Power and Security

Abstract

From a foreign policy perspective, states attempt to change their environment in accordance with aims and objectives they have set for themselves. From a structural perspective, states attempt to adapt to their environment, making the best of the cards the system has dealt them. Either way, states act in the world. How? What is the nature of diplomacy or ‘statecraft’ — a slightly old-world term that has recently been given a new lease of life? The best recent discussion of this topic is that of David Baldwin, who produces a four-way taxonomy of the techniques of statecraft which provides a useful starting-point for this discussion. Propaganda he defines as ‘influence attempts relying primarily on the deliberate manipulation of verbal symbols’; diplomacy refers to ‘influence attempts relying primarily on negotiation’; economic statecraft covers ‘influence attempts relying on resources which have a reasonable semblance of a market price in terms of money’; and military statecraft refers to ‘influence attempts relying primarily on violence, weapons, or force’ (Baldwin 1985: 13) The rest of this chapter examines the questions raised (in some cases, avoided) by this classification.