Hill, C. Foreign Policy in The Twenty-First Century. Cap. 6

Foreign Policy in the
Twenty-First Century
Second Edition
Christopher Hill
Chapter 6
Implementation: Foreign Policy Practice

and the Texture of Power
If the problem of agency in international politics is in the first place a

matter of identifying the decision-makers who make a difference, the
answers partly depend on the dimension of implementation. We must ask
whether decisions once taken do get translated into the actions they
imply, or whether what actually transpires is the product of delay, distor-
tion and a further round of political conflict. A great deal of literature
now exists which suggests the latter is far nearer to the truth than the
former, which is, not unreasonably, expected by the public.
Implementation has two distinct aspects: first the capacity to do what
is intended, given the capabilities and instruments at hand, and second
the slippage between political decision and administrative execution. The
second aspect is closely related to the problem of bureaucratic politics
already discussed, so the current chapter gives more attention to the first.
Yet before either can be tackled the relationship between action and
implementation needs to be considered.
More than a Technicality
When confronting the problem of implementation we should always be

aware of the fundamental misconceptions attached to it. The first is that
implementation is not a technicality, consequent on decision-making.
Rather it is integral to the whole policy-making cycle and very often diffi-
cult to distinguish from its other phases. At the least, implementation
feeds back into the original decision and often begets new problems. The
second arises out of the discussion conducted in Chapter 4: namely, the
operations of the bureaucracy are central to the process of implementa-
tion, and vice versa; it was argued, furthermore, that it is not helpful to
consider bureaucrats’ and politicians’ roles in foreign policy-making
except in relation to each other. The third is an extension of the critique
of classical rationality: when it comes to deciding how to put decisions
into practice, the analogies of the surgeon choosing a scalpel or the golfer
a club are inappropriate. The implementation of policy is not just a
137
138 Foreign Policy in the Twenty-First Century
matter of selecting, precisely, the best tool for the job. In foreign policy
there are a limited number of possible instruments – in broad categories
the diplomatic, the military, the economic and the cultural – but they are
almost always used either in combination or with some potential synergy
held in reserve. The differential uses of these instruments will be analysed
in the main part of this chapter, but except in a highly structured rela-
tionship between like-minded states (as in trade relations between the
United States and western Europe) it is rarely possible to compartmen-
talize or to deny oneself recourse to the full range of possible pressures.
Even in transatlantic relations there have sometimes been unpleasant
surprises through action spilling out of the accepted channels, as with the
US pressures on sterling over Britain’s invasion of Suez in 1956, or
European refusals to allow US overflights for the attack on Libya in
1986. In conditions of flux the choice of instruments becomes at once
more uncertain and more crucial. The US’s use of rendition to the
Guantánamo base after 9/11, and Russia’s subversive techniques in
Ukraine during 2014, have both had destabilising consequences.
Such misconceptions flow from the tendency to see the foreign policy
process in overly rigid terms. A flow chart typically represents it as start-
ing with the identification of a problem, moving on to the collection of
relevant information, enabling the formulation of options, until finally the
point of decision is reached. The implementation phase, when the desired
action occurs, is then something of a coda. Sequencing of this kind is a
helpful starting-point, but it relies too much on the ideal-type of rational-
ity qualified in Chapter 5, while also makes the stages of policy-making
seem much more separate than they are in practice. For example, a prob-
lem can arise out of a state’s mere proposals, or even surmised decisions,
as with Iran’s assertion of its right to a nuclear energy programme. This
sparked fears and threats from those who saw themselves threatened long
before any serious weaponized capacity was at hand. Tehran put itself at
some risk by deliberately exploiting the international uncertainty, but it
also skilfully used its new diplomatic leverage in relations with the
European states anxious to avoid an Israeli pre-emptive attack.
Formal decisions are even more likely to be interpreted as actions,
especially when made public, as when Prime Minister Romano Prodi of
Italy announced in late 1996 that it was to throw all its energies into
seeking entry into the European common currency, in the face of wide-
spread scepticism. That expression of a major priority changed the envi-
ronment for its partner states, particularly Spain and Greece, and made it
much more difficult for Germany and France to keep Italy out. To that
extent the statement of intention was a shrewd, self-executing, move. It
shows that although the term ‘action’ implies a tangible set of activities it
often takes a purely linguistic form. A declaration can represent a way of
Chapter 6: Implementation 139
changing direction, or a form of pressure. Because it targets perceptions

and others’ internal politics it is no less a move in the international polit-
ical environment than troop mobilizations or the selling of gold reserves
(R. Cohen, 1987). Even decisions which are kept secret are actions in the
sense that they ignite a new chain of events in the actor itself. When
noticed by foreign intelligence agencies, they are taken particularly seri-
ously, and then start a wider sequence of action-reaction (Rosecrance,
1977).
The Faces of Power
Power is a foundational concept of political science and a central pillar of

international relations. Its relationship to foreign policy, however, tends
to be subsumed in theories of international politics. Hans Morgenthau’s
Politics among Nations (1954) gave us ‘a manual for state leaders’ based
on a theory of the drive for power in human nature (C. Wight, 2002),
while George Modelski’s A Theory of Foreign Policy (1962) made an
explicit attempt to operationalize power as the currency in which foreign
policy-makers deal. Kenneth Waltz (1979) puts power at the centre of his
theory, but in the context of the security dilemma, and the uneven distri-
bution of capabilities (Booth and Wheeler, 2007). Like most general
theorists he is not interested in how leaders play the cards they are given
or in the interaction between societies, collectively and transnationally.
Only E. H. Carr (1939, 2001) and Raymond Aron (1966) have managed
to square the circles of producing a theory of international politics which
allows space for foreign policy as a variable and communicates some-
thing of the texture of policy dilemmas.
The practitioner acting internationally on behalf of a country faces
three different dimensions of power: power as an end; power as a means,
or currency; and power as a context, or structure (Boulding, 1989;
M. Wight, 1966).1 These themes have not always been distinguished, or
connected up to the problem of agency. What follows seeks to correct this
imbalance.
Power as an end in itself represents a popular view of politicians and
their motives. Actors are seen as out to maximize their own personal
power, for the psychological satisfaction involved in controlling others,
and for the glory, money and opportunities that come with it. When act-
ing on behalf of states they blur, in this view, the distinction between their
own aggrandisement and that of the state and come to identify the fate of
the latter with themselves.
Needless to say, this is largely a caricature. But it is not always false.
Examples of Harold Laswell’s ‘mad Caesars’, willing to subjugate whole
peoples, even continents, in the pursuit of their personal lunacy, will

always occur (Wolfers, 1962, p. 84). The twentieth century witnessed
not just the excesses of Hitler and Stalin but also those of more mundane
gangster-politicians, such as Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi.
Corrupt dictators unwilling to relinquish power are commonplace in
central Asia and parts of Africa. Nonetheless, increasing numbers of
states are run by those who, however cynical, are essentially concerned
with power as a means for achieving wider objectives. Even Hitler had
far higher ambitions than the mere accumulation of personal power. He
had a view, warped and bizarre as it was, of a particular kind of civi-
lization to be extended across the globe, not least as the best way of
destroying the twin evils of communism and international finance capi-
tal. Politics, he said, was ‘a struggle of nations for life’ (R. Evans, 2005,
pp. 357–61). The advance of the Nazi Party was identified with this
vision (R. Evans, 2004).
Even when leaders do pursue an improvement in their state’s inter-
national power position for its own sake, there are always implicit
questions to be answered about the extent and the nature of the expan-
sion. How much power is enough? For the small number with a mega-
lomaniac tendency the problem is that they are precisely incapable of
such rational calculations; any gain simply whets the appetite for more.
But those who pursue revisionist ends while understanding the limits
are concerned with specific objectives and not with a drive for hege-
mony. Gamal Abdel Nasser, for example, leader of Egypt between 1954
and 1970, was intermittently demonized in the West as a threat to
world peace when his actual concern was to reassert Egyptian interests
and to counter the growing strength of Israel – policies unpalatable in
many quarters, but perfectly compatible with a normal, instrumental,
model of statecraft (A. Dawisha, 1976, pp. 102–7; Vatikiotis, 1978,
pp. 325–47).
There is a fine line between power as a value in itself and power as a
means to an end. While power-worship is about the desire to coerce and
to dominate, any use of power involves some degree of coercion and
domination. Thus some leaders begin with a vision, perhaps even noble,
for which power is only the means, but which gets eventually subordi-
nated to the determination not to relinquish power once gained. Lord
Acton may have been right about absolute power corrupting absolutely,
but even power in a democracy leads some to manipulate the rules to
avoid relinquishing it – as we have seen with Vladimir Putin in Russia
and Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey. On the other hand in the context
of foreign policy it must not be forgotten that those who seem intoxi-
cated by power domestically are often capable of acting prudently in
relation to other members of international society. Men like General
Pinochet in Chile or Paul Kagame in Rwanda have had a shrewd sense

