January 03, 2019
A Question of Statecraft
Any Western policymaker working in the field of national security over the past decade has had to grapple with the same disheartening reality: the structures and processes that governments created decades ago to analyze threats and coordinate policy responses are ill-equipped to cope with today’s fast changing geostrategic landscape. These days governments must play what international relations scholar Joe Nye calls “three-dimensional chess,” requiring policymakers to address military, economic, and transnational challenges simultaneously. Whether it is Chinese anti-access/area-denial strategies and capabilities in the South China Sea or the Russian use of energy and cyber-attacks as instruments of coercion, asymmetric warfare is presenting unique challenges not only to national security professionals but also to government ministries, which were designed for a different era.
National governments have responded to these changes by developing new strategies, policies, and tools. The homepages of Western foreign offices and ministries of defense are awash in white papers and national security strategies that outline how the world of foreign policy is evolving and why a pan-governmental approach that draws from the respective strengths of multiple government agencies is needed. Less has been done, however, in regards to statecraft. National security professionals know full well that even the best, most innovative strategies and policies will fail if they aren’t accompanied by a process that enables them to be realized. Yet statecraft—the machinery that ensures that national governments can efficiently and effectively execute policy—rarely garners as much attention.
Read the full article in Berlin Policy Journal.
More from CNAS
-
Putin’s Fifth Term and Russian Domestic Politics
This past weekend, Russians went to the polls for the country’s presidential election. To the surprise of no one, Vladimir Putin emerged victorious with a record-high 87 perce...
By Andrea Kendall-Taylor, Jim Townsend, Dr. Angela Stent & Joshua Yaffa
-
What NATO allies must do to prepare for Russian aggression
While it’s expensive to do what’s necessary to deter major aggression, it would be far more expensive to fight a major war if deterrence fails....
By Andrea Kendall-Taylor & Greg Weaver
-
Ukrainians Are Resilient—But They Still Need Washington
Beyond material support, my visit made clear that the psychological effect of global solidarity, especially from the United States, remains vital...
By Richard Fontaine
-
NATO’s Confusion Over the Russia Threat
NATO should not take the Russian military’s poor performance in Ukraine as a reason to be complacent....
By Franz-Stefan Gady