Summary
An eye-opening argument for a new approach to Iran, from two of America’s most informed and influential Middle East experts
Less than a decade after Washington endorsed a fraudulent case for invading Iraq, similarly misinformed and politically motivated claims are pushing America toward war with Iran. Today the stakes are even higher: such a war could break the back of America’s strained superpower status. Challenging the daily clamor of U.S. saber rattling, Flynt and Hillary Mann Leverett argue that America should renounce thirty years of failed strategy and engage with Iran—just as Nixon revolutionized U.S. foreign policy by going to Beijing and realigning relations with China.
Former analysts in both the Bush and Clinton administrations, the Leveretts offer a uniquely informed account of Iran as it actually is today, not as many have caricatured it or wished it to be. They show that Iran’s political order is not on the verge of collapse, that most Iranians still support the Islamic Republic, and that Iran’s regional influence makes it critical to progress in the Middle East. Drawing on years of research and access to high-level officials, Going to Tehran explains how Iran sees the world and why its approach to foreign policy is hardly the irrational behavior of a rogue nation.
A bold call for new thinking, the Leveretts’ indispensable work makes it clear that America must “go to Tehran” if it is to avert strategic catastrophe.
Country or Region: United States
Lotfian, Saideh
Abstract
A wide range of disputes among the Persian Gulf littoral states exercerbated by the intervention of the extra-regional powers have deprived the regional states of the chance to create a viable security system. The subsequent article seeks to analyze Iran’s policies on ensuring regional security of the Persian Gulf as well as the policies of the United States and the littoral Arab states. Tehran has always made efforts to expand its ties with the neighbouring states in order to create a collective security system. Yet a number of key regional and international players have tried to undermine Iran’s efforts in this respect, in particular the United States which continues to pursue its interventionist policy through military means in order to confront Iran. Such an ill-advised policy makes the prospects of yet another futile conflict in the region more likely.
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Davis, Lynn E
Summary
As Iran’s nuclear program continues to evolve, U.S. decisionmakers will confront a series of critical policy choices involving complex considerations and policy trade-offs. These policy choices could include dissuading Iran from developing nuclear weapons and deterring Iran from using its nuclear weapons, if it were to acquire them. To be successful, the United States will need to find ways to influence Iran’s calculations of costs and benefits as Iran pursues its national security interests (survival of the regime, protection of the homeland, and expansion of its regional influence). The United States will also need to reassure its partners in the region of the credibility of the U.S. deterrent posture so as to reduce the Gulf Cooperation Council states’ potential interest in developing their own nuclear weapons and dissuade Israel from pursuing unilateral military actions or openly declaring its nuclear posture. The U.S. Air Force, supporting combatant commanders, will play a prominent role in implementing the policy choices, and so it needs to prepare by understanding the goals and timelines of potential military tasks and by designing exercises and war games to support different policy choices.
Limaye, Satu P
Abstract
The period from the beginning of the Bush administration in January 2001 to the president’s October 2003 visit to four countries in Southeast Asia1 marks a distinctive phase in U.S.-Southeast Asia relations. Both the U.S. and Southeast Asia were adroit in “minding the gaps” in relations for reasons that do not address fundamental questions regarding views or interests towards each other. First, early Bush administration approaches to foreign and security policy were adjusted as reflected in the new National Security Strategy. Second, the U.S. war on terrorism cast a new importance to terrorism in Southeast Asia. Third, Southeast Asian countries, confronted with terrorism, and desirous of maximizing opportunities from constructive relations with the U.S., sought to buttress ties with Washington. This pragmatic response on both sides to the post-September 11 environment led to the minding of gaps, rather than any rethinking on the part of the U.S. or Southeast Asian countries. While such a mutual approach in relations maximizes near- and mid-term cooperation, it leaves open to question longer-term trends in U.S.-Southeast Asia relations and the broader Asia-Pacific security environment.
