Rogue States Essay ⋆ Political Science Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

The concept of rogue states first emerged as a key analytical category for Western policy makers and academics in the early 1980s. Although the term itself predates this period, the climax and conclusion of the cold war era witnessed a surge of interest in rogues, particularly within the United States. As former president Bill Clinton said in 1996, this interest was borne out of a widespread belief that the certainty and stability of a bipolar international system had been replaced with a far messier world of unpredictable and disparate threats: “Our struggle at the end of the cold war is to deal with these new perils—the rogue states like Iran and Iraq” (cited in Hoyt 2000, 300). With the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, further accentuating this sense of uncertainty, Clinton’s successor President George W. Bush located rogue states at the very center of his administration’s security strategy: “We must be prepared to stop rogue states and their terrorist clients before they are able to threaten or use weapons of mass destruction against the United States and our allies and friends” (National Security Strategy 2002, 14).

Defining And Identifying Rogue States

Prior to being at the heart of U.S. security policy, the term rogue state referred to patterns of domestic repression by states of their own citizens. Typically, it is reserved to describe states posing—or perceived to be posing—a direct threat to regional or international security. For scholars and policy makers alike, three criteria in particular warrant the use of this label: A state can be considered a rogue for facilitating, sponsoring, or actively engaging in international terrorism. In the United States, the State Department’s annual Patterns of Global Terrorism reports have been central to identifying states that meet this criterion. A state also can be deemed a rogue for developing or actively pursuing weapons of mass destruction (WMD)—specifically chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons—and their delivery systems. Finally, and more controversially, the term also is applied frequently to states perceived to be acting in defiance of the international community’s established laws, rules, norms, and conventions.

Although there has been some variation in the states designated rogues within contemporary political discourse, a small number have retained their positions of prominence. North Korea, Iran, and Iraq, three members of the “axis of evil,” have consistently been identified as the most dangerous rogue states. Cuba, Libya, Syria, and Sudan also have been assigned this label by Western political elites, albeit less frequently.

Due to the unconventional nature of the threat posed by rogue states, efforts to counter them have overwhelmingly concentrated on coercive and militaristic security policies. The Clinton and Bush administrations pursued aggressive containment strategies for confronting rogue states, exemplified in the latter’s prolonged pursuit of a national missile defense program, despite continued opposition from critics. More controversially, the existence of rogues has been used to justify preemptive or preventative military action against nonimminent threats—a policy that became the cornerstone of the so-called Bush Doctrine after the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

The continued centrality afforded rogue states by the security and foreign policy-making elites of Western states has provoked considerable opposition. Critics have argued that the concept is employed with such inconsistency that it is rendered worthless. Although frequently designated a rogue, Cuba, for example, fails to meet any of the above criteria. At the same time, Israel is almost never discussed under this label, particularly within the United States. These critics argue that the United States itself is the dominant rogue state. A related line of criticism suggests that this concept is applied in a politically selective manner as a powerful rhetorical strategy for condemning or demonizing enemies of the United States and its allies. Other critics maintain that the threat posed by these actors is considerably exaggerated; rogues are no more antagonistic or likely to resort to force than other states because they lack the infrastructure, as in the case of Libya, or because militarily strong neighbors constrain them, as in the case of North Korea.

Finally, and most important, critics have argued also that designating a state as rogue leads to unfortunate, even pernicious, political consequences. With coercive measures such as economic sanctions and military invasions the preferred strategy for confronting these actors, the use of this label frequently results in missed opportunities for improved relations, dialogue, and an end to direct or indirect violence.

Bibliography:

Bilgin, Pinar, and Adam David Morton. “Historicising Representations of ‘Failed States’: Beyond the Cold-War Annexation of the Social Sciences?” Third World Quarterly 23, no. 1 (2002): 55–80.
“From ‘Rogue’ to ‘Failed’ States? The Fallacy of Short-termism.” Politics 24, no. 3 (2004): 169–180.
Bleiker, Roland. “A Rogue Is a Rogue Is a Rogue: U.S. Foreign Policy and the Korean Nuclear Crisis.” International Affairs 79, no. 4 (2003): 719–737.
Caprioli, Mary, and Peter F.Trumbore. “Identifying ‘Rogue’ States and Testing Their Interstate Conflict Behaviour.” European Journal of International Relations 9, no. 3 (2003): 377–406.
“Rhetoric versus Reality: Rogue States in Interstate Conflict.” Journal of Conflict Resolution 49, no. 5 (2005): 770–791.
Derrida, Jacques. Rogues: Two Essays on Reason. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2005.
Herring, Eric. “Rogue Rage: Can We Prevent Mass Destruction?” Journal of Strategic Studies 23, no. 1 (2000): 188–212.
Hoyt, Paul D. “The ‘Rogue State’ Image in American Foreign Policy.” Global Society 14, no. 2 (2000): 297–310.
“The National Security Strategy of the United States of America.” Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 2002.

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