This essay is primarily concerned with the effect of China’s inevitable rise on Sino-American relations. Most importantly, it discusses whether China will rise peacefully or if its growing power will result in aggression and confrontation towards the United States. The essay fundamentally argues that continued American anxiety over the ‘China threat’ is increasingly unnecessary as America’s overwhelming power dissuades challengers, including China, from attempting to modify the status quo.
The Palestinian refugee crisis has been one of the biggest sources of conflict between the Palestinian Arabs and what are now known as the Israelis, since the partition confirmed by the UN General Assembly on 29th November 1947. In answering the proposition, it shall first be necessary to establish whether the Zionists sought to peacefully integrate Arabs into their proposed state, as they themselves claim. Then it shall be wise to question if the Palestinians fled their homeland because they were terrified of the Israeli forces, or for other reasons. As Israeli and Arab behaviour in the immediate period after the 1949 Armistice Agreement is assessed, it shall be contemplated why the issue is so difficult to resolve. It shall also be maintained that there are disputes over who are and are not refugees, and that there is much Palestinian anger at how Arabs are treated inside Israel today.
In Darfur aid keeps over 2 million people alive amidst huge insecurity and the mobilisation of extremist politics. However, the humanitarian effort appears to be having unintended political consequences. There is some evidence that humanitarian access is being manipulated to suit government interests; IDP camps have become integrated into the conflict dynamic through the manipulation of population movements; aid is being diverted by military factions; and inter-tribal tensions are being exacerbated. Further research is required to determine the extent of these processes and exactly how they are affecting the course of the conflict.
‘For whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap’ took on a Dickensian invocation in Hard Times, Tennyson published his Maud as a portrayal of the widely-held belief that war could act as a rejuvenating force in corruptible industrial nations, and an alliance of Britain, France, the Ottoman Empire and Sardinia declared war against Russia in 1853; hastily preparing an expeditionary force for the Crimea. The cause célèbre of the war has been held as opportunistic Russian expansionism into the fragmenting territories of the Ottoman Empire, which antagonised Great Britain[1], causing anxiety toward continued British naval superiority.
Modern Arab nationalism originally developed as a backlash to the colonialisation of the Middle East by western powers such as Britain and France. Despite decolonisation, European imperialism was maintained through sympathetic conservative monarchs and the construction of an informal empire. As such, Arab nationalism continued to play a prominent role in Middle Eastern and global politics through much of the Cold War.
Historical lessons and analogies are commonly referred to in political discourse and the global media. I propose that whilst a knowledge of the past is beneficial, references to particular lessons are undermined by the near-infinite nature of history. Policy makers can learn almost any lesson they choose from our past because it is ambivalent in nature and its interpretation is subjective. Historical references are chosen according to personal viewpoints or bias and superficial or irrelevant similarities can be used to tie past events to modern day occurrences. Furthermore, the past is often not used genuinely to find lessons, but rather merely to justify pre-decided policies.
Humanitarian intervention is an issue which receives a great deal of attention from academics, politicians and the media. Throughout the 1990s, human rights abuses in Iraq, Somalia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Kosovo all raised the question of whether humanitarian intervention could be morally justified. This left Tony Blair to conclude in 1999 that ‘the most pressing foreign policy problem we face is to identify the circumstances in which we should get involved in other people’s conflicts’. In the twenty-first century the controversies have continued, and the international community has been deeply divided over whether to intervene both in Iraq and Darfur.
“The terrorist attacks of the September 11th 2001” have, as Len Scott and Peter Jackson assert, “brought intelligence issues to the forefront of both official and popular discourse on security and international affairs.”[1] Not since the Japanese strike on Pearl Harbour in 1941 has an ‘intelligence failure’ had such ramifications on the United States intelligence agencies, and upon the global intelligence community. The aftermath of the terrorist atrocities visited upon the United States in 2001 has led to numerous commissions and reviews regarding the organisation and conduct of the US intelligence agencies, and the manner in which data is managed and disseminated.
In the post-September 11th world international terrorism is synonymous with catastrophic violence and unprecedented threats to states. International terrorist groups, by their structure, makeup as non-state actors, logistical mechanisms and resources are inherently unpredictable. As we have seen in the bombing of Madrid and the ongoing violence in Iraq, terrorist groups have expanded beyond national boundaries and therefore have an unparalleled ability to strike globally. The common impression of the phenomenon of international terrorism is that it is ‘more dangerous or at least more difficult to counter’[2]than conventional, often nationalistic and politically-motivated, terrorism.
The Just War tradition has been seen as a leading perspective on the ethics of war since the writings of St Augustine were rearticulated by Thomas Aquinas. It attempts to provide a framework which validates just conflicts, whilst at the same time applying limits so as to prevent unrestrained warfare. Today, its core principles can be divided into two broad categories: ‘jus ad bellum’ (just resort to war) and ‘jus in bello’ (just conduct in war). For a war to be just, numerous criteria must be satisfied within these categories.
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