The US Force that Can Change Conflicts in the Middle East - Coursework Example

One of the most distinguishing features of the current age, from the beginning of the 21st century to today and into the future, is the phenomenon ofglobalisation, which promises to move us into a world-community, ruled over by separate governments but all members of one global village. Antithetical to this prospect are those countries and regions locked in a state of backwardness and an inability to adapt to changing technologies, customs, and rules for members of this global village. The Middle East in modern times represents this obstacle: a cultural and social remnant of an age as far back as the Middle Ages. As the world attempts to adopt progressive attitudes toward capitalism, individual human rights, and political equality, some nations remain philosophically opposed to these “Western” values. But as globalisation continues, and countries are axiologically merged together, this thinking in terms of “Western vs. Eastern” or “First-world vs. Third-world” becomes adversative to the social movements we are witnessing at the beginning of the 21st century. Nevertheless, there still remains an element out there in the world that says some civilisations are as incompatible as oil and water. Political scientist Samuel P. Huntington has identified this in a theory he called “the clash of civilisations”, which states that the primary source of political conflict in the post-Cold War world are the differing identities of wide regions of individuals. These identities result from religion or culture and can diverge from one another to quite an extreme. As opposed to ideological conflict, the clash of civilisation is the result of clashes in religious or cultural identities. This has come about probably as a result of religious extremism in parts of the world, particularly in the Middle East. As Huntington says, “The clash of civilisations will dominate global politics. The fault lines between civilisations will be the battle lines of the future” (Huntington). One might wonder what impact this perspective might have on the prospect of American intervention in the affairs of the Middle East, a region whose civilisation is extremely different from that of the West. The answer lies in recognising the simple fact that the United States is but a representative of Western civilisation. Western powers have been meddling in Middle Eastern affairs for nearly a hundred of years, ever since the fall of the Ottoman Empire at the end of World War I. Although the names of the players have changed, the game remains the same: the forward-looking civilisation looks to cultivate and change the perspective of the backward-looking one. Unfortunately, we also must recognise that the United States, as the new dominant world power, will enjoy the same amount of success that the British and French shared when they colonised and attempted to “bring democracy” to the states of the region (Judis 141). Obviously, with their failure come America’s mistakes in believing that the same thing can be tried again with greater success. Albert Einstein said, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting different results.” In an effort to remain sane, the United States must recognise that the opportunities of intervening in Middle Eastern affairs comes with a steep price, and the power of a Western power to impose positive change in a completely different civilisation is inherently limited by cultural and religious incommensurability. We must first acknowledge the nature of post-Cold War intervention. In many ways, the collapse of the Soviet Union had an enormous impact on the use of force on the world stage. As Charles William Maynes notes, “The demise of the Soviet Union did not give the United States the clear international field that was earlier predicted... Earlier, the purpose was deterrence and ensuring acceptable external behaviour. Now, it is increasingly becoming compellance and appropriate internal behaviour” (97). For instance, during the Cold War, the largest issue was positioning missile sites in close proximity to Soviet targets in case of the breakout of war, and this was rightfully considered “intervention”. Now, in the post-Cold War era, “intervention” is breaking down the internal structures of undesirable states such as Iraq and Afghanistan and the institution of new, democratic structures cordial to Western influence. This changed nature of intervention requires a more strategic use of military resources in dealing with rebuilding collapsed states. The role of soldiers has been changed to peacekeeping in the aftermath of wartime and overseeing the rebuilding process. Military intervention for the sake of humanitarian ends (which occurs often in the Middle East) and conflict resolution (a term which refers to settling a political conflict) has increased considerably since the close of the Cold War. Employing military resources in this way includes disaster relief duties and assisting in rebuilding infrastructures. A more divisive use of troops in this new kind of military intervention is in peacemaking in fighting and resolving a so-called “intractable conflict”, which is a form of conflict resolution. These different practices