6.7.7 Foreign Policy Options for National Security
A country’s foreign policy options for national security include coercion, but co-operation, soft power and diplomacy are more successful
National politicians put most of their energy into domestic politics, reflecting the concerns of the populations they serve, but foreign policy sometimes takes centre-stage. The previous two sections examined other aspects of foreign policy – international concerns about the environment (6.7.5) and policy towards developing countries (6.7.6) – but security matters often dominate the political agenda.
It is suggested here that a country’s foreign policy goals ought to be to have friendly relationships with other countries, and to facilitate trade for mutual advantage, whilst complying with international law (5.3.6). These are aims which benefit everybody.
The global context is challenging. The international institutions which have overseen relationships between countries since the Second World War cannot be relied upon to maintain the peace (6.6.6), so each country must make its own decisions about security. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has ‘turned the clock back’ by engaging in large-scale conventional warfare, contravening international law and rendering the United Nations powerless.
Rodric Braithwaite, a former British ambassador to Russia, made some wise observations about avoiding unnecessary interference in other countries’ affairs. In a Prospect article, Anyone for realpolitik?, he noted that:
“The end of the cold war was followed by a brief decade of euphoria. Our politicians talked of our moral duty to intervene in other people’s affairs to force them to behave properly.”
“…Of course, most of us remain deeply attached to the values of the liberal and secular Enlightenment. None of us want an unethical foreign policy. But much of the rest of the world does not agree that it is the west that decides what is valuable, what is liberal, what is ethical. They will not accept that it is we who define the rules of international behaviour to which it is their task merely to conform.”
America’s sense of triumph at having “won” the Cold War deluded it into the neoconservative belief that it had a recipe for governance that would benefit every country in the world. That was hubristic and misguided, as described earlier (6.2.4.4). Trying to spread liberal democracy by force has had disastrous consequences. And other countries may believe passionately that their systems are better than western liberal democracy. Some one-party States can justify their systems of government with moral arguments: Communism, Confucianism and theocracy can each convince many people of their rightness (6.3.1.2).
A peaceful world order is in every country’s long-term interest, even though that sometimes requires governments to make concessions in order to reach agreement. Diplomacy can foster good relations and help to resolve problems before they become serious. As Cicero said, “An unjust peace is better than a just war”. When politicians choose among foreign policy options for national security, they ought to be aware that not all approaches are equally successful – as described in the next five sub-sections:
● They can seek national advantage by applying coercion (6.7.7.1). A coercive foreign policy, as defined here, is one which tries to put pressure on other countries whilst still claiming to comply with international law. It is seen as aggressive by the targeted countries, which are then unlikely to co-operate in future.
● They can respect other countries as having equal rights, competing fairly whilst supporting rules-based international relations (6.7.7.2). A rules-based international order is one where countries co-operate to keep the peace, in accordance with predefined rules such as those defined in the United Nations Charter. The UN has been unable to keep the peace, though.
● They can use ‘soft power’ to persuade other countries to support them (6.7.7.3). Soft power, as defined by Joseph Nye, is based on attracting the respect and admiration of other countries to foster good relationships. Other countries are then more likely to be co-operative (and persuasion is less costly than coercion).
● Or they can make ‘realpolitik’ decisions to ignore international law, deciding whether to use military force for example (6.7.7.4). What is achievable by using military force is a subject for the next chapter (7), but the political considerations are a foreign policy question. A major political reset is now taking place, with countries regrouping and managing their own security without the UN.
● The most extreme foreign policy option is an attempt to change the regime of another country by using military force (6.7.7.5). Forced regime change is unable to achieve political stability, comes at a high financial and human cost, and creates wider security problems – as shown recently in both Afghanistan and Iraq.
Politicians who take an internal view of these options might calculate what would best increase their short-term domestic popularity, but it is more prudent to take the broader view by assessing what kind of world order would best suit their countries’ interests in the longer term. A co-operative foreign policy might be hard to defend against other politicians, who might urge a more flamboyant policy of confrontation, but a good leader would explain why coercion doesn’t work. The question of reforming international security is revisited in the last chapter (9.5).
This page is intended to form part of Edition 4 of the Patterns of Power series of books. An archived copy of it is held at https://www.patternsofpower.org/edition04/677e.htm.