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Grinter, Lawrence E
Abstract
Chinese and American policies toward mainland Southeast Asia exhibit interesting and complicated aspects as both great powers hedge against the future. Beijing has close relations with the Burmese Government as does Washington with Thailand. Vietnam, however, is more resistant to serious engagement with either China or the United States. Cambodia and Laos are afterthoughts for both Beijing and Washington. As China and the United States seek to influence mainland Southeast Asia, they encounter limits to their policies. The Burmese junta is wary of too much Chinese penetration and seeks to manipulate the availability of its oil and gas sales among Beijing, Tokyo, and New Delhi. Washington, despite close military relations with Bangkok, finds Bangkok willing to substantially engage economically with the Chinese. In conclusion, China views mainland Southeast Asia from a strategic viewpoint while the United States, preoccupied with Iraq and Afghanistan, usually concentrates on governance and democracy issues in mainland Southeast Asia.
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Ba, Alice
Abstract
This article examines contemporary US-Southeast Asia relations as the product of both longstanding forces and a transitioning regional system. First, it highlights systemic forces behind some of the more enduring features and challenges of US-Southeast Asia policy and relations during the presidency of George W. Bush. Systemic forces highlighted include not just the structural-power dynamics that preoccupy International Relations students, but also the interplay of domestic politics, geography and history. It discloses that the key differences between Bush and his predecessors were more of degree and diplomacy than of substance. Bilateralism, sentimental idealism, and a general reactiveness characterized Bush policy, much as it did his predecessors, but Bush diplomacy and policy extremes may account for the more negative regional reception to his policies. Second, in describing a regional system in transition, it highlights adaptations and adjustments on both sides that are creating a regional system that is less US-centric practically and conceptually. It argues that these changes may ultimately prove healthy for both a global power with limited attention and more constrained resources as well as its Southeast Asian partners concerned about autonomy and overdependence. Nevertheless, these changes call for a recalibration of US-Southeast Asia policy and approach in recognition of the region’s changing politics.
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Tow, Shannon
Abstract
In his article “The Geography of Peace”, Robert Ross postulates that a bipolar regional power balance has emerged in East Asia. This theory is premised on the assumption that smaller Asian states will seek to compensate for their own vulnerability by clearly aligning with either China or the United States. In the case of Southeast Asia, however, stable but competitive Sino-U.S. relations have provided ASEAN states with considerable strategic leverage. Although these states maintain a close relationship with their respective geopolitically dominant great power, this leverage allows them to manoeuvre between and to strengthen their autonomy vis-à-vis China and the United States. Closer examination of the 1998 addendum to the 1990 U.S.-Singapore Memorandum of Understanding, the 1999 U.S.-Philippines Visiting Forces Agreement and the 1999 Sino-Thai Plan of Action for the 21st Century demonstrates these trends.
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Thayer, Carlyle A
Abstract
In 2010 regional security in Southeast Asia was affected by three major developments: increased tensions in Sino-American relations, U.S. re-engagement with the region, and Chinese assertiveness in the South China Sea. Each of these developments when taken in combination posed a challenge to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations’ (ASEAN) self-proclaimed role as the “primary driving force” in regional affairs. ASEAN weathered these challenges and by year’s end demonstrated that ASEAN continued to remain central to the region’s security architecture.
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Sutter, Robert
Abstract
The year 2009 witnessed important initiatives by the United States and China in Southeast Asia. Evidence of some sharpening of Sino-American competition to protect interests and project influence in Southeast Asia grew amid a broader pattern of mixed divergence and convergence in Sino-American relations over such important international concerns as the global economic crisis and recession begun in 2008, climate change, the armed conflicts, instability in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and Iran’s and North Korea’s nuclear weapons development.
On balance, the leaders of both countries remained committed to a path of constructive engagement that has marked Sino-American interchange since early in the decade. Differences over various issues, including respective efforts to improve influence and protect interests in Southeast Asia, have tended to be dealt with through various private channels or formal “dialogues”, out of the public limelight. Neither side has taken steps in their respective foreign policy initiatives that would seriously jeopardize the positive stasis that has developed in relations between the American and Chinese governments.
