Thomas Shelton Blog 3

Thomas Shelton

            Even though China has amassed a significant amount of international political influence as well as economic strength, I do not believe that China will ever replace the western order. By proposing the League of Nations after the First World War America had established its interests and dominance in a western centered international council.  With America being designated the international peace keeper because of its many military and humanitarian interventions it has created a large influence and political ties to multiple nations. The lack of these characteristics by the Chinese government will halt any chances of eastern order because economic influences alone no matter how large will never overturn the current order.

            China will never replace the western order because along with being able to set the standard and rules for international relations they also must take over the responsibilities of being leading nation.

When America became the leading world power it was also given the responsibility to protect other nations from governmental regimes and terrorist groups. America has intervened in countless nations in an effort to stabilize the country, some examples of the countries would be Vietnam, Korea, Lebanon, Thailand, the Congo, and Cambodia along with numerous other nations. By intervening in this countries the U.S has established a connection with them as well as fulfilling its responsibilities to protect others. Chinas foreign policy on the other hand is built off the idea that nonintervention is the best way to remain a peaceful and successful nations. By adopting this idea china has effectively denied its responsibility as a super power to help maintain the stability and order in smaller nations. Even when it comes to humanitarian aid America has provided aid to nations such as Haiti, India, Ethiopia, North Korea, and Indonesia after devastating famines, tsunamis, locust plagues, etc. (PBS). China has absolutely no interest in aiding these countries and as China’s power grows they will become subject to exponentially more criticism for their stance on this topic which will cause other nations to favor keeping the western oriented order.

            While China undoubtedly has one of the strongest economies in the world because so many nations America included rely on Chinese manufacturing and resources however, China lacks the military strength that America has. With a rising nation such as china war is always on the list of options even though it maybe the very last choice it must still be considered. China may have the largest population long with nearly double the active military of America but, what America lacks in soldiers it makes up for in armaments and defense spending. The U.S spends on average seven hundred billion dollars a year on its military while china only spends a sixth as much. America also has the largest naval and air forces in the world, a brief example of this is the amount of aircraft carriers in services for both nations; America has ten supercarriers currently in service with three more in the making while china only has four decommission soviet carriers and two of their own in the making. Even though a war between the world’s greatest super powers would most likely be the end of the human race, military might must still be considered if the western order is to be overturned peacefully.

            Even though China is quickly approaching America’s position as the leading super power I do not think that it will ever be capable of replacing the set of standards and rules that the west has created. Economic strength and population will not be enough to overturn an order that has been in control for over sixty years because China lacks the humanitarian and military influence that the U.S has accumulated.

"Timeline: United States Foreign Aid." PBS. PBS, n.d. Web. 24 Oct. 2013. <http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/timeline/famine/>

Daniella Portal

Daniella Portal

GVPT200

Mark Shirk

10/24/13

Humanitarian intervention may sound good in theory, but given its subsequent consequences may not be the best approach. In this case human intervention refers to one with military force. People who object humanitarian intervention believe that it almost always correlates with war.  Those who support such interventions make their case in terms of the moral responsibility of the US under the Responsibility to Protect doctrine. Although humanitarian intervention has undoubtedly saved lives, the US has seriously under appreciated the price involved, and must eliminate war as a solution.

            To begin, a major consequence of such a military intervention is the inherit loss of civilian life. If a state is acting with humanitarian intentions, it is quite contradictory to instill those values using force. Even if the ends of such actions could be humanitarian, means don’t always turn out that way. The people who support such intervention believe that the bombing of people is the best way to protect human and civil rights, disregarding the deaths of many innocent civilians. If true humanitarian intervention is the end goal, military force is not the answer.

            Humanitarian interventions can also result in even more political instability than already present. People tend to forget the cost of maintaining military control. It involves money, time, and manpower, some of which are hard to find. Take for example Iraq: even though the US was able to dismantle the Hussein regime, it causes civil conflicts, in this case, conflicts between the Shiites and Sunnis. After such chaos occurred, the US was in no position to leave, and had to remain in order to build up a stable government. Ten years later, the US is still there, there is still no stability, and our soldiers are still not home.