represent the kind of actions that politicians and policymakers refer to when speaking about “military intervention”. American intervention in the nation of Iraq provides for a good illustration of what the world is now dealing with. United States military forces remained in the country after an initial invasion that swept over the country and overtook the capital in a short amount of time. In the aftermath, which lasted several years, far more troops died protecting the streets of Iraq from insurgents than those who died during actual combat fighting. These soldiers provided the glue that held together the state as its permanent government was set in place for a sustained future. Ultimately, the invasion (or “intervention”) was made in the Iraqi state to establish a moral, legal government that abided by real elections and the will of the people—a democracy. It was widely acknowledged the invasion of Iraq was based largely on good intentions (Runciman 31). The good intentions at play was the launching of an accountable, democratic, Western government and the expulsion of Saddam Hussein. However, the invasion’s overly optimistic view that it could quickly establish a democracy failed by underestimating the strength of the anti-Western undercurrent of Iraqi (and Middle Eastern) society. Their misplaced trust in the people of the Middle East to accept American invaders “as liberators” highlights one of the most intractable failures of contemporary Western approaches to foreign intervention. Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and George Downs offer three hypotheses on how interventions by third parties affect the political course of the nations they intervene upon. The second hypothesis they propose, which has to do with the effects of democratic interveners (as opposed to UN or autocratic interveners), provides for “the most important and most complex” analysis (643). Summarised, their quantitative measurements indicate that external, democratic interveners actually hinder the rate of democratic reform in comparison to the trend without intervention. This fails to make the distinction between certain different types of democracy in the countries who are intervening. The assumption of the study indicate that, according to the authors, “the United States, on average, targets less democratic states for intervention than do other (mostly European) democracies” (Mesquita and Downs 644-5). The primary result of the study, based on this assumption, is that the goal of democratisation by leaders of intervening states is rarely achieved. “Intervention,” the authors state, “does little to promote democracy and often leads to its erosion and the substitution of largely symbolic reforms” (647). Western intervention in the Middle East is a particularly interesting case to examine, both in its past and present aspects. This is because Western governance has never worked (nor can it work) in that region. The argument that Middle Eastern countries will accept democracy in the same way Italy and Germany did after World War II makes the error of assuming that Middle Eastern countries such as Iraq and Afghanistan had free presses, free parliaments, and free elections before their respective fascist movements. However, the Ottoman Empire maintained Iraqi security by being a theocratic totalitarian ruler. Since its fall, Iraq has been ruled by secret police, torture chambers, and tribal warfare. This anti-liberal, anti-West view summarises the 20th century history of most Arab nations, and is a lesson in mercilessness that no one should ignore. Western interventionists will always be plagued by this fact of fundamental, philosophic opposition to democratic ideals of equality and individualism. Ignoring a lesson from the Ottoman Empire (that theocracy and totalitarianism is the best means to geopolitical stability) will guarantee that all Western (or American) intervention in the Middle East is a lost cause and any work it does today will be lost in some future collapse (Schofield and Zenko). The limits of America’s potential to impose lasting, positive change in the Middle East is a myth exploded by looking at some history. The story of an English-speaking strongman “liberating” the desert, first welcomed as liberators to set up enlightened Western systems of democratic, constitutional governances, but then derailed by popular revolt is one that the world has bore witness to in the past. In the early 20th century, the world saw as the British held Iraq by crushing a Shiite uprising. The British resolved to act callously to the inhabitants. In doing so, they thought they could rally support against their rivals, the French, in the region. Eventually, the Sunnis removed the British from power and the British moved their forces out of the region, bringing the Sunnis to power. Of course, this history lesson is largely ignored by those who believe America has a tremendous opportunity (or perhaps even a moral responsibility to bring democracy to the region). Britain attempted to introduce democracy to Iraq, but with a tremendous failure (Levey and Podeh). It is a long sequence of treachery, uprising, intrigue, revolt, and tribal warfare, similar to what occurred in December of 2005. It is a mistake, which