University of Macau / Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities / Department of Government and Public Administration

The official reaction of the Russian Federation and of the People's Republic of China to the announcement made by the United States in December 2001 to abrogate the almost thirty years old Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty has been remarkably weak, given their sustained and coordinated opposition to the deployment of strategic defences against ballistic missiles (BMD). Because the existing literature, particularly balance of power theory, under-explored this puzzle and fails to provide a satisfactory explanation to it, a neoclassical realist model building on structural and unit-level variables is proposed to supplement this caveat. It is argued that Russia, as a stagnant great power experiencing trouble at the domestic level, bandwagons with the United States because it discounts the medium- and long-term threat posed by BMD. China, a rising developmental state, is soft balancing because it resents the project and the threat it poses to its security. It has not hard balanced so far because there is an acknowledgement that this could jeopardize its power base, as the telling example of the USSR collapse illustrated.

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This study argues that despite the basic inertia in U.S. China policy during the Kennedy and Johnson years, the period nonetheless witnessed a fundamental evolution in the strategic presumptions underlying Washington’s approach to the China “problem.” By increments, U.S. policymakers began to seriously question the wisdom of a policy predicated on the idea that the containment of the People’s Republic of China necessitated its political and economic isolation. Inversely, a basic consensus emerged in interested corners of the U.S. foreign policy bureaucracy that considered attempts to engage the Chinese—on levels bilateral and multilateral, official and unofficial—could serve to socialise China’s revolutionaries, thereby facilitating a reduction in Sino-American tensions and paving the way to a bilateral rapprochement. Critically, in this analysis “engagement” was seen as a means of enhancing, rather than simply supplanting, the larger effort to contain China. The dynamics involved in the emergence of this consensus are manifold and complex, and cannot be properly understood without close reference to changes in both the international strategic environment and the domestic political context through the 1960s. At the heart of this process, however, were advocates of policy moderation within the U.S. bureaucracy, mediating external pressures for policy movement, and championing the case for a more conciliatory approach to Sino-American relations. The growing acceptance of what was sometimes articulated as “containment without isolation”—shorthand for a policy framework that implicitly rejects the either/or choice between containment and engagement—found expression in, and was in turn fostered by, basic adjustments in Washington’s posture toward Mao’s China. By the end of 1968 senior U.S. officials had repeatedly signalled that Washington was reconciled to the reality of a Communist-controlled mainland China, and would in fact welcome expanded efforts toward bilateral accommodation and even cooperation. These postural shifts may not have been matched by concrete policy changes, yet they remain significant. In the most immediate sense, the less provocative posture toward China enhanced Washington’s capacity to communicate U.S. intent to China’s leadership, thereby helping avert a direct Sino-American conflict in the 1960s, even as the two sides pursued antithetical objectives in the Asian region. In a longer-term frame of reference, the more flexible posture adopted in the 1960s played an important role in challenging the domestic politicisation of China policy, while establishing a rhetorical framework and conceptual foundation for more substantive policy movement. In the course of tracing these developments, this study also provides new interpretative insights on a number of specific issues pertaining to U.S. China policy in the Kennedy and Johnson years, including the policy preferences, relationships, and roles of key U.S. officials in shaping the policy process; the impact of domestic politics, alliance politics, and various Cold War strategic concerns on policy outcomes; the question of how to deal with China’s nuclear development; and the manner in which major China-related events and developments in the 1960s—such as the failure of Mao’s Great Leap Forward, the 1962 Taiwan Strait crisis, the Sino-Indian border war, China’s involvement in Vietnam, and the Cultural Revolution— were interpreted by U.S. officials, and, in turn, shaped understandings of and responses to the China problem. / http://proxy.library.adelaide.edu.au/login?url= http://library.adelaide.edu.au/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?BBID=1330812 / Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Adelaide, School of History and Politics, 2008

University of Macau / Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities / Department of Government and Public Administration

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / Many authors, critics, and policy makers question the presence of a unified grand strategy with which the United States has striven toward in recent years. This is a topic worthy of pursuit since such a strategy is responsible for identifying how this nation intends to accomplish its goals. This thesis defines what, if any, grand strategy the United States is currently pursuing. It observes several prominent theories of grand strategy, from both the realist and liberal perspectives. This analysis is set in context of historical grand strategy decisions since World War II and uses the framework of Taiwan as the case study. The thesis then compares the three theories, Selective Engagement, Offshore Balancing, and the Liberal Milieu and their recommendations to real-world activities of the United States with a focus primarily on military deployments and national objectives. The study reveals that of the three in question, the Liberal Milieu grand strategy is the only one that is supported by ongoing deployments in the East Asia region as well as by the national rhetoric which define our policy objectives.