...Humanitarian Intervention Humanitarian Intervention in Kosovo - 1999 Edmund Tan (2014461102) Introduction On 24th March 1999, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) launched a 78 day long air campaign Operation Allied Force (OAF) over former Yugoslavia, with the intent to stop the Milosevic regime from committing human rights abuses and ethnic cleansing of the Kosovo Albanians in Kosovo. This was a significant event with regards to humanitarian intervention in recent history as it was seen as a new international phenomenon. It was the first time that a group of states intervened without the authorization of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) and it was also the first time that NATO used military force to prevent a humanitarian disaster. This event divided the world in their support for or against NATO’s humanitarian intervention in Kosovo. Critics of the intervention felt that NATO was breaking international law in acting without the authority of the UNSC and this could have jeopardized international order should any state or group of states decide to act on their own accord in intervening in a foreign territory in the future. Supporters of the intervention argue that the war gave human rights precedence over the rights of states. According to then Czech Republic President Vaclav Havel, even though NATO acted without a direct UN mandate for intervention, they have not acted out of license, aggressiveness or disrespect for international law. NATO has...
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...|HUMANITARIAN INTERVENTION | |INTRODUCTION | Humanitarian intervention poses a hard test for any international society built on principles of sovereignty, non-intervention, and the non-use of force. Immediately after the Holocaust, the society of states established laws prohibiting genocide, forbidding the mistreatment of civilians, and recognizing basic human rights. These humanitarian principles often conflict with principles of sovereignty and non-intervention. Sovereign states are expected to act as guardians of their citizens’ security, but what happens if states behave as criminals towards their own people, treating sovereignty as a licence to kill? Should tyrannical states be recognized as legitimate members of international society and accorded the protection afforded by the non-intervention principle? Or, should states forfeit their sovereign rights and be exposed to legitimate intervention if they actively abuse or fail to protect their citizens? Related to this, what responsibilities do other states or institutions have to enforce human rights norms against governments that massively violate them? Armed humanitarian intervention was not a legitimate practice during the cold war because states placed more...
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...Justifying Military Intervention Some of the most difficult decisions that United States policymakers are faced with are those regarding when, where and how the United States should exercise military force. Most people feel that military force may be used if a vital interest of the United States is threatened. “The difficulty lies in getting people to agree on what constitutes a vital national interest” (Military Intervention). In addition, there will be disagreements over the costs and benefits in intervening in a particular region and what type of military or political action should be carried out on the region. From a domestic perspective, almost every United States citizen would agree that an attack by a foreign country on the United States is a direct and serious threat to national security. In addition, if an organization or country attacked a nation which the United States has a security agreement with, a retaliation from the United States military and NATO would see no disagreements from Americans and the United States friends. Where disagreements can arise is when the situation does not pose an immediate threat to U.S. security but could imperil it in the future, such as when a region becomes unstable and the instability may lead to wider conflicts. Another area of debate emerges over issues of human rights and humanitarian efforts. The United States is the most powerful democratic nation on Earth. Does that mean we always have a vital interest in promoting human rights...
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... Throughout all of history, civilizations have relied on the power of the strength of their militaries to overcome invasions from enemies or to expand their territories. Over time, technological advancements have allowed for the reduction of the number of people that are part of the country’s military while maintaining the power required to win battles and wars. However, technology has been a two edged sword; the more advanced a civilization became, the more personnel were needed for support and maintenance. As maintenance requirements grew, more advanced weaponry with minimal maintenance was desired. In addition to the increased need for maintenance, the costs of research, development and weapons increased, as well as the total cost of ownership, too. Today, the argument of the acceptable size of the military isn’t about people, per se, battle success or power, but one that revolves around money. The argument for a larger or smaller military has been discussed over the last 10 years or so, but never as vocally as in 2012 during the presidential election, as well as with the fiscal cliff looming. Arguments of both sides of the subject have been given as to why the size of the military should be decreased, maintained, and increased. In January of 2012, President Obama unveiled his strategy for the U.S. military. The core of the strategy is driven by reduction of the military budget (Margolis, 2012). President Obama stated, “I do not believe, and I said this before...
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...Should the U.S. take Military Action in Syria? Syria, a country in the Middle East bordering Turkey, Iraq, Jordan, Israel and Lebanon has experienced growing civil unrest since 2011. The current government, led by Bashar al-Assad, has responded with violence and human rights abuses. In September 2013 the United Nations (UN) (United Nations, 2013) confirmed chemical weapons were used against civilians in Damascus on August 21st. These actions have generated an outcry for intervention. Arguments Some believe taking action is the only way to stop the killing of civilians and end human rights abuses perpetrated by the military. These pro-interventionists conclude Assad continues his oppressive actions because he doesn’t believe anyone will take action to stop him. Assaults on Syrian civilians are documented by many sources. Since January 2011 it is estimated over 100,000 citizens protesting against the Assad regime have been killed by military forces (Table, 2013). A report commissioned by the UN in June 2013 estimated 5,000 were killed each month since July 2012. This number exceeds reported deaths in Iraq at the height of war in 2007. In a September 2011 report many atrocities against children were documented. Over a hundred children were killed in connection with protests, many others reported injured. A group of children in the town of Dara’a, as young as 8, were taken into custody in connection with anti-government graffiti on a schoolhouse wall. These children...
