Thursday, November 20, 2014

Collective Security Organization


Collective security organizations have a common interest in preventing war. Its primary purpose is to alter status quo peacefully. In addition, they ban the use of military force by one member state against another. The use of economic sanctions, mediators and organize peacekeeping forces – troops from neutral third parties help monitor and impose peace agreements. For example, following the end of the civil war in Liberia which claimed almost 150 000 lives from 1989 to 2003 the UN inserted 15 000 peacekeepers to facilitate disarmament and demobilization.

Collective security organizations prevent violence within states as well. Undeniably, the United Nations has been dealing with civil wars and human rights abuses by maintaining peace in such places as Rwanda, Bosnia, and, more recently, Darfur. Collective security organizations are institutions that facilitate cooperation among their members to different kind of interests. The United Nations (UN) was created in 1945 as a successor to the League of Nations that was created in1919 and both are examples of collective security organizations.

Realists believe that self – help makes impossible collective security because of Inis Claude’s principle and that is no foreign countries should be strong enough to resist collective sanctions. Claude indicates that sanctions applied directly to great powers that are unlikely to be pressured under a collective security system, a fact embodied in the Security Council veto. Important is that major powers must have the economic and military strength to reestablish peace when threatened by any group of states. But this requires a demonstration of interests among great powers. Realists undervalue economic sanctions. According to them few states will by force resist aggressors if the costs are too high. States fight for their own interest as a result cooperation for them is problematic. Worldwide institutions are not powerful enough to demand and practice problematic things.  As a result, realists are not shocked that many of the world’s collective needs, such as the protection of human rights and the global environment is not fulfilled. Each state tries to get a bigger percentage for itself; one state’s advance is another state’s damage; and the risk of war emerges over everything. States struggle for their own security and power.  Negotiating and pressure are two things that foreign countries usually cooperate.

Dependence means a state controlled, inclined by foreign countries and international affairs. Interdependence defines mutual dependence. Traditionalists argue to the longevity in the politics of world. Complex interdependence in international relations is indicated by Robert Keohane and Joseph Nye who states and their riches are two important inseparable things. Keohane writes about how interdependence played an important role and how it did alter the politics of world. According to Keohane and Nye military and power are not disregarded in relationship between mutual states. Military interdependence is always been present, and military power is still significant in world politics.

Traditionalists point out how military interdependence endures but finds it very difficult to interpret today’s multidimensional economic and social and environmental interdependence.  Both authors write about what makes interdependence different from dependence by taking in consideration power and relation among foreign countries.

They report that complex interdependence takes three aspects; the use of many different types of maneuvers among involving states, trans governmental, and worldwide relations, b) the nonexistence of advices of any problem with altering important matters and linkages between important problems and the objective of c) coming up with the idea of a minimized military force and strong power in relationship among different countries (Kohane and Nye 97.)  According to authors the idea of eliminating the use of military force and improving the economy and other things in relationship among different countries will for sure bring a worldwide mutual relation among countries. Both authors’ concepts carried todays’ concepts that we know as liberalism, neoliberalism and liberal institutionalism. Traditionalists believe that strong states of strong militaries and economy are more disposed to rule a lot of societies.

A problem in international politics is the security dilemma by which a state tries to maximize its security by lessening the security of others. The security dilemma is understood that a country seeks for power to improve its status quo as well. Power plays the role of protection.  The realist world’ understanding demands that international community is troubled with arms races and the risk of both stately and defensive war. Evidence of the security dilemma is well explained by Thucydides “Peloponnesian Wars” where we learned that it is almost no political reason to go to war. Athens entered war to conquest for victory and power. The belief that a rise in military strength leads to a rise in security is often interconnected to the belief that the only way to security is through military strength.

The security dilemma is malicious when obligations, approach, or knowledge takes to security lies over growth. In brief realists argue that states struggle for power than of what they gain over collaboration. They see gaining problematic. It brings exploitation. It is well explained by Keohane who writes that relations among countries are a type of Prisoner’s Dilemma. All actors will practice unethical issues when collaboration is absent. In brief realists see morality another important thing to maintain power as well. Morality between countries is well explained in the “Melian Dialogue” telling how Athens attacked the island of Melos. The Athenian ordered Melians to think about their existence and never for righteousness. Power brings peace and helps the existence of individuals in the security dilemma. According to Hobbes realists see power as the need for existence in an anarchic international system. According to the author negotiation and agreement help maintain power as well.

Thucydides and Thomas Hobbes signify realist ideas. Realism was given its modern and scientific appearance by the contemporary scholar Kenneth Waltz. On the contrary liberalism is a valued tradition, and is embedded in the writings of philosophers John Locke and some others. Logically, liberalism is the school of thought and most of them accept many different types of actors as important in world politics: individuals, firms, nongovernmental organizations, and states. Realism and liberalism are well recognized principally on interests, interactions and institutions.

According to Frieden, Lake, and Schulz who are the author of our textbook “World Politics” realists indicate that; a) the state is the dominant actor. b) States seek security and/or power. c) State’s interests are generally in conflict. d) Realists accept as true that international politics is primarily about bargaining, in which coercion always remains a possibility. e) International system is anarchic, and institutions exert little independent effect.