In cases where there is a rebel and a dominant group, intervention is also the wrong approach, because it causes the state in charge to support one group, when both groups are acting immorally. The country intervening is forced to choose between the lesser of two evils. Often times the outside power, or a third party, will support the rebels, thus reinforcing that what they are doing is allowed. So essentially the role of a third party explains why minority groups have the courage to begin a rebellion in the first place.

Another of the central obstacles to greater U.S. participation in humanitarian intervention has been the domestic political cost. The Black Hawk Down incident in 1993 exemplifies this idea being that the American public does not have any concern for suffering casualties unless they are directly connected to the US. The 18 soldiers that fell in Somalia are far more recognized than the 500 Somalis that the US killed that day. In addition to causing more harm than good, the US also displayed their indifference to the casualties, thus showing that their original goal was provoke by humanitarian reasons.

Often proponents of humanitarian intervention neglect US interests. However, this does not mean that the United States should stop trying to promote its values abroad—it just needs a different strategy. Instead of starting more wars of intervention, Washington should shift its focus to true humanitarian policies revolving saving lives, aiding victims, and assisting refugees. Abandoning military humanitarian intervention in would not mean leaving victims of genocide and repression to their fate. It would mean that instead of combating war with war, there must be a more liberal strategy involved. Although such a strategy is unknown, if we continue the way we are going, we will just be the perpetrators of more death and conflict.

China Power & Trade

 

Devin Savaskan

 

                China has all the makings of the next world power. It has an expanding economy, a growing middle class and the world’s largest population. Through understanding power, we know that these are the pieces a country needs to assemble their own dominant military. The possibility of China becoming a truly dominant regional hegemon is not one that escapes policy makers in the United States. History indicates that at some point, China will want more power on the international stage, the question becomes what is to be done about it. John Mearsheimer, a realist, argues that it is up to the United States to become military foes with China now before it is too late. Ikenberry argues that the United States can control China’s rise in a favorable way. Through understanding the importance of trade, we can see that Ikenberry has the best approach to the rise of Chinese power.

            To assess what should be done about the growing influence of China we must first determine how it will act as it grows in prominence on the world stage. When a country is on the rise and capable of changing the order of global politics, policy makers tend to classify them into four possible categories. They either want to accept risk or not, and they either want to revolutionize the current order or leave it mostly intact. Most historians compare modern day China to the rise of Germany before World War 1. While they are seemingly ever expanding and will risk a lot for power, the fact of the matter is they just want their deserved piece of the international pie. Mearsheimer argues a war between China and the United States is inevitable, however China is in the category it’s in due to the peaceful policy of trade implemented by the United States. This is exactly the idea of Ikenberry. We have the capability to incorporate China into the so called Western Order. Through trade, we have been able to stall China’s ambitions, since their continued economic wealth can only remain if the current political order remains intact. A hostile strike, a buck-passing to Japan, or constant trade wars as suggested by Measheimer has the capability of turning China into the global power we fear.

            There is however another significant advantage to trade. Most American’s see our trade deficit along with our loans and figure we will be forever in debt with the Chinese government. However, when examined more closely, one can completely turn this idea on its head. The fact is while we rely on Chinese manufacturing, they rely on us as customer even more. People fear China will weaken the United States, by calling on its debt. The reason this would never happen is because it would cause the United States to default, which would throw the US into recession, which in a chain reaction, would cause a recession in China. China relies on United States trade. Not only to continue to grow on the international stage, but to also keep domestic order. A recession, has different impacts on different countries. While here it forces people to have animosity toward the government, in China, it could start a revolution .With the growing middle class the Chinese people could use hard economic times as fuel to a revolutionary fire. They could quickly turn on their, free speech controlling, communist government, and could completely change the goals of China on the world stage. When examined closely we see that trade allows us to control China domestically giving the United States the upper hand.

