Proliferation -- Go For It?

 As a former proponent of widespread proliferation in order to provide ultimate stability (it was for a debate class where I got to argue for a mass export of mutually assured destruction), I understand the theoretical and practical arguments for why non-proliferation is important. Not least because once the knowledge is out there it is impossible to ‘put back’. There is also the problem of not being able to control proxies who are given the technology; however, is the current U.S. policy better?

Right now, the U.S. offers a ‘nuclear umbrella’ to allies and basically says that any nuclear attack against them will be treated as a nuclear attack on the homeland. So then, if Country A (U.S. Ally) has an argument with Country B (non-U.S. Ally with nukes) which escalates to the point where Country B attacks Country A with a nuke then the U.S. is obligated to respond in kind. How is this situation different than if Country A is proliferated the tech to build its own nuclear weapon?

Granted Country A is likely to be a little less belligerent towards a nuclear armed country if it does not possess a similar level of weaponry, but depending on the threshold for U.S. nuclear deployment Country B may not need to conduct a nuclear attack on County A in order to garner a nuclear response.

The argument for non-proliferation which centers on the security of nuclear material, and prevention of the material from falling into the hands of the baddies (terrorists…et al) is a decent one; however how many times have terrorists been able to get their hands on nuclear weapons so far? Will the security of Saudi nukes be better than Pakistan’s security? Will Japan do a worse job securing their nukes than the Russians did in the 90s? I grant you that the number of entities with nuclear weapons only increases the risk of a nuke becoming ‘loose’, however how much does it increase that risk? Is it a linear risk curve? Do we even have a way of measuring it or is it just a feeling we have?

Just as an aside, this post is not meant to say that proliferation is good, it is just to challenge the ideas which we hold sacred is saying that non-proliferation = good ; nukes = bad.     

Is violence a necessary evil? (Week 8)

I am very intrigued by the study of public authority and the control of violence. As such, it is both frustrating and refreshing to study it a new in this class.

When I was in college, one of my teachers for a class on the religious elements of the Arab/Israeli Conflict had all his students stand in a line and marked each end of the line as the end of a spectrum. One end was for those who thought violence was a necessary evil and the other was for those who though violence was never a necessary evil. Two things have stuck with me since that exercise: (1) it was never a debate that violence was evil - this was a point that everybody agreed upon unanimously. (2) Most people, including myself, stood in the middle of the spectrum.

As I perused the readings for this week, listened to the lectures and engaged in our class discussion I noticed that all the conversations focused on finding a balance for the necessary evil of violence in our world, it never focused on the ideal of eliminating violence. While I admit that it is nearly impracticable to eliminate violence in our world, I think most everybody would agree that it would be ideal. However, the controversy would lie in the status quo of a world without violence. i.e. Who has what powers, territories, control and/or wealth.

Moving forward, it is important to highlight the difference between countries with power and countries with high quality of life. Which is more desirable? Which is something we should pursue more ambitiously? One can argue that countries such as Norway & Sweden do not have much power/influence in global affairs but they also maintain a very high quality of life for their citizens. Countries such as the US have both power/influence in global affairs as well as a high quality of life but they also have a significant amount of the world's population, unlike Sweden or Norway. Russia is an example of a country with power/influence but a low quality of life for its citizens and Afghanistan would be an example of a country with neither.

While the security dilemma and cold wars hold many countries fixed on the idea of maintaining power through the development of large military forces, I think international law should be more focused on altering the perspective of sovereign states that quality of life is more important than power. Along with this perspective would come with the pursuit of the elimination of violence as an end goal not simply lessening the amount of violence necessary or controlling it.

As long as we believe that violence is a necessary evil - it will be a ubiquitous evil. As long as we desire power over quality of life in global affairs, they will be mutually exclusive among actors involved. We have models in our world of sovereign states that do not engage in violence either domestically or abroad and maintain a high quality of life. I would challenge us to make them a more prominent guide in our discussions or public authority and the control of violence.