Whereas liberalism according to Frieden, Lake, and Schultz, indicate that; a) many types of actors are important and no single interest dominates. b) Wealth is a common goal for many actors. c) Actors often have common interests, which can serve as the basis for cooperation.

d) International politics has an extensive scope for cooperation. e) Conflict is not inevitable but occurs when actors fails to recognize or act upon common interests. f) International institutions facilitate cooperation by setting our rules, providing information, and creating procedures for collective decision-making. g) Democratic political institutions increase the scope for international politics to reflect the common interests of individuals.

Anarchy is the absence of government with the ability to make and enforce laws that bind all actors (Frieden, Lake, Schultz xxviii). Realists accept the thought that anarchy generates the interests and interactions that it’s seen internationally.  Every foreign country struggles for security and survival without the use of outside military forces. By collecting power and by making sure that potential enemies do not become more powerful, states unfortunately, necessarily bring states’ interests into conflict with one another; when one state improves its military abilities to improve its own security, it deteriorates the security of its now judiciously weaker neighbors, a problem knows as the ‘ security dilemma.” For realists, then, international politics is as Hobbes described the ‘state of nature’; a war of ‘every man, against every man” in which life is ‘nasty, brutish and short” (Bull 63.) The Hobbesian exercise defines international affairs as a state of conflict in which each state is worn against every other. International affairs on the Hobbesian understanding, signifies that the interests of each state reject the benefits of any other. In brief Hobbes states that human beings are as self-centered.  The only rules said in the Hobbesian tradition to limit the behavior of international affairs are directions of carefulness or usefulness.

Realists announce that for the reason of the anarchic nature of the global system, worldwide institutions are fragile and exercise little autonomous outcome on the politics of world. Institutions like UN and others simply imitate the interest power of the dominant countries, which is about their creation and strategy. Realists recognize that institutions can matter at the side but they still conclude that rules are unlikely to be followed and that states will always bend to interests and power in the end. Consequently, liberalism does not see a perfect world, it predicts a world in which progress is possible. The threat of war can be shortened by promoting democracy, establishing worldwide institutions, and encouraging economic interdependence so that every state’s well-being will be connected to that of others. Economic movement also is likely to create a too much capital, making it possible to kick states and people out of misery.

Worldwide challenges give increase to worldwide institutions that make support acceptable and likely. This optimistic view makes liberalism a more appealing theory than realism. Theories must be ruled on by whether they describe the world in which we actually want to be a part, not the world in which we would like to be a part. At the national level, liberals accept as true that democracy is the greatest way to guarantee that government’s foreign policies imitate the agreement of interests between existences. In this understanding, conflict and war are the burden of selfish politicians, hungry militaries, and greedy interest groups, whose influence can be controlled only by permitting the people through democratic institutions. At the relations between countries the possibility of support gives to a call for institutions.

Self-help is an act in an anarchic understanding. Realists believe that in self-help a country should rely on no one but itself only for security reason and that is a country tries to maximize its security by lessening the security of others. They say that a country must have power and be hegemon as well. Realists see also for example “status of a country” as an important thing in self- help system for the reason that its foreign policies won’t be unsuccessful. In addition, help-self makes relation between countries difficult. Realists believe that ‘development’ occurs when leaders of countries are conscious about their relationships is everyone’s interest. As I mentioned above in my writing negotiation and agreement helpful to maintain power are controversial in today’s world for the reason that it doesn’t bring peace but more likely one state’s interest. According to the author morality doesn’t work in a self-help system especially today where comprehension is important. This means that countries need and always brings out new ideas and speak up about their today’s issues.  

Power has always been a vague perception for the experts of international politics. The traditional understanding was that military power ruled other systems and that states with the greatest military power controlled international businesses. Power is understood of as the capability of an actor to get others to do something they else would not do. Also it’s apprehended in terms of control over outcomes. For the reason that the capability to control others is connected with the possession of resources political leaders define power as the control of resources. These resources consist of population territory, natural resources, economic, size, military forces and political solidity between others. When we guess that asymmetrical interdependence can be a source of power means the possible to have emotional impact outcomes. A less dependent actor in a relation has an important political recourse, for the reason that changes in the relationship are expensive to that actor than to its allies. This benefit does not guarantee that the political recourses provided by hopeful asymmetries in interdependence will lead to similar patterns of control over outcomes. There is rarely a one to one relationship between power measured by any type of resources and power measured by effects on outcomes.

Political negotiation is the usual means of clearing up possible into effects, and a lot is often lost in the renovation. Realism sees a rather depressing world of states challenging for power under the shadow of war, and many of the unkind structures of the politics of world mentioned above drift from this understanding. The risk of war it’s controlled by watchful diplomacy and temporary agreements between states that face common threats but neither domestic nor international institutions can deliver a lasting peace. Moreover, economists tell us that free trade makes all countries mutually wealthier, but realists understand limitations on trade and capital flow as functional measures to increase a state’s power. Liberalism does not call for interest domination over others.

 

                                       
                                                                          Ardiana Xhafa
                                                                            
                                                                        U.S.A Journalist