Miles Hogerty English IV - 4th Hour Mr. Griffin September 17, 2015 America - The World's Policemen In an interview with Bret Stephens, author of America in Retreat, journalist Bree Hocking asked why America should be the world’s policeman. Bret’s response was this: “...the real question isn’t whether the world needs a policeman, the question is who should that policeman be?” (Hocking). It's undeniable that over the past few decades, America has taken the role of the policemen of the world. From gruesome wars like Vietnam to modern issues in the Middle East, the United States has acted as instigators of justice against enemies of the common good. But in recent years, our eagerness to resolve every global skirmish has become detrimental to …show more content…
our own American well-being. Whether that mean the rising amount of taxes due to military funding or the rising amount of American blood shed on wars that could have been avoided, we as Americans are being affected negatively by these international interventions. And the interventions that, over the past decade, have been affecting us negatively include our involvement in Iraq and our involvement in Afghanistan. I think Rick Reilly put it best when said in his article The Hero and the Unknown Soldier, "[Pat] Tillman died in Afghanistan, a war with no end in sight and not enough troops to finish the job. [Todd] Bates died in Iraq, a war that began with no just cause and continues with no just reason" (Rielly). We're suffering because of wars that we shouldn't have gotten involved in in the way that we did. I believe that being the world superpower we are, the United States of America has a duty to uphold a proper standard of life and to fight against groups or nations that act unjustly against the lives of others. But that doesn't necessarily mean that we should send out American troops to their deaths in order to fight fights that could be avoided. Americans are, and should continue to be, the policemen of the world. However, we should revise our methods of action against evil and whether or not we should intervene in every case. Being the policemen of the world that we are, the U.S.
has a duty to enforce rules and become an example of what a successful and happy nation should be like. The idea of enforcing rules on other nations may sound either unlikely to succeed or detrimental to helping calm situations down. Laying down the law in foreign land does sound like a poor decision on the surface, but there has to be some kind of rules that every nation must abide to in order to sustain a violence-free environment. Some might argue that intervening in issues outside our cultural bounds might argued as some kind of westward expansion (McDougall). When I say laying down the law, I mean rules that have no cultural influence on either side. Basic, human-rights protecting laws that prevent violence on mass scales like the happenings of the Middle East now. We, as westerners, have no business forcing our style of life on other established, rich cultures. But we do have a duty to protect human rights across the …show more content…
globe. If we were to ignore attacks against freedom, then who can say that things won’t get worse.
In our foreign policies and policing, we should adopt a broken-windows type approach. A broken-windows approach refers to a social experiment conducted in 1969 by Dr. Philip Zimbardo, a psychologist at Stanford. Zimbardo parked a car in Palo Alto, California - hood up and licences plate removed - on a street corner. The car sat untouched for days. After nothing had been stolen from the car, Dr. Zimbardo smashed one of the windows with a sledgehammer. And a few hours after smashing in the window, the car had been completely destroyed and anything of value had been stolen. In 1982, criminologist, George Kelling, and political scientist, James Q. Wilson, wrote an essay titled “Broken Windows.” The two applied Dr. Zimbardo’s findings into political ideology (Stephens). If we were to adopt a broken-windows foreign policy, we could crack down on the wrongdoings happening around the world, apply rules that prevent these wrongdoings from happening again, and in time, we’d be able to repair the windows, thus preventing these future wrongdoings. This doesn’t mean that we’d have to jump to help with every little geopolitical injustice, but instead figure out which injustice needs our assistance the most. And not just America’s help. These crimes against humanity should call every powerful nation to action. Without global action, as Jon Davis of Quora put it, “...many countries which most people
cannot find on a map would return to slaughtering each other…” (Davis). America should remain the policemen of the world, but that doesn’t mean that we should be the only policemen. Like I mentioned early, America has a duty to set an example of what a country should be like. Working with the U.N. in the fight against crimes against humanity happening across the world would be ideal. In the old English epic, Beowulf, the character Beowulf does show a lot of similarities to our role as the world’s police force. Called in to restore peace in a foreign land, a reputation of victory and strength, and a natural leader. All these qualities, in my opinion, resemble the U.S. in our history of foreign affairs. However, there are a few qualities in Beowulf’s character that are unrealistic. His near invincibility and his bullheaded style of approaching things. Take this quote for instance: When we crossed the sea, my comrades and I, I already knew that all my purpose was this: to win the good will of your people or die in battle, pressed in Grendel’s fierce grip. Let me live in greatness and courage, or here in this hall