Public Authority, Private Security Companies, and Transnational Organized Crime

This week’s class discussion about private security organizations undermining state authority was very interesting. Before class, I only thought about private security organizations that operate in a state with the state’s authorization. I was especially thinking about the private security companies that have taken over several police work and are authorized by a state to do that work. In Germany, for example, Germany’s largest airport in Frankfurt used to be solely patrolled by the Federal Police, which was also in charge of doing the passenger control. A few years ago, however, the state of Hessen decided to authorize a private security company to do the passenger control at the airport. The major reason is that there are just not enough police officers to handle the increasing amount of passengers while at the same time have to deal with threats like terrorism.

Over the last few years, more and more states in Germany have authorized private security companies to do police work because of the same reasons: not enough officers to do the jobs, and because private security companies are cheaper. Since these security companies have authorization by the state to do police work, they do not undermine state authority. However, the problem with these companies is that their employees have not received the same training that police officers have. Oftentimes they cannot do the job the same way that police officers can and the question comes up if the state is risking the lives of its citizens just to save a little money?

In this week’s lecture we learned that states have authority, which is the right to do something. When crimes are committed inside a state’s territory the state has the authority to fight these crimes and control the organizations committing the crimes. It authorizes the police to do these jobs. However, with the advent of the transnational criminal organizations that operate across borders, states do not have the capacities to control them anymore. This is especially the case in weak states or states in transition (Phil Williams 2002, 170). Organized crime in Russia, for example, existed during the Soviet years. However, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the organizations flourished and started to operate in other countries as well. Transnational organized crime organization take advantage of weak states or states in transition because they lack many state functions including effective law enforcement agencies  (Williams 2002, 170).

I think that transnational organized crime organizations will continue to challenge state authority of weak as well as strong states. While strong states have more capacity to fight these organizations, the organizations use methods like corruption to protect their activities and, unfortunately, corruption also exists in strong states.

References

Williams, Phil. 2002. “Transnational Organized Crime and the State,” in The Emergence of Private Authority in Global Governance, ed. Tom Biersteker and Rodney Bruce Hall.

Nuclear Weapons, Legitimate Violence, and International Enforcement - Week 8

This weeks’ readings brought up the question of authority and violence in the international realms, as well as bringing us back to questions of sovereignty as previously discussed. Bruce Blair’s article Increasing Warning and Decision Time (De-alerting) was very interesting as it sets out a plan for lowering the readiness or “de-alerting” the world’s nuclear systems. Although he lays out a detailed plan for how this process could happen, with the agreement and coordination of both the United States and Russia, the whole time I was reading I could only think that this would never happen. Or that even if lots of international agreements and treaties were signed, there would still be no way to KNOW if each side complied in lowering their nuclear readiness. However, I did find his idea that the Cold War never ended very interesting in light of current relations between the U.S. and Russia.

The goal of a nuclear free world is rather lofty, as we seem to only hear more and more about nuclear weapons in the news each day. Despite perhaps an unrealistic goal, the author does bring about an important argument that the increase in technology combined with our nuclear readiness is rather terrifying when one stops to think about the reality of that system being hacked and therefore starting a chain of events that are irreversible. And although I doubt we'll ever have a nuclear free world, I do think measures should be taken to increase a margin of safety, increasing the time and steps that must be enacted from the time one sovereign power decides to use nuclear weapons to the time of impact.

Although the article points to both the U.S. and Russia as the main culprits, tying it back to the Cold War, there is also mention of China and the hope that their government would follow suit. This made me think that there are more than just these three countries with nuclear weapons that would need to follow the plan, thus increasing the difficulty of coordination and agreement. North Korea for example, which generally falls into the category of autonomous and hard boundaries, has made known their capabilities involving nuclear weapons and has threatened to use them. And due to this, the international actors have a difficult time “enforcing” rules over them because, as we have discussed many times in this class, there is no overarching system or ruler to ensure all actors are held accountable.

This brings up the question as to whether or not the use of nuclear bombs during WWII were a “legitimate” use of violence to end the war. If the U.S. had been on the receiving end of those bombs would it have simply been accepted and the war ended? Would a precedent like we have now, that nuclear weapons are not to be used, have been made?

