The Shaping of Foreign Policy

William Zimmerman

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781138538528
• eBook ISBN: 9781351474245
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: International Relations
• Index: Politics & International Relations

How are foreign policy decisions made? This volume shows the various approaches to answer this question. In their introduction, Jacobson and Zimmerman make clear the goals and techniques of the comparative analysis of foreign policy behavior and, following this, they provide seven basic essays exemplifying, with variations, the principal approaches used to explain foreign policy behavior: the systemic, the environmental, the societal, the governmental, and the idiosyncratic (or psychological).

Jan F. Triska and David D. Finley illustrate the systemic approach as applied to Soviet-American relations. Harold and Margaret Sprout then deal with the significance of the physical environment in the study of international politics. Two essays follow--by, respectively, Karl W. Deutsch and Gabriel A. Almond--representing the merger of international and comparative studies in this field. The contribution by Henry A. Kissinger examines the relationship of certain governmental systems to foreign policy behavior.

The editors' introduction and selections reflect excitingly and accurately the "state of the art" of comparative foreign policy analysis and place before the reader, in clear and compact form, the continuing dialogue among scholars about one of the most controversial areas in the study of political processes.

1: Soviet-American Relations: A Multiple Symmetry Model

JAN F. TRISKA
DAVID D. FINLEY

Escalation deterrence, fear of "gaps," reduction of tensions, balance of terror . . . these expressions, describing processes and attitudes which were largely unknown fifteen years ago, are becoming clichés today. The context is the Cold War, but the issue is the potentially hot thermonuclear war which "will destroy us unless we do something about it." Disagreement on the "us" that will be destroyed has been less acute than disagreement on who the "we" are and what the "something" is that must be done. Who are, or ought to be, the "we" and what is, or ought to be, that "something"? In this paper we would like to offer a fresh perspective for assessing these concerns.

From The Journal of Conflict Resolution, IX: 1 (March 1965), 37-53. Reprinted by permission of The Journal of Conflict Resolution and the authors. Authors' note: "A number of friends and colleagues read an earlier draft of this paper. Heinz Eulau and Ole Holsti of Stanford University and Charles A. McClelland of the University of Southern California offered especially valuable comments and suggestions."

Dupréel's Theorem

In 1948, Professor Eugène Dupréel of the University of Brussels published a lengthy study of General Sociology (1948; cf. Scott, 1956, pp. 207-226; Liska, 1957). In a chapter on the "Evolution of Extended Conflicts" he proposed that, "While the character of aggressor and defender intermingle and merge, the opposing forces tend to balance each other. They take the same forms to meet and neutralize each other more completely" (p. 151). In a protracted conflict, the opponents must employ the same means (moyens mis en d'oeuvre); if they do not, that side which fails to modernize these particular means to match those of the other side, other things being equal, is doomed. The moral issue of aggressor versus defender becomes irrele-vant and immaterial for the outcome of the conflict, which is maintained or decided by the balance or imbalance of the mutual means.

Few would deny that Dupréel's theorem describes the symmetry of weapons systems build-up in the Cold War of the past fifteen years. The two opposing forces have done their utmost to surpass—and as a consequence they continually meet, balance and neutralize—each other's weapons systems. In the process of the Cold War these weapons systems become deterrents of the hot war. Should either side's perceptions of equilibrium or near-equilibrium of deterrents be sufficiently disturbed, a precipitous response might ensue. Given this alternative, the prolonged Cold War conflict, sustained in part by mutual images of military hardware symmetry, is certainly preferable. (We will return later to a concomitant of maintaining this dynamic symmetry—the inherent danger involved in the inexorable escalation of deterrents.)

Thus, on the micro level of specific weapons systems, the American development of atomic fission weapons first and then thermonuclear weapons led to feverish Soviet scientific research and capital investment in this area—and resulted in atomic and thermonuclear parity or near-parity. Conversely, the 1957 Soviet Sputnik caused consternation in the US before eurythmy was once again restored. Similarly, missile delivery systems have absorbed much of the military development efforts on both sides.

On a macro level too, in the military confrontation, the operation of Dupréel's proposition is observable. The establishment of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (in itself a Western response to the postwar Soviet military threats in Europe)—a supranational military agency designed to reshape the role, scope, and organization of the US and Western Europe vis-à-vis the USSR and its bloc in Europe—prompted in turn a similar Soviet and bloc reaction. Formally at least, the Warsaw Treaty Organization presents a near mirror-image of NATO—a concept of unified military resources rationalized as a Soviet-East European defense system against the NATO threat.

