Unipolarity is a novel condition in world politics, and its effects on international alliances have yet to receive sustained theoretical attention. Tracing its impact requires a careful distinction between the purely structural features common to any unipolar system and the unique characteristics of the current unipole (the United States) or the policies undertaken by particular U.S. leaders (such as George W. Bush). In general, the unipole will enjoy greater freedom of action and be less dependent on allied support, enabling it to rely more readily on ad hoc “coalitions of the willing.” Lesser powers will be concerned about the concentration of power held by the unipole, but they will also face larger barriers to concerted action to contain it. Hard balancing against the unipole will be unlikely—unless the unipole begins a major effort to expand—but lesser powers will engage in soft balancing to contain the latter's influence. Medium powers may pursue alliances with others in order to reduce dependence on the unipole, but weaker states are likely to ally with the unipole in order to use its power against local security challenges. Bandwagoning will remain rare even under unipolarity, but disputes over burden sharing and alliance leadership will continue. Weaker states will prefer multilateral arrangements that enhance their own influence, while the unipole will prefer bilateral or ad hoc coalitions of the willing that it can more readily dominate.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0043887109000045

Alliances in a Unipolar World

A future global economy to be built by BRICs

Ausgehend von der in der wissenschaftlichen Literatur artikulierten Erwartung, dass Konflikte
um die Durchsetzung oder Verhinderung regionaler Vorherrschaft in der Zukunft
an Virulenz zunehmen werden, wird die Rolle und Bedeutung regionaler Fuhrungsmachte
im Rahmen verschiedener theoretischer und konzeptioneller Analyseansatze zu
den internationalen Beziehungen erfasst werden. Vorgestellt werden unterschiedliche
Konzeptionen von Macht und Theorien, die sich mit Machthierarchien in der internationalen
Politik befassen. Es werden Unterschiede und Gemeinsamkeiten zwischen regionalen
Fuhrungsmachten und traditionellen Mittelmachten herausgearbeitet, und es wird ein
analytisches Konzept fur regionale Fuhrungsmachte vorgestellt. Daruber hinaus werden
das Thema regionale Integration und regionale Fuhrungsmachte sowie das Konzept der
kooperativen Hegemonie diskutiert.
Much of recent international relations literature argues conflicts to achieve or to frustrate
regional dominance will become more virulent in the future. In this context we examine
different approaches in international relations theory regarding the role and importance
which they attribute to regional powers. We discuss diverse concepts of power and theoretical
approaches that address the topics of power relations and power hierarchies in international
politics. Marking differences as well as common grounds with the more traditional
concept of “middle powers”, we sketch an analytical concept of regional powers
adequate for contemporary international relations research. The paper concludes with
reflections on the relationship between regional powers and regional integration and a
short discussion of the analytical value of the concept of cooperative hegemony for the
study of regional powers.

/pdf/macht-und-machthierarchien-in-den-internationalen-26ftxm3x4j.pdf

Macht und Machthierarchien in den internationalen Beziehungen: Ein Analysekonzept für die Forschung über regionale Führungsmächte

In Maritime Security Cooperation in the Guinea: Prospects and Challenges , Kamal-Deen Ali provides ground-breaking analyses of the maritime security situation in the Gulf of Guinea

Maritime Security Cooperation in the Gulf of Guinea: Prospects and Challenges

This paper presents a comment on some of the key issues relating to piracy, terrorism, regulatory approaches and economic issues stemming from maritime security measures. It takes a wide ranging view of these issues and argues that security measures must be managed effectively so as not to be perceived as burdensome. Furthermore, any measures adopted must cover the whole of the international logistics supply chain and not just the shipping component of such distribution channels.

Maritime security: an update of key issues

��� urrent definitions of piracy are inadequate as a tool for policymakers and need to change. According to Malaysia’s Deputy Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Mohd Najib Tun Razak, “At present the International Chamber of Commerce’s International Maritime Bureau (IMB) groups all forms of piracy under one category of piracy. Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore feel that acts of piracy should be separated according to the crime committed.” 1 To meet his challenge to provide a useful definition for maritime crimes, the U.N. International Maritime Organization (IMO) and the IMB should revise existing definitions of piracy to include four categories of maritime crimes: corruption, sea robbery, piracy, and maritime terrorism. According to the IMB, incidents of maritime piracy have more than quadrupled in the last ten years, increasing from 90 reported attacks in 1994 to 445 attacks in 2003. But these numbers are misleading due to loose definitions of the problem. Most acts cited in the annual IMB reports on maritime piracy are not the classic boarding and hijacking of a merchant vessel on the high seas. Instead, nearly two-thirds of the attacks in 2003 occurred while the ships were stationary in port and are better classified as sea robbery. Current definitions also overlook corruption among port authorities and classify maritime terrorism together with reports of dockworkers stealing cans of paint. Each category of maritime crimes requires different resources, methods of approach and agencies, and the lack of distinction in defining the problem complicates targeting resources and disperses efforts to unrelated and inconsequential issues. For example, extortion by government officials can be best resolved by tackling government corruption, while police should more properly handle sea robbery. Piracy, on the other hand, requires maritime assets that are available only to national coast guards or navies. Finally, because of its inherent political nature and potential for devastating consequences, maritime terrorism must be separately identified to allow