So in light of the article, history, and current events, I think nuclear weapons that are available for immediate use pose a risk to the international world as there is increasing globalization and improving technology, thus increasing the risk that they could be activated on mistake or by an outsider. I also believe Blair’s plan is a good start, as it  focuses on little by little making nuclear weapons less of a risk. However, for this plan to be successful, there should also be a focus on how to incorporate countries such as North Korea as well, since they are often outside the influence of the other international actors.

Afghanistan and a Monopoly of Violence

I think about public authority and how a monopoly on the use of violence is an important component of modern states I am reminded of my time in Afghanistan and how that is a state with just about anything but a monopoly on the use of force. Between the Resolute Support coalition, warlords, the Taliban, and regional neighbors there are hundreds of independent entities all of whom hold the ability to dispense violence with different aims across different areas. Some like the United States have the ability to use violence anywhere in the country, others, like Pakistan or most warlords, are limited to a very narrow region. This is a particularly extreme case, but it highlights a point that a non-monopolistic relationship between the state and violence does not mean the state as an institution will cease to exist.

                We can however see in this case the state’s ability to tax, govern and provide services is limited by its ability to project power. I wonder however, since Afghanistan ‘outsources’ a good bit of its security and stability work to others, does this mean that the government’s reach is further, and therefore it has even more legitimacy and utility that it otherwise would? Would then the outsourcing of violence actually lend the state more legitimacy? I don’t know if there is an answer to these questions, especially since in this case a large part of the outsourcing went to an ostensibly ‘neutral’ coalition with very little to gain and a lot to lose if the central government falls. 

Live from Erbil, Iraq, Week 8 Blog

What a fascinating moment in my life to be getting into these readings. Saturday was the first time we’ve been allowed to get out of the compound here for some leisure time, so I took my reading to a hotel to sit on their patio and read. As I ordered a cup of coffee and looked around me, I realized that it was likely that at least half of the people sitting around me were private security people. On my flight into Iraq last week, it was easy to tell who was flying in to do humanitarian aid work like me and who was flying in for some security reasons. The hulking figures, military tattoos, and tactical gear bags were a dead giveaway for the security types. (You could tell the aid workers by their grubby cargo pants, a hilarious stereotype come to life on that flight). So, reading the readings, particularly the Abramson and Williams article, I was reading them through the lens of the Mosul operation and the humanitarian response I’m involved in here.

I appreciated the nuance of Abramson and Williams to the role that non-state security actors/PSCs can play. The traditional IR approach to the emergence of these PSCs, assumes the zero sum relationship between the growth of non-state security actors and the shrinking legitimacy of the state. I went into the reading assuming this would be the approach of the authors. But, using theory and the African examples, this is not the approach they take. Rather, the authors talk about the ways that PSCs often support governmental powers. They support the goals of the state, reinforce the idea of the public good, and seem to be working inside traditional ideas about the purpose and legitimacy of security operations.

In exploring the Sierra Leone example, the authors say, “the authority and goals of the state are routinely exercised and negotiated with those of private security providers and their clients” (p. 8). I see this so clearly in the Mosul operation right now. A range of private and allied powers are assisting the Iraqi government to oust ISIS. PSCs are here to add value, complete specific tactical operations, and ultimately support state security. Even in a case where the state is quite weak and sovereignty easily eroded, all the actors come together citing public good and state security.

My experience of something like the Mosul operation is different than many of those in the class may have. In the case of a war, organizations like mine deal with the humanitarian fall out, focusing particularly on the immediate needs of children who are fleeing the war. Even as we aren’t involved in the military operations, we are central to a holistic care of the public safety of individuals impacted by conflict. And we ourselves have PSC actors which support our work. Aid workers aren’t armed, nor do we/can we travel with armed security, but we have staff with military experience tasked to assess risk, make recommendations, and get us the hell out of situations when they go sideways. There are UN coordination meetings where PSCs recommend how and where to set up new camps for those fleeing Mosul. PSCs assist the government actors here screening people fleeing Mosul.

The vast array of what PSCs do in the IR space goes far beyond groups like Blackwater. Their functions are numerous, and don’t necessarily lead to the erosion of the state. The state may be being remade in some ways and rearticulated, but many PSCs function within the traditional perspective of states having the ultimate authority within their territories. Rather than delegitimizing the state, PSCs are part of a shifting definition. 

