Organizing the World

Galia Press-Barnathan

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2004
• ISBN:
  9781135941932
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: International Relations
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book offers a conceptual framework that explains when and why a great power would choose to cooperate with smaller states via regional cooperation forums rather than in a bilateral setting.

Chapter 1
The Puzzle of Choosing Cooperation Strategies

THE QUESTION IN CONTEXT

Any nyone following debates over foreign policy in the United States since the end of the Cold War cannot help but note the lack of consensus over the nature of, rationale behind, and extent of U.S. involvement in world affairs.¹ The events of September 11, 2001 briefly created an apparent consensus around the vague notion of “the war on terror”. This consensus as well, however, is beginning to be questioned. The debate centers both around the goals that American foreign policy should be pursuing, as well as around the type of cooperation strategies that the United States should choose in order to advance its goals. By cooperation strategies I mean the form the United States chooses for organizing its cooperation with regional states, both in security and economic issues, in order to deal with regional security threats or with economic problems. Can and will the United States seek to advance its interests unilaterally, as the Bush Jr. administration initially suggested? Will it adopt mainly bilateral cooperation strategies? Or will it endorse multilateral cooperation strategies, regional or global, as the Clinton administration did in the past? These questions are important not only for American policymakers, but also for America’s partners around the globe. However, before one can make policy predictions on this issue, it is necessary to understand the logic behind the choice among different cooperation strategies. Such understanding can best be gained by adopting both an analytical and a historical perspective.

The goal of this book, therefore, is twofold. First, it offers a general explanation to when and why great powers choose certain cooperation strategies (bilateral, regional, or global-multilateral) to deal with smaller partners. This explanation stresses the importance of decision-makers’ desire to reconcile conflicting policy goals, the impact of regional power disparities and the great power’s attentiveness to partners’ goals. Second, the book explains American policy toward regional security and economic cooperation in Asia during the Truman and Eisenhower administrations. Nowhere are the opportunities, threats, and uncertainties that the United States faces greater than in that region, where it has fought its bloodiest wars since the end of World War II, and where two of its most serious (albeit different) challengers, Japan and China, are located.² To put America’s Asian policy in perspective, I include two comparative chapters that analyze American policy toward regional cooperation in Europe during the same time periods. As the story unfolds, many parallels to current U.S. policy dilemmas, both in Asia and in Europe, become evident.

While examining the competition among bilateral, regional, and multilateral strategies, the book focuses on explaining when and why agreat power would choose to cooperate with its smaller partners through A regional strategy. The focus on regionalism stems from the growing importance of regional strategies in the post-Cold War era, both in general and in the context of U.S. foreign policy. After years of American reliance on a bilateral strategy in Asia, the Clinton administration has exhibited a new U.S. interest in regional cooperation arrangements there. After initial reluctance, the United States joined in promoting the forum for Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC). It also adopted a more positive approach to regional forums such as the ASEAN Post Ministerial Conference (PMC) and the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF). The building of “a regional architecture that will sustain economic growth, promote integration, and assure stability over the longer run” is now seen as a key element in America’s Asia-Pacific strategy for the 21st century.³ This strategy is not intended to replace the previous bilateral strategy but to complement it. Still, the pursuit of a regional approach in Asia appears to suggest a significant change in U.S. policy.⁴ What explains these U.S. preferences for regional strategies? How viable are such strategies for post-September llth U.S. policy, with the new Bush administration and its apparent shift back to unilateralism?

My focus on regional-multilateral strategies is also driven by an interesting empirical puzzle, namely, U.S. decisionmakers’ apparent fascination with regional and multilateral solutions. Although the actual adoption of regional strategies as policy is indeed a new phenomenon in the context of U.S. policy in Asia, the interest in such strategies is by no means new. Consequently, the book explains both the element of change as well as the less familiar element of continuity in U.S. policy.

WHY STUDY THE CHOICE AMONG DIFFERENT
COOPERATION STRATEGIES? WHY STUDY U.S.
CHOICE?

International relations theory has paid very little attention to the issue of choice among different forms of cooperation. Most of the literature on international cooperation has focused on the feasibility of cooperation and the relative efficacy of various forms of cooperation. The debate between Realist and Neoliberal Institutionalist scholars has centered on the issue of the likelihood of cooperation. Realists stress the importance of anarchy and relative gains concerns in hindering cooperation. Neoliberal Institutionalists see anarchy as less determinative, stress the fear of cheating as the main obstacle to cooperation, and assert the importance of international institutions in facilitating cooperation.⁵ However, less attention has been paid to the factors that influence a state’s choice among different forms of cooperation strategies. This is troubling because the form of cooperation is important. It affects the nature of future cooperation and, once chosen, it makes it difficult to switch to other forms.

