The article introduces the special issue of International Trends dedicated to the current tendencies in the evolution of statecraft. It sets the analytical agenda for other special issue contributions by discussing the meaning of the term “statecraft” and illustrating the concept through several dilemmas that policymakers commonly face when choosing foreign policy toolkits. The authors posit that, at base, a meaningful definition of statecraft subsumes the ends, means, and ways embraced by a government in its attempt to exert influence over another state short of the resort to brute military force, either directly or via pressures on key non-state stakeholders. The article goes on to highlight how a clear-cut formulation of a country’s “national interests” may, on one hand, serve as lodestars for the national bureaucracy and draw “red lines” for the country’s adversaries, but on the other hand, entail a difficult and politically costly choice between mutually exclusive priorities for the country’s foreign policy goals. The authors also discuss the impact of technological innovation on the evolution of great power statecraft. They describe a variant of the security dilemma arising from the choice between immediate weaponization of new technology, on one hand, and refraining from such move with the aim of avoiding an arms race or escalation of existing conflicts, on the other. In its turn, developing a strong identity as a means of statecraft for an international player may increase that player’s power of commitment, but at the same time, foreclose attractive policy options that cannot be implemented because they could compromise the chosen identity. Pioneering the use of big data in the study of statecraft, the authors find that, notwithstanding very different power positions, traditions, and interests, U.S. and Russian discourse surrounding great power competition resemble each other more than commonly acknowledged.

Since the second half of the 20th century, military alliance ceased to play an essential role in ensuring the security of major powers. Meanwhile, asymmetric alliances, in which a major power remained an incontestable leader surrounded by weak parties, proliferated across international system. The literature explains these relationships in terms of an exchange in dissimilar benefits between states, following the formula “security for autonomy”. This explanation seems generally plausible, but it does not reveal exact benefits for a major power from establishing control over the weak states. This article intends to deepen our theoretical understanding of why states resort to asymmetric alliances and to test the significance of suggested propositions through an in-depth analysis of the Russian record of alliances. Russia built allied relations with several neighbors but does not extend similar mechanisms to partners in other geographic areas. This policy is puzzling, since it comes into dissonance with the foreign policy stance that international security and global order should be built on the principle of the indivisibility of security and inclusive international institutions. In its foreign policy discourse Russia strongly condemns closed formats with limited participation. The study solves two interrelated problems. First, it helps to deepen understanding of Russian foreign policy strategy and the role of various instruments of military-political cooperation in ensuring national interests. Secondly, it allows to test the provisions of the theory of asymmetric alliances, assessing its applicability to a hard case. The article reveals Russia’s sensitivity to direct and opportunity costs as well as to potential risks of binding security commitments. However, it relies on asymmetric alliances with neighboring countries to reap the benefits of increasing power projection opportunities, legitimizing its foreign policy initiatives, limiting freedom of maneuver for its competitors, and stabilizing its strategic surrounding. The Russian experience of building relations with allies differs significantly from the American one, which, due to the scale of the US alliance network, is often presented as a model one. Nevertheless, it is quite consistent with the provisions of the theory of asymmetric alliances.

While employing their energy potentials for advancing their foreign policy interests, Russia and the USA apply various political tools and practices, that can be classified as “positive”, “negative”, regulating energy markets, and reinforcing one’s own potential. The author argues that in both cases the application of energy-related statecraft is largely related either to energy security or to advancing ideologically inspired political interests. These two kinds of incentives can both work together or conflict each other.
To pursue their relevant interests, both Russia and the USA have distinctive potentials, resources, and instruments that to a large extent were developed under influence of geopolitical and economic shocks: dramatic growth of global oil prices in 1970s for the USA and centrifugal post-Soviet geopolitical processes in 1990s for Russia. As a negative tool, the USA most often uses various kinds of sanctions to target energy sectors of their opponents, while the strongest Russian weapon is energy supply restrictions. To safeguard one’s own energy security and solidify their political influences both states manage bilateral complementary “producer–consumer” relations, while to stabilize global oil price, both states participate in international energy alliances. For instrumental purposes, both states also take advantage of purposeful or spontaneous transformations of their energy sectors (e.g. consolidation of the Russian energy sector and the U.S. ‘shale revolution’) for foreign policy purposes.
In most cases, the effectiveness of applying statecraft tools for advancing energy-related interests proved to be limited. Those sanctions and other ways of pressure that targeted opponents’ energy sectors (especially if applied unilaterally) themselves rarely led to desirable alterations in those opponents’ policies. The results of energy alliances building also have proved to be limited both for Russia and for the USA as those alliances do not secure full-fledged control over global oil prices and are not solid or representative enough.