Week 6: Post Debate

The class debate this week was instructive and interesting. The debate itself mirrored how I would bet that this debate and other critical debates happen on the international scale. Two opposing parties come to the table with the desire to be “right,” terms and concepts aren’t clearly defined from the outset, and events are seen through the eye of the beholder- what is fundamental change for one side is another rational choice for another side.

One of the critical pieces we missed was defining terms. What constitutes the international system? What is change? What counts as fundamental? If we had taken the time to do this, we may have been able to answer each other’s points and assertions more directly, rather than each talking from our own script. I can only imagine that this is a common challenge in other international negotiations. Myths and misconceptions abound when terms are not defined, and people act from a place of suspicion and mistrust when things are unclear.

Until Professor Shirked asked me this in class, I hadn’t realized that the debate had centered on the idea that fundamental change is the change of sovereignty. I think that made my team’s pro side a bit weaker, as we could have talked about other areas of international relations where change is seen more easily than in the concept of sovereignty. Economic cooperation, human rights law, humanitarian intervention (aid) and military cooperation for humanitarian purposes are all examples of changes in the system. Whether or not these are fundamental is up for debate, but they are changes indeed.

One of the arguments that I presented for our team which I would have liked to see answered was about the Responsibility to Protect (R2P). This to me seems like a fundamental change in the international system, and a limiting of sovereignty that hasn’t been done before. (You can tell this in part by how many American realists flipped their theoretical lid as the UN discussed the idea.) R2P gives the international community the right (and the responsibility) to intervene in a country for humanitarian purposes when the state is not protecting its people. This has been invoked in many cases (mostly on the African continent- a book could and probably has been written about that) such as Darfur, Sudan, Libya, and CAR. Underlying the R2P is that sovereignty is not unconditional and can be revoked or impeded upon when a state is denying it’s citizen’s protection. Sovereign territoriality in particular is not a given. While sovereignty remains, the conditions on which its granted have fundamentally changed.

Debate: Can there be fundamental change in IR?

I enjoyed the debate regarding whether or not the environmental environment can be fundamentally remade, as it really is a question of perspective and we see many different perspectives in the international community.

The question, as we saw in the debate, centers on one’s definition of “change” in the context of international relations. I think it needs to be more than just a change in sovereignty to be deemed a real change in the system and I also do not believe the international system as a whole can become one big sovereign entity. Wendt's argument about the definition of anarchy, and how it has changed, is also very important.

The opposing group made a good argument that the changes seen in international relations can be accounted for by rational decision of sovereign nations.  I agree with this because as long as there is a question of sovereignty, there will be interests that drive decision-making. However, to deny the effect of globalization and international organizations such as the United Nations and the EU, would be a gross miscalculation. The organization of the European Union is further proof that there has been change. Previously we have seen sovereign nations coming together as allies but to see combined economic and social power, while maintaining sovereignty of the nations, is change in the international system. And I think that with further globalization and communication this will continue, but it will take time.

Also, it is my belief that there must at least be the hope for change, as this is what drives further cooperation to seeing advancement and changes, whether big or small, in the international environment.

Week 7 Post Class Post

Last week’s debate assignment was really challenging because it is not easy to answer the question if the international environment can be fundamentally remade. During this week’s class we talked about what change really means and how important it is to define what “fundamental” means in order to address this question.

While I was doing research for the opening statement, I came across an interview of Professor Videla at the University of Navarra in Spain. Professor Videla points out that “the world is undergoing a fundamental change” and that the world is going to experience a transformation over the next few decades (IESE 2013). He thinks the world economy has already experienced significant changes during the last few years with the rise of China as an economic power as well as India and Brazil, and it is going to experience even more changes over the next few years (IESE 2013). However, while for Professor Videla these changes are fundamental changes, for others these changes are not fundamental at all because, while the world economy changes, the international system, as we know it, does not change.

The world has already experienced very significant changes with the creation of the UN and its institutions as well as the creation of regional organizations like the EU. On top of that, globalization has created the interdependence between states. As Professor Videla points out, the economic changes the world is going to experience over the next few decades will lead to even more interactions between countries because “countries don’t compete, they become more commercial” (IESE 2013).