welcome death! (Beowulf) I do envy this courage, but to go into foreign land with that naive sense of bravery isn’t the best method of solving problems in the real world. Beowulf is a fairytale. He’s this unbreakable icon of courage and bravery, but that’s just not how a nation should function. We should look to solve issues in a more diplomatic manner, a broken-window manner. Access the situation and reason. Unlike Beowulf, physical force should be a last resort tactic. President Obama has spoken many times on the role as world policeman and his lack of use of American soldiers. “As Americans, we welcome our responsibility to lead. Our endless blessings bestow an enduring burden,” (Cohen). Being the rich and powerful nation we are, it’d be wrong to ignore international cries for help. We actually, in many ways, don’t really have a choice when it comes to whether or not we ought to involve ourselves in outside problems. But, for the most part, it’s all for the greater good, our involvement in these issues. Here is another quote from Obama taken from a 2014 speech at the U.N. General Assembly, where he addressed how the U.S. would involve themselves against the Islamic State: Today, I asked the world to join this effort. No God condones this terrorism. No grievance justifies these actions. There can be no reasoning - no negotiation with this brand of evil. The only language understood by killers like this is the language of force. So the United States of America will work with a broad coalition to dismantle this network of evil. In this effort, we do not act alone - nor do we intend to send U.S. troops to occupy foreign lands. Instead, we will support Iraqis and Syrians fighting to reclaim their communities (Lynch). Like I’ve been saying, the use of soldiers in any foreign matter is the last resort. Yes, Obama does speak on the fact that there is no way to negotiate with these terrorists, but he makes it clear that force was the last option on his list. As it should be. The image of Elizabeth McKendrick, the wife of 4th Ranger Training Battalion Commander Terry McKendrick, having to shield the eyes of her three children from newscasts about war because if they see that their dad has to be sent to the Middle East, she couldn’t convince them that he’d be back should give us a taste of the kind of tragedy that war can cause (Smith). In the future, I hope that all global superpowers are able to unite and fight against atrocities across the world. I’d like to see less blood spilled though wars that are best prevented through other means, like diplomacy. Maybe one day, we will be able to repair all of the windows, thus leading to a safer and happier planet. The topic of this paper is whether or not America should police the world, and with these goals that I’ve mentioned, I can’t see how they’d be achieved without America remaining the world’s police. As Kendrick Lamar said in his song HiiiPower, “The sky is falling, the wind is calling, stand up for something or die in the morning,” (Lamar). We have a duty to stand up for freedom and justice across the world. It’s our creed, as the shining example we ought to be, to fight for human rights in every corner of the earth. If we don’t fulfill that creed, then we aren’t doing our part to make this world a better place.
It is somehow strange for today’s reader to find out that the situation with America’s foreign affairs hasn’t changed much. As some clever people have said, “The History book on the shelf is always repeating itself.” Even after nineteen years, Americans think of themselves as citizens of the strongest nation in the world. Even after the September the 11th. Even after Iraq. And Afghanistan.
On the other hand, in The Slippery Slope to Preventive War, Neta Crawford questions the arguments put forward by the Bush administration and the National Security Strategy in regard to preemptive action and war. Crawford also criticizes the Bush administration as they have failed to define rogue states and terrorists as they have “blurred the distinction” between “the terrorists and those states in which they reside”. In Crawford’s point of view, taking the battle to the terrorists as self-defence of a preemptive nature along with the failure to distinguish between terrorist and rogue states is dangerous as “preventive war
The United Nations General Assembly 36-103 focused on topics of hostile relations between states and justification for international interventions. Specifically mentioned at the UNGA was the right of a state to perform an intervention on the basis of “solving outstanding international issues” and contributing to the removal of global “conflicts and interference". (Resolution 36/103, e). My paper will examine the merits of these rights, what the GA was arguing for and against, and explore relevant global events that can suggest the importance of this discussion and what it has achieved or materialized.
Therefore, while there is a disagreement over whether or not there is a new American way of war, the argument, in its entirety is not built on solid ground. The United States does not now, nor has it in the past, wage war with a specific method of combat. Additionally, those who persist in making the claim despite that fact both misrepresent the way that recent conflicts were fought and how the political object of a war effects how wars are fought. Thus, there is not a new American way of war, but rather a new, and perhaps ephemeral political object present in recent wars. It is a profound mistake to pigeonhole American policy and military tactics. Such an attempt fails to consider the different circumstances surrounding each individual war—and thus the necessity to adopt different means within each of them.
