Preventing Enemy Coalitions: How Wedge Strategies Shape Power Politics
TL;DR: The wedge strategies that are likely to have significant effects use selective accommodation (concessions, compensations, and other inducements) to detach and neutralize potential adversaries.
Abstract: States use wedge strategies to prevent hostile alliances from forming or to disperse those that have formed. These strategies can cause power alignments that are otherwise unlikely to occur, and thus have significant consequences for international politics. How do such strategies work and what conditions promote their success? The wedge strategies that are likely to have significant effects use selective accommodation—concessions, compensations, and other inducements—to detach and neutralize potential adversaries. These kinds of strategies play important roles in the statecraft of both defensive and offensive powers. Defenders use selective accommodation to balance against a primary threat by neutralizing lesser ones that might ally with it. Expansionists use selective accommodation to prevent or break up blocking coalitions, which isolates opposing states by inducing potential balancers to buck-pass, bandwagon, or hide. Two cases—Great Britain's defensive attempts to accommodate Italy in the late 1930s a...
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TL;DR: In this paper , the authors argue that the United States must seriously address challenges from China and Russia through increased commitment, preparedness, and coordination of the conventional forces Allies make available, which may require a more integrated, ready, and responsive command headquarters that should be agreed by Allies with the 2022 Strategic Concept and implemented without delay.
Abstract: ABSTRACT Both China and Russia have become more assertive strategic actors since NATO last revised its Strategic Concept in 2010. What major strategic decisions do Russia, China, and other major powers face in the next decade? How should these changes be reflected in the next Strategic Concept? We argue that NATO must seriously address challenges from China and Russia through increased commitment, preparedness, and coordination of the conventional forces Allies make available. This may require a more integrated, ready, and responsive command headquarters that should be agreed by Allies with the 2022 Strategic Concept and implemented without delay.
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TL;DR: Wang et al. as mentioned in this paper argued that China's conciliatory policy toward Japan represented a wedge strategy that was designed to detach Japan from the United States and weaken the US-Japan alliance.
Abstract: This article explores why the People's Republic of China employed a surprisingly soft and lenient policy toward Japan in the 1950s despite their historical and political animosities. Relying on a relatively new concept in the study of international relations, I argue that China's conciliatory policy toward Japan represented a wedge strategy that was designed to detach Japan from the United States and weaken the US-Japan alliance. The logic of the theory also reveals that China's policy was in line with its "united front" against the United States during the Cold War. KEYWORDS: China-Japan relations, China's foreign policy in the 1950s, Cold War history, wedge strategy, US-Japan alliance.THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA (PRC) EMPLOYED A SURPRISINGLY soft and lenient policy toward Japan in the 1950s despite the two countries' historical and political animosities. In the first half of the twentieth century, the Chinese people suffered Japan's military aggression in Manchuria, viewing Japan as China's main enemy. After the PRC was established in 1949, Japan continued to be in the enemy camp as the Cold War structure placed the two Asian states on opposing ideological sides. Japan signed a peace treaty with Taiwan, acknowledging the victory of the Republic of China in the Sino-Japanese war, and recognized the government of Taipei rather than the PRC. Nevertheless, China emphasized cultural links and sought to expand economic relations and political contacts with Japan. What explains China's approach toward Japan in the 1950s?Relying on a relatively new concept of wedge strategies developed by Timothy Crawford and Yasuhiro Izumikawa, I argue that China's overture toward Japan used those strategies to detach Japan from the United States and weaken the US-Japan alliance. The logic of wedge theory reveals that this policy was in line with China's "united front" strategy to deal with the United States during the Cold War.This article is organized as follows. First, I discuss how major schools of thought in international relations predict China's behavior and why their explanations are deficient. Next, I delve into key theoretical arguments about wedge strategies and explain why China is a significant case study. Then, I explain why China's policy toward Japan in the 1950s should be regarded as a wedge strategy by looking at the intent and origin of China's united front strategy. I explore the range of China's wedge strategies toward Japan and evaluate their effectiveness by looking at the US reaction. Finally, I examine some implications that the China case study can offer for the theory of wedge strategies.Major Schools of Thought and China's Friendly Approach Toward JapanChina's conciliatory policy toward Japan in the 1950s differs from what the major international relations theories might have predicted. Balance-of-power theory has difficulty in explaining why China tried to improve bilateral relations with Japan at that time. The theory assumes that states seek internal military mobilization or external alliance partners to confront others with considerable economic and military strength. China's foreign policy in the 1950s was clearly designed with the preponderant US military capability and the US alliance system in East Asia in mind. It is not surprising that the PRC, with dire economic conditions and a poorly equipped military force, chose to "lean to one side," allying with the Soviet Union against the United States rather than opting for neutrality (Zagoria 1962; Gittings 1972; Yahuda 1978; Shen and Li 2011 ).1 The balance-of-power argument would predict that China would also confront Japan, given that Tokyo was a significant alliance partner for Washington. Instead, China sought to restore bilateral relations with Japan as early as 1952 when the Korean War was going on and US bases in Japan were crucial to the US war effort (Barnett 1977).The balance-of-threat theory has similar problems in offering explanations (Walt 1990). …
3 citations
01 Jan 2018
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors focus on an essential prerequisite for every FPA, namely, identifying a foreign policy so that it can be grasped and explained, which is often neglected and constitutes the Achilles' heel of several studies, which are so preoccupied with the decision-making process that they overlook the foreign policy itself.