of the limits of their external power. The model is that of the Bolsheviks,
who took power in Russia in 1917 precisely because Lenin understood
the need to surrender to Germany in the First World War if their domes-
tic aims were to be achieved.
States and leaders vary considerably in how far they seek external
power and status. Many are cautious, even introverted, whether
through lack of capabilities or through political culture. Yet in an uncer-
tain world all suffer to a greater or lesser degree from the ‘security
dilemma’ of which Arnold Wolfers (1962, pp. 81–102) wrote, following
Rousseau, namely that the craving for security entails an insurance
policy against unforeseen dangers, creating some margin of capacity
over that which would be necessary in a stable environment. This is the
justification for standing armed forces and for the whole modern appa-
ratus of defence policy, currency reserves and emergency powers.
Whether it then follows that particular policies like France’s nuclear
deterrent or US bases in the Persian Gulf are desirable and proportion-
ate forms of insurance, is a matter for political argument.
Power as currency deals explicitly with the question of the means to
serve other values. Modelski’s metaphor of reserves of power, like dollar
holdings, can be turned on its head to see a strong economy as the ulti-
mate asset in international relations (1962, pp. 27–30). If states have
both interests (I) and values (V) to promote, then together they lead to
certain core concerns (I + V = CC). These in turn revolve around one or
other of four universal issues – security, prosperity, identity and prestige
– which will be interpreted variously according to the context. All will
require both a measure of generalized power, and particular resources
appropriate to the purpose.
By power as context is meant the proposition that foreign policy
actors operate in an environment where they cannot sensibly disregard
power. It should be axiomatic, without implying the whole baggage of
realism, to accept that power is a central element in all social relations,
and, by definition, in politics. In international relations, moreover, the
uneven distribution of power goes a long way towards determining
outcomes. As the means of attenuating the exercise of power are still
only patchy, despite the hopes of interdependence theorists, it is a fool-
hardy person who writes it out of the script.
For their part practitioners may both overestimate and underestimate
the importance of power, including how much is at their disposal. A
state with many advantages on paper can still run into difficulties, as the
US did between 1951 and 1953 in its Korean stalemate with China, a
weak and predominantly agricultural country still adjusting to revolu-
tion. The opposite case is Afghanistan, which no great power has
managed to subdue – as shown by the humiliating Soviet withdrawal in

1989 and the retreat of the International Security Assistance Force
(ISAF) in 2014 after 13 years of occupation.
Those who behave as if power disparities can be skirted are just as
doomed to hit trouble. Mussolini, dazzled by the gains of war and by the
dominance of his German ally, would not listen to the warnings of his
more realist foreign minister, Count Ciano (Knox, 1982, pp. 46–9;
Muggeridge, 1947). Ciano paid with his life for doubting that the Axis
could win; Mussolini and thousands of others soon followed, through
the Duce’s blind faith in victory. Similarly, the Shah of Iran believed in
the 1970s that the combination of repression and American support
made his regime inviolable. In the event his arrogance simply heightened
the violence of the revolution which overthrew him. A decade later the
leaders of the Soviet Union trusted too much in the formidable appara-
tus of conventional power they had built up in Eastern Europe. The
shock of its sudden unravelling destroyed a superpower. The fate of
their regime is the greatest single testimony to the weakness of power
politics as a guide to durable success in foreign policy.
The context of power also means understanding structures. Susan
Strange argued that there were four principal structures in interna-
tional relations, of security, money, trade and information (Strange,
1994). If, like the United States, a country is able to dominate one or
more structures then it will have a decisive role in international affairs.
This is a point of great relevance to the present argument, in that
foreign policy actors not only have to cope with the hierarchy of power
in a given structure, but also have to face the issue of who has the
power to set the structure(s). Henry Kissinger (1994, p. 731) has said
that ‘structures are instruments that do not of themselves evoke
commitments in the hearts and minds of a society’. They are abstract
entities. Nonetheless, both the power to act and the ability to exert
power over another require an understanding of the framework in
which action has to take place (Sprout and Sprout, 1965). The prob-
lems of system-dominance and system-change will be dealt with in the
next chapter of this book. For the time being it is enough to note that
states vary enormously in their ability to shape the external ‘milieu’.
The very language of foreign policy – ‘superpowers’, ‘great powers’,
‘middle-range powers’, ‘small states’ and ‘micro-states’ – is a way of
trying to express these differentials, but it does not do justice to the fact
that world politics is also composed of diverse issue-areas and regimes,
across which power is not necessarily cumulative. Thus while Germany
is central to financial discussions it is more marginal in the diplomacy
of arms control. The reverse is true of Pakistan.
The Texture of Power – Hard, Soft and Plastic
What counts as a reserve of power may change over time. Since the value
of a currency depends on it being recognized by others, power always has
a relational element (Strange, 1994). If an adversary does not fear your
war paint, or your nuclear weapon, or if the world stops valuing gold, or
membership of the UN Security Council, then your assets may turn out
to be paper tigers. One of the best examples of this is the Austro-
Hungarian Empire in the nineteenth century, when the waning mystique
of historical monarchy could no longer inspire respect among subject
peoples or abroad, leading to a spasm of self-assertion before the final
collapse (Sked, 1989).
Just as money supply can be fixed or inflated so power in international
relations is sometimes zero-sum and other times variable sum. If Ireland
gains a given net sum from the European Community budget, then it
follows that there is so much less money for everyone else in that partic-
ular financial round. Conversely, those member states which are net
contributors agree to be so because of their judgment about the long-
term economic and political gains from the whole EU enterprise. Actors
thus have to make continual judgements as to the nature of the game they
are playing. When they attempt to translate strengths into action, they
should be aware that power is not exercised in a vacuum, but rather over
another party, for a specific purpose and in a given time-frame.
Moreover, they need an understanding as much of limits as of possibili-
ties. That is, at some point coerciveness loses its bite and dealing has to
begin. If the possession of power means that one’s own fate can always be
determined to some degree, the question remains of to what degree and
what kinds of compromises with others can be struck.
At one analytical level down from the general problem of power lies
that of the instruments of foreign policy. This is not as straightforward as
it might seem. To be sure, a taxonomy of means can easily be constructed
while individual options, like economic sanctions, have been subjected to
exhaustive research. But in practice it is difficult to isolate the impact of
a single instrument compared to others. What follows tries to provide an
integrative framework, in the form first of a continuum and second of a
pyramidal model showing the interrelationships between the resources,
capabilities and instruments of foreign policy.
The discussion of instruments is now dominated by the distinction
between hard and soft power (Nye, 1990, pp. 29–35; 2004). Hard power
is coercive, physical, targeted and often immediate. Soft power is indi-
rect, long-term and works more through co-option, persuasion and the
power of attraction. It has been defined as ‘getting others to want what
you want’. Some observers take the view that hard power is becoming
increasingly redundant, while states are now racing to get ahead in the
acquisition of soft power (J. Holden, 2013). Governments have come to
recognize more explicitly in recent years that the capacity to shape
images and values can have concrete pay-offs (Anholt, 2006). Be that as
it may, there has always been a conceptual overlap between power and
influence, and the hard/soft distinction is an evolution of that traditional
relationship, as in Figure 6.1.
The continuum of power shows that there is no clear point where hard
power stops and soft power begins. Sanctions – which can themselves
take many forms – can be as much demonstrative as punitive, designed to
encourage others to rethink their positions. Diplomacy is mostly associ-
ated with dialogue, but can be coercive when ambassadors are expelled
or there is a veiled threat of tougher measures behind a request for coop-
eration. Propaganda is often difficult to distinguish from the simple
burnishing of a self-image. Even armed services can be used to help in
natural disasters or to train foreign military personnel without any
particular quid pro quo being required – in which case they are not exert-
ing hard power. Conversely the ‘carrots’ of financial aid or commercial
privileges may seem like soft power when in practice they amount to
inducements which cannot easily be refused given the weakness of the
state in question. They thus become coercive in character.
If this argument is taken to its extreme it might be thought that all soft
power, at least when mobilized by governments as opposed to that which
emanates automatically from the very nature of a country and its culture,
has to be ultimately coercive. This is perhaps what the Canadian Foreign
Minister Lloyd Axworthy meant when he argued crudely that ‘soft
power does not mean wimp power’ (Pearlstein, 1999). The use of slow-
acting, opinion-shaping instruments can still be a form of coercion, albeit
barely understood by the target, because actor X is seeking to change
actor Y in directions which Y had not originally envisaged, even if the
process is not technically against its will. This is the realm, at the inter-
national level, of agenda-setting, manipulation and ‘hidden persuaders’
(Packard, 1981).
We need not go quite this far. Because states are made up of multiple
official units and millions of citizens they are not easily subject to brain-
washing from outside. But soft power does aim at changing structures
and mentalities over the long term, particularly through attracting others
to one’s own values and way of life. Thus the European Union has relied
for decades (in the absence of a military instrument) on its ‘civilian
power’, which has led to other regional organizations seeking to emulate
it (for example, the African Union) and a queue of neighbouring coun-
tries seeking membership or partnerships (K. Smith, 2014, pp. 17–19).
This is also an approach associated with pacific countries like Germany
Physical
coercion deterrence subversion propaganda culture
POWER INFLUENCE
Blackmail coercive sanctions diplomacy
(Hard) diplomacy (Soft power)
Figure 6.1 The continuum of power in foreign policy
and Japan (Maull, 1990), although they do hold hard power in reserve
while also relying on powerful alliances for protection.
Any regime valuing soft power still thinks it too risky to dispense with
hard power instruments even in peaceful times, taking their lessons from
history. But the wider range of foreign policy instruments now available,
and the way they confuse the issue of conflict versus cooperation, make
decisions on which route to go down particularly problematical. Soft
power always seems more reasonable, and cheaper, given that military
hardware has become extortionately expensive. But it can be decried as a
policy of weakness at home, and is often seen as cultural imperialism in
target states. What is more an effective projection of image abroad may
rest as much on a tacit respect for its hard power as on its soft power
advantages. Thus there is an inevitably unresolved debate about whether
the collapse of Soviet power was due more to popular recognition of the
superiority of life under capitalism, or to the victory of the United States
in a technology-driven arms race. Almost certainly both factors came
into play, while neither was exactly useable as an instrument of foreign
policy.
Most actors with the luxury of choice will prefer to have a range of
instruments at their disposal. But measuring the costs and benefits of any
instrument, hard or soft, is inherently difficult because of the multi-
facetedness of foreign policy and the long time-lags often involved.2
Leaders need to combine pressures and/or inducements while also think-
ing about the uses of soft power for the longer term. As US Treasury
Secretary Jack Lew said in responding to North Korea’s supposed cyber-
attack on the Sony film studios:
we will employ a broad set of tools to defend US businesses and citi-

