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To be a spectator of any sporting event one must understand the rules that the players and officials use to govern the game. Without this knowledge it can become an immense challenge to understand if things are going well or poorly for your team or player. An excellent example would be if watching a golf tournament and you have no idea that the low score wins. The worst player in the tournament might end up looking like the winner, and that could not be any further from the truth. Understanding world politics can be very much like watching a sporting event you have no idea of what the rules are. The United Nations (U.N.) has rules that its member states should follow, but they are in many cases treated more like a guideline, such as the American invasion of Iraq. So how can the global citizenry understand why some global leaders choose one course of action over another, especially if there are no set rules with guaranteed results for each action, like a touchdown results in six points? For the global citizenry, the best way to understand global politics is to look to the theories that the global leadership subscribe to. And the only way to determine which theory they subscribe to short of asking each leader directly is to analyze their actions. The realist philosophy will be the theory that best explains the actions of global leaders and therefore will become the rule book to look to when understanding global politics.
The Syrian Civil War is a good example of world leaders playing by the rules of realism. The civil war began in March of 2011 as part of the Arab Spring, and by July of 2012 17,000 have died and another 170,000 fled the country (Almond). The United Nations Security Council in February of 2012 had tried t...
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... "Why Are China and Japan Inching Toward War Over Five Tiny Islands?."Slate Magazine. N.p., 25 Feb. 2014. Web. 26 Apr. 2014. .
"Q&A: China-Japan islands row." BBC News. N.p., 24 Apr. 2014. Web. 26 Apr. 2014. .
Spitzer, Kirk, and Kim Hjelmgaard. "Obama arrives in Japan, backs its island dispute."USA Today. Gannett, 23 Apr. 2014. Web. 26 Apr. 2014. .
"Syria profile." BBC News. N.p., 19 Mar. 2014. Web. 26 Apr. 2014. .
"Ukraine country profile." BBC News. N.p., 11 Mar. 2014. Web. 26 Apr. 2014. .
Hasegawa, Tsuyoshi. Racing the enemy: Stalin, Truman, and the surrender of Japan. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2005.
First, if the CCP recognizes Taipei as an independent state, the CCP risks losing it bargaining power over the decisions and actions taken in regard to the island. A country’s bargaining power is the strength of a states claim over the disputed territory. A decline in this power mea...
There is always that one person that stirs the pot in a situation that could have been solved rather quickly without them interfering. This is exactly what happened in Syria. The Syrian Civil War began when a peaceful protest when a group of teenagers who were writing anti-government graffiti on a wall. Syrian people called on their president who instead of making democratic reforms, acted in extreme violence against unarmed civilians. More than a quarter of a million people in Syria have been killed and over 10 million have been forced out of their homes. The Assad regime continues to suppress their citizens and they have begun using chemical bombs to kill thousands of Syrians and many even
The article provides background information which helps to explain how the Japanese soldiers were able to commit such atrocious attacks on Chinese citizens with seemingly little or no remorse. From a young age, Japanese children had a hatred for the Chinese engrained into them through propaganda by their teachers, textbooks, and even through the toys ...
...feat of Japan in World War 2). With the changes of the nature of power, Japan by balancing out aggressive economic policies and a quiet military buildup, was able to build herself up to become a prominent player in the international sphere today. In closing, while Japan’s policies today in general have been skewered towards the arguments of the ‘Gentleman’, increasingly Japan has considered more realist concerns of security in the escalation of tensions of the East Asian geopolitical sphere. Chomin’s Discourse has nonetheless served as a prophetic blueprint for more than a century of Japan policy-making.
Japan - Where East Meets West, p. 101. 25 p. 94. 26. Miller, Richard J. and Katoh, Lynn. Japan, p. 57-58. 27.
perspective of Japan’s power was both inaccurate and underestimated. Japan and China were in a war, and rather than in Japan, the U.S. had interests in China. On top of that, it supplied no respect to the Japanese in China either. By submitting to the economic reprisals on trade administered by the U.S., “not only would Japan's prestige be entirely destroyed and the solution of the China Affair rendered impossible, but Japan's existence itself would be endangered” (Kiong 2). Japan needed a way to sustain itself, and having two of the most powerful nations against it did not support its case. In order to save its nation, Japan started spreading propaganda about the U.S. Even though Japan asked to restart the shipments, the U.S. refused to have any affiliations with it. Hence, their brash attitude and underestimation of Japan elicited the foreign nation’s inclination for revenge. However, this was not the only indication that Japan was going to retaliate (Wukovits
...nd helpless civilians and even remove an offending regime. On the other hand, Russia and China continue to validate the traditional state system embodied in the Peace of Westphalia, the series of seventeenth-century treaties that ended the Thirty Years War in Europe. The main principle of the treaty system is a general prevention against outside interference in the purely internal affairs of other countries. These conflicting views of the great powers could lead to a possibility of militarized action if any other country personally intervenes with Syria’s Civil War. This could create another Cold War or even a full scale war.
The initiation of the Syrian War was heavily influenced by the (what was supposed to be a peaceful) protest. As well as the many deaths of the Syrian citizens. These conflicts helped citizens realize all the issues that were going on at the time. There were many causes for the violence that went on during the Syrian Civil War. It can be inferred that the three main aspects that fueled the violence of the Syrian War were due to foreign influence, sectarian opposition, and conflicts between opposing groups.
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.
Lawson, Fred H. "Syria." Politics & society in the contemporary Middle East. Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2010. 411 - 434. Print.
Given these sets of circumstances, china, Taiwan and United States have much to gain and even more to lose if an armed conflict erupts in the Taiwan Strait. All three countries have political, economic, and national security issues involved and united states and china are both in competition economic...
... 1945-1950.” The Pacific Historical Review, Vol. 49, No. 1. (1980): 51-76. www.jstor.org (accessed March 23, 2008).
Fedman, David. "Rethinking Asia: “Smart Power” and US-China Policy." The Olive & Arrow. The Word Press, 8 Mar. 2009. Web. 18 Nov. 2011. .
international politics (politics in general) are objective to be interpreted by one's own understanding of