Dupréel's theorem, axiomatic in the weapons-deterrents sector of the Cold War, appears to have validity in other sectors as well. In fact we submit that the stimulus-response sequence, upon which Dupréel's theorem is founded, is a basic propensity of most interactions encompassed in the East-West dialogue to which we conveniently refer as the Cold War, a propensity by now so well established that any stimulus inserted into the process by one of the opponents may be expected to bring about a proportionate response in kind from the other. If the multiple symmetry model we are about to construct is indeed a simplified description of reality, it should fit not only the military subsystem at two different levels but other subsystems within the conflictual interaction process as a whole.

Diplomacy, an essential subsystem of interaction between states, serves as a convenient example and a testing ground. In a broad sense, "diplomacy" includes three further subsystems—or types of diplomacy—characteristic of the Cold War, namely conventional, open, and covert diplomacy. All of these originated with the West. Conventional diplomacy, negotiation of international differences and demands outside the public eye by officially accredited diplomatic representatives, has been practiced along the lines established by the European powers at the Congress of Vienna in 1815. Open diplomacy, the conduct of international negotiations in public, has been with us at least since the League of Nations. And covert diplomacy, i.e., foreign intelligence and espionage activity, the time-honored left hand of conventional diplomacy, is exemplified far back in the Old Testament (Dulles, 1963). All three types, however, have been modernized in application by the Soviet Union. They have been elaborated and intensified to such a degree that, taken together, they represent a new and qualitatively different diplomacy—one which has had to be matched in all its aspects by opponents of the Soviet Union because it has been made a critical instrument in the Cold War dialogue. Historically the Soviet Union had to adopt the methods of Western diplomacy, and, in turn, the diplomatic asymmetry which the Soviet Union evoked by its thorough exploitation of the three types of diplomacy generated an irresistible pressure upon the West to reestablish equilibrium as soon as possible. The Western perception of disadvantage prompted by the Soviet-initiated disequilibrium led to a series of Western responses designed to restore balance to the whole diplomatic sector.

Soviet Diplomacy: Conventional, Open, and Covert

Soviet Russia was not initially inclined toward the practice of conventional diplomacy. But it was one thing for Leon Trot-sky, the first People's Commissar of Foreign Affairs, to proclaim that he would not deal with the discredited professional diplomats of capitalism and to engage instead in direct and immediate support of Communist revolutions abroad; it was another thing for the young, inexperienced, revolutionary Soviet state to survive in an established and hostile world until the next round of revolutions came about—especially since the next round of revolutions took a long time in coming. The resulting incongruous, contradictory situation demanded, on the one hand, acceptance of the means of intercourse used by the enemy, making the embrace of conventional diplomacy imperative for Soviet Russia. On the other hand, the impossibility of giving up the objectives of world revolution, without which there would have been no Soviet Russia—and without which there would be no Communist support for the Soviet government abroad—demanded the retention of an unconventional and revolutionary diplomacy designed to overthrow the old world. Unable to survive without conforming to the universally accepted diplomatic conduct but unwilling to sacrifice their unique strength for it, the Bolsheviks decided, after much soul-searching, to do both—to conduct their diplomacy on both levels at the same time. To make this combination palatable to their capitalist opposites, they not only pushed the ideological, revolutionary, and subversive diplomacy underground, into the realm of covert diplomacy, but they hopefully covered it up by sustained verbal exhortations "to all governments" to terminate the traditional and "discredited" diplomacy of the past and to replace it by an open diplomacy of the future. They called for an elected diplomatic corps representing the people—replacing the professional diplomatic representatives of governments— meeting in open forums for all to see, hear, and judge. Such a democratic diplomacy, they reiterated, was the only way to conduct foreign affairs. The 1917 Decree on Peace, the first act of Soviet foreign policy, which called for "open negotiations ... in full view of all the people," was just such an "enlightened" proposal.

Forced by their opposition, the Communists accepted conventional diplomacy (the story of Chicherin at Genoa in 1922 is too familiar to need retelling here); in turn, however, they not only forced their enemies to accept a greatly modernized system of covert diplomacy, but they succeeded in considerably broadening both the conventional diplomacy and the open diplomacy of the League of Nations and the United Nations as well. It appears that Dupreel's theorem was being borne out in this sector, too.

In conventional diplomacy, the sustained Soviet insistence that the agents of its foreign trade monopoly, as a state monopoly, must be accorded special, nonreciprocal rights and privileges abroad has paid off handsomely. In most of the countries of the world which trade with the USSR there are now permanent Soviet trade delegations, which, as the sole Soviet business representatives, enjoy the same diplomatic privileges and im-munities as accredited Soviet diplomats, namely personal immunity, extraterritoriality, immunity from taxation, and so on, entirely without benefit of precedent, custom, and tradition. They are thus doubling the Soviet diplomatic corps in these countries. The persistent demands of other governments to equal and thus neutralize this Soviet diplomatic advantage have not proved too successful. It is true that, on a bilateral level, some quid pro quo arrangements have usually been found and employed on an ad hoc basis. On other levels and in general, however, no acceptable formula has ever been discovered.

