neoclassical realism

The foreign policy of states determines the way they behave in the international arena. Accurate analysis of official foreign policy documents of a country is helpful in that it shows what the international priorities of a country are at specific periods. This article reviews the U.S. National Security Strategy documents published in 2002, 2006, 2010 and 2015 from the perspective of the perception of threats to the U.S. security and perception of the U.S. role in the world. It tries to study the differences and similarities between the Bush and Obama administrations in this regard using a Neoclassical Realist framework. The results show that the Obama administration identified a wider range of threat sources to U.S. national security while providing less detailed solutions to them. Also, as democracy promotion abroad ceased to be a priority in 2015, compared to 2002 and 2006, counterterrorism continues to be at the top of U.S. security agenda. In line with Neoclassical Realism, creation of an international order under U.S. leadership is an important priority mentioned in the NSS of 2015.

Germany and France are often viewed as the EU pillars in their common European foreign policy. After Brexit, their role has become even more significant. Consequently, the Euro-Atlantic relations have been affected by the ways these countries react to the US’s foreign policies when they are against European values, including the tenets of the international rule of law. The US withdrawal from Iran’s deal with 5+1 concerning Iran’s nuclear program (known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action and abbreviated as the JCPOA) is a case regarded as unlawful by the UN. It can be used to test how much these two countries show resistance to the US in case of disagreement. This article draws a comparison between Berlin’s reaction to the US withdrawal from the JCPOA vise-à-vise Paris’s response to the same event. The distinctions between these responses and the reasons behind them will be analyzed by drawing on the theory of neoclassical realism. Furthermore, it will be argued that while Germany’s political structure and its historical developments speak volumes about its disposition to being more conservative and taking less restrictive measures towards countries like Iran, for France, tipping the balance of power is an important factor that accounts for the country’s tendency to form an alliance with the hegemon in recent years.

Russia's foreign policy has undergone many changes in the last decade. Putin's policies have continued until 2021 and he has changed toward a pragmatic approach to dynamism and initiative in regional and international developments. The Various factors have been influential in this direction. The Regional convergence in the near abroad has always been a priority for Moscow. Russia has tried to use the political, security and economic potential of the Eurasian region in geopolitical rivalries. One of the developments in recent years is the creation of the Eurasian Economic Union, which can play an important and effective role in advancing Russia's foreign policy goals. This study seeks to answer the question of how effective the Eurasian Economic Union will be in achieving Russia's foreign policy goals. What are its prospects and challenges? And what opportunities can be imagined for the cooperation of the Islamic Republic of Iran with this economic union? The theoretical framework of the research is based on the theory of neoclassical realism. This theory considers the factors of domestic, regional level and the structure of the international system in evaluating foreign policy. The research method is descriptive-analytical and uses documentary and library information and data.

The post-world war liberal order has been primarily based on the pillars of international institutions inspired from the idea of multilateral agreements and rooted in the ideological components of Western enlightenment and liberal tradition. This orderو which has been established and consolidated by a complex set of regulations in form of international institutions, trade agreementsو and security alliances, continued to function well after the bipolar system of the Cold War, into the hegemonic US-led era. The principal ideology of this hegemony borrows its spirit from an exceptionality of identity, the much discussed, yet disputable concept of American Exceptionalism. By performing a critical discourse analysis on presidential State of the Union addresses post-World War II regarding nuclear institutional hegemony, this research identifies the way in which political identity and ideational elements, derived from the notion of American Exceptionalism, have played a key role in the strategic culture of America, shaping its grand strategies throughout the past decades to create and maintain an institutional hegemonic dominance in the global arena, and in the nuclear regime as a case study. As a result of the theoretical and critical discourse analysis combined, the concept of Institutional Hegemonic Resilience has been offered to explain the dynamics.