CRITICAL THINKING QUESTIONS

1. Uncertainty about costs and benefits of an action can complicate foreign policy decision making. What are the sources of uncertainty in IR? Can decision makers take steps to reduce that uncertainty?

2. Consider an event in IR that you are familiar with. Thinking about the actors involved in making a decision concerning that event, how would that event be explained by the rational-actor model? Might it be better explained by considering standard operating procedures or bureaucratic politics?

3. Sometimes aggressive international actions are attributed to a “madman” such as Iraq’s Saddam Hussein or Nazi Germany’s Adolf Hitler. Do you agree that such leaders (each of whose actions severely damaged his state’s well-being) must be “mad”? What other factors could account for their actions? How do you think such people achieve and maintain national leadership?

4. India and Pakistan are neighbors and enemies. Given the problems of misperception and bias (предвзятость) in foreign policy decision making, what steps could you propose that each government adopt to keep these problems from interfering in the rational pursuit of national interests?

5. Traditionally, foreign policy elites have faced only sporadic pressure from mass public opinion. Is the role of television and the Internet changing this relationship? If you were a top foreign policy maker, what steps could you take to keep TV news and blogs from shaping the foreign policy agenda before you could define your own goals and directions?

GLOBAL ISSUES:

Aging

One of the main reasons behind the World's massive population spurt of the past century, is our advancements in healthcare. By the standards of only 100 years ago, with the help of medicines and treatments, we are now prolonging life to unimaginable average lengths, and we have now really begun to take control of our body's systems. Lucrative financial investment from the business community - most notably pharmaceutical corporations - has also helped by attracting many great scientific minds to the field of Gerontology (the study of aging).

Depleted Uranium (DU)

Depleted Uranium (DU) is a highly toxic and mildly (although some people say not so mild!) radioactive substance, which is a by-product that is produced when Uranium is being turned into fuel for both nuclear power stations, and for nuclear bombs. Whilst this kind of 'clean' waste uranium is found in high amounts in DU bombs, there is a constant argument over just how much reprocessed spent nuclear reactor fuel is being packed into DU bombs too. And this is a big issue, because if reprocessed uranium is present in DU, it may be considered much more dangerous to humans, with higher levels of radioactivity present, plus the possible inclusion of other harmful substances, which were produced/used during the original nuclear fission process.

There is a long list of health effects, birth defects and cancers which have been associated with exposure to high levels of uranium, including so-called 'Gulf War Syndrome' - DU is thought to be the singular cause of this condition. The most recent known bulk uses of DU internationally, are by Coalition and NATO forces, with DU dropped over places like Iraq, Afghanistan and the Balkans, contaminating the land and population for hundreds, if not millions, of years. If the radioactivity levels are as expected in some DU bombs - high and dangerous to human beings, to other living things and to the environment - then western forces must be stopped from using them immediately. And furthermore, instead of dropping our DU waste over invaded countries, we must find ways to store it safely, or else we must stop producing it. For the sake of our survival, we also need to clean up the nuclear waste which we have dumped underwater and underground.

Media Manipulation

The majority of the western mainstream media is owned and controlled by a handful of very rich individuals, and this is how our media has been used to massage the kind of news we receive, and the level of coverage which particular news stories will get. Rather than being a people-centred institution, nowadays the media tends to be something which is used to build up the public's perception of major incidents, or to re-focus people's attention away from important issues, and it appears to be getting more biased over the years. Something must be done to get honesty back into the news which we are fed.

Nuclear Energy

The latest figures from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the global cooperation body for nuclear power producers, tells us that around 13-14% of the World's energy was produced by nuclear plants during 2009, continuing the slight downward trend on production of nuclear power, when taken as a % of total energy production. In total 28 nations produce nuclear energy, and 16 have plants under construction.

Nuclear Weapons

There are currently nine nations which hold operational nuclear warheads (United States, Russia, France, China, United Kingdom, Israel, Pakistan, India, North Korea), and the United States also loans them out to Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands and Turkey, through a NATO-approved 'Nuclear Sharing' scheme. Many people believe that this policy violates the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which prohibits the transfer of nuclear weapons. There are currently 22,600 warheads globally, 21,600 of which are owned by the United States and Russia.

Pollution

There may be an incredible amount of media coverage devoted to the subject of pollution in general, but we still do not have a clear picture as to how badly we have already polluted the World. With a growing awareness of corporations being much more interested in profit, than in our environment or health, we must try to find some way to develop an honest analysis of the situation, and we must also find a 100% safe way of storing our most harmful types of waste.

Population Growth

Our population is growing at a massive rate, and it looks set to continue, which will bring a whole host of new problems, while making some current issues much harder to deal with. We still do not use our land in the best possible manner to provide food for our growing population, many people still live in terrible conditions, and we still do not know what to do with our waste. Let’s hope that the 9.1bn people alive in 2050 can do much better than the 6.9bn of 2010, and considerably better than the 2.5bn of 1950.

Press Freedom

In the recent past, the issue of a lack of press freedom was considered to be a problem only within developing nations, which were often run by dictatorships, or unfair political systems, but nowadays press freedom is an issue for us all. The freedom of the internet has educated us to the fact that many of those dictatorships were actually set up, and managed, by our own western governments, and now they have turned their attention to their own people. Our governments are attempting to clamp down on the very freedom, and lack of censorship, which the internet has awarded to us, with the United States leading this charge to curtail our freedom of expression, and to cut off our widespread access to knowledge.