1. The form of cooperation affects the viability of future cooperation. Different forms of cooperation have different effects. In theoretical debates, Neoliberal Institutionalists maintain that multilateral arrangements make future interaction cheaper and more transparent, and in the long run, help to develop shared interests and identities among the member states.⁶ It has been argued that regional arrangements such as NATO, the CSCE, and the EU have played a key role in making war very unlikely among the major European states. These arrangements are helping to sustain cooperation and peace today, despite the dramatic changes in the international distribution of power. Sets of bilateral arrangements may well have been less capable of forging such patterns of tight regional cooperation.

The importance of the choice among different forms of cooperation strategies becomes clear when one compares the post-Cold War situation in Asia and in Europe. In the latter, cooperation is deeply embedded in a web of regional security and economic institutions, and so far the transition to the new era has not created major international tensions. Asia, however, faces a less certain future, in large part because the main regional players are not similarly enmeshed. Germany is institutionally deeply embedded in Europe, whereas Japan is much more isolated politically and so far has been unable to achieve deeper reconciliation with its Asian neighbors.⁷ Hence it is most important to understand why there are so few regional institutions in Asia, as compared to the "alphabet soup" of regional institutions in Europe.⁸ I do not offer a full answer to this question, but instead examine one central cause of the difference, namely, the choices that the United States made in the early postwar years about the forms of cooperation arrangements it was to organize in Europe and in Asia.

It would be naive to blame the United States for the lower level of regional cooperation in Asia, and presumptuous to accord it full responsibility for the high level of cooperation that prevails in Europe. The basic conditions in Asia and in Europe were, of course, very different. As Peter Katzenstein maintains, the broad regional power disparities in Asia, as opposed to the more balanced power distribution in Europe, and the lack of shared norms in Asia as opposed to the common Western culture in Europe, helped to make regional cooperation more feasible in the latter.⁹ However, it is arguable that in the early postwar years, when the U.S. enjoyed unprecedented preponderance relative to both regions, it did have a chance to greatly influence the basic character of regional cooperation arrangements. It chose to pursue a regional format in Western Europe, and a bilateral format in Asia. Its support for European integration greatly contributed to the creation, in the long run, of what is often described as the West European security community. On the other hand, the bilateral approach dominant in U.S. policy toward Asia is partly responsible for the present lower level of cooperation there.¹⁰

2. The path dependence of form choice. Once a certain form of cooperation is chosen and pursued, certain patterns of relations are created that make it difficult to switch to another form later. In other words, the choice is path dependent.¹¹ In the U.S. context, early choices about the form of cooperation constrain its ability to adopt new cooperation strategies today.¹² U.S. leadership in Asia has none of the institutional supports it enjoys in Europe. The importance of such institutional supports is apparent in the central role played by the EU in dealing with the East European states' reintegration into Europe, and before that, with the reintegration of Germany. In contrast, the fact that Japan is not as well embedded within Asia makes U.S. power appear to be the linchpin that holds Japan in place and makes the U.S.-Japan security alliance the cornerstone of regional stability.¹³

The "hub and spokes," bilateral cooperation arrangements that developed after World War II between the United States and various Asian states make it difficult to create multilateral arrangements in Asia at present, or alternatively, for the United States to shift its main support from its bilateral security arrangements to a regional arrangement.¹⁴ This is because, unlike in Europe, the Asian states were not forced to interact with one another over the years. The regional states’ expectations toward their neighbors and toward the U.S. role in the region have evolved in such a way that would make change difficult. Any attempt to replace the U.S.-Japanese bilateral security arrangement with a multilateral arrangement would be extremely destabilizing. Because Japan’s military revival was not monitored and contained within a regional framework, the regional states’ only assurance against a resurgence of Japanese militarism (other than Japan’s own behavior) has been the American presence in the region and its close military ties with Japan. Any initiative that might signal the weakening of the U.S. commitment in the region would therefore be extremely unsettling to those states. If regional arrangements are to develop in Asia, they are likely to build on the previous bilateral arrangements. On the other hand, the fact that strong regional frameworks already exist in Western Europe makes it easier at present to deal with new challenges (for example, relations with Eastern Europe, the question of Russia, instability in the Balkans) through multilateral or regional means.

Thus, U.S. choices about forms of cooperation strategies in the early postwar period considerably account for the different current levels of regional cooperation in Europe and in Asia. They also help in understanding current U.S. policy in the region and in predicting its future choices, which will affect the regional and global scenes as well as the role of the U.S. itself.¹⁵ Finally, to the extent that the argument advanced here can be applied to other great powers as well, understanding the choices made by the U.S. can help us understand and predict the attitudes of other regional powers, such as Japan, toward regional arrangements.

WHY FOCUS ON ASIA?