the case of British Iraq and Nazi Germany both prove, to believe that a democracy will prevent the rise of fascism in a country. Excessive outside intervention in both cases, along with the case of American Iraq today, spur internal resentment and animosity toward its foreign manipulators. Democracy necessitates a certain foundation which simply is absent in many of the countries that, in the opinion of American politicians, deserve intervention. The problem is not that these countries are ungovernable; quite the opposite, they are governable, but only by a government deeply antithetical to American values—Islamic theocracy. The drafting of a ridiculously American constitution upon which they built the new government served as epitome of Western folly. The naive idealism that fuels the belief in American interventionism with respect to the Middle East is based on this dangerously ignorant picture of the region. If we want to learn about the inherent limitations of imposing a Western will on Arabic countries, we need only look at the past and a country that is symbolic of an entire culturally-rich expanse. That nation was, and probably still is, Iraq. From these discussions on Iraq and democracy, the thought has arisen that most of American intervention in the Middle East is ideologically misguided. Indeed, it is. However, this does not mean that intervention is without its potential benefits and opportunities. The advantages of intervention that policymakers must consider include (a) ensuring access to international trade and resources (such as oil); (b) protecting American citizens against threats; (c) preventing a major attack from a foreign power; and (d) protecting the borders, airspace, and infrastructure of the United States (Hillen). Stated in the context of these goals, interventionism makes sense. However, spoken in the context of spreading a pro-Western attitude in a region inimical to Western values, it does not. The American government’s responsibility to achieve these tasks in service to the people who maintain the government dictates that ideological goals must come about by achieving practical and popularly-demanded policies like those conditions (a)-(d) listed above. This means that the military’s primary function is not in overseeing the rebuilding of nations, but in defeating them (as a last resort) in combat and then returning home. In many ways, it is not the responsibility of a country to be concerned about people’s welfare in another. The moral responsibility of each government is to protecting its own citizens, and not those of other countries, especially when those other countries have waged war against it. From this perspective, concern with what government the nation of Iraq adopts is an inconsequential topic of discussion. It is simply another of the aforementioned “ideological goals” that mean little to the people in a democratic republic (Segal). This ideological influence on America’s foreign policy has left severe practical problems dealing with economics, public confidence, and military capability. If the goal for Iraq, or any Middle Eastern country for that matter, is stability then democracy is obviously the worst choice. Our main concern with respect to being practical is stability, for it is the stable government (no matter how tyrannical) that prevents war and “intractable conflict”. And if stability is the goal, we need to structure one capable of avoiding a “clash of civilisations” postulated by Huntington. In her paper “The Robustness of Authoritarianism in the Middle East”, Eva Bellin notes the failure of democracy in the region and the reasons behind it. Among them are nationalisation, poverty, inequality, religious fundamentalism, remoteness from the developed world, and an overall weak civil society. All of these factors, that the Middle East lacks, are necessary (though not sufficient) conditions for democratisation. She goes on to discuss the robustness of the “coercive apparatus” of authoritarianism (144). A key hallmark of authoritarian regimes, particularly in the Middle East, is their sustainability: so long as a government does not turn to fearing its people, such as in the case of China’s massacre at Tiananmen Square or Syria’s assault on civilians at Hama (146). If the people recognise the value of stability in their lives, they will not seek to destabilise the government in favour of greater liberties. If, at this point, the people of the Middle East do seek greater freedoms for themselves as individuals, then perhaps a democratic government might be sustainable as a lasting force instead. Until that point, however, democracy is neither a stable nor sustainable solution. According to Bellin, at present there are more necessary conditions in place preparing the Middle East for authoritarianism than there are for democratisation as such. Once we remove all elements of interventionist philosophy based on immature normative goals from the equation, we are left with what is best for the American people. Just as the destruction of communism mattered little to the American people when politicians decided to invade Vietnam, so too does a fledgling democracy in a country on the other side of the world matter little. The example of Iraq is very potent