Cox & Stokes: US Foreign Policy 
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Essay questionsCox & Stokes: US Foreign Policy
The Eternal Return of Great Power Politics
August witnessed a new degree of antagonism in relations between the US and its major 'peer competitors'*. As the month began, President Bush chose the eve of the Beijing Olympics to deliver a strident critique of China's human rights record. Attention was quickly drawn, however, to the Russian intervention in Georgia and the ongoing crisis in the former Soviet republic. With the US dealing with both a newly confident China and a belligerent Russia, great power politics is, it seems, back with a vengeance.
The Chinese Olympics and the Georgian crisis both illustrate the complexities of great power relations and diplomatic manoeuvring with regard to US foreign policy. President Bush, speaking in Bangkok on August 6th before travelling on to the Olympic opening ceremony in Beijing, took the opportunity to chastise China over its human rights record. Most notably, he stated that 'America stands in firm opposition to China's detention of political dissidents, human rights advocates and religious activists', remarks which were in turn angrily condemned as 'interference' by China's foreign ministry. However, Bush's speech ultimately represented an effort to satisfy contending domestic and international audiences. Domestically, Bush had faced criticism from anti-China and pro-Tibet protestors, with many calling on the President to boycott the Games. Barely a week previously the US House of Representatives had passed legislation condemning the Chinese government's treatment of dissidents.
Whilst Bush's criticism of China reflected this sentiment to some degree, it fell short of the boycott or outright condemnation of China desired by some in the US. Bush was careful to offset his critical remarks with praise for China's economic growth, and the timing and location of the speech - before the opening ceremony and outside of China itself - indicated that the President did not intend to use the occasion of the Olympics itself to publicly provoke China or exacerbate tensions between the US and China over human rights and other issues such as trade deficits and military policy. In fact, Bush's very presence at the Olympic opening ceremony in Beijing (the first time a US president has done so on foreign soil) was a significant indicator of the importance in which the US-China relationship is held by the administration, and the visit was also used as an opportunity to meet privately with the Chinese President Hu Jintao.
In the case of the Georgian crisis there has, by contrast, been a much more public and rapid deterioration between the US and another peer competitor, Russia. The intervention into the breakaway provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia represents a major upheaval not only in the Black Sea region itself but also in relations between the US and Russia. The two states seemed to have moved an accommodation between Bush and then president Valdimir Putin in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. The US even largely turned a blind eye to Russia's previous major military action - against Islamic separatists in Chechnya - in return for Russian support for the 'War on Terror'.
The US reaction to Russia's intervention in Georgia has been markedly different. Georgia, a former Soviet territory, has been notably pro-Western and pro-US under President Mikhail Saakashvili. The US has, by consequence, condemned what Vice President Dick Cheney has termed (in stark opposition to the Russian view) an 'unjustified assault' on Georgia.
Following the intervention, the US has stopped well short of responding to Russia militarily but has undertaken a range of other measures aimed at supporting its Georgian ally. In the immediate aftermath of the intervention, US planes aided the transportation of Georgian troops out of Iraq and back to Georgia as Russian troops pushed beyond South Ossetia and Abkhazia, and it is supplying humanitarian aid to Georgia. The US has also condemned Russian diplomatic recognition of independence for South Ossetia and Abhkhazia.
The Georgian crisis is likely to have repercussions for relations between the two great powers. Amid ever-increasing talk of a 'New Cold War', the Russian intervention has undoubtedly helped foster a final agreement between the US and Poland over the stationing of missile interceptors on Russia's borders (see the Monthly Commentary for June), with the US now much more willing to meet Polish stipulations on broader military aid and modernization. Whether or not such moves actually represent the beginning of a lasting antagonism between the US and Russia along the lines of the Cold War remains to be seen, but recent events do highlight the ongoing salience of old-style power politics.
*For more detail see the link to 'Peer Competitors' on this Online Resource Centre's interactive map: www.oup.com/uk/orc/bin/9780199226429/01student/map/china.htm
Think Points:
How have relations between the US and China developed in the post-Cold War period?
What are the main points of tension between the US and China?
What does the US approach to the Beijing Olympics tell us about the nature of 'Great Power Politics'?
What are the main points of tension between the US and Russia?
What are the primary differences between US and Russian perceptions of the Georgian crisis?
What does the US reaction to the Georgian crisis tell us about the nature of 'great Power Politics'?
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