Many significant differences and strongly competing interests remain in U.S.-China relations, including in Southeast Asia. They feed deeply rooted mutual suspicions and impede progress in developing closer U.S.-China relations based on mutual trust. But the positive benefits of Sino-American engagement, ever closer mutual interdependence in U.S.-Chinese interests, especially in economic development, and massive preoccupations of both leaderships with other problems at home and abroad mean that neither the United States nor the Chinese government appear to see its interest well served with a disruptive confrontation with the other. This balance of interests foretells continued careful management of Sino-American differences in Southeast Asia as the United States and China pursue initiatives and compete for influence in the region.
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Mochizuki, Mike, Akikaku Hashimoto, and Kurayoshi Takara ed
Bisley, Nick
Abstract
Over the past decade, the US-Japan alliance has been strengthened and subtly but substantively transformed. In response to a range of domestic changes and new international challenges, a relationship that was becoming frayed in the immediate aftermath of the Cold War has been rejuvenated and re-tooled with significant consequences for East Asia’s strategic setting. This article provides a critical analysis of this process with two ends in mind. First, it provides a systematic overview of the changes, their sources and what they mean for the alliance partners and their security interests. It argues that the US-Japan alliance now has two distinct functions, one relating to regional stability and the other focusing on shared global strategic aims. The alliance is in good health, but its continued vitality will require careful management. Second, it assesses the regional consequences of this change and argues that while alliance enhancement has been intended to promote mutual and regional security there is reason to doubt whether the latter goal has been served through the enhancement process.
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Hamilton-Hart, Natasha
Summary
In Hard Interests, Soft Illusions, Natasha Hamilton-Hart explores the belief held by foreign policy elites in much of Southeast Asia—Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, Singapore, and Vietnam—that the United States is a relatively benign power. She argues that this belief is an important factor underpinning U.S. preeminence in the region, because beliefs inform specific foreign policy decisions and form the basis for broad orientations of alignment, opposition, or nonalignment. Such foundational beliefs, however, do not simply reflect objective facts and reasoning processes. Hamilton-Hart argues that they are driven by both interests—in this case the political and economic interests of ruling groups in Southeast Asia—and illusions.
Hamilton-Hart shows how the information landscape and standards of professional expertise within the foreign policy communities of Southeast Asia shape beliefs about the United States. These opinions frequently rest on deeply biased understandings of national history that dominate perceptions of the past and underlie strategic assessments of the present and future. Members of the foreign policy community rarely engage in probabilistic reasoning or effortful knowledge-testing strategies. This does not mean, she emphasizes, that the beliefs are insincere or merely instrumental rationalizations. Rather, cognitive and affective biases in the ways humans access and use information mean that interests influence beliefs; how they do so depends on available information, the social organization and practices of a professional sphere, and prevailing standards for generating knowledge.
Berger, Thomas
Abstract
The Asian Pacific region is highly unstable, but not for the reasons usually assumed. Contrary to the assertions of Realists, who argue multipolarity makes Asia ‘ripe for rivalry’, overwhelming US strategic preponderance should make the balance of power quite stable. Likewise, while much is made by more liberal International Relations theorists of the relative absence of strong international institutions and democracy in Asia, recent trends seem to point in a more positive direction. The real source of instability lies in the beliefs and values held by regional actors. Contested sovereignty on the Korean peninsula and in the Taiwan straits makes military conflict seem a real possibility. Latent isolationism in the US and Japan may lead to a mishandling of a crisis were one to emerge. This Constructivist line of analysis suggests that more attention should be paid to these intangible potential sources of conflict and miscalculation.
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Twining, Daniel, and Fontaine Richard,
Abstract
Both New Delhi and Washington have rhetorically invoked the unique ties between “the world’s oldest and largest democracies.” It is time for both countries to develop a strategic approach to values-based action and to articulate a specific agenda for that cooperation, outlined here.
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Mohan, C. Raja
Abstract
India is on the verge of becoming a great power and the swing state in the international system. As a large, multiethnic, economically powerful, non-Western democracy, it will play a key role in the great struggles of the coming years. Washington has recognized the potential of a U.S.-Indian alliance, but translating that potential into reality will require engaging India on its own terms.
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