            The United States has enjoyed a unipolar system since the end of the Cold War. However all things come to an end and this case is no exception. China will almost inevitably turn global politics back into a bipolar system. Until they fully achieve hegemony, the United States has the capability to dictate the path China takes along with its goals on world power. Through the use of trade and globalization, the United States can simply assimilate China into the Western Order and continue to reign supreme on the world stage.

 

CITATIONS

·         Mearsheimer: Tragedy of Great Power Politics

·         Ikenberry: Rise of China and the Future of the West

·         Lecture 11:21^st Century Power Politics.

 

Mark Russell Blog 3:Failed Nations

Mark Russell

GOVT 200

22 October 2013

Mark Shirk

Somalia: A Nation or Not?

            Within this blog post I would like to examine Somalia in regards to it being a nation or a state on the international level.  In my mind Somalia has fallen to a state of turmoil that is so desperate that the government can no longer function outside the capital city of Mogadishu. From the lecture, we know of a failed state as one that has not been able to have legitimate structure or a failure to provide basic services to their citizens. In the minds of many, Somalia has not had a structured or central government since their Civil War in 1991.

            At this point, I believe Somalia may be considered to be a failed state that should not be recognized by the outside world as a government until them have successfully eliminated Al-Shabaab, a cell of al-Qaeda. In addition, this terror cell has over 14,000 operatives performing regular acts of destruction and violence, preventing much action by the government. Additionally, the Somali people are notorious for their modern day acts of piracy that have terrorized trade in the Indian Ocean. As a last piece of background information, Somalia has been ranked number one on the failed state index for the last five years in a row due to its lack of government and horrid living conditions.

            At this time, I couldn’t foresee the global community recognizing Somalia as a practical nation on the international circuit. It cannot contribute to the international system outside of a slight trade industry, which is interrupted by pirates regardless. With a country a terrorist cell runs that and pirates with no traditional government structure, I couldn’t see any other international power looking to Somalia for assistance in any sort of matter.

            This brings me to my point on the failure of the Somalian state. They are failing to protect their citizens from the violence that Al-Shabaab has brought with them, while having one of the lowest literacy rates in the world. Additionally, with little government structure, the people of Somalia are struggling to survive and are considered to be one of the most disease-ridden countries in the world, with epidemics in AIDS, HIV, and malaria. While I do believe they should receive a substantial amount of aid, I don’t believe the government should regulate it, seeing as they have virtually no control.

            What can be done to incorporate Somalia into the national system? I believe that there needs to be a dismantling of the terrorist organizations before global aid organization, like UNICEF or the Red Cross can move in and provide humanitarian aid. This operation must occur without international I also believe that the government could then prosper and begin to rebuild the shattered infrastructure.

            I do believe that although Somalia is in a fractured state with no true government in place, I don’t think that it has fallen into a state of disrepair. I think that currently, Somalia and its government cannot be recognized on an international level, but could eventually rise to that standing through the help of foreign countries.

Griffin Smith

GVPT200

Blog Post #3

                                                           CHINA RISING

     Within the past decade, and especially following the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, China has come into the spotlight as a new economic powerhouse and has often been sensationalized as the state that will inherit the throne of global hegemony from the United States and completely reshape the world order.  John G. Ikenberry details many of these perceived possibilities in his article “Rise of China and the Future of the West”.  Because this article was published five years ago, I will argue against some of Ikenberry’s predictions based on how China’s standing and how the West’s response to China have changed up to the present day.

     All things aside, it must be conceded that China’s rise to power and economic prestige in the global market is remarkable.  From struggling under the rule of Mao Zedong until the 1970s to the reforms made by Deng Xiaoping and the Nixon trade agreements to now being considered almost neck and neck with the United States as the seat of power and the champion of the world economy is a breathtaking transformation.  While China’s rise is impressive, I would contend that some opinions and estimations considering China’s true power and ability to essentially reshape the global economy around itself are a bit overstated.