zens, and to respond to attempts to undermine our values or threaten
national security. (D. Roberts, 2015)
To use ‘a broad set of tools’ governments have to take an ‘insurance

policy’ approach, whereby they decide how much cover they need
against which eventualities, how much they can afford, and which time-
frame is most important to them. They then adjust their policies and
outlays as circumstances change, both for better and worse. Yet this
brings us back to the limits of rationality. Major readjustments were
widely expected after the Cold War, in the form of a ‘peace dividend’, but
the inertia of alliance systems, bureaucracies and military–industrial
vested interests limited the extent of change, as it so often does. To the
extent that cutbacks were made in defence spending, notably in Europe,
they were less the result of strategic planning than of budgetary pressure.
Combining the insurance approach with the management tool of ‘risk
assessment’ could give executives and legislatures more of a handle on
external policy spending. Going further, Joseph Nye has said that the
false choice between soft and hard policy instruments can be resolved
through his new concept of ‘smart power’ (Nye, 2008, pp. 43, 83). This
involves mixing hard and soft power means according to context. It may
be that hard power is riskier to use than soft power, but more useful to
possess – as a deterrent, and a badge of status. Soft power takes longer to
amass and works best when governments allow civil society to flourish,
and to shape the country’s reputation in the world (Hill and Beadle,
2014). Smart power is therefore not something which can be banked; it
depends on leaders’ judgement, and willingness to invest in long-term
assets which they may not be around to use.
We return to the issue of striking a balance between the different
instruments of foreign policy at the end of this chapter, after a more
detailed discussion of specific instruments. But before either can be
attempted there is one last theoretical issue to clarify. This is the pyrami-
dal relationship between resources, capabilities and instruments. These
three terms are often used as synonyms, which is a mistake. The distinc-
tions between them are set out in Figure 6.2.
Resources are the elements, derived from history and geography,
which constitute what Renouvin and Duroselle (1968) called the ‘basic
forces’ of foreign policy, which determine the limits of a country’s impact
on the world – if not its ambition. These include the minerals in the
ground, the fertility of the soil and the quality of the climate. Position,
size (of both territory and population) and degree of development are all
things which governments inherit and can only be changed over gen-
erations, if at all, assuming that territorial aggression is ruled out. French
governments, for example, tried strenuously to increase their country’s
population size after 1870 but with very limited success. Resources
matter immensely, but they are not in themselves operational instruments
of foreign policy.
To reach the level of instruments, resources must first be opera-
tionalized into capabilities. These are the recognizable elements of a
modern government’s responsibilities where decisions may hope to have
an effect, at least in the medium term. They include the armed services,
RESOURCES
(history and
geography)
Territory; Minerals
Climate Crops Population Expertise Industrialization
CAPABILITIES
(operational resources)
Diplomatic
Weapons; Trade and Agriculture Information
GNP Technology Service;
Troops industry and industry media
Intelligence
POWER and (to) INFLUENCE What capabilities to

use for which goal
X ’s ability to sway Y ’ s
X ’s ability to compel Y
decisions
FORCE DETERRENCE PERSUASION DEFERENCE

(the stick) (threat of force) (the carrot) (latent influence)
Instruments
Economic Cultural Inducements,

Military Diplomacy Manipulation Diplomacy Propaganda especially
sanctions diplomacy
economic
Subversion
ENDLESS VARIATIONS OF TECHNIQUE FOR ALL ASPECTS OF

THE EXERCISE OF POWER AND INFLUENCE
Figure 6.2 Resources, capabilities and instruments

technological capacity, levels of education, patterns of trade and diplo-

matic representation and the general strength of the nation’s economy.
Unlike power and its use, capabilities tend to be measurable, and to
generate bureaucracies to enhance and develop them. Decisions on capa-
bilities will usually affect foreign policy, but they do not always follow
any foreign policy logic. Japan rebuilt its whole economy after 1945 for
reasons of survival; the unexpected consequence was the emergence of an
economic superpower. British financial retrenchment after 1979 inci-
dentally damaged the effectiveness of institutions with a key external
role, such as the diplomatic service, the BBC and the universities. On the
other hand, the Soviet Union set out quite deliberately to repair its post-
war technological vulnerability to its capitalist adversaries and by major
(if ultimately self-defeating) efforts, managed to beat the United States
into space, with both machine (Sputnik in 1957) and man (Yuri Gagarin
in 1961).
Capabilities in themselves, however, do not constitute manageable
instruments, which give states ‘externally projectable power’ (Puchala,
1971, pp. 176–84). Being both more numerous and more specific than
capabilities they fall into four broad categories: military, economic,
diplomatic and cultural. These are examined below in turn. Coercive
(hard) strategies draw on instruments from the first three of these cate-
gories, and persuasive (soft) strategies may use all four.3 Endless varieties
of technique exist for any given instrument, none of which should be
allowed to run ahead of the available capabilities. Each instrument there-
fore presents its own distinctive problems of agency.
The Military Arm
The front end of hard power is the use of military force. If war is always
political, as Clausewitz famously asserted, then the other side of the coin
is that behind much foreign policy there is the implicit threat of force.
Not violent force necessarily, as the ‘democratic peace’ between OECD
(Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) states illus-
trates. But some implication of threats and pressure is ever-present in
international politics – even from weak states with their backs against the
wall. This is, in effect, the message that any action in international rela-
tions risks incurring costs through the unpredictable reactions of others.
Such reactions take many forms, from Israel’s attack on the peace flotilla
to Gaza in 2010, leading to the death of nine Turkish citizens (and then
to Turkey’s breaking of diplomatic relations with Israel), to Russia’s mili-
tary response to Georgia over Abkhazia and South Ossetia in 2008.
Sometimes military force breaks right through the veil of diplomacy, and
sometimes it merely rumbles over the horizon like a nearby storm. Either
way, the two instruments often come close together. When they do so as
part of a strategy it is termed ‘coercive diplomacy’ (George and Simons,
1994). As we saw with the theoretical analysis of power, threats to with-
draw ambassadors, impose economic sanctions or subject a state’s popu-
lation to a barrage of propaganda are no less coercive in purpose than
threats to invade or mount punitive air raids, even if the hope is to
achieve a goal without the need to escalate. Those threats, by contrast,
which carry an explicit reference to possible military action if the target
does not comply always risk events spinning out of control. They gamble
on big returns and big losses.
Where states are bound together, whether by formal pact or shared
values, military force does not enter into their relationships. Geography
is also a key factor. Where states are geographically distant, even if great
powers are hostile to each other, an armed collision is unlikely
(Mouritzen and Wivel, 2012). But there are still all too many places in the
world where border issues, intercommunal conflicts, terrorism and
historical antagonisms mean that the relationship between foreign policy
and the possibility of violence is an intimate one. Even with rational
policy-makers inclined to negotiation, the mere existence of sizeable
armed forces and military expertise is a standing reminder of what lies in
reserve if diplomacy does not work.
The work of many authors shows that although the threat of military
force sometimes works, it can easily lead to its protagonists sur-
rendering control over their own actions, as they become squeezed
between unforeseen reactions abroad and expectations unleashed at
home. ‘Diplomatic history is littered with conflicts that escalated far
beyond the goals either party initially perceived to be in conflict as a
result of needlessly severe coercive tactics employed by one or both
parties’ (Lockhart, 1979, p. 146, cited in Lauren, 1994, p. 45). Force
can be threatened in secret – as with what Lawrence Freedman (2005,
pp. 84–6) called Prime Minister James Callaghan’s ‘undetected deter-
rence’ of a possible Argentine move against the Falklands in 1977 by
dispatching a small task force to the South Atlantic – but secrecy will
rarely prove feasible for long.4 President Kennedy conducted the first
part of the Cuban missile crisis in private, but journalists got wind of the
lights burning late in the State Department, and after a week some
public announcement became inevitable. The possibility of humiliation
in the eyes of the world thus became a dangerous extra pressure towards
escalation (Allison and Zelikow, 1999; Dobbs, 2008; May and Zelikow,
1997). In the seven cases studied by George and Simons (1994, p. 291),
only two (Laos in 1961–2 and Cuba in 1962) are seen as examples of
successful coercive diplomacy. The other five (pressure on Japan in 1941
before Pearl Harbor, on North Vietnam in 1965, on Nicaragua under

