Introduction
A crutch is a tool that offers essential support. In foreign policy decision-making, history acts as a crutch, equally significant to security in shaping decision-makers’ strategies. Indeed, the fascinating fabric of political thoughts and persuasions that make up the diverse world of international relations and foreign policy analysis cannot be understood without grappling with that fundamental debate. Is the crutch of foerign policy decision-makers pure security in an anarchic world? Is it about doing what must be done in an inevitably violent international order? Or is identity equally important? Are decision-makers’ unique perceptions of the world, which are fundamentally influenced by their perception of history, as imperative as security?
This paper firmly supports the latter argument. It will argue that nations’ perceived security threats stem from decision-makers’ interpretations of those threats. It will demonstrate how historical contexts shape decision-makers’ understanding of security. The discussion will be set within the framework of realist international theory versus constructivist theories, advocating for the latter’s accuracy in depicting how decision-makers process information. Consequently, the essay will demonstrate that, though security is imperative, history holds an equally firm grip on foreign policy decision-makers.
Constructivism
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The debate between realist and constructivist scholars of international relations focuses on a key question: whether unit-level agents such as decision-makers are more important in foreign policy creation or whether the system and structure of the international arena force specific policies (Wendt, 1999, p. 12). Though this essay will not compare one form of constructivism with one particular form of realism, it will compare the overall fundamentals of the theories. However, this paper will pay particular attention to Wendt’s constructivist position, stating that both security and identity factors are crucial and that the influence of unit-level decision-makers cannot be understated despite the importance of systematic factors.
This is where history becomes an essential crutch in foreign policy analyses. As constructivism states, the identity of these decision-makers leads to their unique perceptions, which lead them to decisions. As their perception of history significantly shapes their identity, history becomes an essential crutch for foerign policy decision-makers (Jervis, 1976, p.217). There is little debate over history’s fundamental position in developing national identity. Scholars analysing the fundamentals of Nationalism have pointed out the significance of history in creating the shared “values, myths, memories and traditions that compose the distinctive heritage of nations” (Smith, 2010, p.18). Consequently, their foerign policies are also intrinsically connected to their view of history (Agius, 2022, p.77).
Past and Contemporary Evidence
Jervis, another constructivist thinker, tried to prove this point by analysing critical decisions made in recent history. He points out that U.S. President Truman’s intervention policy in the Korean War was shaped by his experience of the Second World War and the view that not enough had been done to stop aggressive actors from expanding before the start of that conflict. Hence, he believed that if North Korea could take the South, it would embolden America’s enemies and precipitate a much larger conflict (Jervis, 1976, p.218). Jervis also explains that “Russia and China are not more likely to be seeking world domination because Nazi Germany did so; Nasser was no more likely to seek control of the Mediterranean because Mussolini did” However, British Russia and American policymakers are more “sensitive” to similar events reoccurring because of their understandings of history (Jervis, 1976, p.221). This led to aggressive British policies against Nasser, precipitating its empire’s rapid decline post-Suez crisis.
Such realities can be seen clearly in Western policymaking today. In Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, iron-clad Western support for Ukraine and a rejection of negotiations with Russia have been justified on the basis that Russia cannot be left with anything from the conflict. Policy advisers such as Gideon Rose rigorously reinforce this view by contending that Western policy on the war in Ukraine must be guided by the lessons of the Second World War, the Korean War, and the Arab-Israeli wars, where Western military force effectively crushed authoritarian aggression. (Rose, 2023).
This historical-based view is woefully incapable of understanding the war in Ukraine in the summer of 2023 when his views were written. In all his examples, Western military forces at least matched their enemies on the battlefield. In contrast, in Ukraine in the summer of 2023, Russian waves of mobilisation were changing the force distribution significantly in Russia’s favour for the first time since the disastrous initial invasion in February and March 2022. Russia had as many men, more artillery, ammunition, drones and aircraft. The multiple layers of the “Sirovukin line” also gave the Russians an excellent defensive position. This led to the failure of Ukraine’s counter-offensive, which had only received dozens of quality Western tanks and vehicles and no aircraft. This failure also precipitated Russia’s increasing battlefield gains, yielding them Adivka the following winter. Western policymakers could have better perceived this reality had they not based their views so heavily on historical precedents.