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...Question 1: In your view, what are the three most important mechanisms for applying principles of truth and reconciliation at the local community level? You may wish to revisit the case study on Northern Ireland in Week Seven as support for your arguments. Provide examples to reinforce your main points. Anyone who has suffered from genocide, war crimes, torture, extrajudicial executions, enforced disappearances and general crimes against humanity have the right to truth and reconciliation. Establishment of the truth in the case of crimes is absolutely necessary for: Discovering the real information about crimes and their causes to those who were directly affected by the crime (to make their sufferings of people publicly recognized). In addition, establishment of the truth can help to circumvent false accusations; Relatives and friends (of people who are missing or who were killed) in order to find out what really happened to their loved ones, and to establish their whereabouts; The society in which the crimes happened, to know the circumstances and reasons that led to violations, and not to allow to repeat the commitments of such events in the future, to recognize and...
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...For realists, international society has no universal, hierarchically superior government that brings order to the world system. For this reason, states maintain a high degree of sovereignty, condemning intervention for all practical purposes and thus rejecting the existence of abstract natural laws that govern human behavior. Since there is no higher moral authority than the state itself, human rights are not deemed universal. In fact, a realist would argue that the UN Charter prohibits states from intervening in matters that are not explicitly contained in the domestic sphere, thus negating any claim to jurisdiction over citizens of another state. Due to these characteristics of realist theory, a follower of this school of thought would argue against intervention in Kiribati....
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...children who are recruited into armed conflict is tragically changed when they are forced to participate in the conflicts. Worldwide the number of child of ages ranging from 6-19 working as child soldiers is estimated to be over 250,000 (“Child soldiers”). These children are deprive of their chance to live a normal life like other young children in other parts of the world but instead are exposed both physical and psychological abuse which affect them for the rest of their lives. The problem of children getting involved in armed conflict as soldiers has grown in different third world countries and needs to be stopped. In this analysis paper the argument that the United States has an obligation to send our military to help the child soldiers around the world will be discussed. There are many different reasons given to support the argument that the United States has an obligation to help in improving the problem of child solders throughout the world. The first reason why the United States is obligated to help child soldiers is that in most cases the child soldiers are recruited by force to join the armed groups. The United States has been one of the leading countries in fighting human trafficking for both labour and sexual exploitation. The country can also do the same when it involves the use of children as weapons of war. Many armed groups have recruited underage children to provide labour to the groups by acting as fighters, porters and spies. The children’s bodies have not...
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...children who are recruited into armed conflict is tragically changed when they are forced to participate in the conflicts. Worldwide the number of child of ages ranging from 6-19 working as child soldiers is estimated to be over 250,000 (“Child soldiers”). These children are deprive of their chance to live a normal life like other young children in other parts of the world but instead are exposed both physical and psychological abuse which affect them for the rest of their lives. The problem of children getting involved in armed conflict as soldiers has grown in different third world countries and needs to be stopped. In this analysis paper the argument that the United States has an obligation to send our military to help the child soldiers around the world will be discussed. There are many different reasons given to support the argument that the United States has an obligation to help in improving the problem of child solders throughout the world. The first reason why the United States is obligated to help child soldiers is that in most cases the child soldiers are recruited by force to join the armed groups. The United States has been one of the leading countries in fighting human trafficking for both labour and sexual exploitation. The country can also do the same when it involves the use of children as weapons of war. Many armed groups have recruited underage children to provide labour to the groups by acting as fighters, porters and spies. The children’s bodies have not...
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...control of Arab foreign policy by the Arab street, thus animosity towards Israel will appear in future decision-making. Israeli apprehension is born out of the theory that an Iranian NW will, by way of the security concept mentioned previously, lead to proliferation in the region. Combine greater regional acrimony toward the Jewish state with an Arab nuclear capability and Israeli fears are comprehensible. As Kenneth Waltz has argued, history demonstrates that the cascade concept (a state will rapidly construct NWs to counter strategic imbalance created by a hostile neighbour’s nuclear arming) is flawed. His argument is further consolidated by virtue of the fact that the fear of rapid nuclear proliferation has been vociferously audible in Western media almost every year since the 1960s, yet the world possesses only nine nuclear powers.24 Leaving this convincing argument to one side, would a nuclear Iran provoke proliferation in the Middle East? Sagan’s aforementioned three theories assume that a state has the ability and the opportunity to develop a weapon.25 By inserting such a caveat we can eliminate numerous states from this predictive analysis of proliferation in the region. Whilst existing nuclear powers (China and Pakistan for example) may be willing to suffer international condemnation for the provision of nuclear technology to a strong regional player (perhaps Saudi Arabia) in return for the “strategic prize of security ties”, they are highly unlikely to do so for...
