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This piece offers an introduction to US foreign policy toward the Iraqi Kurds since the First World War by dividing that policy into seven discernible stages—from Wilson's Fourteen Points to the actions of the Trump administration. In doing so, I query whether the existence of US foreign policy toward the Kurds has been more active and supportive during Democratic Party administrations or Republican Party administrations. Are there any clear indications as to which party has been better for the Iraqi Kurds? Or is US foreign policy toward the Iraqi Kurds unequivocally dependent on regional dynamics and US interests, not on which political party is governing or the values they espouse? The central argument is that American policy toward the Iraqi Kurds has mostly been dependent on changing regional dynamics, particularly on the changing nature of the United States relationships with Iraq, Turkey, Iran, and Syria, and this does not seem to be affected strongly by which US party holds the presidency. Perhaps counter‐intuitively, there is no evidence to suggest the Democrats have been better for the Iraqi Kurds than the Republicans. While some of the most significant setbacks for the Kurds occurred during Republican administrations, their two most essential political achievements were also during Republican administrations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article seeks to capture a facet of US – Baltic relations that for the most part has played out behind the public curtain. As such, the following chronicles key twists and turns, achievements and failures in American – Baltic intelligence relations. A substantial body of scholarship has already examined cultural, diplomatic, and security ties between these actors. The same cannot be said about intelligence bonds. This article attempts to redress this neglect in the literature. It argues that the Baltics, with their well-honed sense of Russian political affairs, have become valuable sources of intelligence for their key ally across the Atlantic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ron Asmus, US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, liked to say that the Baltic states had to run a marathon to join NATO but could rely on the support of their American 'coaches.' Estonian diplomats have used the word 'babysitter' to describe their American colleagues. While it is true that the result of NATO enlargement was never inevitable, the uncertainties of the process were diminished by cooperation between candidate countries and the forces inside the US who pushed for enlargement. Without delving into their motives, this article traces the role of the US as 'coaches' and 'babysitters' in making the Baltic states' 'run' toward NATO a nearly perfect marathon, despite all the pitfalls and doubts along the way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article argues that in 1919 several US Peace Delegation members in Paris acted in accordance with the ideology of Wilsonian self-determination. However, US policy toward Estonia and the other Baltic states wavered between regarding them as part of eastern Europe to which national self-determination could be applied or, contrary to that, as part of a unified non-Bolshevik Russia. US economic policy and, in particular, its relief activity supported the striving for independence of the Baltic states. Wilson came to support the 'Russia option' for the Baltic countries in the summer of 1919. The successor Harding administration opted for the alternative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article approaches the history of Baltic-US relations from the point of view of International Relations scholarship and, more specifically, from the vantage point of the concept of international society. It provides an account of the process of Estonia's entry into international society with a particular focus on the role that the United States, as one of the great powers of the twentieth century, played in this process. Against this background, this article concludes that as a feature of the Baltic states' memories of entry, the history of Baltic-US relations remains vital to understanding their contemporary foreign policy outlook. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It took Estonia more than four years to achieve de jure recognition from the United States. Therefore, it was surprising that American pressure was needed to appoint a plenipotentiary representative. Ants Piip became the first envoy with high hopes and, thanks to him, in 1924–1925 several agreements were signed between Estonia and the United States. Unfortunately, Estonian politicians were not satisfied with the results because no concessions were made regarding debt and no loan was granted. Unlike its neighbors, the Estonian legation did not remain in Washington, although Piip worked hard for a deal until the end of Estonia's independence in 1940. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Departing from previous presidential administrations' internationalist and dysfunctional foreign policies, President J. R. Biden, Jr. has pursued a restrained Hamiltonian foreign policy since assuming office in January 2021. Appreciating that the United States' declining economic dominance threatens its hegemony, President Biden's foreign policy primarily focuses on augmenting America's global economic competitiveness. Moreover, the president's policy response to the People's Republic of China and the Russian Federation's revisionist challenge to American international leadership centres on neo-containment. Finally, re-engaging the United States' economic and security networks demonstrates the president's perception that these networks are essential to American power and security. Perceiving President Biden's foreign policy as restrained Hamiltonian is central to interpreting the sole superpower's behaviour and impact on international security politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article describes how socioeconomic inequities contribute to discrepant unintentional injury risks and calls for an expansion of investment in innovative and targeted prevention strategies to narrow this disparity. Topics include the impact of poverty on injury, barriers and opportunities to implementation of injury prevention, and recommendations for advocacy groups, health care organizations, and community organizations.