However, I think that there will not only be more interactions to generate more wealth between the states, but also more cooperation between the states to address the issues that accompany globalization and interdependence. Transnational organized crime and human trafficking, for example, are issues that need to be addressed by all countries, which require more cooperation. Therefore, the world will undergo more and more changes in the future, which might lead to fundamental changes.

References

IESE. 2013. “The World is Undergoing a Fundamental Change.” Accessed October 15, 2016. http://www.iese.edu/en/about-iese/news-media/news/2013/march/the-world-is-undergoing-a-fundamental-change

The Debate: IR & Change (Week 6)

“Can the international environment be fundamentally remade?”

It is important to establish the definition of two terms in this question before it can be effectively addressed.           

     First is International. We were taught in the first lecture of this course that international, especially used in the context of a study, requires an us vs. them distinction to establish an "encounter with differences across boundaries" (lecture 1.2). 
      Second is fundamental. Such a word emphasizes the core, base or a central and primary rule. This contrasts a designation that is superficial, tangential or a branch and division. It could take the form of goals, objectives, mottos or constitutions for a group of people or organization. 

With these terms defined and utilized in context together, it is difficult to answer the question without a resounding, YES! When we go back and review the human story - starting with our creation/evolution, domination of animals, tribal allegiances, imperial rule and now sovereign nations - it is very obvious that we have accomplished significant developments though our encounters. Part of the incentive that motivates our perpetual desire fore more, better and new is the knowledge that everything can change. I believe this applies to the international environment as well. 

It is a wholly different question to ask how the international environment can be remade or how it has fundamentally changed since the past. These types of question require a need to further identify the fundamental motivators of current and past actors. We have seen an attempt to do this in our lectures that differentiates between ideas and interests as motivators. However, the complication is that not all actors are motivated by the same things. 

This debate is similar to the study of religious pluralism. Pluralism can be simply defined as a respect for all religions. However, no religious person would tell you they are happy that someone they care for identifies with a different religion. They might respect your choice but do not agree with it. This is because when someone chooses to follow a religion, they are implicitly declaring that all religions are not true and that not all have equal validity. This would be a formula for irresolvable conflict if a community did not place a high value on the freedom of its individuals to explore different religious options - pluralism.

Just as I have faith in my own religion and believe that it has remained steadfast since the beginning of time yet will fundamentally change me in my next life, so too do I think that our international environment has preserved principals since the beginning of time but can be fundamentally changed to achieve positive encounters across boundaries for all participants. 

Week 6 Post Debate

I enjoyed the debate, and was really sad to see that there weren't enough people to put together a full debate during class. While I was part of the 'wrong' side in arguing that fundamental change in the international order is possible, I did come away from the experience learning that while I still believe that fundamental change in the international order is not common or likely, I now understand that change can and does occur in extraordinary times. 

I understand now that fundamental change requires a shift in the basic elements of the international order. While international actors have long been, sovereign, rationally driven, and with a drive to survive, their basic unit of measurement has changed radically, from families to tribes, to city-states, to nations. These changes are almost exclusively driven by external threats, and it seems that without these threats change is not seriously considered.

I still see that the majority of the changes viewed as 'fundamental' are not truly fundamental. Even my example above (changes in units of measurements) is the continuation of a slow, steady movement towards integrating more and more people together whether through conquest or treaty. And even this steady march has slowed in recent years as regional integration has faltered (as the result of perceived threats to internal sovereignty and prosperity).  

Week 5: Can there be fundamental change in IR?

This week’s lecture asked a very interesting and exciting question: can there be fundamental change in International Relations, or is the present configuration the best it could ever be? Since I became interested in international relations and during my undergraduate studies I was asking myself this question many times.

I am a big Star Trek fan, and when this question comes on the table, I always remind myself of the Federation of Planets and how this federation must have come about. After all, it developed over many, many years. But it was eventually possible to create such a federation. So, maybe it is possible for the world, as we know it to fundamentally change into something like a Federation of the World?