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...de-colonisation is the principle that people or nations have a right of self-determination . The newly decolonised states considered an intervention rule to be contrary to the right of self-determination as it would give powerful states the authority to interfere in their affairs...
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...The thesis of “A Short History of U.S. Interventions in Latin America and the Caribbean” is that the United States interventions in Latin America and the Caribbean have done more harm than they have done good. Alan McPherson states that during opening phases of the Monroe Doctrine the United States focused on keeping the European Powers out of Latin America, it was even called the” …[g]ospel of the new continent] . McPherson explains how the United States took the policy of establishing puppet governments in the interest of American businessmen and ideological survival. McPherson wrote this book so to carefully detail and explain the destructive policy that is mostly forgotten by the citizens of the US, because the government would prefer to keep the blunders of our past covered and quiet. McPherson understand that not everyone in interested in the exploits of the American past, so he writes with the intent of educating the curious reader and aspiring intellectual. McPherson believes that the American establishment has involved themselves in the politics of South America to enhance the security and economy of our own nation while sacrificing the same from other South American nations. The American government from our beginning held a policy of de-colonialization and after the...
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...becomes pretty obvious that the differences between the two conflicts greatly outnumber the similarities. This is especially true in the strategic and military dimensions of the two wars. There is simply no comparison between the environment, the scale of military presence, losses incurred over time, the quality of enemy resistance, the role and scope of enemy allies, and the duration of open warfare style combat. There are, however, two political parts of the Iraq and Vietnam wars that are similar in nature: our attempts at nation-building in a foreign culture, and our trying to sustaining domestic popular support in a long and drawn out war against insurgents. Policymakers should have an understanding of the reasons for U.S. political failure in South Vietnam, as well as for the Johnson and Nixon administrations’ failure to sustain popular support for the accomplishment of U.S. military objectives in Vietnam. A repeat of those failures in Iraq could have uncalculated consequences for U.S. foreign policy. Many people on the far left who have questioned the U.S. invasion of Iraq now doubt the chances of creating a stable democracy in that country and have pulled the Vietnam card as a comparison. In their opinions, the United States has again fallen into a foreign quagmire, a drawn out, abstract, indecisive political and military struggle which...
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...American Expansionism and Imperialism in the Late Nineteenth Century The end of the nineteenth century was a tremulous time for America. We had millions of immigrants pouring into our country from around the world. We had enough problems at home and the last thing our leaders wanted was to be drawn into war outside of the continental United States. We were founded on the idea of freedom and we were destined to protect individual rights to freedom, even if it took us beyond our borders. In the late 19th century the United States found its self, producing more agricultural and industrial products than it could consume. Business leaders and politicians began to look abroad to help boost our economic standing in the world. One percent of the population owned 99% of the wealth in America. As a nation we had to evolve (Woog 10). The work force in America began to unite. There were uprisings of people forming unions in order to change the work place practices. At first the corporations simply fired the disgruntled employees and hire others in their place. Working conditions were often deplorable “Because of this, the accident rate was higher in U.S. factories, mines and railroads than in any other industrial nation. According to a survey from 1907, half a million Americans annually were killed, crippled or seriously injured while on the job” (Woog 49). Eventually the government stepped in to regulate businesses. Teddy Roosevelt once intervened between...
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...Essay Questions 1. How do the different actors in international system affect international relations? How do the different theories explain the role of these actors in the international system. The actors consist of state actors and non-state actors. Non-state actors and terrorism work outside the westphalian system and take power away from state sovereignty. They consist of terrorist groups, IGO’s like the European Union, NGO’s like multinational corporations. NGO’s increase interdependence and globalization. IGO’s bring about peace and spread democracy and war is not realistic. NGO’s even have the ability to remove state governments through public support and pressure placed on high ranking officials as shown in -----. They also have the power to hinder development of countries as shown in the Global South, but at the same time they provide many jobs for the economy. For state actors, the actions and decisions of states can effect profoundly the international because of polarity, hegemony, and economy. The Liberalist view would see non-state actors as a positive because they are bringing countries allowing them to work together through institutions increasing interdependence and globalization. Realists would say that these non-state actors are only out for self interest in profit and will use up resources taking advantage of wages whenever possible. Constructivist view would see terrorist groups specifically as falling under Samuel Huntington’s Clash of Civilizations...
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