Ronald Reagan, on Libya in 1986 and on Iraq in 1990–1) display more
evidence of dangerous complications than of productive results. At the
most, the authors conclude, coercive diplomacy ‘is highly context
dependent’.
If this is true for the threat of military action, it is even more so for the
actual use of force. One of the reasons why Saddam Hussein did not
soften under the pressure of coercive diplomacy between August 1990
and 15 January 1991, or between April 2002 and March 2003, was that
he did not believe that the US and its allies would risk the dangers of
unleashing war. In this he was twice mistaken, and twice suffered rapid
defeat by overwhelming force. Even so, the use of violence is evidence of
the failure of diplomacy, and often of foreign policy. Its long-term conse-
quences are often both harmful and unforeseeable. Military action may
cut through the Gordian knot which diplomacy has failed to unravel, but
it also rarely ‘solves’ problems in the sense of relegating conflicts to the
history books. It more often exacerbates them and merely postpones
their recrudescence.
Given that armed forces are a relatively crude instrument, for most
states most of the time success consists in not having to resort to them.
The age of military triumphalism has passed, which means that the mili-
tary has become bureaucratized and as much a part of the decision-
making process as a separate instrument to be used only in the field,
albeit with an unusual degree of autonomy and a special claim on
resources. Yet it does still present options for external policy which lead-
ers find difficult to resist. These can be divided into the two categories of
revisionism and deterrence.
So far as revisionism is concerned, or a state’s ability to improve its
perceived position, it is an unfortunate truth that military force does
frequently work. Even in the post-1945 era there have been many ex-
amples: Israel in occupying and holding onto new territory from 1967;
India in occupying Goa in 1961 and creating Bangladesh in 1971; Turkey
in dividing Cyprus in 1974; the Western allies separating Kosovo from
Serbia in 1999; Russia in annexing Crimea in 2014. These examples
could be multiplied – just as they can be matched by many cases of the
failed use of force. The Soviet Union’s blockade of Berlin in 1948 and
invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 both backfired; Britain and France were
humiliated by the failed Suez expedition of 1956, as was the United
States by the Bay of Pigs in Cuba in 1961, Vietnam between 1964 and
1975, and Iran in 1980; North Korea (1950), Egypt (1973), Argentina
(1982) and Iraq (1980) all launched invasions which were then reversed.
The invasion of Iraq in 2003 removed Saddam Hussein but turned the
region into an even more dangerous trouble spot.
The conclusions to be drawn from this mixed record are fivefold: (i)
the overwhelming, decisive and short-term use of force can work; (ii)
initiating force is only an option for the already powerful, but even then
success is far from guaranteed; (iii) the use of armed force is increasingly
seen as dangerous and unacceptable by the international community
because it sows dragons’ teeth for the future; states are therefore ever
more concerned that their actions should be legitimized, usually by the
United Nations; (iv) force is more likely to work when the apple is
already so ripe as to be about to fall – that is, when the target is already
vulnerable; and (v) winning a war by no means guarantees winning the
peace – in fact it often creates serious new problems.
Given these factors, decision-makers should regard the use of their
armed forces more as an exceptional eventuality than as one of the prin-
cipal instruments of their foreign policy. Conversely, it is foolish to take
force off the table when an adversary is behaving aggressively, as
Chamberlain did at Munich in 1938. The possibilities of threat and non-
compliance which are implicit in foreign policy cannot always lie
dormant.
The same considerations, particularly in relation to acts backfiring,
apply to the variant of force which we call subversion. The assumption
that even a superpower can manipulate the evolution of another society
by covert means is a dubious one. In the long run subversion breeds as
much antagonism and resistance as invasion and occupation. The US
Cold War involvements in Latin America and in Iran left Washington
with a legacy of anger and distrust that continues to nurture hostile
regimes. For their part, revolutionary Iran, Libya and Afghanistan all
overplayed their hands with their encouragement of transnational terror-
ism, a strategy which has exacerbated divisions within the Islamic world.
Apartheid South Africa’s ruthless interventions in the neighbouring
black-ruled states probably hastened its own demise by reinforcing the
solidarity of the frontline states and their links to the ANC. Subversion,
in short, like most forms of violent attack, can succeed in the short run.
But the costs are no less high for being delayed.
The military arm is more often deployed for reasons of defence and
deterrence. Conventional arms fulfil both functions, but the term deter-
rence is particularly associated with nuclear weapons. Yet no more than
nine states possess deliverable nuclear weapons, declared or undeclared,
out of 193 UN member states. Why do they see nuclear weapons as indis-
pensable, when most decide that they are irrelevant to their security? The
answers are largely to be found in history and in strategic position. The
United States, Britain and the Soviet Union acquired nuclear weapons as
a direct consequence of the need to defeat Hitler. They soon became
convinced of their indispensability and large vested interests have grown
up around the nuclear armouries. In foreign policy terms they become an

insurance policy which it seems risky to relinquish, and a badge of status
– as in the case of Britain and France, needing to justify their increasingly
anomalous positions as permanent members of the UN Security Council.
For its part, China acquired nuclear weapons as a consequence of its
deteriorating relationship with the Soviet Union and the fear that
Moscow might launch a pre-emptive attack. This two-party dynamic has
been repeated in the symmetrical acquisition of nuclear weapons by India
and Pakistan. North Korea and Israel also possess the bomb, although
the latter refuses to confirm the fact. As a form of deterrence, against not
only nuclear attack but also conventional invasion, it cannot be denied
that the possession of nuclear weapons is a significant advantage. North
Korea has deliberately cultivated the image of a state which would not be
afraid to start a nuclear war if others moved against it, while Israel’s
neighbours have long foresworn the kind of coordinated attack planned
in 1967 through fear of massive retaliation. On the other hand some, not
illogically, have drawn the conclusion from events in Iraq and Libya that
the possession of nuclear weapons is the only guarantee against external
attempts at regime change – although that is not to say that they will be
willing or able to acquire a nuclear capacity.
Most states, however, have given no serious consideration to the possi-
bility, and indeed see every virtue in promoting the nuclear non-
proliferation regime inaugurated by the multilateral treaty of 1968. Why
is this? The answers are straightforward. First, even with modern tech-
nology, the costs of an advanced research programme on nuclear
warheads, including testing, security and delivery are prohibitively high
for all but the richest or most determined. Second, developing a nuclear
weapon is a most dangerous step. It will create fear in neighbours, draw
the attention of the great powers and possibly lead to the kind of pre-
emptive strike that Israel carried out against Iraq in 1981 and has threat-
ened against Iran. In recent years the United States and its allies have
taken an increasingly strong line as self-appointed enforcers of nuclear
non-proliferation, raising the political and economic costs for any state
wishing to cash in on its theoretical sovereign right to acquire such
weapons. Gaddafi notably backed off from the Libyan nuclear
programme after the defeat of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq in 2003.
Third, nuclear weapons have only marginal utility. They are not likely
to be of use in coercive diplomacy given that the outrage caused by a
nuclear power even threatening to use its weapons against a state not
possessing them would be enough to plunge the world into crisis. They
tend to be seen as weapons of last resort by regimes that imagine them-
selves in desperate straits. This is why the apartheid government in South
Africa developed some limited nuclear capacity. Mandela’s ANC
successor government soon renounced it, as did Ukraine in 1994, possi-

