Table Of ContentGreat Powers’ Foreign Policy
Great Powers’
Foreign Policy
Approaching the Global Competition and
the Russian War against the West
Edited by
Valentin Naumescu
leiden | boston
Cover illustration: Military Ship (in the bay of Sevastopol), by DimitroSevastopol, <https://cdn.pixabay.
com/photo/2020/06/09/06/30/ship-5277192_960_720.jpg>
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Naumescu, Valentin, editor.
Title: Great powers’ foreign policy : approaching the global competition
and the Russian war against the West / edited by Valentin Naumescu.
Description: Leiden ; Boston : Brill, [2023] | Includes bibliographical
references and index. | Summary: “By comparing the great-powers’ foreign
policy, this book investigates the global competition and revisionist
attempts to dismantle the Western liberal order. Since February 2022,
the international system has been challenged by the Russian invasion in
Ukraine and its profound, multiple consequences.Putin’s War has
reinvented the West. But still, this is not “the end of history”. To
illustrate that tensions between democratic and autocratic great powers
are nowadays at their peak since the end of the Cold War, one should
consider President Biden’s words in Warsaw, referring to President
Putin: “For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power!””– Provided by
publisher.
Identifiers: LCCN 2022043619 (print) | LCCN 2022043620 (ebook) | ISBN
9789004523432 (hardback) | ISBN 9789004523449 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Russia (Federation–Foreign relations–Western countries.
| Western countries–Foreign relations–Russia (Federation) | Russia
(Federation–Foreign relations–21st century.
Classification: LCC DK510.764 .G74 2023 (print) | LCC DK510.764 (ebook) |
DDC 327.47–dc23/eng/20220929
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022043619
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022043620
Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill-typeface.
isbn 978-90-04-52343-2 (hardback)
isbn 978-90-04-52344-9 (e-book)
Copyright 2023 by Valentin Naumescu. Published by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.
Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Hotei, Brill Schöningh, Brill Fink,
Brill mentis, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Böhlau, V&R unipress and Wageningen Academic.
Koninklijke Brill NV reserves the right to protect this publication against unauthorized use. Requests for
re-use and/or translations must be addressed to Koninklijke Brill NV via brill.com or copyright.com.
This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.
Contents
Notes on Contributors VII
Introduction: Great-Power Competition, Revisionism and War: How
Putin’s Invasion Reinvented the West 1
Valentin Naumescu
1 The Foreign Policy of the United States in the Post-Trump Era 23
Anda Ghilescu
2 The European Union’s Foreign Policy Capabilities 76
Adrian-Gabriel Corpădean
3 Understanding the Foreign Policy of the People’s Republic of China:
Historical Facts, Main Trends, Actors and Decision-Making Bodies 95
Şerban Filip Cioculescu
4 Germany: A Civilian Power in Line with a Changing World? 145
Georgiana Ciceo
5 The Mental Maps of French Foreign Policy: Between Ambitions
of Grandeur and Constraints of Multipolarity in the Twenty-First
Century 198
Marius-Mircea Mitrache and Sergiu Mișcoiu
6 UK’s Post: Brexit Alliance Building Practices in the Age of Global
Competition 274
Agnes Nicolescu
7 Russia: Back to Utopia: Escaping the Long Siberian Winter 300
Dorin Popescu
8 Japan at the Beginning of the Reiwa Era: Role and Place in World
Politics 329
Diana Peca and Șerban Georgescu
vi Contents
9 India: A Great Regional Power in Search of a Global Footprint 365
Ştefan Popescu
10 Brazil: From Colony to Emergent Power 387
Răzvan Victor Pantelimon
11 Beyond the “Iron Wall:” The Strategic Priorities of Israel’s Contemporary
Foreign Policy 418
Raluca Moldovan
Afterword: The Russo-Ukrainian War and Great Power
Competition 472
Marius Ghincea
Index 493
Notes on Contributors
Georgiana Ciceo
has 12 years of experience in diplomacy, as a diplomat in the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs of Romania, and almost 20 years’ experience of university
teaching. She teaches disciplines in the field of European studies (integration
theories, European public policies, decision-making processes in the EU). Her
research has materialized in five books, including two as a sole author, more
than 40 publications in journals and specialized volumes, and more than 20
presentations at national and international conferences. She has continuously
developed her activities by engaging in foreign projects and by collaboration
activities with partner universities – Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Mün-
ster, Otto-von-Guericke-Universität Magdeburg, Università di Padova.
