On June 12, 2009 the United Nations Security Council unanimously adopted resolution 1874 under chapter VII of the United Nations (UN) charter. The resolution responded to the decision of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) to challenge the Treaty on Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) and previous resolution 1718 by testing a nuclear bomb on May 25, 2009. Resolution 1874 toughened security sanctions and widened the arms embargo already outlined in resolution 1718. This paper will use empirical evidence to analyze neorealism, hegemonic tools theory and constructivism as explanations for the actions of the Security Council in this case. Ultimately, the paper will argue that the Security Council’s actions were best explained by neorealist predictions but underlying constructivist norms and rules were also influential in resolution 1874.
Neorealism
For resolution 1874, Neorealism predicted that the Security Council would have acted as an alliance to balance states against a threat, as a collusion of great powers to control lesser states and as a forum for great powers to battle. The Security Council acted as an alliance that balanced voting members against the threat of the DPRK when they unanimously supported resolution 1874. The DPRK was a threat not only because of its nuclear weapons, but also because they could potentially provide their nuclear knowledge and materials to other states. Each state backed up their vote with the explanation that the DPRK constituted a threat to the international community. For example, Yukio Takasu, Japan’s representative said that the DPRK’s acts “constituted a grave threat to the national security of his country and to international peace and security.” Because, under ...
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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.
Relations between North and South Korea have seen a spectrum of phases. From a once unified kingdom, to being under colonial rule, to the division created after WWII, the Koreas have endured all different types of stresses that have resulted in two very different and often hostile nations toeing the line of war. In this literature review, we will see that scholars have argued about various situations and factors that could result in an unknown future, including one that could potentially lead to nuclear attacks in regards of effectiveness of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT). We will look at the scholarship regarding the history that has shaped the Asian region, particularly the Korean peninsula, and what is happening now and why. Also, we are going to evaluate whether the NPT is effective or not and what that means for security implications in the Asian region and the world.
Nuclear issue in the North Korea has been a problem widely discussed around the world in recent years, while the whole progress from the start of the nuclear crisis (The withdrawal of the North Korea from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 2003) to the cooperation (Six Party Talks) and its failure is quite dramatic and worth exploring (Fang, 2009). This paper attempted to use two perspectives including neorealism and neoliberalism to look at the issue, and examine their explanatory power. Accordingly, this paper recognized the importance of the two perspectives in explaining the issue. On one hand, neorealism showed the restraints and balancing behaviors of the states during the process of negotiation, implying the failure of the talks. On the other hand, neoliberalism contributed to clarification of the complexity constituted by different actors and problems in the issue, while demonstrating the rationality of states, as well as the birth of the institution forming international norms. Therefore, the author believed the two perspectives are not contradictory, but complementary.
For the past several months the United Nations’ Security Council has debated on whether or not to accept the U.S. proposal to force Iraq to comply the new and former resolutions. The new resolution calls for complete disarmament of Iraq and the re-entrance of weapons inspectors into Iraq. If Iraq fails to comply, then military force would be taken in order to disarm Iraq. This proposal met opposition from council members Russia, China, and France. They thought that the U.S. proposal was too aggressive and that the U.S. should not act alone without U.N. approval. For weeks they refused to believe that the only way to make Iraq disarm is through the threat of force and the fear of being wiped out.
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Since the end of the Korean War, the United States has enacted policies to isolate and undermine the Kim Dynasty in North Korea. A key development took place in the past several decades where North Korea broke away from the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) to develop their own nuclear weapons and while lacking launch capabilities, they have been successful in their development. During this process, the United States took active policies to deter the North Koreans in pursuit of their goals. It is easy to assume that the United States took this stance in order to maintain a military edge in the region. But under closer examination, this neo-realist perspective does not explain why the United States pursued this policy. In reality, North Korea to this day does not pose a significant military threat, even with limited nuclear capabilities. A constructivist perspective is more able to explain US policy in this instance because it does not focus on sheer militaristic power. It takes into consideration the state's identities which drives their interests. The identities of the US and North Korea and the interactions between them drove both nations to the point of acquiring and deterring nuclear use.
The theories of Neo-realism and Liberalism place strong emphasis on the structural level in order for a country in the international system to gain as much benefits as possible and prosper. Both theories believe interactions between countries will set them better off than an isolated country would, such as North Korea. Although Liberalism places a much higher emphasis on international organizations, institutions, and trade in order to promote peace than that of Neo-realism, Neo-realist also benefit from international organizations. “International organizations are frequent congenial institutions for weak states”(Keohane. 36). Third...
However, realists may have the edge when they debate that the “logic of collective security is contrasted with the difficulties of its application” (Weiss, 2007: 4). Unsurprisingly, distrust was an elephant in the room after WWII, as highlighted by the Security Council’s 193 vetoes between 1945-1990” (Baylis, 2011: 316). The United State’s invasions of Vietnam, Grenada and Panama in addition to the Soviet Union’s invasions of Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Afghanistan (Weiss, 2007: 4) are merely a few examples of the constant proxy war operations that took place throughout the second half of the 20th century. This highlighted the ineffectiveness of the UN’s Security Council in preventing conflict across the world, and supported realists, that “there is no supranational authority [the UN] capable of wielding overwhelming power” (Rittberger, 2006: 15). This largely contradicts Kant, who claims that “international organizations can constrain decision-makers by positively promoting peace” (Dunne, 2010: 102). Liberalists including Kofi Annan argued that the ‘security dilemma’, which is built on the premise that “one country improves its security at the expense of other states” (Dunne, 2010: 81) had been averted. Although recently it has been bright in terms of the UN serving as a successful platform for peace and compromise between states; I still take into account the period 1945-1990 where the UN
The theory of Realism provides reasons why North Korea has positioned the nuclear weapon debate at the centre of its policy. One of the fundamental assumptions of Realism is in fact that each state, embedded in an international order characterized by a condition of antagonism, attempt to pursue its national interest. Besides that, the overriding national interest is defined in terms of national security and survival. Moreover, according to the same theory, relations among states are derived primarly by their level of power, which is constituted basically their military and economic capability, and in pursuit of the national security states strive to attain as many resources as possible. The theoretical model explains thus why the nuclear issue has eventually resulted in identifying with a security one, meaning that North Korea main concern is to assure its survivor, its efforts are in the first place finalized at meeting that target and its only means of pursuing it consists of the posing of the nuclear threat. North Korea finds itself to be stuck in an economic and, to some extent, diplomatic isolation; even though the financial sanctions leading to the just mentioned critical conditions have been caused by the government inflexible, aggressive and anti-democratic behavior, the regime has no ot...
People’s ideas and assumptions about world politics shape and construct the theories that help explain world conflicts and events. These assumptions can be classified into various known theoretical perspectives; the most dominant is political realism. Political realism is the most common theoretical approach when it is in means of foreign policy and international issues. It is known as “realpolitik” and emphasis that the most important actor in global politics is the state, which pursues self-interests, security, and growing power (Ray and Kaarbo 3). Realists generally suggest that interstate cooperation is severely limited by each state’s need to guarantee its own security in a global condition of anarchy. Political realist view international politics as a struggle for power dominated by organized violence, “All history shows that nations active in international politics are continuously preparing for, actively involved in, or recovering from organized violence in the form of war” (Kegley 94). The downside of the political realist perspective is that their emphasis on power and self-interest is their skepticism regarding the relevance of ethical norms to relations among states.
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