Economic sanctions have been the defining feature of the relationship between Russia and the U.S. / EU since the 2014 Ukraine crisis, and both Moscow and Washington appear to accept that sanctions will remain in place indefinitely. This persistence of sanctions presents a paradox: Western policy makers have repeatedly increased the breadth and depth of these sanctions, despite little evidence that the sanctions have ‘worked’ to achieve their explicit and tangible objectives. This paper examines the nature and origin of this paradox using a multi-dimensional examination of Russian and US actions and discourse since the first imposition of Ukraine-related sanctions on Russia in March 2014. This analysis exposes fundamental differences over how the two sides perceive the appropriateness and strategic context of these sanctions, which reflect a basic difference in worldviews between Moscow and Washington. These contending worldviews potentially compound burdens of uncertainty and costly signaling in sanctions between the U.S. and Russia, which also introduces cross-domain risks that can defy efforts to fine-tune the imposition of costs. If not redressed, this dynamic can derail efforts at strategic reengagement, if not inadvertently elevate prospects for dangerous escalation.

This article assesses the theoretical contours and effectiveness of migration governance and diplomacy as an instrument of statecraft in interstate relations. The first part provides an overview of the stakes and challenges of migration within the fields of international relations and political theory. In particular, the category of migration defies the theoretical model of the nation-state, on which traditional IR and political theory are grounded. The second part highlights how the state, through the securitization of migration, uses migration as a tool to reaffirm its defining features: reinforcing its borders, legitimating state sovereignty, and building societal security. The third section demonstrates the usefulness of the category of statecraft within the context of migration governance at a bilateral level owing to the absence of a global normative framework. This relationship can serve different purposes, depending on the context: to harm, to deter, to bargain, to escalate. The last section presents contemporary case studies of the application of migration statecraft by the United States and Russia, as well as by member states along external border of the European Union and within the Schengen space. The elements of "migration statecraft" evidenced by these episodes focus on several objectives: trade blackmail, cooperation in an asymmetrical relation, political threat, and diplomatic escalation for electoral purposes. The variety of these cases illustrates the specificity of statecraft in comparison with foreign policy analysis. While the latter refers to a general and long-term strategy, the former is context-dependent and specific to achievement of a precise desired outcome.

This paper investigates how language as a tool of statecraft has changed over time and whether it remains relevant and legitimate in the current globalised context. Viewing the issue from an interdisciplinary perspective, it considers the role language policies have played at different stages in history, from enabling European nation-states to forcibly to carve out a new identity around a unified language, to fulfilling the imperialist mission of ‘educating’ colonised populations in an attempt to generate lasting economic and cultural benefits for colonial powers. Language policies survived the decolonization process and took new soft power forms in an attempt to address current day challenges. The authors argue, based on the analysis of expert interviews and data sources (both primary and secondary), that while the discourse and means of implementing language policies have changed under new conditions – particularly the rejection of force in language promotion, the domination of English, the protection of minority dialects, and the technological changes linked to globalization – the belief in the power of language to shape allegiances remains, on the political level, unchanged.

Despite economic troubles and constant political instability Italy manages to keep its historical role as a key EU state and one of the three major economies of the region, which justifies its G7 membership and therefore formally endues it with a great power status. This owes to accommodationism as the main behavioral pattern since the establishment of the Italian Republic and the skillful use of ad hoc alliances – a pragmatic statecraft tool which renders Italy flexible and unpredictable. Too big to be defensive, but not big enough to be offensive, Italy does not provoke antagonism in any EU country, becoming a potential universal ally. Cooperation with Greece on fiscal flexibility, with Spain and France on coronabonds and Hungary on EU common migration policy strengthens its bargaining power in the EU, since the latter needs Italy for reasons of security and solidarity. Being furthermore a devoted US partner since the end of World War II, Italy considers US a guarantor of its national security and position on the international arena and is inclined to lend its support to Washington even if such actions contradict the policies of closer geostrategic partners in the EU. Thanks to such allegiance Italy manages to preserve a certain room for maneuvering in interactions with other non-euroatlantic partners to an extent that does not imperil its strategic alliance with Washington, which has always been an invariable of Italian foreign policy. However, scarce attention from the USA under the current administration makes Italy utilize its statecraft tools towards Washington as well, and a pragmatic rapprochement with China on the Belt and Road Initiative and humanitarian aid during the pandemic presents a clear example thereof.

Zi ba R. Poland’s Foreign and Security Policy. Problems of Compatibility with the Changing International Order. Springer Nature Switzerland AG, 2020. 280 p. ISBN 978-3-030-30696-0.