in that it gives us a look at Western intervention with a Middle East power in a nutshell. It allows us to see why certain policies must fail and why some responsibilities a government cannot renege upon: namely, in protecting the United States and its allies. With that said, intervention can be an effective tool for securing the interests of a country internationally. However, using an army as a police force in world affairs or as the builders of nations is not an effective way of securing one’s interests. This requires us to rethink our conception of “intervention” as outlined earlier in the post-Cold War political environment. Instead of being a matter of constructing nation-states, American military forces “intervening” in a country must be limited to forceful, military operations, followed by an immediate withdrawal. An exception to this would be the cases in which an “immediate withdrawal” might create geopolitical insecurity and damage American interests abroad further. But in such cases, the more stable government (an autocracy) would be preferred over the less stable (a democracy). Margaret Hermann and Charles Kegley Jr. note that military intervention by a foreign force is “arguably the most frequent type of military force in use and under debate today” (440). This is likely the result of the Iraqi invasion, which was the quintessential military intervention in the paradigm that Hermann and Kegley mention. In a recent paper, Jeffrey Pickering and Emizet Kisangani discuss the political, economic, and social consequences of an intervention by a foreign force. After detailing just how scant the literature is on the topic of “hostile” and “supportive” interventions, the authors present their own hypotheses. A “hostile” intervention refers to those that stand in opposition to a particular government; in contrast, a “supportive” intervention refers to those that aid a particular government. They note a major problem with the small body of literature that does exist: it fails to make the distinction between these two very different kinds of intervention. A war, after all, is very different from a state-sponsored coup. “Studies of democratisation after U.S. intervention,” they say, “analyse hostile and supportive interventions together as well as military and non-military forms of intervention” (Pickering and Kisangani 365). This distinction is a necessary condition for any successful analysis of how an intervention affects the country being interfered with. The first two of their hypothesis, named H1 and H2 respectively proceed as follows: (H1) “Hostile interventions are more likely to autocratise democratic target governments than supportive interventions”, and (H2) “Supportive interventions are more likely to autocratise non-democratic target governments than hostile interventions” (365). These hypothesis come about due to the observed fact that governments expand in wartime to combat the immediate danger. They seize private means of production in order to fuel and supply military resources. As a result, the state is moved further along to authoritarianism. On top of these, the authors offer a third independent hypothesis: (H3) “Hostile interventions are more likely to reduce economic growth in target states than supportive interventions” (365). This hypothesis states that the quality of life in a country who is being intervened upon will generally decrease as the economy is taken over and manipulated. In contrast to hostile interventions, supportive interventions may increase economic growth or quality of life as they are being undertaken. Supportive interventions can decrease internal fighting in a country, and thereby decrease resources sent to quelling violence. As a result, the fourth hypothesis the authors is as follows: (H4) “Hostile interventions are more likely to reduce quality of life in target states than supportive interventions” (366). This problem can often be compounded when there are multiple, or rival, interveners moving in upon the target country. In situations such as multilateral, coordinated efforts by UN forces, differing interests can often make one country the battleground of a non-hostile clashing between larger powers. Based on this, the authors finish with a fifth hypothesis: (H5) “Rival interventions will have little or no impact on target state regime type, but will reduce economic growth and quality of life in target states” (366). Thus, perhaps a unilateral approach to hostile intervention, like that taken up by the United States in the case of the 2003 Iraq invasion, is best in some or most situations. Pickering and Kisangani conclude their study by noting that their findings agree with those of previous studies that say democratic states are statistically far less likely to be target countries of any kind of intervention, whether hostile or supportive. Democracies are typically resistant to the impact of a foreign military intervention and are well-equipped to prevent the situations which require supportive military interventions. Autocracies, however, with a closed government and strict enforcement of laws, are the most common targets for interventions. Applying their results to the risks/benefits of American interventionism in the Middle East, we might say