Professor Jackson mentioned in his lecture that when there is a lot of agency that there is a potential for change. Actors have agency. There are a lot of actors in the world, so there is a lot of agency, which means that there is potential for change. That means, then, that there is a possibility for fundamental change in the world. But, there is also structure. Structure is stability, and structure is the opposite of agency. In international relations, this structure comes from anarchy and the resulting balance of power system. So, even though there is a lot of agency, there is no fundamental change because there is also structure.

The balance of power system under anarchy, unfortunately, always allows for wars to occur. As Professor Jackson mentioned, war cannot be eradicated because in our world under anarchy war is a possibility. In the realists’ view, because there is anarchy, war is a structural induced problem and, therefore, there is no other option but to go to war. In the 2x2, realists fall under the upper left hand corner, autonomy and impermeable boundaries, because they believe that no change in possible in this system.

From the liberalists’ view, however, there is another option. Liberalists believe that war is not a structural induced issue but instead happens because of rational calculations. Actors have agency over war, and, therefore, there are other options than having to go to war. In the 2x2, liberalists fall under the upper right hand corner, attunement and impermeable boundaries. They believe that some change is possible because of recalculations of what states’ interests are.

Kenneth Waltz offers some new ideas about realism: neorealist theory. While I appreciate that neo-realism adds the effects of structure in its unit-level explanations of war, I do not agree that the neorealist theory can explain all the wars over the past millennia. For example, neorealist theory cannot explain the rise of Islamic terrorism and the resulting War on Terror. Also, Waltz writes that the post-World War II peace exists because of the bi-polar world (1998, p. 624). However, there is no bi-polar world anymore since the fall of the Soviet Union.  I also cannot agree with Waltz that nuclear weapons are another reason for peace because states do not go to war with each other because there is the chance of a nuclear war (1988, p. 625). This was true during the Cold War, but now there are terrorists who try to acquire nuclear weapons.

References

Waltz, Kenneth. 1988. “The Origins of War in Neorealist Theory.” The Journal of Interdisciplinary History 18, no. 4: 615-628. Accessed September 30, 2016. https://s3.amazonaws.com/static.ironline.american.edu/Jackson+International+Relations/Readings/Waltz+-+The+Origins+of+War+in+Neorealist+Theory.pdf

Is anarchy an institution or a structure? Week 5 blog

The authors this week clearly spoke to one another and called into question the premises of each other's arguments. I enjoyed getting in to more contemporary, and more concrete theories of IR.

Waltz proposes that IR is defined by the anarchic structure of the international system. This neorealist system where all states are sovereign and without a central authority means that states must seek their self interest and ensure their own security. Traditional realism says that the ultimate goal of states is power, neorealism as presented by Waltz says that this is security. As Professor Jackson's lecture notes, Waltz's perspective on IR may not mean that all actors have agency. Choices are limited when security is the state's sole aim and the system is actively trying to disrupt the sovereignty.

Wendt and Onuf disagree. Wendt says that anarchy is constructed by the social behavior of states. Anarchy is not a state that we can assume or say is "natural" because it can change as the interests of states change. Onuf builds on Wendt, saying that consistent practice and interaction between actors defines the rules of the IR system. Shared ideas are what motivate IR, not material forces or the pursuit of security. As rational choices are made repeatedly, institutions are formed. While these are stable, they are not fixed but informed by an iterative process of institutions being influenced by behavior and vice versa.

Wendt, Onuf, and Waltz all accept that anarchy is part of the current state of IR. Obviously Onuf and Wendt see limits and exceptions to anarchy in the international system. But each propose a different "source" so to speak of the current state of anarchy. Waltz sees anarchy as inherent to the international system, a given fact that cannot be changed. This is a structure that is fixed and agency can't be used to alter this fact. Wendt says that anarchy doesn't exist until states interact with each other as if anarchy exists. It's a choice made in agency that is repeated to form an institution, but not a fixed structure. Onuf echoes Wendt, but expounds more on the idea of rules and agency in consenting to them.

Onuf and Wendt help us answer the question Professor Jackson posed: "Will the pressures of anarchy always work to reproduce autonomous sovereign actors on the international stage?" If there are changes in identity and interests of states leading to institutional changes, anarchy can also change because it is socially constructed and subject to the agency of international actors.

Koremenos, Lipson, and Snidal next week, I couldn't find a way to fit them in neatly here :)