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NATIONAL VALUES AND INTERESTS.
Making Strategy. An introduction to National Security Processes and Problems.
Col Dennis M Drew. Airpower Research Institute, Air University
Dr Donald M Snow. Department of Political Science. University of Alabama
Chapter 3 : Grand National Strategy
n The term strategy is associated with the broad set of goals and policies a nation adopts toward the world.
n Grand national strategy is the process by which the nation’s basic goals are realized in a world of conflicting goals and values. The ends of grand strategy is expressed in terms of national interests.
n The role for the strategy process is to translate those national interests into means for achieving those ends. The means are normally described as the instruments of power.
1. Vital National Interests:
n Two characteristics 1) The nation is unwilling to compromise it 2) The nation is willing to go to war for it.
n Vital interests exist only between sovereign nation-states.
n Four levels of Interests : 1) Survival 2) Vital 3) Major 4) Peripheral
n The division between Vital and Major is important since this is the level where the use of force may become necessary
n The degree to which American vital interests are threatened in any given geographical area is the source of considerable division within the US because of the physical remoteness of many areas of interest.
n Interests deemed vital require military resources and that usually comes at the expense of other demands for resources, such as those needed for social programs.
n Since the late 1940s the American Grand National Strategy has been the containment of communism to the boundaries established at the end of WWII, because further spread would eventually pose a direct threat to the US. This basic containment formulation has been extended to encompass the Sino-Soviet periphery.
n Disillusionment with the application of the strategy in Southeast Asia and the perception that détente was moderating US-Soviet relations resulted in less explicit references to containment as basic strategy in the mid-70s, but the concept was revived in the mid 80s.
2. Instruments of National Power:
n Threefold classification: 1) Military instrument 2) Economic Instrument 3) Diplomatic of Political Instrument : All used for the same purpose - To achieve outcomes that serve the national interest. Each has a range of employment strategies.
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National Security and American Society. Theory, Process and Policy.
Edited by Frank N Trager; Philip S Kronenberg
Vital Interests : By Whom and How Determined?
Bernard Brodie
n Vital interests are not objective facts fixed in nature - they are the products of fallible human judgment.
n Prevailing conceptions of US vital interests (those held by the Administration in power), have changed drastically with time.
n Vital interests are those against the infringement of which we are prepared to take some kind of military action.
n Historical evidence discredits the notion that conflicts of economic importance are an important cause of war. (Therefore do not fall under ‘vital interests’)
n Vital interests concern those issues which are deemed to affect the survival or security of the nation.
n Small countries normally can only afford to view a direct military attack upon its own territories as a vital interest. Great nations / Superpowers will often be concerned with what they deem to be threats of the national security which are much more distant in space, time and even in conception.
n This means that in some menacing situations response may emphasize national responsibility rather than national peril. A superpower have capabilities that can influence events throughout the world. If that exercise of influence demands military intervention the citizenry will certainly demand assurance that the purpose is indeed to enhance security.
n There are not only a variety of threats, but also a wide range of military actions for dealing with those threats.
n Another variable to note is the degree of real risk estimated to be inherent in a commitment. Guarantees have often been advanced on the supposition that the guarantee itself would sufficiently dissuade the potential aggressor so that it would never have to be fulfilled. This however do not always work, but can also fail spectacularly.
n It is sometimes said that access to raw materials constitutes a “real” vital interest. It may be so if the power concerned insists on it, but there is nothing objective about such a determination.
n The problem for leaders of a superpower is to determine the outer boundaries of what is truly vital and in practical terms to decide what kinds of threat indicate what kinds of response. This is statesmanship.
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The Irreducible National Interest and Basic Premises About World Conditions.
Seyom Brown.
n The US presidents have two basic objectives of the national society 1) Its physical survival 2) Perpetuation of the American way of life. Another one : To promote the general welfare of the whole society.
n These points sometimes form the themes of debate between the two great political parties.
n The concept “irreducible national interests” is vague but the concept is more than a cliché - it nonetheless constrains the range of policy choices..
n The basic presidential impulse to lead the nation away from situations where ultimate choices between survival, liberty and welfare have to be made is in large measure the central thread of continuity in foreign policy.
n Another reason for the continuity in foreign policy was the persistent view of the threat of the spread of International Communism and another world war.
n These are derived from a set of basic premises about world conditions: A) The Soviet Union is motivated to be the dominant world power and wants to fashion the world into a single political system based on the Soviet model/ B) In another world war the US would quickly become a prime target for mass destruction. The avoidance of another world war was seen to be equal in importance to preventing the expansion of Communism. World peace, meaning an avoidance of a war between the US and the Soviet Union became an essential policy objective. C) The pursuit of world peace could however not take precedence over the containment of communism. Therefore the US started to fill the power vacuums around the Soviet Union by various means. D) Thus ‘balance of Power’ became the dominant concept for determining the priority of any situation. If , in a critical conflict, a Communist success would undermine the power of the non-Communist world, the balance of power was at stake and this had an impact on the survival of the US, and in such situations peace could temporarily give way to the active containment of Communism, even if the temporary breakdown of peace would place the US in danger of direct attack. E) None of these premises however gave enough guidance for situations where the overall power balance was not really at stake.
n There was however constancy in the two premises : Preventing the spread of International Communism and to prevent the outbreak of a Third World War.