The United States' invasion of Grenada in 1983 represented the lowest point in Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan's relationship, with Thatcher incensed at what she perceived to be her ally's misuse of military force. However, in April 1986, Thatcher gave permission for the United States to use British-based aircraft for air strikes against the Gaddafi regime in Libya, a mission as tenuously grounded in international law as Grenada. How do we explain Thatcher's apparent change in approach to foreign policy, now placing strategic interests above her previous deference to international law, and what does this tell us about the role experience plays in a leader's foreign policy decisions? Drawing on insights from the ongoing behavioural revolution in International Relations, this paper argues that the experience Thatcher gained during the Grenada episode led to her support for US strikes against Libya. A process tracing approach using documents from the UK National Archives, as well as biographies and memoirs, tests this individual-level hypothesis against a rival structuralist explanation. This research shows how experience gained in office can influence a leader's future foreign policy decision-making and demonstrates the utility of process tracing methods for investigations into the role of experience in international politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When does the United States normalize its diplomatic relations with its adversaries? This article introduces a theory of diplomatic normalization, focusing on the interaction between the hawkishness of presidents and their domestic popularity. I argue that dovish presidents are more likely to pursue normalization when their domestic approval ratings plummet, as this makes them shift their priorities toward policies they find themselves more comfortable and confident handling. Doves are less likely to pursue normalization when they enjoy high popularity, so as not to jeopardize favorable public support. In contrast, hawkish presidents typically do not support normalization, regardless of their domestic standing, as it does not align with their top policy priorities. The exception arises in the rare instance of a president with an exceptionally high degree of hawkishness who is able to pursue reconciliation without losing his support. I test my theoretical expectations using data on U.S. presidents' latent hawkishness and their diplomatic normalization decisions from 1950 to 2005. The empirical evidence supports all hypotheses, underscoring the importance of understanding the interaction between a leader's personal attributes and the domestic political climate when studying foreign policy decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why has the relationship between partisan identification and Americans' trade attitudes shifted in recent years? We suggest that recent shifts in trade attitudes among partisans are driven by Donald Trump, who staked out a position on trade that is at odds with the position on trade traditionally held by Republicans. Using panel data from the Voter Study Group (VSG) surveys from 2011, 2016, and 2017, we conduct cross‐sectional analyses showing that the relationship between partisanship and trade attitudes has shifted dramatically from 2011 to 2016/2017; in 2011, Republicans were significantly more supportive of expanded trade, but by 2016/2017 the relationship had reversed, with Democrats significantly more supportive of trade. We link changes over time in trade attitudes with how Americans evaluate Trump: individuals with favorable attitudes toward Donald Trump are significantly more likely to shift their attitudes in an antitrade direction from 2011 to 2016. Because so many more Republicans have favorable attitudes toward Trump, the aggregate effect of Trump favorability is to shift Republicans as a group to be less favorable toward trade than Democrats. We suggest that Donald Trump has had a transformative effect on Americans' trade attitudes, with previous supporters (opponents) of expanded trade now expressing opposing (supporting) attitudes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the 1960s, Australia's commitment to collective security and its grand strategy of forward defense spurred its intervention in Vietnam. As British and American allies signaled retreat from Southeast Asia in 1968-1969, Prime Minister John Gorton sought to encourage U.S. resolve by keeping Australian forces there. With more American soldiers coming home under the guise of Vietnamization, the Australian public increasingly demanded troop withdrawals. The political facts of life became paramount, with Gorton's government buckling in 1970. This article explains the military, strategic, diplomatic, and political considerations that produced Canberra's decision to begin troop reductions in Vietnam. