“Nationalism”, asserts Fred Halliday, “has been one of the formative processes of the modern world”[1]and many argue that nationalist ideology continues to play an important part in the political discourse and decisions of the developed and developing world. In the dialogue of this essay I will; briefly define the ‘nationalist ideal’ and the complications such a definition raises; examine the nature of contemporary nationalism and whether this can be ascribed as ‘new nationalism’; ascertain the impact that modernity and globalisation has on the nationalist ideal; and present a discussion on the relevance of nationalism in the conduct of politics in the United States, with particular focus upon the internationalist scope of American nationalism and the need to securitize subjectivity in times of uncertainty and existential anxiety.
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.
“Never despise your enemy, whoever he is. Try to find out about his weapons and means, how he uses them and fights. Research into his strengths and weaknesses” asserted Field Marshal Prince Alexander V. Suvorov in 1789. In executing the most spectacular terrorist attacks in history in September 11th 2001 this is certainly what al-Qaeda did. To respond, the United States military must recognise the unconventional nature of its new opponent and greatly broaden its conception of threats and the means to counter them.
The end of the Cold War accelerated the widespread realisation that human action, particularly that associated with conflict and industry, had broadly comprised the environmental component of security. The discourse to redefine security to include a wider variety of issues catapulted concepts of threats that target the individual rather than exclusively state-centric to the fore; human security declared that people and communities should be the referent of security. The United Nations expanded the definition of human security to include the impact of environmental degradation: That to be secure, individuals should have access to non-degraded land, clean air and fresh water.
The October Revolution of 1917 saw the overthrow of Kerensky’s Provisional Government and laid the foundations for the world’s first Communist state; the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). Seizing power through the revolution were the Bolsheviks, a faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, led by Vladimir Lenin. Paving the way for the Great Purges of Stalinist Russia, the Bolshevik’s solidified their power over Russia byutilising an efficient mechanism of state terror; the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission to Combat Counter-Revolution and Sabotage, known simply as the ‘Cheka’.
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.
Since the end of the Cold War many academics and politicians have argued for a broadening of the ‘Security Studies’ agenda. The Realist emphasis on military threat seems to be less relevant for much of the world, with the number of inter-state and civil conflicts falling dramatically since 1989 (Human Security Centre, 2005: 1).
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