Three key motifs of Tony Blair’s 10-year premiership were an activist philosophy of
‘Interventionism’, maintaining a strong alliance with the US and a commitment to placing Britain at the heart of Europe. While the ‘special relationship’ and the question of Britain’s role in Europe have been central to British foreign policy since the Second World War, many have argued that interventionism was a genuinely new element. There were also other, less immediately visible, changes to British foreign policy during his premiership as a consequence of reforms to the strategic and institutional frameworks for the formulation and delivery of that policy.
Tony Blair’s adoption of an interventionist foreign policy was set in motion by the 1999 Kosovo crisis,
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Blair’s interventionism was criticized on three main grounds: that while it was sincerely intended, it was fundamentally misguided; that while the broad intentions were good and the overall objectives desirable, implementation was sometimes misguided or inconsistent; and, finally, that it was largely a cynical smokescreen for ‘business as usual’.
Blair and his supporters mounted vigorous defenses, reasserting the unavoidability of needing on occasions to deploy ‘hard power’, but the war in Iraq left them struggling to regain the
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Blair will doubtless do his duty and lavish praise on Labour's glorious past. But, in truth, Mr. Blair has always displayed a marked ambivalence towards Labour history. His greatest achievement in opposition was to get the party to ditch its historic commitment to nationalisation, and to water down its traditional links with the unions. At times he has even hinted that the very foundation of the Labour Party was a mistake, since it divided "progressive" politics and led to a century dominated by the Conservatives. Mr. Blair knows that all this makes many of his party faithful deeply
While the economic recession certainly influenced this preference of the Clinton administration, it can also be attributed to the same distaste for foreign intervention among the public that impacted Bush’s limited engagement in Iraq in 1991 (the “Vietnam Syndrome”). As can be witnessed in the aforementioned 1999 foreign policy speech, Clinton’s belief in “assertive multilateralism” (a term coined by his Secretary of State Madeline Albright) relied more heavily on free trade and international organisations such IMF and World Bank. Indeed, towards the end of the speech, he declared that while efforts should be made to “keep our soldiers out of war”, the United States should, at the same time, “finally pay both our dues and our debts to the United
The conservative party has been in existence since the 1670s and was first called the ‘Tories’, a term used by the Scottish and Irish to describe a robber. This party is a right- wing party which believed in conserving the tradition and the king, as the name entails. David Cameron, the current party leader became the leader in 2005. He is also the present prime minister of Great Britain and he has made a lot of changes since he became the leader of the party. In this essay, I will talk about the history of the party, looking into detail at their gradual changes or transition in ideology and the various changes that David Cameron has made to the party’s image and beliefs.
Steven Hook and John Spanier's 2012 book titled “American foreign policy since WWII" serves as one of the most important texts that can be used in understanding the underlying complexities on American foreign policies. Like the first readings that are analyzed in class (American Diplomacy by George Kennan and Surprise, Security, and the American Experience by John Lewis Gaddis), this text also brings history into a more understandable context. Aside from being informative and concise in its historical approach, Hook and Spanier also critiques the several flaws and perspectives that occurred in the American foreign policy history since World War II.
Heath’s premiership during the years of 1970 to 1974 presents a period of affluence and appeasement alongside a lack of control indicates that Heath’s reign largely was a failure in maintaining stability. Despite the achievements that Heath implemented like Brittain finally getting into the EEC, the Oil Crisis, U-turn policies and the rest of the economic failures overshadow the policies that provided stability and modernisation establishing that Heath, according to Row ‘was good at policies not politics.’
This essay will address whether New Labour contained policies with which it wished to pursue, or was solely developed in order to win elections. It is important to realise whether a political party that held office for approximately 13 years only possessed the goal of winning elections, or promoted policies which it wished to pursue. If a party that held no substance was governing for 13 years, it would be unfair to the people. New Labour was designed to win elections, but still contained policies which it wished to pursue. To adequately defend this thesis, one must look at the re-branding steps taken by New Labour and the new policies the party was going to pursue. Through analysis, it will be shown that New Labour promoted policies in regards
Election results also suggest that the Liberal Government were not heading for failure but proceeding to continue strongly. I therefore contradict Dangerfield's theory that the Liberal government were doomed to failure prior to World War 1, suggesting that they were still a strong government. It would be easy to make assumptions looking back in hindsight as Dangerfield did, however I would argue that upon entering World War 1 the Liberal Party still appeared to be strong. Unfortunately the nature of the pre war years seem to accentuate the problems and cast a shadow over the achievements, Dangerfield is a clear critique of Liberal England and what it has to offer.