Maritime Piracy: Defining the Problem

The most dangerous source of instability in Asia is a rising China seeking to reassert itself, and the place China is most likely to risk a military conflict is the South China Sea. In the second decade of the 21st century, the seldom-calm waters of the South China Sea are frothing from a combination of competing naval exercises and superheated rhetoric. Many pundits, politicians, and admirals see the South China Sea as a place of future competition between powers. Speculation about impending frictions started at the July 2010 ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) when U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton delivered an overdue statement on American interests in the South China Sea. Clinton averred that the United States has a national interest in freedom of navigation in the South China Sea; that the U.S. supported a collaborative process in resolving the territorial disputes there; and that the U.S. supports the 2002 ASEAN-China declaration on the conduct of parties in the South China Sea. Despite Clinton's statement of support for China's own agreements with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, China's Foreign Ministry responded negatively, claiming that the secretary's statement was "virtually an attack on China." China's military stated that it was opposed to "internationalization" of the six-country dispute and commenced a new and unusually large naval exercise in South China Sea the very next week. This gathering maritime confrontation is instigated by China's assertions of sovereignty over the entire South China Sea and its stated intention to enforce that sovereignty. But the source of China's hubris is its view of its historic mandate to rule all under heaven. Extending China's borders a thousand miles across the South China Sea is only one policy manifestation of this vision of a new Chinese world order. Consistent with its Sinocentric ideology, Beijing believes its authority over its smaller neighbors should include determining their foreign policy. After Clinton challenged China's claim to the entire South China Sea, China's foreign minister reportedly glared at a Singaporean diplomat and pronounced, "China is a big country and other countries are small countries, and that's just a fact." (1) More telling of China's opinion of its position among nations, the following Monday China's Foreign Ministry posted a statement that "China's view represented the interests of 'fellow Asians.'" The competing territorial claims in the South China Sea are decades old, but today the Chinese government is full of a sense of accomplishment and the People's Liberation Army is flush with the fastest growing military budget in the world. Clinton's statement may have been inspired by earlier statements by Clinton's Chinese counterpart, the state councilor responsible for foreign affairs, Dai Bingguo, directly to Clinton herself and repeated to several U.S. aides that the enforcement of China's sovereignty over the South China Sea was a "core interest" on par with Taiwan and Tibet. While Dai Bingguo reportedly has desisted from using the term "core interest" to describe China's maritime sovereignty, personalities in China's military still do. In January ion the web site of the People's Daily, the official organ of the Chinese Communist party, surveyed readers about whether the South China Sea is China's "core interest"; 97 percent of nearly 4,300 respondents said yes. (2) Short of a shooting war, protecting freedom of navigation in one of the globe's busiest sea lanes requires an amicable resolution of the competing territorial claims. Starting a process to resolve or neutralize the problem will require American leadership and resolve. Firm diplomacy backed by convincing naval power and patient leadership can strike a balance in the region that protects freedom of navigation, the integrity of international law, and the independence and sovereignty of Southeast Asia's nations. The worst solution to the South China Sea dispute from the U. …

Countering Beijing in the South China Sea

DECEMBER 30, 2004, was hardly a proud moment for China, Asia's rising superpower. On that day, China's Foreign Ministry spokesman, Liu Jianchao, announced $2.7 million in disaster relief to victims of the great Sumatran tsunami that killed hundreds of thousands of people and wiped out hundreds of towns along the western coast of the Indonesian island. Liu was understandably a bit defensive as foreign reporters peppered him with questions about the minimal aid amount. "China is a developing country," he offered. "We have a population of 1.3 billion. China's per capita GDP is still very low." The $2.7 million was, he explained, "equivalent to the annual income of 20,000 farmers." While for the next several days the United States, Japan, Europe, Australia, and Canada continued to escalate their tsunami aid packages to an eventual total of over $4 billion, China was playing aid catch-up ball with rival Taiwan, which had started off the week with a generous pledge of $50 million. By mid-January China had pledged about $63 million, though Taiwan's relief teams were far more visible in the stricken areas than China's. Chinese aid efforts were dwarfed by the fleets of U.S. helicopters ferrying vast cargoes of medical, food, and construction supplies from American aircraft carriers and support ships anchored in the hazy distance directly to needy masses of refugees ashore. Unsurprisingly, this was not an image that was seen in China. China's official Xinhua news agency breathlessly reported that Indonesians were emotionally overwhelmed by China's aid. On January 2, a week after the tidal wave, a Sumatran refugee named "Awada," who drove an ambulance for a team of Chinese medics, was moved to proclaim, "China, in my heart, is a great nation!" These words (complete with exclamation point) comprised the headline at the top of the international news page on the January 3, 2005 People's Daily. Despite the fact that China's meager contributions excluded them from the international "core group" of tsunami aid donors, Chinese readers were left with the rosy impression that their country was "a major humanitarian aid power." To the rest of Southeast Asia, reported the New York Times (January 4, 2005), the huge American, Japanese, and European aid campaigns were "a reminder that the world's most populous country is still far from being the dominant power in Asia." Added the Washington Post (January 5, 2005), "the response has also underscored the limitations of China--a fast-growing economic powerhouse that nevertheless has not been able to offer anywhere near the amount of aid provided by Japan, the United States or Britain." All true. But anyone who concluded from the Times and Post accounts that in 2005, China was merely a bit player in Southeast Asia--or anywhere else in the world--would be dead wrong. Beijing's political leaders know that superpowers aren't measured by their foreign aid budgets, or by their economies. They are measured by their ability to use their comprehensive national power--economic, political, and above all military--to gain the obeisance of their neighbors and their regional and global rivals. Asian superpower IT SEEMS THAT the United States may already have resigned itself to China's imminent emergence as a "military superpower"--the term Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice used to describe it in a June 29, 2005 interview with the Wall Street Journal. For regardless of the niggardliness of its Tsunami aid effort, China is now the dominant power in Southeast Asia. How it became so should yield insights into its strategies for the rest of the globe. In his National Security Strategy paper of September 2002, President Bush announced, "We must build and maintain our defenses beyond challenge," an unmistakable declaration that U.S. defenses must be so awesome that no other country would even "challenge" them. At the same time, he pledged that he would be "attentive to the possible renewal of old patterns of great power competition. …

