Blog Post 2

“Intervention” Through the United Nations

By Carolina Parra

To some, intervention can only mean a series of consequences and negative outcomes. It is agreeable that intervening between countries or states can further deepen the problem at hand or, in some cases, not benefit either side. However, the United Nations is an organization that deals with the affairs between countries while maintaining peace.

In studying each school of thought, in my opinion, liberalism has the most realistic and logical way of approaching different matters. Through cooperation, opposing sides can find a common ground.  In this blog I will be giving an insight as to why the United Nations is a vital organization in the cooperation amongst nations.

The intentions of the UN are solely to preserve peace through mutual security and international collaboration. They have the biggest collaboration in promoting world stability. I see it as a form of intervention but intervening in a way where the situation does not worse but rather countries progress.

For sake of providing a counterargument, one can say the Security Council is a biased council because there are only 5 permanent members, with veto power, that represent the whole council. This can contradict the beliefs of the UN. Although this may seem unfair to other countries, the five members that represent the council deserve to be representatives due to victories in World War II.

The United Nations efforts do not go without notice. They have made steps toward world peace by intervening nation by nation and then coming to a common ground. I feel like without the United Nations the world would be a place of hatred and misperception as their principles [cooperate in solving international problems, promoting respect for human rights, maintain international peace and security, to be a center for harmonizing the actions of nations and develop friendly relations among nations] only promote positive intervention amongst nations.  

Bryan Pfeffer Post 2

           The democratic peace, at the true core of the theory, is specific only to the international system. States are classified as “democracies” and “non-democracies.” However, the heart of the theory is based on more applicable premises. The democratic peace theory is predicated on states with similarities (with a democracy being the unifying element) having better relations. While this is not the only explanation offered, I think it is the most valid. Empirical data shows that states are most likely to have conflict when transitioning from democratic to non-democratic and vice versa. In this situation, they are severing their ties with their like-minded allies and have yet to join the other group. This leaves them susceptible to a wide range of attacks without many allies based on similarity.

            This theory, that bodies related by a unifying factor are more likely to have positive relations, is applicable to many other things. One that I will discuss is the interaction between politicians. 

            Politicians, you may have heard, also have a distinct unifying factor. Political partisanship. One may argue that this is because people choose partisanship based on their views. I would agree, but they do not perfectly align on every issue, yet they still tend to have much better relations with those of their own partisanship.  For example, in the Republican Party, there are many different sects with differing beliefs. There are fiscal conservatives, social conservatives, moderates, and libertarians, among many other groups. However, in the party, they often work together for establishing and accomplishing goals. These particular goals may or may not align well with the aggregate beliefs of the party, but the fact is they are willing to work with differing members of their own party, and less partial to working with others.

            Unions also work with a similar unifying quality. Once again, many people have different needs to be fought for. Some employees would prefer a higher wage rate; some would prefer safer work conditions; some need better health benefits. However, they are also unified by the fact that they all have a similarity: their employer.  So when unions are fighting for better work conditions while an employee might rather get a higher wage with the money the company would spend to improve conditions, that employee likely will still support the union. This is because they have the distinction of their employer.

            A final system that operates based on group membership is very evident here at Maryland, and much less official. The way that people interact depending on if they go/went to the same school is very dynamic. For example, I know that personally I cannot say that everyone I have met here at school has been a likable person. There are definitely people here that I would prefer not to spend any time with at all if possible. However, this becomes inexistent in two settings, the first being sporting events. At Maryland football games, we become unified by the fact that we all go to Maryland, and relations drastically improve. The second setting is when I am in places other than school. It’s very easy to make conversation with Maryland students or alum based on our unifying fact.

            These examples may not be perfect, but they all portray the fact that similarities that unify groups effect the way they act. This applies to the Democratic Peace Theory as well. States with similar traits (democracy or non-democracy) are less likely to feud.

Intervention (Post 2

Carlton Klein

                 Intervening in the affairs of another state is one of the most difficult and controversial actions a country can make.  Such actions are justified by their proponents because they protect people from their sovereign in an effort to save lives.  Even if we assume that states are honest about their motives for intervention there are still two big problems with intervention that do not get enough attention.  The first problem involves sovereignty and legitimacy while the second relates to the time span of the goals. 

                When one of more countries decides to conduct a large scale militarily intervention in another country they become the final authority on actions within that region and effectively become the sovereign.    Currently this is justified by the support of regional or international bodies like the Security Council however because these bodies do not represent the people of the state to be intervened in the amount of legitimacy that they can grant is limited. Ultimately it is only the people of a region who have the right to determine who governs them so what right do outside forces have to make that determination for them?  A government that is committing atrocities or allowing them certainly loses legitimacy but can a sense of moral duty really make an outside force more legitimate than a country’s own government? 

                The second problem has to do with the goals of intervention.  It is fine for a state to simply say that it wants to intervene to save lives if one action can save lives in both the short term and the long term but that may not always be the case.  When leaders intervene to save lives they are focused on the short term and either assume that their actions will also save lives in the long term or discount the possibility of future deaths.  Discounting future deaths can be somewhat justified because they are uncertain while the deaths that instigated the intervention are very certain.  On the other hand conflating short term and long term is much harder to justify.  Military interventions tend to take on the strongest group in the country.  This means that a successful intervention will leave a country with weaker groups which may not be capable of managing the country and leads to instability.  Counter intuitively, intervention could also lead to future conflict by cutting the initial conflict short.  If groups within a country felt that they had grievances that were important enough to fight over it is unlikely that a stronger nation coming in and stopping them will automatically make their grievances disappear.  It is entirely possible that by forcing the parties to continue in their original, unstable, situation the intervention could lead to more conflict in the future.  In some cases it might be best to let the parties settle the conflict between themselves rather than imposing a premature peace on them.  Such native solutions are inherently more legitimate than solutions imposed from outside because while both are achieved by force of arms the native solution originates from some of the country’s people. 