     Firstly I would like to delve into the viability of the Chinese military as a means of becoming more powerful.  To do this, we must analyze exactly how the leading nations of today’s world came to power and geopolitical prestige. In almost all cases (Russia, U.S., Britain, France, etc.), the nations which currently dominate world politics reserved their “piece of the pie” long before any international organizations existed, when imperialism was the common mode of gaining geopolitical influence.  With the genesis of the United Nations and other international security treaties and organizations, it is virtually impossible for a nation-state to seize power or territory in such a massive respect as say the U.S. or the Soviet Union did.  Even if international organizations did not hinder a potential power grab, it is doubtful that China has the naval power to expand in the Pacific as say Imperial Japan did.  Furthermore, the U.S. has escalated its military presence in the Pacific and engaged in further multinational military training exercises, likely with the goal of maintaining the balance of power and making sure China doesn’t get any ideas.

     Secondly, while China is booming economically, I doubt that it will replace the United States in the world economy.  China’s economy is rooted in manufacturing and export, primarily to the U.S. in exchange for treasury bonds.  Thusly, our two nations are heavily intertwined.  If China truly wishes to thrive economically, it would be far more beneficial to simply follow suit with the West than to try and reorganize the world economy around itself.  Regardless, it is doubtful that China would be able to do otherwise.  While it has substantial trading and manufacturing power, China is facing numerous strains.  The economic prosperity seen in its thriving coastal cities like Shanghai and its capitol Beijing is not present in the rest of the nation, especially in the rural areas inland.  Much of China’s internal revenue has been a product of the massive construction projects in the cities; construction that is now slowing and halting because of lack of funding.  This has led to many new construction projects being abandoned incomplete or having been recently finished, constituting a great deal of wasted funds.  All this, coupled with rising international pressure against China’s labor and human rights policies and the new initiatives to revamp the domestic U.S. economy by supporting American manufacturing, leads many economists to believe that China’s economic growth will soon plateau.

     In conclusion, while China’s economic growth has been sudden and substantial, it is unlikely that it will overtake the United States economically or replace the U.S. as the global hegemon.

GVPT 200 Blog 2

Thomas Shelton

GVPT 200 FC01

Mark Shirk

Blog Post #2

                             

               As the Iraq war had played out it has increasingly began to resemble the Vietnam War in the campaigns initial plan, outcome of the conflict as well as the reception by the public. Both wars have been heavy debated whether or not the U.S had been successful in their goals for each campaign.  After wasting twenty five years, seven hundred and thirty eight billion dollars, and hundreds of thousands of lives you would have think that the U.S would make sure another military conflict like that would never happen again however, here we stand.

               The goal of the Iraq campaign was to find and remove the supposed weapons of mass destruction because the U.S feared the weapons could be used against them. However it eventually evolved into nearly a decade long fight with members of Al-Qaeda. Al Qaeda employed guerrilla warfare tactics to effectively maximize damage to the U.S/Iraqi security forces and minimize their own casualties. Vietnam similarly initially was initiated to halt the spread of communism throughout the eastern world because the U.S had feared it would endanger democracy across the globe but mostly feared it would create more allies for the U.S.S.R. Both military conflicts were predicted to be in and out campaigns and be over in a couple years at most; George W Bush was even bold enough to claim that the war in Iraq had already been won after merely a month and a half. After Vietnam the U.S should have learned invading solely out of fear would only lead to disaster.

               Once the U.S had ended their campaign the socialist forces of North Vietnam took over all of South Vietnam in fourteen months creating the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. After the establishment of the Republic two million Vietnamese citizens were sent to “reeducation camps” which were essentially death sentences. Likewise after the U.S pulled out of Iraq even though a slightly stable government had been established there was a huge surge in terrorist attacks orchestrated by Al Qaeda. Even today there are reports of racketeering and ransoming campaigns that have been established by Al Qaeda as well as reports of Al Qaeda influence in multiple Syrian bombings. Even though both campaigns initial goals had been reached almost immediately after pulling out it was as if nothing had been changed in either nation. If our precaution against Vietnam failed only fourteen months after leaving why would we expect anything better from the campaign in Iraq?

