Coercive Diplomacy, Military Strategy and Foreign Policy Projections (Published)
In foreign policy projections, leaders consider options and make decision based principally on their strategic situation and evaluation of relative power. The means and methods open to states may include strategic planning which implies states decisions to employ armed forces impressively in their pursuit of national goals by exerting influence and making concealed inputs on the output of other states policies, all aimed at convincing the target state of one’s political resolve and military capabilities. States without these capabilities are therefore in a dilemma. The aim of this paper is to place the relationship between coercive diplomacy, military strategy and foreign policy projections. The paper adopted the survey research design. The instrument for data collection was structured questionnaire while the simple linear regression analysis was used to examine the extent of the relationship that exist between the variables. The two hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance. Findings revealed that there is a significant relationship between the two independent variables of coercive diplomacy & military strategy and foreign policy projections, and that the possession of particular military technologies and weapons’ systems influences the relative state with which a state can support its foreign policy projections. The paper therefore recommends that for any state to become an active and credible international actor, able to shape its close environment and contribute to global peace and security, it must develop the military capabilities and political will to back up its foreign policy by force when necessary.
Keywords: Diplomacy, Foreign Policy, Military, Strategy, coercive
National Interest and Warfare Ecosystem 1: Global Balance-of-Power Strategies (Published)
Creating an institutional framework on a global scale to understand balance-of-power strategies is the crux of foreign policy today with United States superpower exceptionalism. ‘Altercating’ defence, diplomacy and development encapsulate the United States foreign policy in relation to national interests globally. Role theory applied in comparing the United States and Chinese grand strategies as case studies. The United States superpower statecraft’s clarity help superimposed any form of countervailing alliances globally; while China’s sociological pragmatist role currently could change based on ‘Power Transition Theory’ for hegemony power. Beijing is pursuing a grand strategy that combines both ‘internal balancing’ and external ‘soft balancing’, encapsulated as ‘warfare ecosystem construct’ as countervailing alliances for balance-of-power strategies with development of ‘Economic Corridors’ in East Asia ; and the United States ‘Globalization Agenda’ both executed as ‘mechanisms of power’ date back to their ‘hegemonic histories’ with adaptive construct for national interests.
Keywords: China, Foreign Policy, GVAR model, Liberalism, Realism, United States, grand strategy, national interest, pragmatism, spatial polysingularity, warfare ecosystem
National Interest and Warfare Ecosystem 2: Wicked Problems Framework and Policy Development (Published)
The pursuit of the national interest is closely linked to geography, strategy and contexts specific in foreign policy, anchoring remains significant and spatial to the Nation’s production possibility frontier with empirical case studies of China and the United States of America. Foreign policy solutions ‘desired outcome’ are in ‘the continuum’ termed poly singularity. Public value theory, Kingdon’s multiple streams approach and Baumgartner and Jones’s punctuated equilibrium theory (PET) was applied as critical thinking to captures decision constructive process of national interest with focus on value streams for stakeholders with the contexts specific situation illuminated as spatial polysingularity construct in framework. China’s ‘Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)’ Project altercasting as liberalist and realist for global economic and militarily power in East Asia. The United States energy interests drives its ‘Globalization Agenda and market economies’ globally. A new superpower crucible framework with win-win national interest’s scenario termed ‘warfare ecosystem’ postulated.
Keywords: Foreign Policy, Policy Development, globalization 4.0, national interest, public value theory, spatial polysingularity, warfare ecosystem and wicked problems framework.
Foreign Policy Strategy of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1960-2012: The Missing Link (Published)
The study examined Nigeria Foreign Policy from 1960-2012. The objective was to find out whether there is any change in foreign policy orientation among the various regimes or administrations within the period of study. The method of study employed was historical and descriptive research study methods. To this end, the analysis was done thematically and the results or findings show that the logic and the instrumentality of domestic development linkage theory in foreign policy is virtually lacking in Nigerian foreign policy behaviour. This is because Afrocentric foreign policy commitment overwhelmingly overshadows domestic reality. Although the Obasanjo’s and Jonathan’s economic diplomacy try to aligned the nation’s economic reality (The NEEDS policy and Transformation agenda) with her international interaction, however, much of the foreign policy resources were not deployed to bear on the welfare of the citizenry hence, the current economic crisis in the country. Based on this, the study recommends a paradigm shift of using foreign policy as an instrument for the revitalizations and the diversification of the nation’s economy to engineer national development.
Keywords: Discourse, Foreign Policy