Adversaries and statecraft: explaining U.S. foreign policy toward rogue states

UnrestrictedThough the U.S. has often claimed that rogue states' foreign policies, adventurism abroad, support for transnational terrorism, and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction threaten American interests, constructive engagement and positive inducements are often ruled out as foreign policy tools to address disconcerting behavior. This is often done with little regard for their potential to achieve desirable outcomes. States perceived as threatening U.S. interests are often sanctioned and isolated to the extent that opening a dialogue to address issues of concern becomes very difficult. While considerable attention has been paid to foreign policy strategies such as containment, sanctions, and coercive diplomacy, the issues of constructive engagement and positive inducements have received less scrutiny in international relations. Why is engagement preferred under certain circumstances and when dealing with certain states but rejected in other situations? Why is engagement as an option discounted when it offers the potential to achieve favorable outcomes for the United States? Why is there a perceptible reticence to use positive inducements as a foreign policy tool?; This dissertation develops a framework that integrates domestic-level variables with systemic factors to explain U.S. action choices. It specifically considers how the United States chooses tools of statecraft when dealing with adversaries. Examining case studies of U.S. dealings with Libya, Iran, Syria, and North Korea, I find that fear, uncertainty, ideology, and ambivalence on the part of decision makers often drives them towards policies that are isolationist and counterproductive. I transform these domestic-level elements into variables and influencers that interact with structural pressures in multiple explanatory mechanisms. I find four factors are central to producing isolationist outcomes: elite power; ideology; uncertainty and information gaps; and history and legacies