Interest in U.S. policy in Asia¹⁶ reflects both policy concerns and theoretical issues. As mentioned earlier, in the post-Cold War, post-bipolarity system, Asia appears to be the most volatile and potentially dangerous region in the world. Once the restraining effects of bipolarity are gone, rapid economic growth, unresolved territorial disputes, a mounting arms race, and burgeoning political aspirations all threaten to produce regional conflicts.¹⁷ Such conflicts would inevitably involve the United States. If a regional military conflict were to develop (for example, a Chinese attempt to forcefully reunite with Taiwan, an escalation of the crisis with North Korea), bilateral military alliances would compel the U.S. to get involved. If a regional economic crisis were to develop, the strong U.S. trade and investment ties with Asia would compel it to get involved as well. As the financial crisis that engulfed Asia in the summer and fall of 1997 has shown, regional problems have major global implications. The same crisis also highlighted the policy dilemma within the U.S. about the most appropriate cooperation strategy for dealing with such crises.¹⁸

Furthermore, the new power concentrated in Asia, combined with values that conflict with Western values (for example, on the issue of human rights), pose a potential for conflict between the regional powers, now becoming great powers, and the United States. Different forms of regional and multilateral cooperation arrangements may prove useful in mitigating or even resolving such tensions, and may also help the U.S. and its regional partners to contain potential regional threats. At the same time, encouraging regional cooperation for the wrong reasons, or in order to advance goals that are not agreed upon in Asia, may also prove dangerous.

In light of Asia’s tremendous importance for global peace and prosperity, it is even more puzzling that there are so few international relations works that apply theoretical reasoning to problems pertaining to the region, especially in the literature on the early postwar years.¹⁹ There are, in fact, some excellent books by historians, many books with a clear policy orientation, and very few if any books that apply international relations theory to the region (or that use cases from the region to shed light on theory). The renewed interest in Asia is indeed leading more political scientists to study key theoretical questions in the regional context. Their job, however, is made more difficult by the aforementioned neglect. Regionalism has long been an issue for political scientists studying Europe. Much has been written on the creation of the Marshall Plan and of NAT(O) in the late 1940s, and much is currently being written about the proper role and size of NATO in maintaining peace now that the constraints of bipolarity have disappeared. Such writings can build on a rich historical as well as theoretical body of research, which simply does not exist in regard to regional developments in Asia and U.S. policy toward those developments. This book aims to begin to remedy this situation.

CHOOSING COOPERATION STRATEGIES—WHAT ARE WE TRYING TO EXPLAIN?

This study is trying to explain the choice among different forms of cooperation strategies. The subjects of these cooperation strategies are states within a certain region with which a great power wishes to cooperate. Unilateral strategies are not explicitly discussed here because they do not qualify as cooperation strategies. Cooperation, according to Robert Keohane, requires some degree of mutual adjustment, whereas a unilateral approach involves following a certain policy line regardless of the actions of the other party.²⁰ Nevertheless, wherever the possibility of unilateral action is considered, I examine the reasons why it was not adopted, using the same criteria I apply to the other strategies.²¹

The definition of a bilateral strategy is rather straightforward. The great power chooses to cooperate separately with each of its potential regional partners; at least from a formal perspective, both sides adopt certain explicit commitments with respect to the cooperation arrangement between them. However, under broad power disparities such a bilateral strategy may become a de facto unilateral strategy, where com...

Table of contents

• COVER PAGE
• TITLE PAGE
• COPYRIGHT PAGE
• PREFACE
• CHAPTER 1: THE PUZZLE OF CHOOSING COOPERATION STRATEGIES
• CHAPTER 2: WHAT EXPLAINS STRATEGY CHOICE?—THE THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
• CHAPTER 3: THE RISE AND FALL OF THE PACIFIC PACT— U.S. POLICY TOWARD EARLY POSTWAR SECURITY ARRANGEMENTS IN ASIA
• CHAPTER 4: FROM “UNITED ACTION” TO THE MANILA PACT—THE EISENHOWER ADMINISTRATION AND REGIONAL SECURITY ARRANGEMENTS IN SOUTHEAST
• CHAPTER 5: FROM NAT TO EDC—U.S. POLICY TOWARD REGIONAL SECURITY IN EUROPE: A COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE
• CHAPTER 6: REVIVING POSTWAR JAPANESE TRADE—AMERICAN STRATEGIES DURING THE TRUMAN AND EISENHOWER ADMINISTRATIONS
• CHAPTER 7: THE FORM OF FOREIGN AID TO ASIA—FROM TRUMAN TO JOHNSON
• CHAPTER 8: U.S. STRATEGIES FOR EUROPEAN ECONOMIC RECOVERY—THE MARSHALL PLAN IN A COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE
• CHAPTER 9: WHITHER AMERICA’S REGIONAL STRATEGY? CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS FOR POST– COLD WAR U.S. POLICY
• NOTES
• BIBLIOGRAPHY