In open diplomacy, also, Soviet Russia accepted a challenge and then returned it in kind. The Soviet advocacy of "open negotiations" as the most democratic kind of diplomacy was at first verbal. With time, however, the advantages to be had through actual application of open diplomacy for the Soviet cause were recognized. In international organizations, agencies, and conferences the Soviet representatives, in their minority position, have relied on "bold minority" tactics. Originally elaborated by Lenin as a tactic for the Party in a parliamentary situation, the Soviet "fraction"—a solid core unit endeavoring to achieve and maintain minority control of the forum—became an effective device to turn the Soviet minority position into advantage. The Party's long minority experience afforded a wealth of information and techniques valuable for such purposes. In the United Nations, for example, Soviet "bold minority" tactics have proved effective enough to permit the USSR and its fraternal socialist allies frequently to neutralize and balance the numerically superior Western position.

Carrying open diplomacy "to its logical conclusion," namely the "people to people" level, the Soviet Union established a number of Soviet-sponsored international organizations and conferences which, like the World Peace Council, "are truly universal and represent . . . not the governments but the peoples themselves. In this is (their) particular strength and indisputable moral authority" (Molotsov, 1951, p. 23; cf. also New Times, 1956). The Soviet World Federation of Trade Unions, the International Union of Students, the International Federation of Resistance Movements, the International Asso-ciation of Democratic Lawyers, the World Federation of Scientific Workers, and other similar organizations and agencies illustrate the Soviet endeavor on this level.

The major Soviet advantage in open diplomacy appears to rest, however, in the personal diplomacy practiced on the highest levels, the much publicized summit diplomacy of heads of governments. Khrushchev may not have been the head of state, as is the American or the French president or the British queen, but like Adenauer or Macmillan he was the chief of his government and thus the most important Soviet executive officer. As he was the Chairman of the Council of Ministers, principal member of the Party Presidium, and First Secretary of the Party (as well as Chairman of the Party's special Bureau of the RSFSR), Khrushchev was the principal Soviet decisionmaker. This was the key to his effectiveness in summit diplomacy: he could verbally commit the whole of Soviet power on the spot, openly and publicly. This his opposite numbers, whether heads of state or heads of government or both, of course, could not do. This is why summitry was attractive to Khrushchev (and to Stalin before him). Certainly his considerable freedom of action facilitated the dramatic act, the play to world public opinion, that has recurrently characterized Soviet diplomacy.

But perhaps the major Soviet innovation rests in covert diplomacy, the third subsystem of its diplomacy, which includes foreign intelligence and espionage. If ever difference in degree led to differences in kind, or as Lenin put it, citing Marx, if "quantity turned into quality," Soviet intelligence activities abroad would qualify: through sheer numbers, scope, and volume, this Soviet realm of endeavor qualitatively changed modern diplomacy. The veritable armada of Soviet spies, intelligence agents, and counterintelligence agents has permeated international relations as never before. Judging from individual accounts of escapees and defectors from Soviet diplomatic and intelligence services over the last twenty years, their number, operating throughout the world, is in the tens of thousands.

Soviet foreign intelligence agents are either attached to the Soviet diplomatic mission in a country or operate outside the Soviet embassy and unknown to it. While little is known about the latter group, which apparently has several branches responsible to and operating under the guidance of parent intelligence organizations in Moscow, the former group has been identified and described by Kaznacheev and others before him (Kazna-cheev, 1962. See also Krivitsky, 1939; Orlov, 1953; Gousenko, 1948; Petrov, 1956; Petrov, 1950; Deriabin, 1959; Khokhlov, 1959; Swiatlo, 1955; Monat, 1962). It includes the Political Intelligence Service, the military intelligence, the economic in-telligence, and the Tenth or Special Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The core of Soviet foreign intelligence personnel operating from Soviet embassies abroad is the Political Intelligence Service, the foreign branch of the Soviet security police (KGB), which is in practice directly subordinate to the Party's Central Committee. Its officers have diplomatic rank and thus enjoy diplomatic immunity. They are the professionals. With them work selected members of the local Soviet diplomatic corps recruited on the spot as "associate members" on a part-time basis while retaining their full diplomatic staff membership. Additionally, there are code clerks, messengers, typists, drivers, and other technical personnel attached to the P...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Preface
• Contents
• Approaches to the Analysis of Foreign Policy Behavior
• 1 Soviet-American Relations: A Multiple Symmetry Model
• 2 Environmental Factors in the Study of International Politics
• 3 Toward an Inventory of Basic Trends and Patterns in Comparative and International Politics
• 4 A Developmental Approach to Political Systems
• 5 Domestic Structure and Foreign Policy
• 6 National Images and International Systems
• 7 Assumptions of Rationality and Nonrationality in Models of the International System
• For Further Reading: A Bibliographical Note
• Index