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is an investigation of declassified archival documents of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) that questions the direct involvement of several U.S. administrations in military coups in Turkey during the Cold War. Among the U.S. government institutions, it is argued that only the CIA could have had the competency for covert participation in a coup plot abroad. Other than the indirect role of the U.S. in military takeovers, due to its military and financial assistance in pre-coup periods, and the political recognition of coup regimes, available CIA documents do not present any tangible evidence for agency's direct involvement in Turkish military coups, in contrast to its clandestine operations in other states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do foreign rivals perceive and respond to heightened domestic polarization in the United States? The conventional thinking is that polarization weakens and distracts the United States, emboldening its adversaries. However, untested assumptions underlie this claim. We use two strategies to explore mechanisms linking domestic polarization and international rivalry. First, we field a survey experiment in China to examine how heightening perceptions of US polarization affects public attitudes toward Chinese foreign policy. Second, we investigate how US rival governments responded to an episode of extreme partisanship: the US Capitol attacks on January 6, 2021. Drawing on Integrated Crisis Early Warning System event data, we explore whether foreign rivals increased hostility toward the United States following the Capitol riots. Both studies fail to show robust evidence for the Emboldening Hypothesis. Extreme polarization has other negative consequences for American foreign policy, but we find no evidence that it makes adversaries materially more assertive toward the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The year 2023 was a turning point for Japan-South Korea relations. There was a breakthrough in the issue of compensating forced laborers, which led South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and Japanese Prime Minister Kishida Fumio to meet seven times since their summit in March. Shuttle diplomacy has been fully resumed. By year's end, their cooperation in new areas such as energy, critical and emerging technology, development and humanitarian assistance, space, and cyber is blossoming. Last year will be remembered as the year that began to demonstrate a real potential for Seoul and Tokyo to be like-minded global partners, along with Washington. If the first half of 2023 was a speed chase to get to the finish line--the Camp David trilateral summit meeting--the latter half of 2023 was a coordinated plan to prepare for many more races. As noted in our last issue of Comparative Connections, the Camp David trilateral summit represented a potential harbinger for the future of Japan-Korea relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article compares Russia's legal justifications for the use of force against Ukraine and past U.S. uses of force and the accompanying legal justifications for such force. Topics discussed include survey of six U.S. military operations, and any gaps or inconsistencies in the U.S.'s legal analysis, overview of Russia's stated justifications for invading Ukraine, and recommendations for a legal information strategy accompanying uses of military force.

The article discusses the emergence of a multipolar world economic order. Topics discussed include European Commission vice president Josep Borrell's view that the U.S., China and European Union are the dominant poles in the world economic order, the global shift away from the principles of classical industrial economy, and the role of digital technologies on the revolutionary transformation of the global economy.

The article shares reflections on the end of the Afghan war, which was referred as the forever war, and the limits of U.S. power. Topics discussed include discourses of declinism of the American empire, the geopolitical and military overreach of the U.S., and the decline of the West and rise of Asia/East. Also highlighted are the global perception of U.S. foreign policy and the new multipolar international system.

