The Syrian Civil War poses many important geopolitical issues, such as what to do about the Syrian government’s alleged use of chemical weapons, the fate of millions of displaced people and refugees and the appropriate role of the “international community” in resolving and preventing such conflicts. This paper delivers analysis of the history of the Syria and the civil conflict, geographical context, the current global system and conflict resolution in the context of progressive and critical geopolitical approaches presented by Dodds and Kearns. Synthesis reveals that the approach of critical and progressive geopolitics is sufficient to dissect the issues posed by the Syrian Civil War. However, in practice, it is impossible to avoid falling into the trap of what Donna Haraway describes as perpetuating cultural narratives.
Feminist scholar Donna Haraway points out that, through the lens of realism, historic studies of the global system have created certain narratives about international politics that are clearly more important than others. Our current political-ideological construction is presented with undertones of realism that Western Liberal Democracies were founded on and heavily influences our perspective on global issues. The threefold division of critical geopolitics attempts to unravel these constructions. Practical geopolitics refers to the “policy-oriented geographical templates used by political leaders such as President Bush as they represent global politics (Kearns, 2009).” Formal geopolitics is concerned with how intellectuals identify American realism in statecraft. Popular geopolitics considers the ways in which the everyday citizen makes sense of geopolitical issues produced and reproduced through popular c...
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...s the Taliban to eject American and Western military and is not sufficient to provide a peaceful, cultural and ethnic sensitive resolution.
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SUMMARY: The Syrian Civil War between the Syrian government, and the insurgents, as well as the Free Syrian Army has been escalating since early 2011. The United States, and our allies have faced difficulty in sending aid to Syria, and continue to deal with obstacles in sending even basic medications to Syrian civilians. However, the United States and its allies have also contributed to the lack of organization and the disparity in Syria by sending aid and artillery to individuals based only on political connection, and ignoring organization, local alliances, and without a true understanding of the reality of the Syrian localities to best protect the Syrian protestors. The question addressed in this memo will be defining the viable options to be pursued in Syria, how to pursue them, and assessing the most beneficial path of least resistance when offering aid, funds, and artillery to specific groups in the country. The recommendation will be that although the best alternative action item would be to choose a Syrian group with the least oppositional values comparative to the United States to fund, supply with arms, and train; that the United States should do nothing for the time being. Given the physical and financial risk involved with the Syrian Civil War, it would be prudent for the United States to simply observe how the war progresses over the next several months, as well as complete some research to truly understand the state of affairs in local areas of Syria to determine the extent to which the United States could identify a group to provide aid to, as well as the extent to which the United States involvement would be within Syria.
Carpenter, Ted Galen. "Tangled Web: The Syrian Civil War And Its Implications." Mediterranean Quarterly 24.1 (2013): 1-11. Academic Search Premier. Web. 26 Feb. 2014.
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Unlike the other Arab spring revolutions, such as in Libya, Egypt, and Tunisia, the Syrian Civil War takes a place of its own in today’s political world. It brought back the Cold War ghosts, and reasserted the tension between the U.S. and Russia, because a big part of the American policy in Syria is a result of getting in a direct confrontation between the two strong powers.
Fareed Zakaria argues in his book From Wealth to Power: The Unusual Origins of America’s World Role that “statesmen will expand the nation’s political interests abroad when they perceive a relative increase in state power, not national power” (Zakaria, 35). Zakaria believes that central decision-makers are responsible for seeing these shifts in relative power of the United States and choose to increase the power of the nation as resources permit. His theory is based on the President and his administration as this central decision-maker and how their views on America’s strength as a state shape foreign policy. Zakaria thinks that the United States acquired these territories becau...
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Some claim cultural feasibility of universal human rights from a perspective of the Enlightenment. Another request a universality of human rights in a cross-cultural approach. The former may not appreciate the results of a struggle for freedom in different cultures, rather promote a sole value for their culture. It arises a criticism of cultural imperialism. Although the latter mentions cross-cultural and multicultural approach, it is still staying at the level of a proposal. How to build an intercultural understanding of universal human rights without giving the universality up is still a challenge to construct human rights culture and fulfillment in different cultural tradition. (Chen 2010; An-Naim
From the beginnings with the Cyprus Cylinder to the establishment of the formal International Bill of Rights, the concept (and acceptance) of human rights have come a long way. In the long and varied history of the process, it has not only been ‘Western’ individuals that have advocated for a formal adoption of human rights. Gandhi, a young lawyer from India argued for and insisted upon the validation of rights for all human beings. Even so, criticisms surrounding the Bill of Rights have centred around the idea that human rights are a western concept, and one that has been imposed upon other nations. Summed up neatly, ‘a group of nations is seeking to redefine the content of the term human rights against the will of the Western states…this group sees the current definition as part of the ideological patrimony of Western civilization and argue that the principles enshrined in the Universal Declaration reflect Western values and not their own.’ (Cerna 1994:740) To critically analyze this idea effectively, it is important to step back and determine the true intentions and the realities of the process used in creating the Bill of Rights.
Lawson, Fred H. "Syria." Politics & society in the contemporary Middle East. Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2010. 411 - 434. Print.
Schmidt, B. C. (2007). Realism and facets of power in international relations. In F. Berenskoetter & M. J. D. Williams (Eds.), Power in world politics (pp. 43-63). London: Routledge.
Richard Ashley , “Geopolitics of Geopolitical Space: Toward a Critical Social Theory of International Politics”, Alternatives Vol. 12, No. 4 (October 1987), pp.403-434
The doctrine of human rights were created to protect every single human regardless of race, gender, sex, nationality, sexual orientation and other differences. It is based on human dignity and the belief that no one has the right to take this away from another human being. The doctrine states that every ‘man’ has inalienable rights of equality, but is this true? Are human rights universal? Whether human rights are universal has been debated for decades. There have been individuals and even countries that oppose the idea that human rights are for everybody. This argument shall be investigated in this essay, by: exploring definitions and history on human rights, debating on whether it is universal while providing examples and background information while supporting my hypothesis that human rights should be based on particular cultural values and finally drawing a conclusion.
Weber, Smith, Allan, Collins, Morgan and Entshami.2002. Foreign Policy in a transformed world. United Kingdom: Pearson Education Limited.
Since the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), the discourse of international human rights and its importance has increasingly become indoctrinated in the international community. In the context of political and economic development, there have been debates on how and which rights should be ordered and protected throughout different cultures and communities. Though there is a general acceptance of international human rights around the globe, there is an approach that divides them into civil and political rights and social and economic rights, which puts emphasis where it need not be.