Realist thinkers such as Mearsheimer, who based their views on systematic theories of international relations and not history, raged against such Western policymaker views regarding Ukraine (Mearsheimer, 2014). However, he was sidelined, and most Western policymakers allowed their history-centred worldview to guide their policies. This has led to a long war in Ukraine that Russia still looks set to “win” (depending on the definition of winning) by the time of writing. It demonstrates history’s importance in formulating foreign policy decisions, even if they go against trusted realist logic.
However, the Russian Federation is no less guilty of basing its foreign policy decisions on historical understanding. Moscow’s victory in the Second World War and the cataclysmic collapse of her imperial Soviet Union dominated how the Russian Federation built its new national identity (Margot, 2006, p.42). Though it struggled to put together a cohesive national identity in its early years, under Putin, Russia’s previous stature as a global superpower with its legacy of crushing Nazism became the forefront of its national belief system (Zevlev, 2016, p.2). This was confounded by the increasing presence of Siloviki, security officials, in the Russian policy-making sphere (Soldatov, Borogan, 2022). These individuals were particularly suspicious of the West due to their Cold War security backgrounds. Accordingly, Russia became increasingly ready to confront the liberal international order. (Zevlev, 2016)
In this context, Russia launched its costly and risky military intervention in Syria, which saw it greatly enhance its influence in the Middle East (at least prior to the collapse of the Assad regime in 2024). Though some argued that this was based on security considerations and the fight against terror, many experts have now concluded it was more likely a move to reassert Russia’s presence on the global stage in line with its foerign policy aspirations based on its historically structured national identity (Zevlev, 2016).
However, foreign military operations based on historical perceptions instead of sound security logic are not always successful. This was demonstrated in Russia’s disastrous invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Here again, the same debate arises. Was Russia’s invasion based on security considerations precipitated by the characteristics of the anarchic international system? Or was it based on Russian decision-makers who were too influenced by their views of history and eagerness to relate it to the modern day? This essay again argues that the latter is true.
It is essential to listen to the justifications by Russian decision-makers about why the war had to go ahead. The concept that Russia had a historical right to fight “Nazism” and retake its place as a global power due to its past achievements took centre stage in Putin’s language justifying the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022; he stated, “The outcomes of World War II and the sacrifices our people had to make to defeat Nazism are sacred”. Russia again demonstrated the importance of these factors in its 2023 “Concept of Foreign Policy” paper. It stated that its “decisive contribution to the victory in World War II” was a “unique mission”, granting it legitimacy internationally to pursue a role as a leading global power. Time and again, history has been the backbone for these foerign policymakers’ decision-making.
Realist Counterargument
Theories of realism, like constructivism, are broad, with different types arguing for slightly different visions of the international arena. Nevertheless, they generally all accept several vital concepts. The nature of the international system is anarchic; power and security are the essential factors within it, and states are rational and unitary and view each other primarily in terms of power and security (Glaser, 2022, p.14). This leaves little room for history-driven identities to play a significant role in foreign policy decisions, which realists argue will always be governed by security imperatives instead.
One of the most potent advocates for such Realism was Kenneth Waltz, who meticulously argued these points. He suggested that wars have undertaken remarkably similar characteristics throughout human history despite fundamental changes in technology and ideology (Waltz, 1979, p.61). Hence, the impact of national identity or views of history on policymaking must be negligible; the reasons states go to war barely change despite those factors of national identity and ideology being fundamentally altered over and over again through the centuries.
He derides reductionist views, which focus on subunit actors like decision-makers. Instead, he views the international system and its anarchic security-driven order as the driving force behind foreign policy decisions. As these factors constrain what foreign policy options are available to decision-makers, views of history are broadly irrelevant (Waltz, 1979, p.66). Indeed, he even derided Kissinger for his over-focus on history in his foerign policy making and theorising.
Several prominent realist scholars have used and modified this theory to explain key developments in international affairs. Mearsheimer contends that Russia’s increasingly aggressive policies toward the West were based on the waves of NATO expansion, which it viewed as a key challenge to its security. Hence, Russian policymakers had few options other than to react violently to prevent NATO from moving ever eastwards (Mearsheimer, 2014). Russia’s history-based fears were irrelevant from this perspective. Russia would always react violently to defend itself from NATO.
