DİPLOMASİ - Deneme Sınavı - 7

Russia is a multi-lingual, multi-ethic and multicultural state and this pushes Russian security elites to put an overwhelming stress on Russia’s territorial integrity and national sovereignty over all other concerns.

Russia’s objections to the primacy of the liberal western order also emanate from its peculiar political and cultural values. Unlike the developed western economies which are built on the capitalist values, Russian economy very much relies on the export of commodities in a semi-close economy, such as gas and oil. Unlike the Chinese model in which capitalist modernization process could go hand in hand with authoritarian state policies, Russia offers a particular example of illiberal societies in which the state is extremely involved in economics, social and political life.

According to Eurasianism, Russia is both a European and Asian country at the same time and Russia’s historical mission is to unite the diverse communities in the Eurasian region under Russia’s moral and political leadership. Russia is the geopolitical hegemon of the Eurasian region and without strong Russian leadership neither Russia nor other Eurasian communities would be in a position to restrain western and eastern encroachments. Given Russia’s foreign and security polices over the last decade, one could confidently argue that Eurasianism has now become the dominant school of thought in Russia.

If states are mainly motivated in their external relations by the concern of maximizing their material power capabilities as well as ensuring their long-term survival, interests dominate their foreign policy choices.

The end of the Cold War era paved the way for strengthening American primacy across the globe, as no other power was in a position to shake up the foundations of this unipolar era for about fifteen years.

The key international organizations, such as the United Nations, International Monetary Fund, World Bank and NATO all embody the American principles and preferences. However, the Warsaw Pact was established by the Soviet Union.

The EU is by far the most successful example of international institutions aiming at transcending traditional/modern interstate relations through the formation of collective identities and supranational institutions.

The EU High Representative for security and foreign policy is in charge of the European External Action Service that can be considered as the ministry of foreign affairs of the European Union.

Peaceful rise/peaceful development is the strategy that Chinese rulers have been pursuing in their neighborhood since the late 1970s.

The Asia Infrastructure and Investment Bank is an alternative institutional platform whose establishment is masterminded by China under its guidance?

Active Russian agency in the establishment of the Eurasian Economic Union, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and BRICSs should be read as Russia’s growing determination to offer an alternative world order to the one shaped by western powers.

The notion of sphere of influence occupies an important place in the Russian geopolitical thinking.

Neo-classical realist approach can be interpreted as a scholarly attempt at successfully merging the tangible and intangible motivations of states’ foreign policy behaviors.

This discussion can also be boiled down to the debate whether foreign policy is a function of interests or values (Oguzlu, 2013, 39-51). In case interests dominate foreign policy choices and behaviors of actors, states are mainly motivated in their external relations by the concern of maximizing their material power capabilities as well as ensuring their long-term survival. Here, neither internal characteristics at home nor the way how other states are ruled in their domestic affairs has a role in shaping foreign policy. Engaging others and responding to external stimuli is basically a function of the instrumental calculation of how much benefit one could extract from such exercises.

On the other hand, in case values and norms shape foreign policy, the question of ‘who states are’ significantly shapes the questions of ‘what states want and how states behave. Looking at foreign policy from this perspective, state leaders bother to ask how others are ruled in their internal affairs and which values they embrace domestically. Foreign policy mainly targets the internal transformation of other states in the image of the values and norms that one holds at home.

A third group of scholars combines the insights of these two approaches and claims that singling out one set of variables at the negligence of others will not bring us anywhere close to understanding the complexity of the real world. They suggest that scholars had better adopt a more holistic approach in this process. The so-called neo-classical realist approach in International Relations can for example be interpreted as a scholarly attempt at successfully merging the tangible and intangible motivations of states’ foreign policy behaviors (Lobell, Ripsman and Taliaferro, 2009). Put simply, neoclassical realism posits that making sense of the tangible factors out there is made through the intangible factors that constitute states’ identities and values.

Many middle and small-sized powers are much more preoccupied with their survival. Compared to global powers, their room of maneuvering is limited. Their success in ensuring survival hinges on their ability to play global powers off against each other, viz. external balancing, rather than solely investing in their own material capabilities, viz. internal balancing (Goodby, 2014, 31-39). Their foreign policy behaviors aim primarily at mitigating the negative consequences of global power competitions on their internal stability and external sovereignty. Compared to global powers, middle and small-sized powers find it difficult to pursue value-oriented normative foreign policies mainly because their material power capabilities are limited.

On the other hand, global powers are in a much better position than middle and small-sized powers to ground their foreign policies on the basis of both tangible interests and intangible values. The immense material power capabilities at their disposal empower them in their attempts at shaping the external milieu, rather than merely responding to external stimuli in a reactionary manner. That is also to say that adopting a soft-power oriented foreign policy approach is likely to be the prerogative of strong global powers. Investing in value projection abroad and relying on ‘power of attraction’ in dealing with others indirectly require a good deal of hard power capability. Global powers do not only feel secure in terms of their territorial integrity but also find it easy to parley their immense material power capabilities to value-oriented transformative policies abroad.

Unlike some middle powers and many small-sized powers, global powers have the luxury of helping bring into existence a particular external environment to their liking, as well as making use of the existing power balances within the system to maximize their material power capabilities. Stated somewhat differently, global powers do not only aim at maximizing their power capabilities at the expense of their rivals but also endeavor to midwife a particular external environment that reflects their values and norms (Mearsheimer, 2003).

The immigrant nature of the American society led the founders of the republic to build their country on the basis of liberal, democratic and pluralist norms, further enshrining the principles of individual freedom, free entrepreneur-ship, limited government and checks and balances in the Constitution.

By the time the WW2 came to the end, the U.S. had already become the most powerful global actor ever seen in terms of material power capabilities and the ability to help shape the world in its own image.

Rather than subscribing to the modern understanding of forging international relations on the basis of clear-cut inside-outside distinctions, the success of the EU emanates from its ability to have brought into existence a new understanding thereby its foreign policy takes it legitimacy from the common ‘we’ feeling among members. While the intensity and depth of this feeling is much higher among member states, external actors also feel themselves identified with the EU to different degrees.