bly to its subsequent regret. Even as a deterrent they would be of no use
against a great power itself possessing nuclear weapons, except in a game
of exceedingly dangerous chicken. And no weapon is useful unless it can
actually be delivered to its target, which in this case entails sophisticated
missile and guidance systems which are beyond the capacity of most
states (Sagan and Waltz, 2003; Solingen 2007).
Conventional deterrence is a far more common and useful instrument
of policy. When it does not work, then actual defence comes into play,
although states vary enormously in their ability to protect themselves
against attack, depending on the size and quality of their armed forces,
but also their inherent degree of vulnerability. Canada, for example, has
been content to depend on NATO, and the United States, for protection,
using its own military largely to support UN peacekeeping. But as the
waters of the Arctic have warmed, so the politics of the region have
heated up, leading to a growth in its naval forces and the perception of
specific national interests to defend.
For the most part, foreign and defence policy are intended to work
hand in hand so that a potential adversary always thinks twice before
risking aggression. This is certainly Israel’s strategy, which has succeeded
beyond expectations. Despite its numerical inferiority with respect to its
enemies, the strength of Israel’s conventional forces, demonstrated four
times in battle since 1948, has led Egypt and Jordan to make peace, and
Syria and Iraq to behave with great caution. Israel has reached the point
where it is immune from defeat on the battlefield by almost any likely
combination of enemies – independent of the strategic support which it
receives from the United States. A limited use of military power may also
be seen as necessary for admonitory reasons, as when China briefly
invaded Vietnam in 1979 to remind its assertive smaller neighbour of the
realities of the regional power balance.
In this way the defensive functions of military force all too easily
blur into its offensive side. The military instrument is qualitatively
different from the other instruments of foreign policy in the threat it
bears but also in the risks it unleashes. Even the build-up of apparently
defensive arms in peacetime can be seen as an act of aggression and lead
to unstable arms races or pre-emptive strikes. For this reason security
needs to be understood in a much wider and longer-term perspective
than that provided by conventional defence analysis. The history of
Alsace-Lorraine between 1870 and 1945, when it changed hands four
times between France and Germany, shows that neither elaborate
defence nor formidable offensive power necessarily produces more
than short-term gains. The problem was only finally resolved by the
complete remaking of western Europe in 1945, and by the use of other
instruments altogether, primarily economic and cultural, within the new

structure created by unconditional surrender. Military power is therefore
at once a dramatically effective arm of foreign policy and one which is
peculiarly limited in its ability to shape political and social structures.
This is a lesson once again being learned in the chaos of Afghanistan, Iraq
and Libya.
Economic Statecraft
Economic statecraft is associated with international interdependence

(Baldwin, 1985). But as Joseph Nye has shown, this is a misreading. It
does not necessarily create cooperation. Nor is it just about foreign
economic policy serving economic goals, important as that is (Hocking
and Smith, 1997, pp. 7–22, 180–3). Given the starting point of linkage
between politics and economics, between foreign policy and the pursuit
of wealth, economic statecraft means analysing the extent to which
economic instruments are at the disposal of the state and the whole range
of its external goals, whether as carrots, sticks or forms of structural
power. Even a carrot is a form of coercion, albeit in attractive form,
because an inducement once accepted can always be withdrawn as a
punishment, while any economic or financial help automatically alters
the balance of interests within the receiving state (Nye, 2004, p. 31).
Most economic statecraft is a question of making some use of what is
happening anyway, through trade, investment or development aid. In the
economic realm, only sanctions represent a purpose-built foreign policy
instrument, and even they cut across existing business, often with damag-
ing effects on the subject as much as the object. The other economic
vectors have to be nudged or exploited as and when possible without
damaging too much their existing rationale. For international economic
activity derives for the most part from the private sector, while foreign
policy is the business of states.
There is therefore an uneasy public–private relationship at the heart of
economic statecraft – even for a state capitalist system like that of China.
Firms are often deeply unhappy about the restrictions imposed by
boycotts and embargoes; governments see private industry as lacking any
national loyalty, and capable of subversive sanctions-busting when it
suits them. Yet public money can be used as sweeteners to obtain
contracts for private enterprise where the ‘national’ interest may be less
than clear, while ‘trade’ can blaze a trail which politicians are not yet
ready to tread. Of course these ambiguities of the public–private rela-
tionship mostly concern those engaged in foreign policy or commercial
expansion. From the viewpoint of the target societies they may well seem
trivial in comparison to a perceived reality of external pressure, interfer-

ence or neocolonialism.
However economic instruments are viewed there is no doubt that they
are slow-moving in their impact and more complex to operate in an era of
relative laissez-faire than one of autarky such as the 1930s, when politics
and economics came together in such demonstrations of power as the
Japanese Greater Co-Prosperity Sphere in East Asia, and the Nazi penetra-
tion of south-eastern Europe through tying currencies to the Reichsmark.
In the post-war era the United States provided the liquidity vital for inter-
national reconstruction but exacted the price, through the Bretton Woods
system and the Marshall Plan, of a system of free trade and exchange rates
linked to the dollar. This commitment, far-sighted in itself, only gradually
came to be understood as the way to insulate western Europe against
communist influence and promote European integration (Gilbert, 2015,
pp. 26–31). In the current international system, where capital moves glob-
ally and trade liberalization has become entrenched, it is far more difficult
for governments either to act unilaterally or to disrupt the normal work-
ings of the market for anything less than a national emergency. That said,
the use of economic instruments has paradoxically been on the increase, as
states have sought alternatives to the dangers of military force and the pres-
sures for an ethical component in foreign policy have mounted. The use of
sanctions in particular has become common, and hotly debated (Doxey,
1996; Elliott, 1998; Hufbauer et al., 2008; Pape, 1998).
Sanctions represent the sticks of economic diplomacy, and include the
boycott of imports, embargoes on exports, restrictions on private busi-
ness and travel and the imposition of price rises through punitive duties
(see Table 6.1 below). Although commonly thought not to work, in the
sense of not achieving their stated ends, they always impose some costs
on the target and usually serve various ends beyond those officially
declared (J. Barber, 1979). Moreover, there have been cases where sanc-
tions have had a dramatic impact on international politics, even if they
have not always been well controlled. The oil supply restrictions (directly
and by price) imposed by OPEC in 1973 and 1979 focused world atten-
tion very clearly on the Arab–Israel conflict and its dangers for the rest of
the world. The isolation of apartheid South Africa finally helped to bring
down that regime, while the decades-long sanctions against Iran ulti-
mately brought Tehran to the negotiating table (Ehteshami, 2014). Yet
sanctions are not precise tools whose impact can be predicted with confi-
dence. They can usually be parried, if the target is prepared (as they
usually are, given the threat to their reputations for sovereign indepen-
dence) to pay the inevitable price for defying states on whom they are
dependent, and at times the whole international community. Cuba’s
capacity to defy a US blockade for half a century is a case in point.
Table 6.1 The range of economic sanctions (actions and threats)5

Trade Capital
Embargo (ban on exports) Freezing of assets

Boycott (of imports) Controls on capital movements
Tariff increase Controls on money-laundering
Tariff discrimination Aid suspension
Withdrawal of ‘most-favoured nation’ Expropriation
(MFN) treatment (i)
Blacklist (ii) Taxation (unfavourable)
Quotas (import or export) Withholding dues to international
organisations
Licence denial (import or export)
Dumping (iii)
Preclusive buying (iv)
(i) Ceasing to treat imports from a country as favourably as similar imports from other coun-
tries are treated – as required by the World Trade Organization
(ii) Ban on business with firms that trade with the target country
(iii) Deliberate sale of exports at below-cost prices, to gain market share or to disrupt the
target’s economy by depressing the price of a key export
(iv) Buying up a commodity so as to deny it to others, and/or to force up its price
Source: Adapted from Baldwin, p. 41 (1985)
It is the long-run use of economic power which has the most profound
impact. Over the past 70 years it has proved to be the most effective way
of pursuing foreign-policy goals – so long as you are rich, powerful and
capitalist (Krasner, 1985). The sheer strength of the economies of North
America, western Europe, Japan and now China has given them the
capacity to penetrate every part of the globe and to project their values
and ways of life onto other societies. This is partly through the use of
carrots such as trade preferences, loans and grants on privileged terms,
but mainly through the working of normal commercial expansion
(Cassen, 1986, pp. 1–18). China and the Gulf states have used sovereign
wealth funds to great effect, giving them investment holdings around the
world and implicit political leverage. Britain, for example, is tied into
uncritical relations with Saudi Arabia, as a major market for arms sales,
and Qatar, whose investments in London have reached unrivalled heights.
Admittedly a hit-and-miss process, economic strength has conferred
significant advantages which the leaders of rich countries show no sign of
relinquishing, even under the pressures of recession. Indeed, developed
Western states have steadily gained confidence in the historical rightness
of their policies and way of life, to the point where they have made devel-
opment assistance conditional on economic and political reforms being
undertaken by the recipient (K. Smith, 1998). Yet as international rela-
tions is a competitive environment this in turn has given China the
opportunity to use its own new wealth to offer deals to developing

