Wedge strategies in diplomacy are used to prevent, divide, and weaken an adversary coalition. [1] [2] Wedge strategies can take the shape of reward-based or coercive-based. [3] Alignment abnormalities can arise because of wedge strategies. [4]
Wedge strategies may be a subset or similar to Divide and rule strategies, however, there may be a slight optical difference. With the divide and rule strategy, there is a clear winner, whereas with the wedge strategy, attention is not focused on the winner but instead against the discredited coalition.
Hegemony is the political, economic, and military predominance of one state over other states, either regional or global.
Regime change is the partly forcible or coercive replacement of one government regime with another. Regime change may replace all or part of the state's most critical leadership system, administrative apparatus, or bureaucracy. Regime change may occur through domestic processes, such as revolution, coup, or reconstruction of government following state failure or civil war. It can also be imposed on a country by foreign actors through invasion, overt or covert interventions, or coercive diplomacy. Regime change may entail the construction of new institutions, the restoration of old institutions, and the promotion of new ideologies.
Divide and rule policy, or divide and conquer, in politics and sociology is gaining and maintaining power divisively. This includes the exploitation of existing divisions within a political group by its political opponents, and also the deliberate creation or strengthening of such divisions.
In international relations, power is defined in several different ways. Material definitions of state power emphasize economic and military power. Other definitions of power emphasize the ability to structure and constitute the nature of social relations between actors. Power is an attribute of particular actors in their interactions, as well as a social process that constitutes the social identities and capacities of actors.
A military alliance is a formal agreement between nations that specifies mutual obligations regarding national security. In the event a nation is attacked, members of the alliance are often obligated to come to their defense regardless if attacked directly. Military alliances can be classified into defense pacts, non-aggression pacts, and ententes. Alliances may be covert or public.
Bilateralism is the conduct of political, economic, or cultural relations between two sovereign states. It is in contrast to unilateralism or multilateralism, which is activity by a single state or jointly by multiple states, respectively. When states recognize one another as sovereign states and agree to diplomatic relations, they create a bilateral relationship. States with bilateral ties will exchange diplomatic agents such as ambassadors to facilitate dialogues and cooperations.
A wedge issue is a political or social issue which is controversial or divisive within a usually-united group. Wedge issues can be advertised or publicly aired in an attempt to strengthen the unity of a population, with the goal of enticing polarized individuals to give support to an opponent or to withdraw their support entirely out of disillusionment. The use of wedge issues gives rise to wedge politics.
Grand strategy or high strategy is a state's strategy of how means can be used to advance and achieve national interests in the long-term. Issues of grand strategy typically include the choice of military doctrine, force structure and alliances, as well as economic relations, diplomatic behavior, and methods to extract or mobilize resources.
Deterrence theory refers to the scholarship and practice of how threats of using force by one party can convince another party to refrain from initiating some other course of action. The topic gained increased prominence as a military strategy during the Cold War with regard to the use of nuclear weapons and is related to but distinct from the concept of mutual assured destruction, according to which a full-scale nuclear attack on a power with second-strike capability would devastate both parties. The central problem of deterrence revolves around how to credibly threaten military action or nuclear punishment on the adversary despite its costs to the deterrer. Deterrence in an international relations context is the application of deterrence theory to avoid conflict.
Interventionism, in politics, typically refers to the practice of governments that interfere in the political affairs of other countries, staging military or trade interventions. A different term, economic interventionism, refers to intervention in economic policy at home.
Stephen William Van Evera is a professor of Political Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, specializing in international relations. His research includes U.S. foreign and national security policy as well as causes and prevention of war. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Realism, a school of thought in international relations theory, is a theoretical framework that views world politics as an enduring competition among self-interested states vying for power and positioning within an anarchic global system devoid of a centralized authority. It centers on states as rational primary actors navigating a system shaped by [[powand a pursuit of security and self-preservationer politics]], [[national interest]],.
Polarity in international relations is any of the various ways in which power is distributed within the international system. It describes the nature of the international system at any given period of time. One generally distinguishes three types of systems: unipolarity, bipolarity, and multipolarity for three or more centers of power. The type of system is completely dependent on the distribution of power and influence of states in a region or globally.
The balance of power theory in international relations suggests that states may secure their survival by preventing any one state from gaining enough military power to dominate all others. If one state becomes much stronger, the theory predicts it will take advantage of its weaker neighbors, thereby driving them to unite in a defensive coalition. Some realists maintain that a balance-of-power system is more stable than one with a dominant state, as aggression is unprofitable when there is equilibrium of power between rival coalitions.
Liberal internationalism is a foreign policy doctrine that supports international institutions, open markets, cooperative security and liberal democracy. At its core, it holds that states should participate in international institutions that uphold rules-based norms, promote liberal democracy and facilitate cooperation on transnational problems.
Peter Nedergaard is a Danish professor of political science who has been employed at the Department of Political Science at the University of Copenhagen since 2008. Peter Nedergaard is member of the Order of Dannebrog.
Monica Duffy Toft is an American international relations scholar. Her research interests include international security and strategy, ethnic and religious violence, civil wars, and the relationship between demography and national security. Among her researches, her theory of indivisible territory explains how certain conflicts turn violent while others not, and when it is likely for a conflict to become a violent. Since 2017 she holds the position of Professor of International Politics at the Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy at Tufts University, and Director of the Fletcher School's Center for Strategic Studies.
Jack Lewis Snyder is an American political scientist who is the Robert and Renée Belfer Professor of International Relations at Columbia University, specializing in theories of international relations.
Energy diplomacy is a form of diplomacy, and a subfield of international relations. It is closely related to its principal, foreign policy, and to overall national security, specifically energy security. Energy diplomacy began in the first half of the twentieth century and emerged as a term during the second oil crisis as a means of describing OPEC's actions. It has since mainly focused on the securitization of energy supplies, primarily fossil fuels, but also nuclear energy and increasingly sustainable energy, on a country or bloc basis.
In international relations, coercion refers to the imposition of costs by a state on other states and non-state actors to prevent them from taking an action (deterrence) or to compel them to take an action (compellence). Coercion frequently takes the form of threats or the use of limited military force. It is commonly seen as analytically distinct from persuasion, brute force, or full-on war.