Showing papers in "International Affairs in 1984"

The sanctions problem in international economic relations: reflections in the light of recent experience

Abstract: Recollected in tranquillity, as an abstract problem in international relations, the continued willingness of governments to employ economic sanctions in international disputes is undoubtedly puzzling. The conventional wisdom, after all, is that they do not work. Since 1945 they have been repeatedly imposed by individual states, by alliances, by regional organizations and by the United Nations itself and in virtually no case have they been unambiguously successful. The standard academic explanation runs roughly as follows: to be effective, sanctions generally require universality of application and a high degree of dependence in the target state; although they raise costs to the target state, the increase is seldom sufficient to purchase compliance and is often greater for the country imposing the sanction; and they frequently have perverse effects, creating out of the siege mentality a sense of national cohesion and determination to triumph in adversity that was previously lacking, while dividing the sanctioning nation within itself and from its allies. Nor is this view confined to the academic community;1 over a period of thirty years West European politicians and officials have regularly employed similar arguments in debating with the United States about the wisdom and the necessity of the strategic embargo against the Soviet Union and its allies. And, in a different context, the United States itself has taken the same line in its resistance to consistent Afro-Asian pressure at the United Nations for the imposition of mandatory sanctions against South Africa. But if scepticism about the utility of sanctions is widespread, it has never acted as a general constraint against their use in particular circumstances. Indeed, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that in the modern world the standard reaction to a crisis is the imposition of a whole range of economic sanctions and energetic diplomacy to persuade other countries to follow suit. In four recent crises-the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979, the American hostage crisis in Iran in 1979-80, the imposition of martial law in Poland in December 1981 and the Argentinian invasion of the Falkland Islands in April 1982-the imposition of sanctions and the attempt to concert a common sanctions policy both within Europe and across the Atlantic has played a prominent part in Western diplomacy. In all four cases the sceptical argument was vigorously deployed by interested parties on all sides; in two of them at least, possibly three, it seems likely that, in

Britain, the Brussels Pact and the continental commitment

Abstract: Apart from the question of the future of Britain's nuclear weapons, the most important issue in British defence policy in the mid-1980s is the debate between those supporting a continentalist strategy and those advocating greater stress on a maritime/air strategy. As students of British military policy know only too well, this is hardly a new controversy. The question of 'the continent' or 'the open seas' has recurred again and again in defence planning circles throughout the twentieth century. The debates which characterized the 1920s and 1930s have been ably described in numerous books and articles, most notably those by Michael Howard and Brian Bond.' Much less attention, however, has been given to the discussions and negotiations which took place in Britain during the war and in the immediate postwar period.2 Despite the obligations entered into with the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty in 1949 and the Paris Agreements of 1954, it was the Brussels Treaty and the decisions made by political and military leaders in mid-1948 which ushered in a radical change in traditional British defence policy. It was this 'continental commitment', firmly established in 1948, which forms the backdrop to the contemporary debate about the future of British defence policy. The purpose of this article is to chart the process by which, after the experiences of the 1920s and 1930s, as well as the Second World War, Britain decided to reorient its traditional, essentially maritime, defence policy and to commit itself, in political and strategic terms, more closely to its West European allies than ever before in peacetime. The article, however, attempts to go a little further than simply providing the background to the contemporary debate, important as this may be. Consideration is also given to the contribution made by Britain, and especially by the Foreign Secretary of the time, Ernest Bevin, to the formation of the West European security system. The importance of this lies in the tendency exhibited in the growing body of historiography on the formation of NATO to play down somewhat Britain's leading role in the organization of Western security after the end of the Second World War.3 Given the scope of this article, judgements

The LRTNF decision: evolution of US theatre nuclear policy, 1975–9

Abstract: The deployment by NATO in Europe of the so-called intermediate-range nuclear force (INF) missiles in December 1983 marked the culmination of a process largely completed four years earlier. From 1975 to 1979, the United States, together with its NATO allies, fundamentally changed alliance policy concerning theatre nuclear forces (TNF). Although America's European allies played a strong role in initiating this process, the change was ultimately one for the United States to make as the chief nuclear power of the alliance. In 1975, when the Soviet SS-20 missile first appeared, the United States did not possess nuclear missile forces capable of striking Soviet territory from the continent of Europe, nor had it since the early 1960s. On 12 December 1979, the United States and its allies decided to deploy such missile capability on the continent of Europe. This article summarizes the process by which this change occurred, which may be instructive for future decision-making and the conduct of nuclear diplomacy, especially within the Atlantic alliance. It emphasizes the US decision-making process and the conduct of US diplomacy, so the lessons are most directly relevant to the United States; however, these matters are of obvious wider interest.

Europe's agricultural policy: progress and reform

Abstract: At breakfast-time on 31 March 1984, ten ministers emerged wearily from the Charlemagne building in Brussels. The European Community's Council of Ministers had just completed another all-night session of negotiation, and had reached agreement on a wide-ranging package of decisions on agricultural policy. What had these ten ministers of agriculture decided, how was it decided, why was it necessary, and did it constitute a reform of the Common Agricultural Policy? This article tries to give plain answers to those questions. Plain language is important, for one of the problems of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is that its operations are too often couched in impenetrable jargon. For most political commentators, and for many professional economists, it is a territory where the language cannot be understood, and which therefore provokes hostility or distrust. Since the issues at stake are important not only for agriculture but for the future of the Community as a political enterprise, the territory deserves to be better mapped and better understood.'

The GDR and the German nation: sole heir or socialist sibling?

Abstract: There are two states in Germany, but there is only one German nation. Its existence is not contingent upon governmental or majority decisions. It is a product of history, a part of the Christian and European cultures, and shaped by its location at the heart of the continent. The German nation's existence preceded the formation of a national state and has outlived it. This is important for our future.1

The Holy See and the postwar Palestine issue: the internationalization of Jerusalem and the protection of the Holy Places

Abstract: The fate of Jerusalem and the other Holy Places in Palestine, so strongly linked with the origins of Christianity, has always commanded the Holy See's interest and has led it on a number of occasions to undertake political initiatives designed to guarantee a Catholic presence in the Holy Land. As early as 1922, Cardinal Gasparri, the Vatican Secretary of State, had publicly expressed the fear that the terms of the British mandate on Palestine, which at the time was being approved by the League of Nations, might give the Jewish population a privileged position and might compromise the rights of the Catholic Church regarding the protection of the Holy Places. These fears gradually faded away in the following years; but the problem of the fate of the Holy Land was reawoken by the Second World War, antisemitic persecution throughout Europe, increasingly urgent requests to allow Jews to emigrate en masse to Palestine and, finally, by the British government's decision to relinquish its mandate. In an uncertain and changeable political climate, the Holy See decided that the best solution to protect the Catholic Church's rights in Palestine would be the internationalization of Jerusalem, and to this end arranged many political and diplomatic initiatives and mobilized the Catholic hierarchy and faithful throughout the world in support of such a move. The essential features of this attempt are well known, but no exhaustive study of it has ever been made. Using documents from US and British archives recently made available to scholars, this article sets out to clarify those aspects of Vatican policy which could be guessed at but not proved from a reading of Pius XII's encyclicals and the articles in the Osservatore Romano. The attitude taken by the Vatican on the Palestine issue at the end of the Second World War was unequivocally and succinctly stated in the summer of 1949 by John Victor Perowne, the British plenipotentiary minister at the Holy See: