If it is to be believed, this particular war is uniquely different than prior involvements of the United States because of its dynamic nature. Unlike prior wars where the enemy and its territory were highly defined and
* Ideology Ideology is a system of concepts regarding how things ought to be organised. Teams of individuals could have competitive thoughts and ideations, this will cause conflict. An example of this can be the cold war, in which the USA and also the Soviet Union had competitive political and economic ideologies after the world war ll. * Politics This issue is split into two areas, International Politics and Internal Politics. International politics is engulfed with potential sources of war and conflict, like border disputes and disputes over territory, as shown within the current conflicts in India, Pakistan
With the Balance of Power destabilising, which, according to Thucydides, is the only means to achieve peace, the growth of power in Athens caused the Spartans to feel more and more insecure and thus they started to prepare to defend themselves. This very much reflects the realist point of view, as it argues that without a Balance of Power there can be no peace and it also shows how easily the balance can be dis-rupted so that it causes a war. Thucydides that war may be justified on grounds of pursuit of the national interest and in order to achieve peace at last. However, there are differences as to what is a ‘legitimate’ national interest. Where for political realism everything that is in the interest of the state and can be achieved by
During history it seems that nationalism manifested its self in an era of colapse of bounderies, economic expansion, mas migration, general insecurity, drastic militarisation, which finaly led to war. Nations went to war against all that, in an atempt to preserve the things taken away by the string of events pointed out earlier. The chalenge of modernity forced ancient ethnic groups to find new ways to ensure their survival by obtaining either power sharing or separate states. In general both modernists and nationalist agree that modernism provides the main reasons for nationalist conflicts. In that context globalization has been described either the next logical step from modernism or as a separate event called postmodernity.
However McCauley, source 9, stresses that US economic strength and interests created and ‘informal American empire in Europe’, therefore increasing the divide. Deteriorating relations between the two superpowers cannot be attributed primarily to Stalin’s errors. Rather, US economic interests played the most important role in the development of the Cold War in the years 1945-49. Stalin’s own errors and personality undoubtedly played a key role in developing the Cold War, this is emphasised in source 7. Tony Judt argues that Stalin ruled with ‘uncompromising rigidity and confrontational tactics’, this is somewhat supported by source 8 as it highlights that the ‘personality of Stalin’ was a significant internal factor in the USSR.
War itself has a very specific definition, which it is useful to mention here because we have to know what war is before we can determine whether or not it is just. War must be understood as "an actual, intentional and widespread armed conflict between political communities" (Orend, 2005). Fistfights, gang rumbles, family feuds and other such endeavors are not wars (Orend, 2005). Classical war "is international war, a war between different states, like the two World Wars. But just as frequent is war within a state between rival groups or communities, like the American Civil War" (Orend, 2005).
Although Kahn adamantly disputed the theories claiming that the U.S. knew of the impending attack because of intelligence, if the theories were true it would support the idea that the U.S. needed an excuse to enter the war without attacking first and so they let the Japanese attack happen without putting up a strong defense. On the other hand, Kahn made the point that “even if Roosevelt had wanted war, he would not have wanted to enter it with his fleet badly weakened” (169). If the U.S. really knew about the incoming attack and wanted to use it as an excuse to enter the war, there would have been some defensive preparations to stop the destruction of the majority of the Pacific Fleet. Adkison 6 In the end, although the attack on Pearl Harbor was devastating, it lit a fire under Americans to join together and fight for victory, not only in the Pacific War, but the war in Europe as well. In Akira Iriye’s Pearl Harbor and the Coming of the Pacific
NSC-68 largely shaped U.S. foreign policy in the Cold War and involved a decision to make containment against Communist expansion the highest priority. It pledged the US not only to contain communism, but to take a further step to drive back Communist influence wherever it appeared. The Cold War dated from 1947 to 1991 and it was a struggle of tension between the Western Bloc and Eastern Bloc which Soviet Union was trying to control. The Cold War was an idealistic struggle for control. We have conflicting values protecting our country and the rise of communism.
The realist theory of international order is about power and fear, in their view, power and fear form the basis of international order, its theory also emphasises on the absence of legitimate authority and the centrality of question of power, such as zero-sum power (Bromley, 2009, p.427). According to Kenneth Waltz, an international relations theorist, the states exist in an anarchical states system, Waltz also distinguishes the differences between the anarchy of international environment and national environment (Waltz, cited in Bromley, 2009, p.427). In the national realm, there is a government body or an authority where any citizen may appeal to or be compelled by, where as in the international realm, any such authority does not exist, this is known as ‘international anarchy’ (Bromley, 2009, p.428). Furthermore, whether the anarchical states-system is disorder or ordered, it depends on the working of the ‘balance of power’ (Bromley, 2009, p.428). This is because all states pose some degree of potential threats to others, so each state must act in ways to protect itself against the more powerful and threatening states in the system, otherwise risk falling behind, and because each state has to look after itself, it has reason to fear potentially
For better or worse, The United States has focused its obligations to involving itself with this region of the world. More specifically, the political aspect of these countries in turmoil has been a huge focus of American leaders and foreign policy. Although the extent of involvement is specific to each situation; American involvement has been a major theme of the crises within the Middle East have been linked to involvement with America. One of the ways that countries can be involved in any situation is being in direct conflict with a certain country. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are obvious examples of an American Involvement theme among the Middle Eastern crises.