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National Interest : From Abstraction to Strategy
Michael G Roskin
National interest lies at the heart of the military and diplomatic professions and leads to the formulation of a national strategy and the calculation of power necessary to support that strategy.
1. Philosophical Background:
n National interest traces its roots back to Machiavelli and is a repudiation of early Western sources in Hellenistic idealism, Judeo-Christian morality and the teaching of churchmen. Splendid moral goals help nothing if you do not have the power and willingness to use it. According to him nothing could be more moral than the interest of the Italian State. Power rather than morality is the crux of this school.
n The state, unlike human beings, do not have a soul or an afterlife, and is therefore amoral and can do things individual humans cannot do.
n Clausewitz contributes to this. All state behavior is motivated by its need to survive and prosper. The decision to go to war is a rational one. Unlimited war is foolish since it does not serve national interest.
n By the 20th century national interest in the US took a back seat to ethical and normative approaches to international relations. The use of power was considered amoral or even immoral.
2. Realism comes to America:
n In the 30’s realism came to the universities of the US with the flight of scholars from Europe. The German Hans Morgenthau had the most influence in telling the US to arm and then oppose the Axis and then the Soviet Union. International Politics is a struggle for power.
n His writings were opposed and considered as amoral as it went against the Wilsonian idealism.
n Actually Morgenthau was a moral man and his theory was a normative one. When states define their interests too broadly, leading to a policy of expansionism, which in turn is countered by the states whose rights are infringed upon, that things can get dangerous.
3. Interest Defined as Power.
n Morgenthau assumed that he had an objective standard by which to judge foreign policies. The only question to be answered was: Is the statesman acting to preserve the state and its power? If so, his policy was rational. With this yardstick he seemingly successfully analyzed national interests.
n He felt that there are times when a statesman must move decisively to engage his armed forces in the threat or practice of war before it is too late, and not wait till the advancing enemy infringe upon some point of international law.
n Policy bluff tends to end up badly. Either the enemy sees that you are bluffing and continue his conquests, or you belatedly attempt to back up your words and be forced into a war situation.
4. Vital Secondary Interests:
n Morgenthau saw 2 levels of national interest: 1) Vital which concerned the very life of the state and about which there could be no hesitation about going to war 2) Secondary: Those over which one seeks compromise. Additionally realists distinguish between temporary and permanent interests, specific and general interests, complementary and conflicting interests.
n It is hard to determine another country’s national interests.. Such interests are also not stable but change.
n Much national-interest thought has a geographical component
5. Variations on Morgenthau
n Gradually his ideas caught on and were confirmed by others. By the 60s it was part of mainstream thinking. His thinking was used to support the Vietnam war, although he himself that the war was a useless one.
n National interest thinking has also been misused by idealistic interventionists who would like the US to correct wrongs the world over. (Altruism)
n true national-interests thinking is tightly limited to one’s own nation.
6. Warping effects on the National Interest:
n Ideology: Is a plan to improve a society. It closely parallels religion. People caught up in an ideology often exhibit religious-like behavior and disregard of empirical reality. The opposite is pragmatism. Morgenthau and others scoff at ideology and see it as a trick to justify dictatorship. Ideology can be changed at the drop of a hat. It is very difficult to work with the true believer because they are unpredictable.
n Global system : The global configuration of power may also warp national-interest thinking. The involvement of superpowers all over the world makes everything “national interests” . In such a bipolar situation the hegemonic superpower of each side must take up the national interests of each client state. The client states however feel no obligation to take on the national interests of their suprestate. The collapse of the bipolar world now allows the un-warping of national interests.
n Public and Elite Convictions: Culture, values and convictions of a country can also warp definitions of the national interests. So can a lack of interest be. Elites pay far more attention to foreign affairs than the public at large, therefor they are instrumental in defining the national interests.
n Mass media: Is important in awakening the public to questions of national interest.
n Policy Inertia:Once a policy is set, it takes on a life of its own and may continue indefinitely.
7. The Utility of National Interest:
n National interest is no easy formula. It is useful in training the decisionmaker to ask a series of questions such as: How are current developments affecting my nation’s power? Are hostile forces able to harm my vital interests? Di I have enough power to protect my vital interests? E.t.c.
n It is Morgenthau’s argument that the world will be a better place if Statesmen should ask these questions since it will induce limits and cautions to their strategies.
n Although the national-interest approach is old fashioned it is still a better predictor of state strategy than world-order.
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Developing a Strategic Perspective on South African Foreign Policy.
1. Introduction:
n It is also vital to develop our position in the international arena.
n It is important that South Africa is deeply involved in the revival, economic growth and development of Southern Africa and the continent as a whole.
2. A Brief reflection on our Foreign Policy Experiences over the past three years:
n The 1994 policy document on international affairs adopted by the ANC can be seen as the identification of principles part of defining national interest.
n Universally accepted human rights are often debated in their interpretations.
n We have limits if we act as an individual country
n The economic objectives of the West in Africa has not come to an end with the end of the Cold War.
n The world is dividing into economic blocks and it would be impossible to challenge an unjust situation if the developing countries do not act together.
n South Africa’s position do not guarantee entry into the national arena