countries without such derogations of sovereignty – even if it is easy then
to ensure that they use Chinese firms for their infrastructure projects
(Alden, 2007).
Refusals, ‘delinking’ and ideological hostility are possible strategies
for states facing this kind of soft blackmail. But there can be little doubt
that spheres of influence have been constructed on the basis of the
projection of wealth abroad, notably in Latin America, where the
United States has managed to maintain a congenial order without
significant military effort, and in eastern Europe, where the European
Union’s use of economic instruments makes it the key player in the
region. Russia has its own weapon of energy supplies, which it can
ration on political grounds, as Ukraine discovered. But since turning
off the tap means forgoing its own major source of income there are
limits to the utility of the sanction. This applies with any single point of
pressure.
Not every wealthy state wants to use its potential for political impact.
Japan and Germany long ago lost their post-1945 pariah status, becoming
the third and fourth largest economies in the world. They have their own
regional zones of influence, but are still cautious about using their
economic leverage for political purposes, usually preferring to act in a
multilateral context and to restrict their international activity. Perhaps
this is wise, for while foreign policy can lead to the loss of wealth (through
overstretch, war or simply an excessive sense of international responsibil-
ity) it can rarely create it (Kennedy, 1988; Strange, 1971). Conversely,
foreign policy is not usually driven by simple economic needs. The argu-
ment that US foreign policy in the Middle East is driven primarily by the
need to safeguard essential oil supplies founders on the facts that oil
exporters need to sell their product regardless of the countries they are
dealing with, and that Western support for the Gulf states shows no sign
of weakening in the era of fracking and greater US self-sufficiency.
Of course oil and other energy supplies are not irrelevant. Anxiety
about ‘the tap being turned off’ has been a constant refrain since 1973, as
it has been over Russian gas supplies to Europe in the Putin era. The same
underlying concern has led China to sign agreements with a number of
African countries to obtain privileged access to raw material supplies of
importance to its growing economy. In general therefore, while the liber-
alization of the world economy has led to the relative separation of
economics and politics, they are still intertwined. In particular, economic
sanctions, the politicization of overseas aid and human rights debates
have all led to crossed wires between foreign policy, trade and develop-
ment policy, to the irritation of the relevant officials – and thus to much
bureaucratic politics.
Diplomacy
At the softer end of the continuum of foreign policy instruments lie diplo-
macy and culture. Diplomacy is the human face of protecting interests in
international politics, as well as a crucial instrument for building inter-
national stability. In these two competing roles lies the source of much of
the argument over whether diplomacy is anachronistic and reactionary,
or peace-building and indispensable. The confusion is compounded
because of the fact that most diplomatic agency is still the preserve of
states, with the UN Secretary-General and other international civil
servants outnumbered and limited by their dependence on the major
powers (Barston, 2013; Berridge, 2010; Berridge and James, 2003;
R. Cohen, 1987; Hamilton and Langhorne; 1994; Watson, 1982).
Professional diplomats do not have a monopoly on diplomacy. As we
saw in Chapter 4, many parts of the state machinery, apart from the
ministry of foreign affairs, now engage in international relations. As
such, they are effectively required to practise diplomacy in their dealings
with foreign counterparts. In this respect all agents of the state should in
principle liaise with their diplomat colleagues. If Sierra Leone had had an
effective diplomatic cadre, for example, its 27-year-old president would
probably not have come within an ace of expelling the ambassador of its
biggest aid donor (Germany) in 1993. For their part, the specialists are
fighting a losing battle if they seek to preserve a monopoly over diplo-
macy. They need to work with their ‘domestic’ colleagues, not least
because of the increasingly important domestic dimension of foreign
policy (R. Cohen, 1998; Kennan, 1997).
As a means of implementing policy, weak states rely on diplomacy.
With few resources they have no choice but to play a poor hand as skil-
fully as possible. Yet they are also the states with the smallest and least
experienced diplomatic services. Major powers ensure that they possess
large and effective foreign services and rely on diplomacy for the bulk of
their external activity. Radical governments may start with Trotsky’s aim
of ‘issuing some revolutionary proclamations to the people before shut-
ting the shop’, but they soon turn to conventional methods in the attempt
to come to terms with an insistent outside world. For in practice diplo-
macy is always central to any kind of action, from crisis management
through long-drawn-out negotiations to routine but sensitive matters
such as diplomatic exemptions from parking fines. Only unsophisticated
regimes rely on bluster and the delusions of power.
There are four functions which diplomacy performs for the contem-
porary international actor: communication, negotiation, participation in
multilateral institutions and the promotion of economic goods. The four
are related to those managed in home capitals by the foreign ministry (see
Chapter 4) but focus more on activity in the field, and therefore on the
still critical role of embassies (Berridge, 2011, pp. 1–15).
The key function of communication is often assumed to mean, in prac-
tice, miscommunication. To be sure, any independent actor has to keep
some information private. Key judgements on the timing of initiatives
and concessions are simply not possible in conditions of publicity. But
this produces ambiguity more frequently than deliberate deception,
which does not make for good diplomacy. Routine foreign relations
could not be sustained without a fair degree of trust. Harold Nicolson
pointed out over 70 years ago that policy should be in the open even if
negotiation required confidentiality (Nicolson, 1963). Indeed, if long-
term intentions are not communicated clearly to both friends and adver-
saries the consequences can be disastrous. Robert Jervis (1970, pp.
18–40) has shown how actors read each other’s intentions from a combi-
nation of signals (deliberate) and indices (inherent characteristics such as
monthly trade figures). Unfortunately both are easy to misread even
when not manipulated. Because ambiguity is inevitable across cultures
governments need to be highly self-conscious about the signals they wish
to send on matters of importance. The Australian Prime Minister Paul
Keating got into a major row through what was for him normal plain
speaking, but for Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad of Malaysia
showed a disgraceful lack of respect (Cohen, 1997, pp. 38–43).
Sometimes it is not clear whether the signal is deliberate or accidental.
Did the United Kingdom, for example, intend to distance itself so signif-
icantly from the original six members of the forerunner to the European
Economic Community when it sent only a junior official to the Messina
Conference of 1955? When six years later the Macmillan government
decided to apply for entry to the community it had an uphill struggle in
part because of the negative messages conveyed by such oblique gestures.
Conversely, when General de Gaulle shouted ‘vive le Québec libre’ from
the balcony of the Montreal City Hall in 1967 he intended to demon-
strate support for French Canada but had probably not envisaged
provoking the diplomatic crisis with Ottawa which ensued (R. Cohen,
1987, p. 21). Even more seriously, one can narrate the onset of the two
world wars quite plausibly in terms of signals wrongly calibrated and
misunderstood. Certainly the nature and timing of the outbreak of both
conflicts owed much to failures of diplomatic communication (Joll,
1984; Weinberg, 1994, pp. 6–47).
As an instrument of policy, diplomacy represents the instinct for
caution and sophistication in the face of the strong forces of nationalism
and power politics. It provides ways of breaking log-jams and avoiding
the costs of violence, so long as not everything is wagered on its success.
Only patient diplomacy by Nixon and Kissinger was able finally to put
an end to the damaging rupture between the United States and China,
which in lasting from 1949 to 1971 had long outlived its original ration-
ale (Kissinger, 1994, pp. 719–30). Without skilful diplomacy the Federal
Republic of Germany would not have been able to launch Ostpolitik in
the late 1960s and thus prepare the ground for eventual reunification –
itself a triumph of imaginative negotiation. Through similar patience,
key individuals, particularly in vulnerable locations, have been able to
preserve their countries from potentially catastrophic consequences. It is
easy to think what might have happened to Jordan, caught as it is
between Israel, Iraq and Syria, without the ability of King Hussein to
balance the impossible pressures on him in the region (Ashton, 2008,
pp. 1–12). An Israeli intelligence report of 1980 described him as a man
trapped on a bridge burning at both ends, with crocodiles in the river
beneath (Shlaim, 2007, p. 609). In the wider international system, states-
men like Tito and Nehru had managed to loosen the structure of the Cold
War and to give a voice to many smaller states by their creation of the
Non-Aligned Movement. Diplomatic communication in this sense is a
political activity of the highest importance.
The second function of diplomacy is the capacity to conduct technical
negotiations, often of extreme complexity. Where a great deal hangs on the
outcome, as with the Paris peace talks at the end of the Vietnam War, or the
Dayton Accords of 1995 ending the Bosnian war, the identity of individual
diplomats, and their degree of experience, may turn out to be crucial. In
other negotiations, such as those between Britain and China over Hong
Kong between 1982 and 1984, and again in the 1990s, considerable
stamina is required, together with a deep understanding of the culture of
the interlocutor (Cradock, 1994, 1997, pp. 203–5; Yahuda, 1996). Success
is far from guaranteed, and often simply consists in preventing discussions
from collapsing into violence, as in the long-running dispute over Cyprus.
Even where success can be assumed, as in the EU’s negotiations with future
members, the range of detailed issues to be settled requires the coordina-
tion of a large number of complex dossiers.
What is more diplomacy is often physically dangerous. Diplomats have
been held hostage and sometimes killed through their representation of a
country’s foreign policy – and through being the most obvious point of
national vulnerability. The murder of the British ambassador by the IRA in
Dublin in 1976, the four-month siege in the Japanese embassy in Lima in
1997, the killing of the US ambassador in Libya in 2012, and the regular
bomb attacks on Western personnel in Afghanistan are vivid examples.
Even in times of war and revolution diplomacy continues as long as it is
possible to maintain the physical integrity of the embassy building, even if
the ambassadors of the direct combatants get withdrawn. This presents
serious challenges to those diplomats acting as mediators or conduits, and
to the embassies of the belligerents in third-party capitals (Berridge, 2012).