Şerban Filip Cioculescu
Ph.D. in Political Science (University of Bucharest), is senior scientific research-
er in security studies with the Institute for Political Studies of Defense and
Military History in Bucharest and a guest professor (lecturer) at the University
of Bucharest, the Department of Political Sciences and European Studies. His
areas of interest are: security/strategic studies, international organizations, in-
ternational relations theories and diplomacy and he is geographically interest-
ed in European, and Euro-Atlantic security, but also in East-Asian studies. He
has published five books as single author: Introduction into the International
Relations Theory (Military Publishing House, 2007), Post-Communist Romania
in the Strategic Pattern of the Neighborhoods: the Balkans, the Black Sea and the
Greater Middle East (University of Bucharest Publishing House, 2009), Terra
incognita? Elements for Mapping the Chaos in International Relations (Military
Publishing House, 2010), The Future Will Not Take Prisoners (Rao Books, Bucha-
rest, 2013) and China. From Hidden Brightness to Global Expansion (Cetatea de
scaun Publishing House, Targoviste, 2018).
Adrian-Gabriel Corpădean
is Associate Professor of European Integration and Dean of the Faculty of Eu-
ropean Studies (Babeș-Bolyai University of Cluj-Napoca). His research focuses
on the history and future of EU integration, with a focus on the evolution of
EU policies and the relations between the EU and other important regional
and global actors. Some of his most recent publications include assessments
of the EU’s normative power, chiefly in the light of the furthering of the En-
largement Policy, with an obvious focus on the Western Balkans. While having
authored more than 50 international publications and conducted numerous
viii Notes on Contributors
international projects, Dr. Corpădean is also present in collaboration endeav-
ours with the European Commission, Council of the EU and national adminis-
tration. He is fluent in Romanian, English, French and Italian.
Șerban Georgescu
has been the director of the Department of Asian Studies of the Romanian–
American University since 2013 and also the coordinator and founder of the
“Angela Hondru” Romanian–Japanese Studies Center (Romanian–American
University) since 2005. Previously, he was an expert advisor at the School of
European Economic Studies, Romanian–American University. His current
fields of interest are international trade, international economic relations,
business communication, cross–cultural communication, internationaliza-
tion of higher education.
Anda Ghilescu
is currently a Ph.D. candidate in International Relations at Babeș-Bolyai Uni-
versity, Cluj-Napoca, with a research interest in American foreign policy to-
wards the Middle East, particularly towards the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. She
holds a Master’s Degree in International Relations from the Faculty of Europe-
an Studies, Babeș-Bolyai University.
Marius Ghincea
is a doctoral researcher at the European University Institute, in Florence, and
serves as a teaching assistant at the Johns Hopkins’ School of Advanced Inter-
national Studies, Bologna. His research agenda focuses on identity contesta-
tion and foreign policy, global political orders, and domestic determinants of
foreign policy.
Sergiu Mișcoiu
is Professor of Political Science at the Faculty of European Studies, Babes-
Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca (Romania) where he serves as Director of the
Centre for International Cooperation and as Director of the Centre for African
Studies (Cestaf). He holds a Ph.D. in Political Science (Paris-Est University), a
PhD in History (Babes-Bolyai University), and a habilitation in Political Sci-
ence (Paris-Est University). He is permanent member and PhD tutor of the
LIPHA Laboratory at the University Paris-Est (France) and associate profes-
sor of the universities of Lille (France), Szeged (Hungary), and Cheikh Anta
Diop Dakar (Senegal). He wrote four books, edited and co-edited 22 volumes
and wrote 60 scientific articles, mainly in English, French, and Romanian. His
main research interests are constructivist and the alternative theories applied
Notes on Contributors ix
to nation building processes, to populism and to political transition and
transformation in Central-Eastern Europe, France and Central and Western
Francophone Africa.
Marius-Mircea Mitrache
holds a double Ph.D. in Political Sciences from Université Paris-Est and in
International Relations and European Studies from Babeș-Bolyai University.
He is currently an independent researcher with an interest in French politi-
cal thought, European diplomacy, and Franco-German relations. His notable
publications include “Vox clamantis in deserto. The German and French Peace
Movements and the Difficult Dream of Peace during the Great War” in Ioan
Bolovan, Rudolf Gräf, Harald Heppner, Oana Tămăș (eds.), World War One, The
Other Face of the War, Cluj University Press, 2016 and “Mapping East-Central
Europe: The Pursuit of France’s Milieu Goals (1871–1925)” in Branislav Radel-
jic (ed.), The Unwanted Europeanness? Understanding Division and Inclusion
in Contemporary Europe, Berlin: De Gruyter, 2021. In 2014 he co-translated,
Auguste de Gérando’s La Transylvanie et ses habitants, tome 1 from French to
Romanian, published by Casa Cărții de Știință Publishing House, Cluj-Napoca,
Romania.
