GV251: Week 18

1
GV-251 Week 18

• Elements of Foreign Policy
• Domestic and External factors
• 3 Models of Decision Making
• Cold War (week 19)
• Soviet Union and Eastern Europe (week 20)

2
Foreign Policy Prioritizing Objectives

• Interests
• Protection of Borders and Territory Military
• Well being of Citizens-Economic and Social (e.g.
  Demographic, Environment)
• Independence in Political Decision Making
  (sovereignty)
• Great power vs. middle or small country
• Threats (Constraints)
• Geography
• Population
• Size of the country
• Type of neighborhood
• Structure of international system/distribution of
  power
• Opportunities
• Alliances
• Structure of international system/distribution of
  power

3
External and Domestic Factors of Foreign Policy

• External Influences
• Anarchy and power in international system
  (Realism)
• Power matters
• Survival of the fittest and the strong state
• Interdependence and trade (Liberalism)
• Importance of institutions and norms (regimes)
  (e.g. NPT Helsinki Accord)
• Trade can promote peace
• Internal Factors
• Public opinion and interest groups
• Political culture and society
• Political System
• Democracies, Autocracies, Transitional
• Role of Leaders

4
The role of leaders in Foreign Policy Decision
Making

• Groupthink (Janis)
• Small groups, exclusion of bad news,
  reinforcement
• E.g. Stalin before Barbarossa
• Decision-making pressures
• Incomplete information, time pressures, surprise,
  personal stresses, limited options
• Perception and Cognition (e.g. Cuban Missile
  Crisis)
• Inaccurate perceptions
• Misreading of history
• Miscommunications
• Overconfidence and wishful thinking

5
Allisons 3 conceptual models of DM

• The Cuban Missile Crisis as a case study
• Rational Actor Model
• Rationality assumption
• Rationality and incomplete information
• National actor-goals and objectives-options-conseq
  uences-choice
• Organizational Model
• Policy as an organizational output
• Fractioned power
• Parochial priorities
• Standard operating procedures
• Repertoirs
• Incremental change

6
3 model of DM 2

• Bureaucratic Model
• Policies the outcome of bargaining among
  bureaucracies
• Players positions
• Interests and stakes
• Competition of bureaucracies

7
External and Internal factors determining Russian
foreign policy under the Tsars

• Internal factors
• Ideas Expansionism and Special messianic role
  among Orthodox populations
• Economic system serfdoms
• Political system authoritarian system (Tsars)
• Geography and culture
• External factors
• Surrounding major powers (Poland, Lithuania,
  Sweden, Mongols, Germans, and Japanese, the
  Ottoman empire in South, France)
• Industrialization and formation of nation-states
  in the West
• Aspiration of great power status
• naval power required warm waters (expansion in
  Black sea and the warmer waters of the Pacific
  Ocean)even then Black sea Bosphorous,
  Vladivostck icebound, North sea straits between
  Denmark and Sweden
• Regional status (gave up colonies in North
  America)
• Gaining control over valuable commodities gold,
  fur, and trading pathways
• 2 policies rapprochement and catching- up with
  the West or isolation and expansion eastward.

8
Factors shaping early Soviet foreign policy

• Civil war and invasion from capitalist
  countriesEncirclement
• Lenin Opportunism and dogmatism
• Treaties for search for buffer zones
• Need for capital
• Turn East (India, China)
• Inevitability of revolution
• Stalin vs. Trotsky should the internationalizatio
  n of the revolution precede the national
  revolution

9
Cold War

• Long Telegram Kennans telegram as US Ambassador
  first explaining the theory
• Mr. X Article in Foreign Affairs Kennans final
  work on the theory as the head of policy making
  in the State Dept.
• Churchills Iron Curtain speech
• Evolution of Cold War
• Truman Doctrine
• Containment Theory that originated from Kennan
  but was evolved by the US Government (NSC-68)
• Domino Theory If one country/government falls to
  communism they all will
• Proxy Wars

10
Third World Competition

• Crisis in developing countries
• American view point growing pains
• American investment and rhetoric
• Marxist view anti-colonialist revolution
• Vietnam and failure of American foreign policy in
  developing world
• Nationalization policies in 3rd World
• Détente and support of Status quo in 3rd World
• The end of détente and the renewal of Cold War in
  he 80s

11
Relations with Eastern Europe

• Socialist version of dependency
• What is dependency theory?
• Situation where a countrys economy is
  conditioned by the development and expansion of
  another economy to which the former is subject
• Marxism-Leninism and theory of imperialism
• Colonialism and early forms of dependency
• Structure of dependency
• Forms of world economy and laws of development
• Modern forms of dependency
• Financial-industrial
• Technological-industrial (multinational
  corporations)
• Export economies and new dependency
• Trade relations and financing

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13
Soviet form of dependency

• Heavy industrialization but also severe market
  distortions
• Combination of political, economic, and military
  goals economic goals a derivative to military
  and political goals
• Soviet dependency did not produce economic
  stagnation

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