An enduring puzzle of U.S. constitutional law is how the Constitution divides foreign affairs powers among the branches of government. The Constitution does not refer to a single foreign affairs power, and although it allocates some specific foreign affairs powers, it seems to omit some important ones while failing to fully direct how the ones it does allocate interact with each other. This Symposium Article argues that many of the challenges of foreign affairs constitutionalism can be mitigated by giving up thinking about foreign affairs as a meaningful constitutional category. The Constitution does not refer to a foreign affairs power for the simple reason that its framers did not think of foreign affairs powers as categorically or constitutionally distinct from domestic powers. In broad terms, therefore, constitutional disputes over foreign affairs law can and should be approached in the same way as constitutional disputes over domestic law. It follows that the scope and role of the branches in foreign affairs is, as in domestic matters, guided by the vesting clauses of Articles I, II and III: Congress exercises the legislative powers "herein granted" (with legislative powers not granted to Congress by the Constitution reserved to the states or the people), the President exercises the executive power, and the courts exercise the judicial power. The Article illustrates the implications of this approach by reference to recent and longstanding foreign affairs disputes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We treat U.S. foreign relations law as a discrete body of law--and it is. But it is not independent. To the contrary, it relies on the same institutional actors that govern more generally: the President, Congress, the federal judiciary, administrative agencies, and subnational governments. And far from being static, these institutions change radically over time in how they are constituted, in what internal rules they apply, and in what legal outputs they produce. The Trump Administration is a recent and painful example whose legacy continues to loom large, including on the Supreme Court. This symposium contribution considers what these broader institutional changes mean for foreign relations law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Even as the Biden Administration's foreign policy unfolds, in 21st Century practice, foreign relations law seems to have largely become national security law. Virtually all foreign affairs issues have been reframed into national security terms. And because so much of foreign affairs law seems to have become justification for unilateral exercises of executive power, at times it seems almost like not law at all. This Keynote Address, based on a forthcoming book, describes the synergistic dysfunction among our national security institutions that has fostered these trends, explains why the major academic debates over foreign relations law have missed this most urgent issue, and suggests ways to slow the steady march toward executive unilateralism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This Article argues that foreign affairs polarization in the United States is likely to result in increased judicial oversight in foreign affairs. The reasons are fivefold. First, increased polarization often leads to dramatic swings in foreign policy across electoral cycles, which is likely to disrupt the reliance interests of not only foreign states but also domestic private parties. Second, domestic private parties who can demonstrate that they have suffered concrete injuries to their reliance interests due to foreign policy instability may be more likely to overcome standing and other conventional obstacles to bringing claims. Third, in an era of polarization, government regimes may tend to encourage reliance by domestic private parties as a strategy to lock in policy and constrain the options of their successors. But when the government deliberately encourages reliance, it should bear the risks of foreign policy instability rather than domestic private parties. Fourth, courts are less likely to defer to presidential judgments in foreign affairs when they believe policy swings are motivated largely by partisan, rather than institutional, considerations. Fifth, on a more speculative note, there is a risk that the precedents and doctrines forged by courts in the resolution of low stakes private disputes involving reliance interests may then be deployed in cases where the stakes are much higher, such as controversies where parties are seeking injunctive and declaratory relief against the President. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Survival discourse has emerged as a prominent theme in online discussions about the US–China trade war on the Chinese social media platform Zhihu. This study undertakes a critical discourse analysis of this emergent discourse by examining 80 answers (totaling 95,753 words) from Zhihu users within the broader context of the invocation of survival discourses in modern Chinese history. An intertextual method was adopted in this study, which helps us to better understand netizens' arguments in favor of the Chinese government's tough stance on the trade war with the US and the probable success of this strategy. The analysis reveals the historicity and intertextuality of these discourses, identifies strategies which are employed to support a tough stance on the trade war, and reflects on their implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines continuity in the transformation of the United States' security arrangements in Asia from a Cold War "hub and spokes system" focused on East Asia into a new arrangement of "networked minilateralism" across the wider "Indo-Pacific" region. It focuses mainly on the role of the United States and the policy tools it employs to coordinate the strengthening of linkages among its partners. By employing tools of defence diplomacy, standardisation in trade and infrastructure development, revamping the rhetoric of common values and