Negotiation in the international environment, in other words, is now less
than ever a game for the gifted amateur.
Diplomacy in multilateral institutions is an important part of any for-
eign policy. States, and the non-state actors which also increasingly
participate, have to manage an environment which requires balancing
their own concerns with the purposes for which the IGO exists in the first
place. Part of this means coalition-building and fostering diplomatic soli-
darity among like-minded states. Another part involves balancing private
negotiation with the public posturing intended to win over hearts and
minds, often across national boundaries. The large number of specialized
multi-partner dialogues, such as the 107-member network linking the
European Union and states from Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific, or
the 57-member Organisation on Security and Co-operation in Europe,
cut across each other and represent a special challenge. From the view-
point of the individual actor the aim is to achieve collective goals, such as
the transfer of resources to the poorest LDCs (lesser-developed coun-
tries), or agreement on confidence-building measures, without
compromising particular national interests. Success can require political
as well as technical flair, as the Italian ambassador to the United Nations
Paolo Fulci demonstrated with his effective coalition-building at the UN
in the 1990s to derail the big powers’ ‘quick fix’ plan to reform the
Security Council by adding only Germany and Japan as permanent
members (Pedrazzi, 2000).
Economic diplomacy is ever more important. It is conceptually
distinct from the use of economic instruments for foreign policy goals
discussed above. It derives from the particular need to promote national
prosperity and to conduct a foreign economic policy to that end. Much
of it operates through organizations like the OECD, G20, International
Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank, WTO and EU, and is subject to the
conditions of all multilateral working. But in this context states also face
the hegemony problem, or how to deal with the preponderant influence
of key states, markets and courts. In extremis this means negotiating
from a position of weakness in the pursuit of loans or the rescheduling of
debts, as Argentina has discovered on several occasions. The dilemma is
how to preserve sovereign independence without forgoing the desired
help – a recipe for internal upheaval. The self-help system created by the
states of western Europe has helped to buffer them against the
Washington institutions and the vagaries of the world economy, but it
still creates dilemmas. Since the onset of the major financial crisis in 2008
Greece has swung between following the rules of the eurozone and
protesting against German dominance within it. Other regions have not
got even this far in regional economic integration. Still, states such as
Japan, India, Singapore and South Korea have had success in trade and
industrial diplomacy through developing expert national cadres and
through avoiding the high costs of adventurism in foreign and security
policy (Narlikar, 2003).
Most economic diplomacy focuses on the concrete objectives of boost-
ing the export efforts of the country’s enterprises and attracting the inward
investment which will produce jobs. Japan was the most effective state in
the post-war period at forging a public–private partnership in export
promotion, but successive German governments have had outstanding
success in striking the balance between liberal capitalism and the promo-
tion of national enterprises. Britain under Thatcher and her successors was
able to attract a surprising flow of inward investment, helped by a limited,
but strategically important, number of interventions in areas such as aero-
space, nuclear power, pharmaceuticals and the car industry, in all of which
the international dimension is crucial. Furthermore, in order to get
contracts abroad governments often resort to under-the-counter promises
of development or military assistance – of greater or less subtlety, which
risk legal and political embarrassment if the news becomes public – and
thus work against transparency in decision-making.
For its part the private sector welcomes help from the state whenever
it can be obtained, despite the rhetoric of free enterprise. Export credit
support is effectively a form of subsidy, and diplomats often have valu-
able local contacts. Thus British firms successfully protested against
cutbacks in embassy staff in the Gulf in 1993, knowing they would have
support from arms exporters. Conversely, French commercial relations
with Turkey were damaged by the bill which went through the Assemblée
Nationale in 1998 recognising the Armenian genocide of 1915, and
Danish trade in Muslim countries was hit by cartoons of the Prophet
Muhammad published in 2005, and the government’s perceived support
for the cartoonists. For their part multinational enterprises have to
engage in complex and often costly diplomacy in order to secure rights to
build bridges, drill for oil, beam in satellite programmes and buy up parts
of the economy deemed strategically important. It is no wonder that
political consultancy, or risk analysis, has been one of the fastest-growing
corporate sectors in the past 20 years. TNEs, like states, cannot do their
business without engaging in politics – with each other, with regions and
cities, and with states.
Culture
Culture is entwined with propaganda as an instrument of foreign policy,

but the two are not identical. Propaganda has minimal cultural value,
and genuine culture is a spontaneous affair, independent of political

exploitation. Moreover, whereas culture is right at the soft-power end of
the continuum, propaganda is coercive in its attempt to impact forcefully
on the attitudes of its targets (Philip Taylor, 1995). There is an arrogance
about the most self-conscious propagandists which clearly reveals the
wish to control. Hitler said that ‘by clever propaganda even heaven can
be represented to the people as hell, and the most wretched life as
paradise’, while for Goering rallying mass support meant that ‘all you
have to do is tell [the people] they are being attacked, and denounce the
pacifists for lack of patriotism’ (Irving, 1977, p. 142; Wolfers, 1962,
p. 94). Even a democratic politician like Senator Vandenberg could talk,
at the start of the Cold War, of the need to ‘scare the hell out of the
American people’ (R. Mann, 2001).
Cultural diplomacy, in contrast, is a form of soft power which govern-
ments mobilize without being too obvious about their intentions, and
indeed taking a long view of the possible benefits. Like propaganda it
targets public opinion in other states. The aim might be to undermine a
hostile regime, to spread one’s own values or simply to promote
economic ends. Success therefore requires some evidence of internal
changes in the target as the result of exogenous influence, and ideally
without the subjects being aware that there was an element of external
agency, let alone deliberate manipulation.
Didactic propaganda of the kind we associate with the 1930s is still
practised by regimes which feel the world is against them. North Korea
above all has abused its enemies and naïvely extolled its own virtues.
Serbia, Libya and Iran have all had leaders in recent times prone to the
same tendency. The Ayatollah Khomeini went so far as to send a letter
to Mikhail Gorbachev in 1988 advising him (presciently) that commu-
nism was about to collapse and that the only hope for the Soviet Union
lay in a mass conversion to Islam. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad notoriously
called for Israel to be wiped off the map. For the most part no one takes
this kind of thing seriously unless it suits them to do so, as it is mainly
designed for domestic consumption. Much more effective was the soft-
sell strategy the West became more adept at as the Cold War wore on,
based on promoting desirable activities indirectly rather than preach-
ing at high volume (Rawnsley, 1996). Although precise measurement is
not possible it seems likely, for example, that the reputation of the
BBC’s World Service for impartiality, including on occasion criticisms
of the mother country, does more to promote a sympathetic under-
standing of British positions, official and unofficial, than any amount
of government handouts. Openness towards foreign journalists,
encouraging educational exchanges and the glad-handing of elites
through such events as the Königswinter or Davos meetings are other
examples of the shrewd use of culture for broadly political purposes

(Kunczik, 1997; Mitchell, 1986). With its new wealth China has
followed the West down this road. It has opened more than 300
Confucius Institutes around the world to promote its language and
image (Gil, 2009).
Sport has been a way of promoting national status at least since the
infamous Berlin Olympics of 1936. More recently it has also been seen
as having economic benefits, through attracting tourists and foreign
investment. Together the political and economic motives have led to
ferocious competition between states – and between cities – to host the
major events. Those successful – like Qatar for the 2022 World Cup –
automatically raise their profile and prestige, although the real test is the
event itself. Whereas the London Olympics of 2012 were thought to
have given a very positive impression of a cosmopolitan and dynamic
British society, the Sochi Winter Olympics of February 2014 became
mired in controversies over gay rights, and the Brazil World Cup of 2014
rebounded badly at home, with often violent protests over extravagance
and incompetence.
Politicians must always tread carefully in their wish to exploit things
which belong primarily to civil society. If they interfere with, or take
credit for, what individuals do in a free society, they invite immediate
reactions and bad publicity. They have little option but to encourage, to
herd and to hope for long-term benefits. The confidence to do this and to
see civil society as a good in itself brings results. The CIA was eventually
damaged by the disclosure of the way in which it had secretly bankrolled
publishing houses and serious magazines like Encounter (Saunders,
1999; Watt, 2000). The United States would have been better served by
relying on the provision of its efficient library and information facilities
to journalists and academics, as well as the appeal of its way of life and
stated values to millions across the world. Who needs the Voice of
America when you have Hollywood and CNN?
Any attempt at control is counterproductive in relation to the arts and
intellectual life. The British Council or the Institut Français can facilitate
tours by the Royal Ballet or the Comédie Française, but they cannot
create art. Politicians’ embarrassing attempts to associate themselves
with popular or avant-garde culture invite ridicule. At least Anglo-Saxon
societies can rely on the power of the English language and the hugely
popular film and music industries associated with it, to disseminate
themselves worldwide. The dilemma is more acute for societies like
France, where there is the perception of an excessive cultural onslaught
from English. Even here, however, Paris may be best advised not to fight
an unwinnable global war, and to concentrate on reinforcing existing
historical and economic links. This is what the German government has
done in central and eastern Europe, where there is already a disposition