               One of the effects of both wars was that it effectively diving the U.S population into those in favor of continuing the war and those who wanted to withdraw the troops as soon as possible. This lead to each group to butt heads on nearly every issue regardless of its relevance to the war and effectively halted the political and social progress of the U.S. Another aspect of the wars that was almost completely forgotten about was the treatment of the veterans returning from the war. Many of the veterans were despised by the public because of the heavy civilian casualties form the napalm strikes, heavy shelling and use of agent orange in Vietnam; after Iraq the veterans faced a similar situation because of the drone strikes, artillery shelling, and airstrikes. This mistreatment of veterans in both wars once again created a rift in the U.S populations which only hurt us further. One again we failed to learn from the past and change the way we treat the returning veterans for both their finical and mental needs.

               After all of these points I am still wondering how many times do we have to hear the cliché  “history always repeats itself” before we actually try and change for the better to prevent such disastrous campaigns such as the Vietnam war and more recently the Iraq war. Hopefully we will not fall into the same cycle if we choose take action in Syria and without looking at the repercussions of our previous mistakes.

Griffin Smith

GVPT200

Blog #2

     In “What Caused the Iraq War? A Debate”, Alexandre Debs and Nuno P. Monteiro make what amounts to a very thorough analysis of U.S. motivations for invading Iraq in 2003 while creating dialogue with David Lake in order to better rationalize the reasons for war via process of elimination.  These IR scholars came to the conclusion that the Bush Administration’s, and ultimately America’s, motives for invasion were centered on the threat of a nuclearized Iraq.  For the purpose of this essay, I will support this conclusion as well as use the threat of a nuclear Iraq as a jumping-off point to analyze the other motivations behind the U.S. involvement.

     To even begin to try and understand what catalyzed the Iraq war (which I may refer to interchangeably as the Second Gulf War), it is essential that we examine and more importantly understand the context that these events occurred in, the national mindset at the time leading up to the invasion, and the ontological threat that was posed to the United States by Al Qaeda and other related Islamic terror groups.  The central reason for U.S. military action in Iraq was to make certain that Saddam Hussein would not have access to weapons of mass destruction.  The discussion over the true motivations must go further however, to encompass the viability of a pre-emptive strike, the predicted cost-benefit tradeoff for invasion, the lucrative prospect of creating a beacon of democracy in Iraq to quell issues in the volatile Middle East, and the fear felt by the United States after 9/11 – more specifically the fear that Al Qaeda could acquire a nuclear weapon.  One of the biggest issues with the contemporary debate about what motivated the Second Gulf War is the same issue that often surfaces when discussing historical events – people make judgments on past events by viewing them through the lens of the present.  It is easy to, as the saying goes; second-guess a decision from an armchair, especially with 20/20 hindsight.  If we truly wish to understand, we must compare and contrast the decisions made with the sentiments and limited information present at that time.

     Firstly, the matter of the results of the U.N. inspections for WMDs; while it is a popular statement to declare outright that the U.N. inspections yielded absolutely that there were no WMDs in Iraq, the assertion of this claim is flawed for two reasons: (1) The U.N. inspections were not firm in their assessment, were slow, and were seen by some in U.S. command as unreliable, so to say that the U.S. rushed prematurely into Iraq would be a more accurate statement than to say that the U.S. blatantly defied purely scientific U.N. inspection results.  (2) If a good part of America’s aim was to prevent Saddam for acquiring WMDs rather than disarming him of WMDs that may or may not have been present, than the results of the U.N. inspections are not as important in the debate because the war would have been a product of a pre-emptive strike rather than a response action.

