Politic Science Research Paper: Obamas New War (Research Paper Sample)

Politic science research paper: “Obama’s New War”
DongJing Wu
Diablo Valley College – International Relations (8609)
Course Code
Date
“Obama’s New War”
Abstract
The Arab uprising has resulted to both positive and negative impact on the economies of the affected countries. Through the demonstrations, they have been able to topple the past regime of corrupt and dictator leaders and elect their leader of choice. The uprising has created awareness of bad leadership across the globe forcing the western countries to intervene and call for the rights and freedom of the innocent citizens. The killing of innocent people in Libya has forced the international council (United Nation Security Council) to intervene by sending its forces to protect the citizens from further killings. It has also ordered for a no flying zone to the nation so as to monitor the forces that are loyal to Gaddafi (Retrieved: Middle East unrest, 2011). The situations have paralyzed the entire economies of the involved countries as they are unable to carry out their daily economic activities that boost the economy. The tourism sector and transport sectors have been adversely affected by the demonstrators since tourists cannot visit countries undergoing political instabilities.
Introduction
The unrest state in the Middle East countries like Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Yemen, Syria and others has brought about much concern to the entire globe. The revolution began in Tunisia that was being led by former President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali who had ruled the country with an iron hand. With Tunisia being a focal point, it led to spread of the calls for democracy in other Arab nations across the Middle East. The long oppress imposed on the people over a long time has given them the urge to fight for their rights and freedom despite the outcome. Most of the rebels have formed organizations that are determined to fight until their needs are addressed fully by their leaders whom they elect. The paper highlights the impacts of the intervention of the USA and NATO through the United Nations Security Council Resolution of 1973. The resolution calls for all the council members to take all necessary means of actions including military force for protection of civilians and civilian-populated areas from attack by forces loyal to Libyan leader Col. Muammar Gaddafi (Dalton, 2011).
This study draws a distinction between intervention that is oriented at providing relief and peacekeeping and intervention that involves a multilateral coalition engaging in military action. The former type of intervention refers to non-military involvement that includes the deliverance of food and medical aid and the deployment of neutral peacekeepers among other things. Military intervention on the other hand refers expressly to instances where a third party intervener inserts itself into combat thereby becoming a belligerent within a conflict and losing any former semblance of neutrality. As such, the study here draws a distinction between peacekeeping and peace implementation (Cheldelin, Druckman and Fast, 2008).
Background
The call for democracy by the US America to other world nations is a factor that has led to the distrust from other countries especially from the Middle East who have over time been associated with terrorism activities. The call for democracy has made many ant-democracy groups to express different views on the Americans championing of Democracy that has eventually resulted on terrorist’s attacks on the American people across the globe. The American intelligence community (I. C) has been rewarded with the duty of coordinating the intelligence system that carries out the ant-terrorism program in America. The structure is relays much on the legitimacy, collaboration, intelligence service dexterity and issuance of command & control of the security agencies (Dismore, 2008).
The Dictatorial rule by leaders in the countries has been a major cause of the uprisings as the natives have reached a state of no return with the way of running the political arena. These have led to the rise of ant-imperialism struggle, communist hunt and continuous protesting against the unfair leadership. The citizens have been denied their freedoms on all the political matters of their country. The ever deteriorating living standards among the people and un-equal distribution of resources among the population as forced them to rise against their governance. Rulers like, Ali-Ben, Mubarak among others did not fully meet the expectations of the citizen as they were seen as blocks to development and reforms. The leaders have been in power for long periods (decades) yet they are not willing to live the offices despite calls from the people i.e. Gaddafi of Libya and the Syria president (Retrieved: Middle East unrest, 2011). The power of the youth through mass protests in the streets demanding for accountability by the executives has led to fall of regimes of Ben Ali and Mubarak.
The political domination and restriction on fundamental freedoms among the people as they view as if power is being taken away from them as they are denied freedom of expressing their views, holding peaceful protests, restricting media from highlighting crucial issues in the society and manipulating the election to favour the presidents allies. Incidences of violence to the public by the police and the abuse of public offices with those in authority are among the issues that had become a routine practice forcing people to react against them. The mismanagement of funds through corruption cases by those in the authority focus on their personal gains using the country’s resources without considering the public’s interests. The funds embezzled could be used in carrying out government expenditure, development of infrastructure, setting up of social amenities and creation of new industries and factories that could provide employment opportunities to the youth.
Terrorism has been one of the most dangerous organized crime activity combating different nations across the world. To be able to cub terrorism activities there is need to formulate counter terrorism policies to boost operations of the agencies dealing with terrorism activities. In U.S.A different agencies such as: CIA, FBI and State department deal with terrorism activities. The counter terrorism operations involve the use of different methods and strategies by either the military or the government selected individuals to do way with terrorism (Government Printing Office, 2008).
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is one of the leading independent agencies owned by the US government in charge of the task of providing national security intelligence to the selected US policymakers. Its specific functions include:
* Advising the National Security council of the US on subjects involving matters about intelligence activities of specific departments in the government about national security.
* Evaluating and coordinating operations to guard national security and provide needed data about intelligence to different government branches.
* Organize and perform counterintelligence tasks beyond borders of the United States and it never will perform or assume any internal security functions.
* Performs special operations requested by the President unless the president chooses another agency over it according to what the state needs to achieve.
* Maintains technical devices and systems and develops them after enough research through contracts for them to perform their special and authorized functions.
* Gives both technical and administrative assistance inside and outside the United States needed so as help it perform its functions, such as essential cover and prior arrangements (Lewis & Hocking, 2007).
Theoretical positions
Theoretical debate in political science about what kind of conditions are conducive to an escalation of humanitarian to military intervention is limited to a level. Liberal perspectives of intervention commonly see it as motivated by altruistic humanitarian intentions while realist perspectives tend to view interventions, even those of a humanitarian nature, through the prism of self-interest. On a broad level, the perspectives regarding why military intervention occurs can be grouped into three categories or condition sets: those that see intervention as motivated by severity of conditions on the ground, those that see it as the product of domestic political influences and those that see it as a product of geopolitical considerations.
An escalation in the level of intervention is likely due to geopolitical considerations and certain domestic political influences. This is not to deny that the severity of a conflict is not pertinent in the choice to intervene. According to the principles of the UN Charter, it seems unlikely that a multilateral coalition would violate the sovereignty of another state by interfering in its domestic affairs without a serious humanitarian impetus. An elevated level of violence and volatility in a nation is necessary for prompting a violation of a state’s sovereignty. A mixture of domestic political influences and geopolitical influences are likely the primary conditions behind the escalation of humanitarian intervention to military intervention.
Severity of Conditions on the Ground
Severity simply refers to the escalation of multilateral action as flowing from humanitarian exigencies. Many academicians argue that in the event of increased suffering, there is a moral imperative for major powers and intergovernmental organizations to use force in order to alleviate such a crisis. It is automatic that the increasing intensity of a conflict could likely deter a nation from applying military force. The application might force an intervening actor to spend more resources and manpower than ...