opted for the role of ‘supporter, not a challenger’ Illustration of cooperation through economic collusion
- The US-Japan security relationship has been helped along by the personal chemistry between Prime Minister Koizumi and President Bush, which is reminiscent of the Ron-Yasu relationship of the mid-1980s. At the time, favourable interpersonal dynamics between the two leaders facilitated important evolutionary developments in the US-Japan security alliance.
Ricks, T - Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq
What was a failing of Bush Snr’s approach to Iraq?
Had all the steps been taken at once (containment), “they might have delivered a culminating blow to Saddam’s regime”, however “seemingly as a result of In attention at the top of the U.S. government, a series of more limited steps were taken, like slowly heating a warm bath, and Saddam Hussein’s regime found ways to live with them” - implication of moderation and inattention important facet of Bush Snr. Regime
Ricks, T - Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq
What did 9/11 provide to Wolfowitz, Perle and others?
“The explosion at the Pentagon of Flight 77 and the day’s three other hijack attacks provided the political opening that Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, and others needed. Perle and Wolfowitz quickly began to make the case that 9/11 was precipitated by a myopic and false realism that wrongly had sought accommodation with evil”
Ricks, T - Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq
What threat did Saddam constitute, relative to Bin Laden?
Ken Adelman, assistant to Rumsfeld - “Hussein constitutes the number 1 threat against American security and civilisation. Unlike Osama Bin Laden, he has billions in government funds, scores of government research labs working feverishly on weapons of mass destruction - and just a deep a hatred o f America and civilised free societies”
Ricks, T - Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq
Was there Republican opposition to Iraq?
There still existed a body - “So called Republican realists”, who were opposed to neoconservative action - Scowcroft, for i.e., stated the US invasion of Iraq “could turn the whole region into a cauldron, and thus destroy the war on terrorism”
Ricks, T - Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq
Dick Cheney’s position on WMDs
“The Iraqi dictator must not be permitted to threaten America and the world with horrible poisons and diseases and gases and atomic weapons.” Nor could we afford to wait for more evidence, he warned.
Ricks, T - Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq
T Ricks on the nature of congress
“In previous wars, Congress had been populated by hawks and doves. But as war in Iraq loomed it seemed to consist mainly of lambs who hardly made a peep”
Ricks, T - Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq
Zinni on the Iraq situation
“Zinni decided that day that the neoconservatives really were consciously rollling the dice “I think - and this is just my opinion - that the neocons didn’t really give a shit what happened in Iraq and the aftermath”
Salt, J - Global Disorder and the Limits of ‘Dialogue’
Where does Clash of Civilisations originate from?
Bernard Lewis - he began developing the theme in the 1950s as a means of explaining (or explaining away) Arab national resistence to imperialism and colonialism (Orientialist by nature)
Salt, J - Global Disorder and the Limits of ‘Dialogue’
Where does the civilisational theme emerge from?
British and French invasion of Muslim lands in the 19th century.
Salt, J - Global Disorder and the Limits of ‘Dialogue’
What did 9/11 accomplish?
Validation of the Huntington-Lewis thesis
Toynbee is also a civilisationalist
Preston, A - The Iraq War as Contemporary History
How did Bob Woodward’s opinion of Bush change over time?
Trajectory of opinion can be seen through the trilogy from Bob Woodward - starting off with an almost hagiographical outlook on Bush, it declines by 2006 as a rejection of. The first book is, in the words of Preston, “written with smoke from 9/11 wafting in the air”
Preston, A - The Iraq War as Contemporary History
How has the Iraq conflict adopted the facets of diplomatic history?
The Iraq conflict:
“Rather than emphasising traditional subjects such as economics or strategy, it has, consciously or not, embraced diplomatic history’s cultural turn. In the early 1990s, diplomatic historians began to examine ‘unconventional’ influences on policy-making - gender, race, and cultural power; ’new’ influences such as religion, travel, and the environment soon followed. The consensus attributes the US failure in Iraq to the influence of normative exceptionalism, gendered and racial biases, and cultural hegemony
Preston, A - The Iraq War as Contemporary History
What were the failings of the postwar planning of Iraq?
- Packer - “the neo-conservatives’ vision for a stable, democratic Iraq fell apart in Baghdad while toasts were still being drunk in Washington”
- CPA became mocked by soldiers as “Can’t Provide Anything”
- 802 - Green and Red zoning controversial
- 804 - Bremer was head of CPA, architect of Iraq misery
- 805 - “In the case of Iraq, the preference amounted to half a strategy. Misled by the vice president, Dick Cheney, and Wolfowitz into thinking that invaders would be welcomed as liberators, Rumselfd and Franks viewed the military’s job, in Rick’s words, as “regime destruction’ without regime creation and state-building to follow”