that Western forces have a greater chance of success when they are dealing with an autocratic government, and that different solutions to Middle Eastern political problems fix different problems. Hostile interventions decrease the quality of life in target countries by weakening countries, and most definitely bear far greater costs than supportive interventions (Easterlin). It is to an examination of this distinction between “hostile” and “supportive” that this analysis must now move. Peace activists and nonviolence researchers have for decades investigated the possible effectiveness of indirect, nonviolent, and “supportive” intervention tactics. In a paper that documents the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Andrew Rigby considers the possibility of third party intervention: non-governmental groups and organisations that can “intervene ‘unofficially’ in situations beyond the borders of their own country” (Rigby 453). Rigby’s analysis is based around the concern raised by others like Thomas Weber. In a similar paper, Weber says: “It is doubtful whether independent interpositionary peace-keeping ventures would ever be able to command the economic and logistical resources required and, more importantly, raise enough volunteers to achieve a critical mass that would make a difference in terms of preventing or stopping hostilities” (Weber 62). Like “hostile” intervention, third-party intervention has potentials and limitations: it cannot be effective in achieving the state goals or the state responsibility of protecting the United States, its citizens or its infrastructure. However, the potential of civilian “supportive” intervention is great enough so that it may hopefully replace the ideological missions that our government establishes for itself, such as spreading democracy in the Middle East. Even if this were an achievable or desirable goal, it could be achieved through other, less costly means. What we can learn from these attempts to intervene with nonviolence is that overseas conflicts can only be quickly handled by a government and a military. This requires us, in the absence of a military using hostile interventions to bring about social change in conflicts of other countries, to focus on problems internal to our own country. Instead of attempting to address conflicts all over the world, perhaps it is best for the citizens of each country to focus on working for change in their own respective nations. Rigby quotes a former member of Peace Brigades International, Tim Wallis, who said, “I believe we best promote the cause of nonviolence worldwide by working harder than ever for change in our own countries and by offering what support we can to our sisters and brothers...” (Rigby 466). The Middle East presents to the West a deep quandary: do we attempt to modernise these nation-states with Western values even though they might reject them, or do we seek out only practical, not ideological, political goals by having a standing army only for our common defence? These questions plague both an American and English perspective on Middle East policy, and has profound implications for how Western nations will choose to use their militaries in an increasingly globalised world. We must recognise that all hostile or supportive interventions are inherently limited in the consequences they can ultimately have in imposing political, economic, and social change on a civilisation a world away. Expanding democracy is an inherently flawed goal for Western politicians, and is one that is strongly contradicted by historical precedent. Middle Eastern nations are better served to have a government that promotes security, until of course the values of the capitalistic and materialistic West can seep into the base of Islamic culture and cause the masses to demand a political system respectful of individual rights. Although there are great opportunities in intervention for the United States, these opportunities are often ignored and the limitations of intervention are pushed. Politicians must learn to accept these limitations in order to effectively protect their country and procure necessary resources via international trade. Works Cited Bellin, Eva. 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Downs. "Intervention and Democracy." International Organization 60 (2006): 627-649. Pickering, Jeffrey and Emizet F. Kisangani. "Political, Economic, and Social Consequences of Foreign Military Intervention." Political Research Quarterly 59:3 (2006): 363-376. Rigby, Andrew. "Unofficial Nonviolent Intervention: Examples from the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict." Journal of Peace Research 32:4 (1995): 453-467. Runciman, David. The Politics of Good Intentions: History, Fear and Hypocrisy in the New World Order. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006. Schofield, Julian and Micah Zenko. "Designing a Secure Iraq: A US Policy Prescription." Third World Quarterly 25:4 (2004): 677-687. Segal, Hugh. "Canadian Voters Frown on Parties Seized by Ideology." Financial Post 4 April 1998: 26-35. Weber, Thomas. "From Maude Roydens Peace Army to the Gulf Peace Team: An Assessment of Unarmed Interpositionary Peace Forces." Journal of Peace Research 30:1 (1993): 45-64. Read More