to speak German as a second language. But success involves long-term
financial commitments, and the nerve to take a hands-off approach
towards cultural life.
In general people are more receptive to foreign cultural influence when
those achievements already exist and simply need to be drawn to wider
attention – and assuming they do not perceive the foreigners as hege-
monic or hypocritical. Thus in less than two decades Japan was able to
turn around its international image as a defeated, devastated, aggressor
both because foreign consumers recognized the quality and availability
of its products, and because of its newly pacific profile. It would have
been even more popular had it taken full responsibility for its past mili-
tarism, as Germany has regularly done. Singapore did not have that
problem, but it has risen above its small size and weakness to become a
well-respected player in South-East Asian affairs through its prosperity,
successful modernization and reputation for efficiency.
From this point of view, namely allowing economic and social
achievements to speak for themselves, with the state only acting as a
facilitator, cultural diplomacy is primarily an instrument of the devel-
oped West. More dirigiste regimes have to fall back on playing host to
sports events, or ploughing money into subsidized student bursaries,
language courses or prestige projects to attract the world’s attention –
but they have less attractive material at their disposal. That said, much
depends on what the desired target of influence is. Egypt under Nasser
engaged in an extraordinary campaign of radio broadcasting and
cultural sponsorship across the Arab world in a largely successful
attempt to establish its leadership role in the Middle East (Browne,
1982; A. Dawisha, 1976; Hale, 1975). Iran and Saudi Arabia have been
mainly concerned to use their resources at the religious level in the
rivalry within the Islamic world, although the latter has also funded
mosques and study abroad (Leiken, 2012, pp. 68–9, 89). The small Gulf
regimes have used their wealth by acquiring airlines and football clubs
to demonstrate their modernity and connections. Castro’s Cuba focused
its resources in the developing world, where its provision of doctors was
naturally welcomed.
For liberal or closed societies the same rule applies as with coercion:
significant influence is unlikely to take place unless the target is already
ripe for change. The Soviet Union may have been undermined by the
yearning of its people for a better standard of living, but the lure of
designer jeans and BMWs would not have been so seductive if its own
economy had not been rigid, defence-geared and literally unable to
deliver the goods over more than 70 years (I. Clark, 1997,
pp. 172–9).
Seeking Balance
In the final analysis there are no rules for choosing and using foreign
policy instruments. None should be excluded on a priori grounds, even
military force. If states and some other international actors wish to
protect core concerns, from time to time they will need to consider
using violence, or at least the threat of it. To that end they will have to
have considered well in advance the nature of the armed forces they
might conceivably need, and to have made the necessary investments.
There is no point in going to war without the means to fight it, as
Britain and France did in 1939. Conversely, arms build-ups to a dispro-
portionate level are expensive and create spirals of hostility with other
states. In any case, no foreign policy instrument is a panacea. Economic
sanctions have been a popular form of coercion from the 1980s on, but
their success is highly case-dependent. Other economic means, notably
the exercise of structural power in such policies as the Marshall Plan
and EU enlargement, are difficult to manipulate in terms of specific
consequences. They have important impacts, but of a long-term and
architectonic nature.
As for soft power, the only form of attraction available to governments
is cultural diplomacy, which is growing in importance while raising the
same public–private dilemma so evident in the economic realm: when
official policy-makers attempt to exploit the products of civil society they
risk scepticism at home and abroad. And cultural assets, like defence
planning, require long-term investments. Diplomacy, by contrast, which
exists on the boundary between soft and hard power, is ubiquitous and
unavoidable. It cannot be relied upon to implement all a state’s goals in
the face of intractable outsiders and circumstances, but it exists in every
action taken by one actor towards another, and is not the monopoly of
diplomats. It is capable of achieving far more than is generally thought,
and is relatively inexpensive. It is, in fact, the epitome of international
politics.
All instruments can backfire, especially if the elements of intervention
and control are overemphasized. Policy-makers should take on board
David Baldwin’s insistence that the means of foreign policy, being inher-
ently relational, need putting in the context not only of ends but also of
the pattern of interaction between actor and target. They should also
take it as given that action in international relations requires a mix of
instruments, whether working together or held in reserve. The technical
problem of foreign policy action is thus how to manage relations along a
number of dimensions simultaneously. But from a wider, ethical, view-
point, the challenge is how to pursue one’s own concerns without demon-
ising outsiders and without damaging the shared structures of
international life. That is less likely to happen if means are not mistaken
for ends in themselves. They need to be kept, as Clausewitz advised,
under political control.
Notes
1 There are other ways of cutting this particular cake. Boulding distinguishes
between threat power, economic power and integrative power. If rephrased,
however, as being about assertiveness, resources and frameworks they are
close to the version given here.
2 Although there is a great deal of data on the costs and composition of
weapon systems, armed services etc., few have been interested in trying to
measure their utility in political terms. Soft power, however, as a new and
intangible concept, has generated attempts at measurement with a view to
seeing where there might be value for money (McClory, 2010, 2011,
2013).
3 If it is doubted that soft power can include the military instrument, consider
the Partnership for Peace system run by NATO since 1994 to help educate
the military of the ex-Warsaw Pact states in Western approaches to civil–
military relations and to build confidence.
4 ‘Undetected’ because it is not clear whether Argentina was actually aware of
the deployment of two frigates at three to four sailing days away from its
normal search area, and of one nuclear-powered submarine which was to get
closer. Callaghan’s idea was that a hint could be given to the Americans who
would then inform Argentina. Such are the subtleties of diplomatic signalling
(Jervis, 1970).
5 Adapted by kind permission from David A. Baldwin, Economic Statecraft
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985), p. 41.
Further Reading
Berridge, G. R., 2010. Diplomacy: Theory and Practice. Fourth edition. Berridge
is a leading expert on diplomatic history and practice, while his work is
always readable and incisive.
Brighi, Elisabetta and Hill, Christopher, 2012. Implementation and behaviour.
In: S. Smith, T. Dunne and A. Hadfield, eds, 2012, Foreign Policy Analysis in
International Relations. Second edition, pp. 147–67. Using the strategic–
relational approach, this chapter focuses on whether an ‘implementation
phase’ of decision-making can be clearly identified.
Cohen, Raymond, 1997. Negotiating across Cultures: International
Communication in an Interdependent World. Revised edition. Ranging over
four continents, Cohen provides an innovative treatment of the importance of
cultural differences.
George, Alexander L. and Simons, William E., eds, 1994. The Limits of Coercive
Diplomacy. Second edition. The theoretical framework of this ground-
breaking study, largely of US foreign policy in the Cold War, makes it of
enduring relevance.
Lukes, Steven, 2005. Power: A Radical View. Second edition. Although not a
book about foreign policy, this has hugely suggestive insights for politics in
any context.
Nye, Joseph S., 2004. Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics. The
founder and developer of thinking about soft power here rebalances the argu-
ment, towards ‘smart power’.

Hill, C. Foreign Policy in The Twenty-First Century. Cap. 6

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Hill, C. Foreign Policy in The Twenty-First Century. Cap. 6

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Hill, C. Foreign Policy in The Twenty-First Century. Cap. 6

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Foreign Policy in the

Implementation: Foreign Policy Practice

If the problem of agency in international politics is in the first place a

More than a Technicality

When confronting the problem of implementation we should always be

changing direction, or a form of pressure. Because it targets perceptions

The Faces of Power

Power is a foundational concept of political science and a central pillar of

peoples, even continents, in the pursuit of their personal lunacy, will

Pinochet in Chile or Paul Kagame in Rwanda have had a shrewd sense

managed to subdue – as shown by the humiliating Soviet withdrawal in

The Texture of Power – Hard, Soft and Plastic

Figure 6.1 The continuum of power in foreign policy

we will employ a broad set of tools to defend US businesses and citi-

To use ‘a broad set of tools’ governments have to take an ‘insurance

POWER and (to) INFLUENCE What capabilities to

FORCE DETERRENCE PERSUASION DEFERENCE

Economic Cultural Inducements,

ENDLESS VARIATIONS OF TECHNIQUE FOR ALL ASPECTS OF

Figure 6.2 Resources, capabilities and instruments

technological capacity, levels of education, patterns of trade and diplo-

The Military Arm

before Pearl Harbor, on North Vietnam in 1965, on Nicaragua under

up around the nuclear armouries. In foreign policy terms they become an

successor government soon renounced it, as did Ukraine in 1994, possi-

instruments altogether, primarily economic and cultural, within the new

Economic statecraft is associated with international interdependence

trivial in comparison to a perceived reality of external pressure, interfer-

Table 6.1 The range of economic sanctions (actions and threats)5

Embargo (ban on exports) Freezing of assets

Source: Adapted from Baldwin, p. 41 (1985)

opportunity to use its own new wealth to offer deals to developing

to the embassies of the belligerents in third-party capitals (Berridge, 2012).

Culture is entwined with propaganda as an instrument of foreign policy,

and genuine culture is a spontaneous affair, independent of political

examples of the shrewd use of culture for broadly political purposes

done in central and eastern Europe, where there is already a disposition

You might also like