Foreign Policy

Summary

Tools of Foreign Policy

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Summary Tools of Foreign Policy

Foreign Aid

States often help each other to improve relations and achieve their own foreign policy objectives. There are two types of foreign aid:

Military aid: States donate, sell, or trade military equipment and technology to affect the military balance of power in certain key regions of the world
Economic aid: States donate or loan money to other counties to boost economic development.

Military Force

In some cases, states use military force or the threat of military force to achieve their foreign policy objectives. The use of military forces often involves stronger states pressuring weaker states to get what they want.

Example: The practice of forcing a weak state to comply with a stronger state via the threat of force is sometimes called Finlandization. In the final days of World War II, Finland reached a peace agreement with the Soviet Union. Even though both countries knew that the Soviets could have easily overwhelmed the Finns, neither wanted war, and the Soviets preferred to use their military elsewhere. The terms of the peace treaty basically gave the Soviets everything they wanted, so much so that Finland almost became a puppet of the Soviet Union.

Deterrence

Deterrence refers to the build up of military force as a threat to warn another state not to pursue a particular course of action.

Example: Throughout the Cold War, the United States relied on the strength of its nuclear and conventional weapons to deter the Soviet Union from invading western Europe.