inviting extra-regional actors to play a more active role in the Indo-Pacific, Washington is mobilising a "latticework" of partners that are assisting in the redesign of the regional security system and the balancing of China. At the same time, structural changes in the region's power balance have induced local partners to become part of this networked architecture and to maintain a clearer sense of ownership in the regional security system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The document is a speech given by Secretary Antony J. Blinken at the 8th Annual CSIS Republic of Korea-United States Strategic Forum on September 25, 2023. Secretary Blinken expresses gratitude for the invitation and discusses the strong and growing partnership between the US and Korea. He highlights the importance of their security alliance, economic partnership, and cooperation on global challenges such as climate change and technology. Secretary Blinken also mentions Korea's increasing global leadership and cultural influence. The speech emphasizes the shared values and vision that underpin the US-Korea relationship and the commitment to working together for the benefit of both countries and the world. [Extracted from the article]

Though the slogan predates the Fourth UN World Conference on Women, 'women's rights are human rights' has become inextricably linked to US First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton's keynote address at the 1995 Conference in Beijing. The speech turned a line socialised by transnational feminist organisers into a State Department mantra with long‐lasting policy ripples still felt today. This article uses new sources from the Office of the First Lady to examine the intra‐departmental dynamics, policy architecture and domestic political considerations that shaped the content of the speech and the Clinton Administration's conception of women's rights as human rights. Early documents show that a focus on human rights was not inevitable, as other policy areas were better developed with more public support. But fear of rollback from previous international standards, external pressures from civil society, a desire to link foreign policy with domestic political aims and ultimately a strong backlash to American participation at the Conference on the basis of China's human rights record all elevated women's human rights as a US delegation priority. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human rights are fundamental elements of the post-World War II world order, and in contemporary international relations. They constitute the moral base of the West, which, through the system of international institutions, has been implemented all over the world. Treated as universal, they constitute a bridge between the West - and, above all, the United States - and the rest of the world, in a moment of changes in the global order. The aim of this paper is not to analyze these changes, but to show how human rights happen to be politicized and what the consequences may be. The position and foreign policy of the United States as the architect of the liberal order after World War II, and its care for human rights in an era of global changes at the beginning of the 21st century, seem to be of key importance for international policy on the fate of humanity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the reliance of the U.S. on the customary law status of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea to protect its interests and those of its allies. It discusses efforts by the U.S., the largest of the nonparties to the Convention, to protest claims and actions by foreign states that it considers to be inconsistent with the rules set by the Convention. It describes the effects of choosing arbitration as a means for compulsory jurisdiction in dispute settlement.

From Vietnam to Afghanistan, U.S. leaders have had great difficulty disentangling the United States from faraway military interventions. William McKinley's 1898 decision to annex the Philippines reveals why, through a phenomenon called the "meddler's trap." The meddler's trap denotes a situation of self-entanglement, whereby a leader inadvertently creates a problem through military intervention, feels they can solve it, and values solving the new problem more because of the initial intervention. The inflated valuation is driven by a cognitive bias called the endowment effect, according to which individuals tend to overvalue goods they feel they own. A military intervention causes a feeling of ownership of the foreign territory, triggering the endowment effect. Following the U.S. victory in Manila during the War of 1898, McKinley doubted Filipino civilizational capacity to self-govern, believed that a U.S. departure from the Philippines would cause chaos and great power war, and believed that U.S. governance could forestall that outcome. Because he had already deployed troops to the Philippines, McKinley also felt ownership over them, and this endowment effect inflated his valuation of the archipelago. Together, these mutually reinforcing beliefs produced the meddler's trap and the United States' largest annexation outside its hemisphere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"The End of Ambition: The United States and the Third World in the Vietnam Era" by Mark Atwood Lawrence explores the shift in U.S. policy towards the decolonized world during the Vietnam War. The book argues that as U.S. military involvement in Vietnam escalated, the U.S. became more willing to work with authoritarian leaders and less tolerant of dissent or criticism from Third World leaders. The author examines case studies of Brazil, India, Iran, Indonesia, and southern Africa to illustrate how this shift played out in specific regions. While the book focuses on U.S. policymakers and government sources, it acknowledges the negative long-term consequences of these policies and complements studies that de-center the United States in the history of the Cold War. [Extracted from the article]