The Meaning and Significance of The War on Terror in the Unravelling of the New World Order - Assignment Example

Critically evaluate the meaning and significance of ‘the war on terror’ in the unravelling of the ‘New World Order Definition of War on TerrorTo define War on Terror it is first necessary to define terrorism, for the war on terror targets terrorism. This is not very easy for there are different concepts of terrorism with the ethical, political, legal, and military dimensions involved in it. Hayden 2003, p.109, defines terrorism as “seemingly random and unpredictable acts of violence or threatened acts of violence aiming at political, religious or cultural objectives, which target both direct and indirect victims – including innocent individuals, groups, institutions and governments – causing immediate harm and the inducement of fear”. Such a definition of terrorism provides a critical distinction between terrorism and legal acts of warfare. This distinction lies in the deliberate intentions in terrorism to make innocent third parties a target of the terrorist activities. The aim in such acts of terrorism is to instil shock and fear and through this shock and fear force the parties in opposition to a course of action that is sought by the terrorists or bring to the attention of the world some particular cause. Terrorism, in this manner, has an integral component of actions that transgress internationally accepted norms that rule the legitimate use of force or violence that includes the laws of war as applied to innocent non-combatants. Terrorism has two faces – the domestic face and the international face. In its international form terrorism transcends national boundaries of the perpetrators or within the boundaries of the perpetrators targets foreign nationals. Based on such an understanding of terrorism, the war on terror may be defined as the war against the perpetrators of randomly and unpredictable acts of violence or threatened acts of violence with the aim of achieving political, religious or cultural objectives that target innocent people within the national boundaries of the perpetrators or beyond the national boundaries of perpetrators (Hayden, 2003). 2.) Meaning of New World Order The new world order can be interpreted in globalization of trade and commerce, wherein business interests lead to the consolidation of business enterprises spanning across national boundaries and making up a global world. New world order has always had political connotations through history and consisted in the great powers of that time coming together for mutual beneficial interests. The latest such political connotation of new world order occurred before the collapse of the Soviet Union and the apparent closeness of the super powers of United States of America and Soviet Union, which initially found a voice through Mikhail Gorbachev in 1988, which was echoed by President George H. W. Bush in 1989 during the Gulf War (Parker & Clegg, 2006). The subsequent collapse of the Soviet Union meant that, the United States of America had become the lone super power and the Cold War era had come to an end. The experiences in the Gulf War; the break up of the Soviet Union and its ramifications the reunification of Germany, the tragedy emerging in the Yugoslavia meant that the United States of America, though the sole super power left, required the assistance of the other powers in the world to bring about peace. A new world order of greater cooperation was essential to usher in peace and prosperity for the world. Such closer cooperation would enhance the scope for increased trade and commerce between nations. With the United States of America leading this new world order, however, many of the initiatives in this new world order would naturally be tilted in favour of American interests (Cameron, 2005). 3.) Example of New World order unravelling The break up of erstwhile Yugoslavia and in particular the status of Kosovo can be taken as an example of the unravelling of new world order. The autonomy of Kosovo vis-à-vis Serbia received support from the European powers and the United States of America, much to the chagrin of Russia and Serbia. Russia has been seething under the pressure being put on Serbia to accept the autonomy of Kosovo which has been objected to by Russia. In the new world order all the super powers were expected to act in cohesion or rather together to usher in peace and prosperity. The action in the case of Kosovo by the European powers and the United States of America has led to Russia feeling threatened and finds limits put on its sphere of influence. Such unilateral action on the part of the European powers and is not in line with the cooperation that the new world order was to bring. Instead we see a reversal towards of the days of the Cold War with Russia taking reciprocal action to demonstrate its disapproval and demonstrate its continuing influence on some of the erstwhile states of the Soviet Union (Chandler, 2000) 4.).Evaluation, meaning & significance The world order as envisaged during the days of President George H. W. Bush had the essential ingredient of cooperation between the world powers, though led by the United States to attend to the problems that were present and expected to arise that posed a threat to the peace and prosperity of the world. Subsequent actions by the United States of America and the European powers acting in their self interests have led to Russia feeling challenged particularly in areas that were under its influence. This has led to Russia isolating itself more and more from the mew world order and shoring up its defences against this perceived threat. These also include influencing the Central Asian nations to withdraw support in the war against terror in Afghanistan, by depriving bases to the American and NATO forces for support to operations in Afghanistan and increasing its support to Iran nuclear ambitions. The war on terror and the nature and dimensions of its activities requires that all the powers of the world act in unison to face the threat and annihilate the threat. The actions of Russia in retaliation for feeling challenged by America and the European hardly reflect this unison and provide scope for terrorism in Afghanistan and Iraq to raise its head once more and defeat the war in terror, which means that the required global peace and global prosperity will not happen (Dobson & Marsh, 2001). Literary References Cameron, F. 2005, US foreign policy after the Cold War: global hegemony or reluctant sheriff? Routledge: London, pp.14-19. Chandler, D. 2000, ‘Western Intervention and the Disintegration of Yugoslavia’, in Degraded capability: the media and the Kosovo crisis, in eds. Phil Hammond and Edward S. Harman, Pluto Press: London, pp. 19-30. Dobson, A. P. & Marsh, S. 2001, ‘U S Foreign Policy Since 1945: Making of the Contemporary World’, Routledge: London, pp.104-121. Hayden, P. 2003, ‘The War on Terrorism and the Just use of Military Force’, in Americas war on terror, eds. Patrick Hayden, Tom Lansford and Robert P. Watson, Ashgate Publishers Ltd: Aldershot, U.K., pp.105-121. Parker, B. & Clegg, S. 2006, ‘Globalization’, in The Sage Handbook of Organization Studies, eds. Stewart Clegg, Cynthia Hardy, Thomas Lawrence and Walter Nord, Sage: California, pp. 651-674. Read More