                Intervention will always be controversial and every case is unique but it is important that we think about the legitimacy of our actions before intervening as well as their long term consequences.

Blog Post #2: Security and Threat: The Iraq War

Victoria Ellington

Second Blog Post

In this blog post, I would like to address the reading , “What caused the Iraq War: A Debate” and address the arguments made by these bloggers in regards to U.S. motivation and the role of security and threat in each decision made by each nation involved.  First of all, the issue was always of traditional or physical security because Iraq was suspected of having weapons of mass destruction.  I agree with the second point made by Debs and Monteiro, that the terrorist attacks on September 11^th may not have necessarily heightened the actual threat to the United States, but did, however, drive the U.S. into more of a state of fear and made military leaders realize the reality of greater threats.  While, I agree with Debs and Monteiro on their opinion that the threat of WMD may have been over exaggerated by U.S. actors, I do not think that they were wrong in their choice of action.  When a nation is as powerful as the U.S., any threat to any type of their security is greater and in order to maintain power, any threat that is somewhat noteworthy should be handled in the most efficient way possible.  The ‘one percent doctrine’ mentioned in the blog is completely reasonable when considering not just 9/11, but other terrorist attacks, such as the First World Trade Center bombing or even Pearl Harbor.  I am usually a huge supporter of rational thinking, but war, because it is literally a concept created by humans cannot really be rationalized. 

One issue with rationality and war, especially in terms of nuclear weapons or the Iraq war, is that the budget, and the need for protection and management of threats rarely coincide well with one another.  Debs’s response post makes this point.  The government has to determine whether a threat is worth disregarding the budget for or not or they must diligently calculate the extent of action the budget will allow them to take.  Then another issue arises and that is the question of if you can only take minimal action, should you take any action at all?  In my opinion, if an attack is justified because of a worthy threat, then the nation should only take action with a high probability of bringing about favorable results.  This may seem overly aggressive, but in the long run it would actually save money.  The perfect example of being proactive and aggressive at the right time, in my opinion, is Desert Storm.  The action taken was quick and effective, so as to avoid beginning an on going conflict. 

In conclusion,  there are clearly a lot of misconceptions, in regards to the start of the Iraq war, but at the heart of the issue lies a lack of accurate information.  The U.S. could possibly have chosen more effective courses of action, but when criticizing their choices, the situation they were in must be considered first.  War will continue to occur until there is a total balance of threat and security, but considering every ideology and different ways of life, for now war seems unavoidable. 

Aubri Paredes Blog Post #2

Aubri Paredes

Professor Mark Shirk

GVPT200

At a glance, to some individuals the idea of humanitarian intervention sounds agreeable. It is very satisfying to see human beings deliberately going out of their way and putting their nations at risk in order to help others who are being denied their rights. This concept of selfless aid would be splendid if that is what it truly was. Unfortunately, some actions performed under a “humanitarian intervention” undeniably null or even discredit the purpose of such an intervention.

I am for humanitarian intervention when the reasons behind it are selfless and the people, in whom you want to help, actually seek the guidance. I understand that sometimes there might be situations where there are incontestable crimes against humanity occurring, but the people of that nation do not vigilantly seek guidance. In this dilemma it would be wrong to invade the nation and call that “humanitarian intervention”, because you are no longer engrossed in the interests of those individuals but more so in your best interests.

Adding on to my point above, humanitarian intervention is not always so humane. There was this instance in the Dominican Republic in 1965 in where the U.S invaded the country. The country had just been liberated of their dictator of 30 years, Rafael Trujillo. During their first democratic election in roughly 38 years, the people chose to elect presidential candidate Juan Bosch. Bosch was a liberal and a social democrat. His plan was to instill new social reforms. The U.S.A saw Bosch as a threat. They feared there being “another Cuba”. In reference to this, former President Lyndon B. Johnson stated, “The American nation cannot, must not, and will not permit the establishment of another communist government in the western hemisphere”. The problem with this was while the US viewed Bosch as an aspiring communist, most of the citizens of the Dominican Republic saw him as their only hope for their democratic dreams. Unfortunately, these concerns led to a military coup d'état which eventually led to the US invasion of the Dominican Republic.

It was wrong for the US to intervene in the Juan Bosch presidency. They intervened because of their fear that he would entrust strong communist regimes upon the nation. After the military coup d'état, the United States government then proceeded to schedule new elections in the Dominican Republic. It did not matter if the people voted or not because the actions of the U.S government told them that their vote was irrelevant. Inevitably, the president of the Dominican Republic will be an individual that the U.S has to approve of. This was extremely detrimental to the Dominican Republic because it completely discredited the voice of the people.

Although it was years later, being born and raised in the Dominican Republic I could still see and feel the impact of that inimical loss. Nevertheless, the actions of the U.S government utterly destroyed the progression of the nation at that time and the country is still struggling to recover from that loss.

In conclusion, the idea of humanitarian intervention, in its raw state, fundamentally has a just grasp behind it. However, it is when certain individuals start to modify and drift away from the initial concept of humanitarian intervention that the actions performed are no longer for the best interests of that country that needs help. The unjust and selfish invasion of the Dominican Republic in 1965 can attest to this argument. Nevertheless, if you are going to invade a country under the justification of “humanitarian intervention”, you must be assured that the intervention is in fact just that. 


http://www.democracynow.org/2012/9/25/harvest_of_empire_new_film_recounts
minutes 24:57 to 29:09 for video


http://medlibrary.org/medwiki/1965_United_States_occupation_of_the_Dominican_Republic