Trita Parsi, a prominent Iranian academic who has advised the US government on Iranian foerign policy, has also taken a similar line when explaining the Islamic Republic of Iran’s (IRI) foreign policies. He stated that Iran’s hostility to Israel is not based on ideology but on the power structure of the Middle East. Iran’s increasing hostility was due to the collapse of the major powers between them, Iraq and Syria, leading to a regional power struggle where neither state wanted the other to dominate in fear for their security (Parsi, 2005, p.250). His evidence for this was that before the U.S.-Iraq wars, Israel and Iran had worked together against Baghdad. Hence, Iran’s anti-Western historical perspective was, in his view, largely irrelevant.
Realist Flaws
This essay cannot accept these security-centred viewpoints. It is not that security is not an imperative factor in determining foerign policy decision-making. It is. However, it does not govern that realm alone. Identity and the history that shapes it are essential because they determine how policymakers perceive and react to security threats. It is not true that all humans will respond to the same security dilemmas identically. Wendt believed that though security and the systematic factors it governs are essential, sub-unit factors are also imperative (Wendt, 1999, p.12). History is as important in decision-making as security.
This can be discerned by examining the inadequacies of the security-based explanations Mearsheimer and Parsi provide.
Regarding Mearsheimer’s position on Russia’s hostility towards the West, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February of 2022 cannot be justified by suggesting that Russian decision-makers had no other choice due to the constraints of the international system.
Ukraine posed no direct threat to Russia at that time and had no prospect of joining NATO thanks to previous Russian actions that had already sparked a civil war in Donbas. Instead, the political outlook of Russia’s policymakers must be understood to explain that invasion. Yes, security factors did exist, but they did not constitute an existential threat. Russian policymakers’ political outlook, based on irrational fear of the West and over-eagerness to cement Russia’s position as a global power, psychologically elevated these security threats to such a position that a full-scale invasion was deemed necessary.
Parsi’s position on Iran’s hostility to Israel is even more contestable. He suggests that Iran was only publicly against Israel in the 1980s while the states between them remained strong. However, Iran created Hezbollah in 1982 with the sole purpose of harassing Israel with resources it desperately needed to fight Iraq, which directly undermines Parsi’s assertion (Ghattas, 2020, p.134).
Moreover, though Iran did accept Israeli weaponry and even cooperated to strike Iraq, this was because Iran aimed to overrun Iraq to go after Israel. If Israel was misled enough to assist them in that mission, so be it, but it does not demonstrate Iran to be anything other than totally hostile towards Israel in the 1980s. Iran’s policymakers, such as Imam Khomeini, were ideologically anti-Zionist and rejected the state system itself, so to suggest they perceived the world in a security-based manner would be a misunderstanding of the IRI’s ideology and foreign policy objectives (Abedin, 2019, p.185). Again, Iranian leaders did not perceive the world in terms of security alone. Their Islamic national identity greatly influenced how they understood what security threats stood against them.
Their view of history was essential in creating these notions. Iranian policymakers remember that less than three decades prior to the revolution, American forces overthrew their democratically elected government in Operation Ajax and placed an authoritarian dictator in its stead. Hence, though it would make good sense to work with the US in the modern day, Iran’s highly negative historical perceptions about Washington will not allow it. Hence, Iran continued to strike out against the West, and especially Israel, throughout the nuclear negotiations and after 2015, when talks with the West emboldened its militia and missile projects (Sadjadpour, 2022).
Conclusion
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This essay has demonstrated the fundamental significance of history as a crutch for foreign policy decision-makers. History is critical in shaping national identities, which in turn influence decision-makers’ perspectives on global politics and security threats. While realist arguments emphasise the predominance of security threats over identity or history, this essay has shown that the perception of such threats is still inevitably shaped by the worldviews of policymakers, deeply rooted in their national identities and historical perspectives. Through several historical and contemporary examples, it has been demonstrated that policymakers often allow history to guide their foreign policy decisions. Although this essay does not necessarily endorse this reliance on history, it underscores that history is an indispensable crutch for foreign policymakers, which stands as tall as security in influencing their decisions.
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