During World War I, American ideals and interests were first tested by other nations of the world. Interventionists ensured the safety of our civilians and economy by becoming ourselves a belligerent party in the war whose loans would boost the economy. Interventionists also secured our lands by engaging in a war to defend them. In regards to WWI, interventionist ideals best protected American interests due to their emphasis of protecting our citizens, our lands, and enhancing our economy.
President Clinton addressed the people of the United States on June 10, 1999 over the United States’ mission in Kosovo. Kosovo is a province of Serbia, which makes this war a civil war. Highlights of his speech outline the goals that he wanted to obtain in this Humanitarian intervention, as he called it. The mission had flaws innate to it from the beginning. The three-tiered goal of the President was clearly stated. The first is to allow the Kosovar people back into their homes. The second is to require Serbian forces to leave Kosovo. The last thing was to deploy an international security force, with NATO at its core, to protect all the people that troubled the land, Serbians and Albanians alike. The message was clear, but was not followed in regards to international law, and NATO’s Charter, and even the three clearly stated missions. The involvement in Kosovo’s war is illegal, and the President of the United States has pushed NATO into committing wartime crimes and has used the Powers-of-Office in an unconstitutional manner, which resulted in the illegal intervention of a sovereign state.
However, failure to procure any putative weapons of mass destruction in Iraq forced Realist apologists to invoke the concept of “offensive Realism” to explain the Iraq war of 2003. They argued that Iraq’s acquisition of uranium and aluminum tubes posed a “Security Dilemma” to the U.S. and her allies. According to Wheeler and Booth, security Dilemmas...
I believe that there is no clear-cut position as to whether we should be Interventionist or Isolationist. It all comes down to circumstances. Almost every conflict the United States had been involved in has been about economics and what our country can gain. We have been one of the world’s greatest powers since the early 1900’s, mainly because of colonialization and domination of world economy.
The Sunday Times is a quality broadsheet newspaper aimed at the upper end of Britain’s readership and is a market leader with an average Sunday sale of 1,395,046 copies, which represents a 50.58% share of this area of the market. Clarkson, being an out and out Conservative, is immediately identifiable with the readership of the Sunday Times, and his ‘overgrown schoolboy’ approach presents as a welcome relief amongst the principally serious editorials of the papers other journalists. In ‘Behind Jeremy Lines’ the situation in Iraq is revealed as totally opposite to what the politicians would have us believe, this is made apparent in the title of the article. Behind the lines in a military sense and behind the lines of what is being reported. Clarkson takes the opportunity here to ‘bash’ two of his pet hatreds, Blair’s Labour Party and the Bush administration of the U. S.A.
In 1997, Tony Blair of the labour party won the United Kingdom’s general election on the ideology, goals and a party manifesto of a ‘new labour’, a revision, an update and a reform of the old labour party, bringing new radical politics to the 20th century - although some believe that labour only won the election due to the British publics increasing hate for Thatcher and the conservatives. The term new labour was a reflection on how the labour party was trying to reform itself and depart from the ideas of ‘old labour’ that had failed to win an election since 1974 and take on new ideas and politics that seemed radical, new and progressive and that would regain trust from the British voters. ‘New labour, new for Britain’ was the slogan that first appeared on the party’s manifesto in 1996 and soon became the party’s main slogan for the campaign of the 1997 elections. But how exactly was new labour new? New labour was trying to become more progressive with its politics that reformed all of the key policy domains that the government were interested in. By attempting to reform the party’s manifesto as well as clause IV, new labour attempted to become a new party that could progress British politics rather than rely on traditional politics of old labour. New labour wanted to modernise the party’s by perusing their traditional goals which include job support, economic growth, investments in public services, welfare and redistribution but they also wanted new progressive politics that catered to the minority groups in terms of social justice, for example civil partnerships (King,2002). However, some argue that new labour was not particularly ‘new’ and instead that Blair’s government had betrayed the traditions of the labour party and inst...
In This essay I will look at what is new about New Labour in regard to
The study of international relations takes a wide range of theoretical approaches. Some emerge from within the discipline itself others have been imported, in whole or in part, from disciplines such as economics or sociology. Indeed, few social scientific theories have not been applied to the study of relations amongst nations. Many theories of international relations are internally and externally contested, and few scholars believe only in one or another. In spite of this diversity, several major schools of thought are discernable, differentiated principally by the variables they emphasize on military power, material interests, or ideological beliefs. International Relations thinking have evolved in stages that are marked by specific debates between groups of scholars. The first major debate is between utopian liberalism and realism, the second debate is on method, between traditional approaches and behavioralism. The third debate is between neorealism/neoliberalism and neo-Marxism, and an emerging fourth debate is between established traditions and post-positivist alternatives (Jackson, 2007).
Weber, Smith, Allan, Collins, Morgan and Entshami.2002. Foreign Policy in a transformed world. United Kingdom: Pearson Education Limited.