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The Objectives and Actions of Others



To this point the discussion has focused on a variety of factors and conditions that give rise to governments' policies toward others. But states do not exist in vacuums; any explanation of foreign policy would be largely incomplete with­out analyzing the conditions abroad which gave rise to specific foreign-policy actions. Most governments, most of the time do not launch diplomatic-military crusades to change a regional or world order, such as Hitler sought. Rather, they respond to a variety of other countries' objectives and actions, or to changing conditions and trends in the international system as a whole or in some of its regions. To illustrate: The Soviet intervention in Afghanistan in 1979-1980 was largely a response to increasingly anarchic conditions in that neighboring country; numerous European and American pressures on Japan to restrict ex­ports were a response to Japan's inroads in their markets, its staggering balance-of-payments surplus, and general technological leadership; and the Israeli

International Studies Quarterly, 16 (1972), 263-94; Martin Abravanel and Barry Hughes, "The Relation­ship between Public Opinion and Governmental Foreign Policy: A Cross-National Study," inSage International Yearbook of Foreign Policy Studies, Vol. I, ed. Patrick J. McGowan (Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage Publications, 1973), 107-34.

53 Irving L. Janis and M. Brewster Smith, "Effects of Education and Persuasion on National and International Images," inInternational Behavior, ed. Kelman, p. 193.

348 Explanations of Foreign-Policy Outputs

bombing of an Iraqi nuclear power plant in June 1981 was a response to the anticipated consequence of having a hostile regime in the Middle East in possible possession of nuclear weapons. More long-range plans, such as the demands for creating a new international trade regime, arduously sponsored by most Third World countries, are a response to the postwar liberal trade regime that was not in their opinion distributing rewards equally, but was rather a factor in hindering development. The objectives and actions of others thus set an agenda of foreign-policy problems between two or more governments. The type or response (conciliatory, threatening, and the like) will usually be similar to the stimulus; that is, most foreign-policy actions tend to be reciprocal. "Hawkish" behavior tends to beget a similar response, although in a relationship character­ized by deep distrust, a conciliatory signal from one actor may be perceived as more a threat than an opportunity. While diplomacy often takes on a tit-for-tat pattern, the behaviors of foreign offices and leaders are not always unam­biguous. To emphasize a point made previously: It is not the objective conditions that count, but how policy makers interpret them.

There was ample evidence that Hitler's objectives went far beyond the incorporation of certain territories adjacent to the Third Reich. But as long as Allied leaders "saw" Germany as being concerned only with rectifying the injus­tices of the Versailles treaty, their appeasement strategy seemed reasonable. A more appropriate response would have been a multilateral deterrence strategy, but only if one could assume that Hitler's territorial ambitions were virtually unlimited. In retrospect, Hitler's amibitions may seem obvious; but at the time, they were obscure.54 One reason they were obscure was that the German govern­ment was adept at "mixing its signals." On one occasion, Hitler could proffer the hand of friendship and declare that Germany's capacity for goodwill had no bounds. Later, he could make grandiose demands, hurl threats at neighbors, insult government leaders, and break treaty commitments with impunity. It was not so much that the German government could project a false image, but rather that it deliberately gave indications of incompatible intentions. As Jervis points out, information available to policy makers is seldom unambiguous; even a reasonably clear-cut event such as the North Korean invasion of South Korea may not carry any obvious messages about North Korea's ultimate intentions. Indeed, many American officials believed the invasion was planned and directed by Moscow as part of a general Communist military offensive against the West. In the course of normal diplomatic persuasion, putting forth accurate information does not necessarily mean that it will be either understood or believed by the officials of other governments. Again the interpretation of incoming signals or information on conditions abroad is crucial and can be explained best in terms of the attitudes, beliefs, and values of the policy makers.

54 Robert Jervis, The Logic of Images in International Relations (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1970), pp. 7, 12, 19.