Raluca Moldovan
is Associate Professor in the Department of International Relations and Ger-
man Studies of Babes-̦ Bolyai University Cluj Napoca, where she has been
teaching since 2004 at graduate and undergraduate levels. She is a Ph.D. in
history with a thesis on the representation of the Holocaust on film. Her more
recent research interests include immigration studies, mass media and the
contemporary Middle East. She has published numerous scholarly articles
on topics ranging from history to mass culture in many Romanian and inter-
national journals. She is a member of the European and Romanian Associa-
tions of American Studies and the Association for the Study of Nationalities
(Columbia University, New York). Among her latest publications is the edited
volume The European Union. Policies, Perspectives and Politics (New York, Nova
Science Publishers, 2020).
Valentin Naumescu
is Professor of International Relations at Babeş-Bolyai University of Cluj and
founding President of the think tank The Initiative for European Democratic
Culture. Professor Naumescu was Secretary of State in the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs (2005–2007) and Consul General of Romania in Toronto (2008–2012).
Since 2015, Valentin Naumescu has also been an independent expert of the
x Notes on Contributors
European Commission in the field of International Relations. Among his re-
cent books: The New European Union and Its Global Strategy: From Brexit to
PESCO (2020), The Great Power Politics in Central and Eastern Europe: 30 Years
Since the End of the Cold War (2019), The Crisis of the European Union and the
Global Order in the Trump Era (2017), The USA-China War for Supremacy and
the Five Driving Forces Who Change the World (2022).
Agnes Nicolescu
holds a Ph.D. in international relations and European studies from the Babeş-
Bolyai University Cluj Napoca, with a focus on the relationship between the
UK and the EU in the area of security and defense policy in the context of
Brexit. She has authored articles ad op-eds covering European affairs issues,
foreign and security policy and the implications of Brexit.
Răzvan Victor Pantelimon
is Lecturer at the Faculty of History and Political Science, Ovidius Universi-
ty of Constanţa. He holds a Ph.D. in political science with a thesis on Europe
and the Americas: Constitutions, Doctrines and Political Institutions, from the
Department of Politics, Institutions and History, University of Bologna, Italy
and a Ph.D. in Political Science from the Faculty of Political Science, University
of Bucharest. He has pursued post-doctoral studies at RomaTre University in
Rome in the framework of the “Europaeus” International Project. He has been
visiting lecturer/researcher in Chile, Italy, Spain and Portugal. He is a member
of the Latin-American Association for Political Science and of the European
Network of Information and Documentation on Latin America. His main re-
search interests include: Latin America’s political systems and regional rela-
tions, populism and neo-populist discourse, historical memory, transition and
democratic consolidation, new types of political parties, socialist and leftist
ideologies and parties in Latin America, Latin-American political theories and
thinkers, electoral campaigns. As of late, he has published various articles and
book chapters (at prestigious publishing houses like: Tirant Lo Blanch – Valen-
cia, Peter Lang Publishing – Brussels, Archaeopress – Oxford, Publisher of the
Institute for Political Sciences and International Relations of the Romanian
Academy – Bucharest etc).
Diana Peca
is the executive director of the Department of Asian Studies of the Ro-
manian–American University and the coordinator and co-founder of the
Romanian–Korean Studies Center of the same University (since 2013). She
has formerly worked in international tourism and consultancy. Her fields
Notes on Contributors xi
of interest include the international business environment and interna-
tional trade, international education and internationalization of higher
education, intercultural communication.
Dorin Popescu
is the president and founder of the think-tank Black Sea House Association,
Constanta, Romania, specialized in the wider Black Sea region’s security and
politics. He is the coordinator of Constanta branch of the think-tank The Ini-
tiative for European Democratic Culture, specialized in international politics.
He also has diplomatic experience, having served as Romanian diplomat in
Moscow (3rd secretary, 2002–2006), Chernivtsi (counsellor, 2007–2011) and
Sarajevo (ministry-counsellor, Deputy Head of Mission, 2012–2016). He has
published four books (including Prisoners at the Hybrid Pontus, 2020) and
about 200 analyses and studies on international politics. He is advisor for in-
ternational relations at the Constanta City Hall, Romania.
Stefan Popescu
holds a Ph.D. in history of international relations from Paris 1–Sorbonne (Sum-
ma cum laude). In addition, he has joint a MA degree in geopolitics from ENS
and Paris 1–Sorbonne, a second MA in history of international relations from
Paris 1–Sorbonne. An Associate professor at the National University of Political
Studies and Administration in Bucharest, Stefan has been Secretary of State
in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Romania. In the past, he interned with
French Ministry of Defense on nuclear and anti-missile deterrence, worked as
an adviser at La Francophonie High Council, office of the former UN Secre-
tary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali; as an adviser to the Romanian Minister
of Foreign Affairs; general director for external cooperation at the Romanian
Cultural Institute; sr. analyst at Romania Energy Center (ROEC); and adviser to
the Delegate Minister of European Affairs. He is also a foreign affairs columnist
and analyst. He is the co-author of the “NATO Warsaw Summit & Beyond. Spe-
cial Report” published by ROEC and NATO Public Diplomacy Division (2016).