Abstract: This chapter focuses on an essential prerequisite for every FPA, namely, identifying a foreign policy so that it can be grasped and explained. This stage is often neglected and constitutes the Achilles’ heel of several studies, which are so preoccupied with the decision-making process that they overlook the foreign policy itself. Yet, it is crucial for analysts to carefully define the policy that they aim to explain. To define is to interpret. In other words, by defining, the researcher attributes a meaning that will, in turn, influence the type of explanation sought. This chapter focuses on five benchmarks that provide the basis for a comparative approach, including the goals, mobilized resources, instruments, process and outcomes. As this chapter makes clear, identifying benchmarks is not difficult; it is access to comparable data for research that poses problems.
2 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors analyze wedge strategies in the context of Russo-Japanese relations and look at how both countries have sought to generate a disalignment in the opposing side, preven...
Abstract: This article analyses wedge strategies in the context of Russo-Japanese relations. In particular, it looks at how both countries have sought to generate a dis-alignment in the opposing side, preven...
2 citations
References
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Book•
01 Jan 1960
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors propose a theory of interdependent decision based on the Retarded Science of International Strategy (RSIS) for non-cooperative games and a solution concept for "noncooperative" games.
Abstract: I. Elements of a Theory of Strategy 1. The Retarded Science of International Strategy 2. An Essay on Bargaining 3. Bargaining, Communication, and Limited War II. A Reorientation of Game Theory 4. Toward a Theory of Interdependent Decision 5. Enforcement, Communication, and Strategic Moves 6. Game Theory and Experimental Research III. Strategy with a Random Ingredient 7. Randomization of Promises and Threats 8. The Threat That Leaves Something to Chance IV. Surprise Attack: A Study in Mutual Distrust 9. The Reciprocal Fear of Surprise Attack 10. Surprise Attack and Disarmament Appendices A. Nuclear Weapons and Limited War B. For the Abandonment of Symmetry in Game Theory C. Re-interpretation of a Solution Concept for "Noncooperative" Games Index
7,845 citations
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01 Jan 1972
TL;DR: In this paper, a theory of international politics, describes the struggle for political power, and discusses balance of power, international law, disarmament, and diplomacy. But this theory does not consider the role of women in international politics.
Abstract: Offers a theory of international politics, describes the struggle for political power, and discusses balance of power, international law, disarmament, and diplomacy.
3,179 citations
TL;DR: The authors show that there will exist negotiated settlements that rational states would mutually prefer to a risky and costly fight under very broad conditions, under the assumption that states have both private information about capabilities and resolve and the incentive to misrepresent it.
Abstract: Realist and other scholars commonly hold that rationally led states can and sometimes do fight when no peaceful bargains exist that both would prefer to war. Against this view, I show that under very broad conditions there will exist negotiated settlements that genuinely rational states would mutually prefer to a risky and costly fight. Popular rationalist and realist explanations for war fail either to address or to explain adequately what would prevent leaders from locating a less costly bargain. Essentially just two mechanisms can resolve this puzzle on strictly rationalist terms. The first turns on the fact that states have both private information about capabilities and resolve and the incentive to misrepresent it. The second turns on the fact that in specific strategic contexts states may be unable credibly to commit to uphold a mutually preferable bargain. Historical examples suggest that both mechanisms are empirically plausible.
3,062 citations