Trends and Structure

In a world characterized by economic interdependence and dependence, govern­ments continuously have to adapt their domestic and foreign policies to economic and other trends occurring in the system. One hundred years ago, most econo­mies were largely self-contained, so that developments on the other side of the world or region required little adjustment elsewhere. The situation is entirely different now and becoming more complex as governments face an increasing array of problems generated abroad. Unemployment levels in Europe are directly affected by American interest rates; inflation levels throughout the world are partly the consequence of OPEC decisions on oil prices; governments of socialist states, as they become increasingly enmeshed in the world economy also feel the effects of externally generated inflation, once thought to be a disease of only capitalist economies; and the poorest countries, faced with immense bills for import of high-priced machinery and oil, have to spend an astounding share— often 50 percent or more—of their foreign exchange earnings just to pay interest on loans incurred to pay for these imports. The dominant global economic trends of the 1970s and 1980s, including higher fuel costs, depletion of some raw materials, high interest rates, unemployment, and spiralling costs of arma­ments compel governments to react in some manner. The developing countries have sought loan relief, commodity price stabilization schemes, and producers' cartels, as well as reorganization of the world trade system to gain better access to the markets of industrial countries. Many industrial countries have responded to the same trends by searching for oil alternatives, subsidizing exports, and resorting to protective trade devices such as quotas and "orderly trade mecha­nisms." Each policy of this kind naturally passes the costs off to other nations. Other trends require similar attention and have produced problems which so far have escaped reasonable or equitable solution. Population growth rates contribute to immense economic problems in the developing countries. The world supply of food lacks management. The criterion for distribution is ability to pay rather than need. A poor harvest in the Soviet Union—a common phenomenon—drives up the price of wheat as the Russians go on the world market. This brings immediate benefits to North America and Australian farmers but may dramatically increase the cost of wheat imports to very poor countries such as India or Ethiopia. Typically in a world of high economic interconnected-ness, those who are most dependent will suffer the most and yet have the least capacity to change or manage the system of which they are a part. Trends in the system appear to be increasingly pervasive in their impact and thus raise an increasing number of foreign-policy problems for all states. These trends create the problem, but how governments will respond will be primarily a func­tion of all the domestic variables already mentioned: national needs, bureaucratic practices, public opinion moods, the political priorities of the leadership, and the like.

350 Explanations of Foreign-Policy Outputs

The structure of power and influence in the system also provides a set of costs, risks, and opportunities. It was a theme of Chapters 2 and 3 that the structure of the international system limits what the component units can do. Orientations and roles can be linked to configurations of power and influence; similarly, it is not difficult to cite cases where changes in the nature of an in­ternational system have brought about changing objectives and actions among various governments. Particularly for smaller or weaker states, the international power structure establishes conditions over which they have little control; it is a "given" in any definition of the situation. For instance, at the end of World War II, all the Western governments perceived a threat to their security from the Soviet Union. Given their military weakness, compared to that of the United States or the Soviet Union, several means of achieving security, such as construct­ing bilateral alliances, were out of the question. The choices seemed to be reduced to neutrality or alliance with the United States. Given the experiences of the neutrals, such as Belgium, in World War II, the first option was never considered seriously. However, we can suggest that had the Soviet Union not been perceived as a threat and had the configuration of power not been essen­tially polar, many more governments would have proposed an orientation of nonalignment as the best method of protecting the core value of national security. In Eastern Europe, the alternatives were even more limited. The Hungarians and Czechoslovakians learned the consequences of attempting to disrupt bloc cohesion; once they were committed to the Communist alliance system, they abandoned their freedom to formulate policies outside those sanctioned by the bloc leader. Only in recent years have Romania and some of the other Eastern states been able to pursue their objectives of internal economic development by creating extensive commercial ties with the rest of Europe.

The influence of systemic structure on foreign-policy objectives and actions is also prominent when the structure is undergoing fundamental changes. New power configurations, the decline of bloc cohesiveness, or the rise of new powerful states creates both new opportunities and new risks; old limitations are cast off, and new possibilities for formulating or stressing national objectives arise. As the Chinese tore themselves away from Soviet leadership and domina­tion in the late 1950s, they began increasingly to concentrate on achieving their own national objectives. For the first decade after the Chinese revolution, the problem of Taiwan was the main preoccupation of authorities in Peking. But after the split with the Soviet Union became increasingly wide, the Chinese began to pay more attention to other border areas, particuarly in relation to Burma, India, Pakistan, and the Soviet Union itself. Actions, too, are affected. As the cohesiveness of blocs declines, for example, the lesser members may begin establishing commercial, cultural, and diplomatic relations with states in competing blocs, and relations within loosening blocs may change from threats and domination to genuine bargaining between the small members and the bloc leader.

 




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