American policy was conflicted on multiple fronts. There was a high-perceived threat, but the means devised to cope with it fell short o...
Ted Galen Carpenter, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, challenges conventional wisdom and argues that the United States should not seek to remain the indispensable nation in the international system in “Delusions of Indispensability”. Carpenter depicts the concept of the U.S seeking to remain the indispensable nation as “dubious” and a “blueprint for strategic overextension” of resources leading to a “failed paradigm” (Pg.19). Carpenter frames his argument against the indispensable nation thesis around the following topics: unilateralism versus multilateralism, U.S. engagement as binary light switch, the failure to acknowledge that U.S. engagement can take different
Wendt, Alexander. “Constructing International Politics.” International Security. Cambridge: President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1995. 71-81. Print.
War, in all its forms, is tragic. International law was created to establish some basis of rules to abide by—including war—and states have signed on to such a contract. The actions of states in this ever globalizing world are difficult to be controlled. The source of international law operates through the hands of the United Nations. The enforcement of the law occurs through reciprocity, collective action, and a display of international norms (Goldstein, p. 254). War in fact has been given a justification, though it is arguable whether or not the basis of the idea is correct. Wars can be just under certain conditions.
Since the end of the Cold War, non-state actors have risen in both prevalence and apparent power. The presence of non-state entities has caused significant ethical and political problems with Western ideology. Coker discusses issues concerning non-state actors in “Ethics and War in the 21st Century” with special attention given to the conflicting cultural ideas regarding warfare concerning the USA. The ability to label a target as not only an enemy combatant, but a fundamentally opposed force that is willing to ignore common practices and ethics is one that Coker denounces and attempts to explain. The disparity of established ethics between the two groups is only complicated with emerging weapon technologies, most importantly non-lethal weapon systems. In recent decades, the concept of a diffused enemy has proven to be ethically more problematic regarding identification and actions against a combative force with considerations for emerging technologies.
The Soviet Union’s collapse at the end of the Cold War left the United States without its major global rival. Now alone at the top, the United States’ strategic imperatives have shifted remarkably. The shift has been significant enough to prompt fundamental questions about the international order and whether this new “unipolar moment” will last. Indeed, since 1989, political scientists have clamored to define the United States’ status relative to the rest of the world. Indispensable nation? Sole super...
Over the last few decades, I and fellow French diplomats have noticed a change in the American foreign policy. America is no longer just stretching within its own borders but showing interests in neighboring countries and the affairs of European countries in these other countries. The American foreign policy appears to be dominated by the interest of progressing humanity.The idea of progressing humanity comes from the American belief of freedom for all and spreading the American political ideas.
After the Second World War, America came out of the war with the responsibility of being the “superpower” of the world. In the past America would never get involved in foreign affairs however after World War Two things had changed. Since America was considered the most powerful natio...
The amount of corruption within the United States’ violent involvement in the Middle East is almost unreal. Unfortunately, the wars have been too real—half a million deaths in the first year of Iraqi Freedom alone (Rogers). These wars have been labeled--the violence, filtered-- to fit a specific agenda. Whether the deaths are deemed an acceptable loss in the name of national security, or as a devastating injustice, the reality doesn’t change. Lives have been lost. Lives that will never be brought back. The intention of wars is in part due to attacks on the twins towers on September 11th 2001. When the buildings fell, almost three thousand people died, according
The rule of law requires compliance by the state with its obligations in International law.
Whenever world politics is mentioned, the state that appears to be at the apex of affairs is the United States of America, although some will argue that it isn’t. It is paramount we know that the international system is shaped by certain defining events that has lead to some significant changes, particularly those connected with different chapters of violence. Certainly, the world wars of the twentieth century and the more recent war on terror must be included as defining moments. The warning of brute force on a potentially large scale also highlights the vigorousness of the cold war period, which dominated world politics within an interval of four decades. The practice of international relations (IR) was introduced out of a need to discuss the causes of war and the different conditions for calm in the wake of the first world war, and it is relevant we know that this has remained a crucial focus ever since. However, violence is not the only factor capable of causing interruption in the international system. Economic elements also have a remarkable impact. The great depression that happened in the 1920s, and the global financial crises of the contemporary period can be used as examples. Another concurrent problem concerns the environment, with the human climate being one among different number of important concerns for the continuing future of humankind and the planet in general.