China's Quest for Asia

ON DECEMBER 5, 2006, Taliban fighters repulsed a company of British Royal Marines attacking a village on the Helmand River in Afghanistan. The Marines enjoyed substantial air and artillery support, but the Taliban fighters were victorious, Reuters reported, and bragged that they had the expertise to defeat any army in the world. Although the fighting resulted in the death of only a single Royal Marine, their defeat demonstrated a new Taliban ability in conventional tactics and a first-order strategic change in the war on terrorism. The frequently pronounced goal of the American and Allied strategy in Iraq and Afghanistan is to train and equip their respective armies so that American and allied soldiers can depart; "As Iraqis stand up," administration officials quip, "American forces will stand down." The Department of Defense (DOD) program in support of that strategy is called Building Partnership Capacity (BPC) and it is the major program in the DOD's security cooperation strategy. Yet the battle on the Helmand River throws the whole concept into question. Despite the billions of dollars spent to train and equip the Iraqi and Afghan armies, it is doubtful that this program will create armies superior to the Royal Marines. And if the Royal Marines cannot defeat an entrenched Taliban force, what are the prospects for the Afghan Army after NATO leaves Afghanistan? This problem is not isolated to Afghanistan or Iraq. Since 9/11, the United States has provided in excess of $100 million a year to the Philippines, the most American aid to any country in East Asia, much of it in the form of security assistance. In addition, the American military continues a brisk training schedule with the Philippine Armed Forces. As a consequence, the Philippine military has demonstrated a marked increase in capability. In September 2006, a Philippine Marine unit encountered and killed Khadaffi Janjalani, commander of the notorious terrorist group Abu Sayyaf, during a six-hour gun battle in which the majority of the marines were killed or wounded. Major General David Frodovich, commander of special operations forces in the Asia Pacific, said, "We're building capacity when we're in various locations and leave these areas when they are capable of doing it on their own." (1) Despite the best efforts of American and Philippine military leaders, however, the terrorist threat in the Philippines is growing. In 2006 the Philippine Armed Forces kept Abu Sayyaf on the run, instigating 49 engagements with the rebels, killing or capturing 81 of its members. Nevertheless, Abu Sayyaf remains a dangerous threat. In July 2002, at the conclusion of a six-month operation involving thousands of U.S. and Philippine armed forces against Abu Sayyaf, U.S. Ambassador Francis Ricciardone said, "Abu Sayyaf rebels are a spent force after a U.S.-Philippines military operation, but the conditions that bred them could just as easily bring forth a new Southeast Asian 'terror' group." (2) Four and half years later, in January 2007, General Hermaogenes Esperon, Chief of the Philippine Armed Forces, estimated Abu Sayyaf's strength at 452 fighters--approximately the same size it was before it was supposedly destroyed in 2002. In the same announcement, he noted that the communist New People's Army (NPA) still numbered 7,100 rebels. This latest contrasts with the NPA's strength during 1990s, when it was estimated at fewer than 6,000 active members and dwindling. This global insurgency, whether state-supported, local, transnational, narco-terrorist, Islamist, or neo-communist, has access to a variety of underground economies, including drug trafficking, religious charities, and illicit government sponsorship. Members use these resources to develop their own building partnership capacity (BPC) programs. These are distributed through the internet, and have proved to be resilient in the face of modern armies and successful in exploiting the insurgents' substantial asymmetrical advantages. …

Dana R. Dillon

Papers

Maritime Piracy: Defining the Problem

Countering Beijing in the South China Sea

China's Quest for Asia

The Civilian Side of the War on Terror