This is an excerpt from Neutrality after 1989: A new path for the post-Cold War world, edited by Naman Carr-Thomas Habtom. You can download this book for free from E-InternationalRelations.
As the Soviet Union collapsed and the United States emerged as the world’s sole superpower, neutrality was viewed by many as a relic of the Cold War. However, the emergence of emerging powers and the gradual shift towards multipolarity, as countries such as Russia and China exert influence and challenge the US-dominated international order, have in turn restored neutrality in various forms. The book begins with a series of chapters that examine Europe’s “old neutrals” through the lens of contemporary Austrian and Swiss neutrality, the decline and end of Swedish and Finnish neutrality, and the resilience of Irish neutrality. Later chapters discuss the emergence of the “new neutral” by examining Vietnam’s “bamboo diplomacy,” Israel’s efforts to balance relations with Washington and Moscow, and Oman’s non-interventionist foreign policy. As a series of chapters demonstrates, the role of neutrality—and its perception or misunderstanding—remains crucial to understanding contemporary geopolitics and international relations.
In the popular imagination, neutrality is understood as a policy of not engaging in war and/or not choosing one group over another. This perception, especially in Western countries, was heavily influenced, especially in Europe, by the experience of World War II (1939-45) and the subsequent Cold War (1947-91). In fact, neutrality is a complex and dynamic phenomenon. It ranges from “active” to “passive” forms, from permanent to non-permanent, and various shades that are not technically neutral but are often grouped with it, such as military non-alignment.
The end of the Cold War and the emergence of the United States’ unipolar prospects have prompted countries around the world to rethink the meaning and necessity of neutrality. For some, this means a diminution of importance and a gradual abandonment of the idea, as neutrality was previously underpinned by a bipolar world that no longer exists. After the full-scale conflict between Russia and Ukraine broke out in February 2022, non-aligned countries (but often still erroneously called “neutral countries”) Sweden and Finland applied to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and later completed their membership – marking a The role of neutrality is declining again in the twenty-first century.
The story of neutrality is not limited to Europe, however. This is especially true in the post-Cold War era. While the 1990s and 2000s represented American (and wider Western) hegemony, the 2010s and 2020s are characterized by growing multipolarity. As the number of rising powers increases, so does the desire to guard against and avoid a full alliance with a single great power. So while Western observers often comment on the irrelevance and/or death of neutrality, the picture is very different elsewhere. This book hopes to shed light on this ongoing development. It attempts to illustrate that the rise and fall of neutrality occurs simultaneously for many different reasons. In discussing neutrality, this book adopts a broad definition to reflect the broad experience of the countries involved and their unique approaches to international affairs.
In Chapter 1, Pascal Lotharz examines Switzerland and Austria, two exemplars of neutrality. Although they were thought to be similar neutral Alpine nations, Lotharz demonstrated that the similarities were actually superficial. The differences lie both in the histories of the two countries and in the underlying philosophies that guide their policies, which continue to affect both countries’ understanding of their own neutrality. In Chapter 2, Erik Noreen and Roxanna Sjöstedt look at Sweden. For decades, the country was viewed as a quintessentially neutral country still participating in global issues. Even after formally abandoning its neutrality after joining the EU, the Nordic country still pursues a policy of non-alignment. Nonetheless, as Noreen and Sjöstedt show, Sweden remains a militarily active country, deployed around the world with NATO. This chapter explains how Sweden moved closer to NATO while officially remaining unaligned.
In Chapter 3, Jussi Pakkasvirta and Hanna Tuominen look at Finland, another Nordic neutral. After the end of the Cold War, Finnish notions of neutrality underwent significant transformations, leading first to Finland’s accession to the European Union, then to NATO for military missions, and finally to NATO membership. Their chapter traces and analyzes the evolution of these three decades. Karen Devine’s fourth chapter focuses on Ireland, a country that has resisted the post-Cold War trend toward military non-neutralization in Europe. Instead, despite intense and growing pressure from Ireland’s domestic and foreign political elites, the country has shown remarkable resilience and a dedication to neutrality.
In the second half of the book, Chapters 5, 6, and 7, we move away from Europe and look at the different ways neutrality is used around the world. In his chapter on Vietnam, Giang explains how the Southeast Asian country has implemented “bamboo diplomacy” to seek to balance relations with the United States and China while pursuing an independent foreign policy. Israel is the focus of Lyudmila Samaskaya’s chapter. Although widely viewed as an ally of the United States, the Israeli government has at times gone its own way. This has been particularly true in recent years as it has sought to balance its relations with Washington, Moscow and Beijing in pursuit of its own national security interests – thereby pursuing a policy of selective neutrality. Another country associated with neutrality, sometimes called the “Switzerland of the Middle East,” is Oman. In the final chapter of the book, Robbie Barrett and Leah Sherwood claim that this perception is wrong and that Muscat is in fact a partisan non-interventionist. The author believes that this policy is in sharp contrast to a truly neutral state and amounts to a realpolitik This approach allows the country to act as a mediator while promoting its own interests.
The countries examined in this book were chosen because of their broad range of interpretive neutralities. They illustrate the fact that neutrality, whether interpreted internally or externally, is never a simple or straightforward policy, but a complex of national interests, historical and contemporary circumstances, and domestic and foreign policy realities. Therefore, understanding what neutrality is and is not requires a broader view of global development. By better understanding these nuances, readers—whether motivated by personal interest, academic research, or policy-making responsibilities—will realize that countries that practice neutrality and its derivatives do not fall into simple categories, Rather, it is about adapting and understanding it according to its own tradition and ongoing development.
By focusing on the post-Cold War era, this book attempts to reaffirm the current relevance of neutrality as a conceptual framework for international relations and domestic politics. With the collapse of the Soviet Union and the so-called “end of history” (Fukuyama 1989), neutrality was largely either relegated to the history books or viewed as an unconventional quirk/relic of the Cold War. However, this volume adds the work of others, such as Lottaz et al. (2022) suggest that neutrality and the need to understand its dynamism remain as important as ever. Neutrality is not simply a product of bipolarity, as the Cold War suggested, but can actually emerge in unipolar or multipolar periods. Furthermore, being relatively uncommon—although not as rare as commonly imagined—various manifestations of neutrality are often unique. This requires examining the different forms it took, or the reasons why it was abandoned, to which this book hopes to contribute.
Neutrality, both as a concept and as a phenomenon, is alive and well. As multipolarity becomes a growing force in world affairs, it is crucial to understand this, as the chapters in this book attempt to do. In such an ordered world, neutrality in its various forms is likely to continue to be a tool used by different countries, and recognizing this helps us understand how the world exists today and how it might exist tomorrow.
refer to
Fukuyama, F. 1989. “The end of history?”. national interest. 16, 3-18.
Lotaz, Pascal; Heinz, G; and Herbert, RR 2022. Beyond Cold Neutrality: Neutral States and the Post-Cold War International System. Lanham: Lexington Books.
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