     Secondly, those who wish to understand the Second Gulf War must look past whether or not Saddam Hussein had WMDs and examine why the U.S. would have cared if he did.  As was discussed in the dialogue between Debs and Monteiro and Lake, North Korea and Iran were also emerging as possible nuclear threats, so why Iraq?  What made Iraq a priority over these two states?  The best answer is as follows.  From 9/11 to early 2003, the number of Islamic radicals in the Middle East and Central Asia was surging, as was their will to enact jihad against the West.  American forces deployed in Afghanistan and in smaller numbers in other regions of the Middle East and Africa were in a very difficult position as they waged an unconventional war against militants who concealed themselves among the populace, were nearly impossible to pinpoint or gather intelligence on, and who were stalwart in their goals.  It was unofficially concluded therefore that fighting a war of attrition would be impractical and impossible.  Enter the discussion of possible WMDs in Iraq, a potent threat not so much because of Saddam Hussein’s regime but because of the predominately Shi’ite population of his country and the volatile nature of the Middle East.  In the minds of U.S. decision makers, WMDs in a region that was the hotbed of an ideological war created an extremely dangerous situation.  Comparatively, Iran and North Korea were not perceived to be as dangerous as Iraq.  Iran was a powerful and legitimate state which had not fully developed nuclear capabilities and was far more stable than Iraq, although it was in the same region.  North Korea was an unrelated enemy; it had no ties to Middle East turmoil and was “tied down” by South Korea and China.  Furthermore, the predicted cost of entering a war was low (At the time, U.S. high command knew nothing of the complex internal issues in Iraq concerning the Sunni-Shi’a conflict, the resulting insurgency, etc.). 

     Finally, an enormous part of the rationale for invading Iraq was the lucrative possibility that creating a stable democracy might pacify the Middle East to prevent future violence and promote the spread of secular government.  This was especially important at the time because in many of the countries that U.S. forces were present to fight Islamic terrorists, while the population generally hated the militants for killing civilians and causing physical damage, the populace was still more likely to trust or aid the terrorists simply because they were of the same race and were Muslim.  A democratic Iraq may well have been the key to building trust in order to more effectively combat Al Qaeda.  Ironically, the Iraq war proved more of a hindrance to amiable relations with indigenous personnel and left a scar on the international image of the United States.

Daniella Portal: Blog Response #2: In Retrospect: Did the US do more harm than good?

As we reach the 10^th anniversary of the US invasion into Iraq, too many Americans are baffled as to how we got to this point. At the beginning this war was supposed to be quick and relatively low costing, yet here we are 10 years later, and US troops are still occupying Iraq.  The first part of this response will briefly examine the US motivations it had for invading Iraq, which is very much up for debate and is not my main focus. Then, I will discuss how the intended initiatives were not carried out, and explore whether the US ultimately did more harm than good in this war.

The forerunner of this war can be explained by a number of factors: some uncertainty if Iraq was producing WMDs, a weak connection that linked Iraq to the attacks of 9/11, and need to install a democracy in the Middle East. These all seemed like valid and even selfless motivators at the time, however, only to later discover that there were no WMDs and that Iraq wasn’t involved in the 9/11 terrorist attack. Now the only intended purpose of our presence in Iraq is to provide them with a stable government. A war that was supposed to be relatively low in cost turned out to be one of the highest costing wars in US history.

Not only did the US waste its own financial and military resources, but they also destroyed the lives of the natives. The Bush administration assured all before the war that great care would be taken to avoid harm to civilians however, most of the civilian deaths were due to air attacks.  Not only did they start a war over false accusations and assumptions, but the US also stayed there and created even more chaos than before. Though Saddam Hussein was not a very compassionate leader, he still managed to maintain peace throughout his country. The people have more freedom than before, but their ability to vote does not provide them with food for their families. Before the war, people had regular jobs and regular lives, very similar to those of the Western world. As Iraq became in complete disarray, these people were now concerned whether their home will be bombed or whether they can leave their homes to buy food.  

It’s difficult to say what violence would look like if the US hadn’t invaded, but take note that the US sought out to fight a “war on terror,” and ended up instilling terror into the everyday lives of the people. With a 10-year perspective on the matter, I conclude that the US has done more harm than good. In the eyes of Iraqi civilians we are terrorists and we have violated every single one of their natural rights by being there. I yearn for the return of US troops from Iraq, not only for their families’ sake, but for the civilians’ sake.