Wikileaks

Wikileaks is becoming one of the big global issues of our time. The United States government is doing everything it can to put an end to this global group of activists, including attacking them with propaganda, and with technology through hacking attacks, plus threatening businesses and others who have relationships with them. Is this a form of terrorism, when all Wikileaks are doing is releasing the people's information, back to the people? National security is often cited as a reason for not being forthright with the public, by all governments, but if they were doing good things, would there really be any reason to hide their secret dealings?

We confront or create serious physical phenomena of global impact, many caused by forces that can only be indirectly influenced, or even understood. These may or may not be avoidable, but many can now at least be predicted, or reduced in force or effect. Examples may be climatic (global warming, ozone depletion); geological (earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tsunami); meteorological (floods, storms, droughts); or space-originated (asteroids). Almost any human counter-action can only or best be undertaken collectively by the global community.

(E) Meeting New Security Threats:

The end of the Cold War did not ease, but rather probably intensified, human insecurity. The UN recognizes that dangers to international peace and security now equate less with inter-state military violence, and more with other threats, varied and multiple, to local, regional or global survival. The priority reaction to these altered threats must be changes and flexibility in human response. Human perceptions, priorities and institutions must adapt to situations. The necessary process of reaction is so grave, urgent and universal that it must be addressed collectively, as at the UN World Summits.

(F) Confronting Violence:

Since the end of the Cold War, while conflict between states has become rare, intra-state violence has increased. Self-determination, ethnic and religious differences have replaced resource gain and even ideology as reasons for inter-human combat. The proliferation and lethality of new weapons alone demands the reduction and eventual elimination of mass conflict. There is a continuum of things the UN can and must do. Through prevention and mediation, varied military or other sanctions, peacekeeping, and other intervention or assistance designed to stabilize or defuse situations, the UN must act as it was designed to do - further the building of global peace. A shrinking world makes peacemaking everywhere enlightened self-interest for all.

(G) Dealing with Disaster:

Almost all the challenges identified raise the possibility of catastrophe, however prescient the UN's efforts. World interdependence increases chances that local events have global effects; the colossal and ever-growing scale of human intrusions on the biosphere make catastrophes both more likely and serious; and the omnipresent media, combined with the appalling discrepancies in wealth, make assistance politically unavoidable. Geography, resources and technology alone make UN-coordinated action preferable.

(H) Promoting Disarmament:

The end of the Cold War brought new hope for peace dividends, but left a world awash in arms, surplus arms-making capacity, and unemployed arms professionals. Traffic increased in both scale and recipients, as prices fell. Control over the development, manufacture and deployment of lethal weapons and substances, particularly nuclear, biological and chemical, has become no longer the preserve of the superpowers and their allies. UN concern and activity has grown, but will be constrained by: continued weapons research, driven by fear, greed and curiosity; global diffusion of both weapons and relevant knowledge; the increasing difficulty of verification; and the vulnerability of complex modern society to disruption. All demand global reaction.

(I) Reducing Hazardous Frustration:

With the proliferation of weapons comes the profusion of those who could and might use them. The desperation of unemployment, the anger of those masses who perceive themselves deprived in a grossly unequal but more-informed world, and the boldness of ethnic and religious certainties, sows contagious seeds of terrorism, fanaticism and martyrdom. Arming and financing extremists are inter alia the growing numbers and wealth of drug dealers and other international criminals, and new thousands of well-trained and armed international mercenaries and activists. Miniaturization, the diffusion of lethal knowledge and components, and multi-use equipment and substances, impede surveillance, while the vulnerability of energy- and information-dependent society makes it more susceptible to focussed attack and blackmail. Counter-action must therefore involve all governments to eliminate sanctuary and safe transit. Counter-intelligence must become as airtight and coordinated as possible. Only global coverage is truly effective.

(J) Countering Medical Challenges:

Two trends cause increasing health concerns. First is the rapid and relentless escalation in the global movement of both people and things. Every conscious transfer also carries the threat of transmitting human, plant or animal disease, and inevitably raises the likelihood of pandemics. Second, the very widespread (over)use of antibiotics etc. has produced more resistant mutations, and a global race to keep ahead. All this calls for tighter global biological preventive and control measures. Fortunately many can be integrated to a degree with other security screening, and control of toxic goods movements. Again, any impervious system demands all-inclusive global coverage.

(K) Building a Global Rule of Law:

Every (binding) interstate agreement constrains sovereignty, and every resolution passed in a universal forum contributes to creating global standards/norms. The general trend is thus for the body of international practice, precedent and law to grow at an unequalled rate. The reason is practical. A world whose international inter-connections grow exponentially must establish and maintain relevant rules, controls and principles. The development of international law and tribunals must keep pace with interdependence. If global, the UN is involved.

(L) Developing Global Rights:

The formation and acceptance of universal human rights and democratic norms raises questions. While some governments argue that human rights are culturally based, in practice the body of those globally accepted is expanding. In any event, any universal code must be developed through the gradual build-up of norms. The process of formulation and acceptance is constantly underway in various UN fora, and has been for many years. Movement, though slow, is clearly forward and increasingly intrusive within states.

(M) Managing Mass Migrations:

Humans now move in unprecedented numbers, not simply because there are more people, but because both the need and opportunity have grown: both push and pull forces are powerful. The UN officially recognizes well over 20 million refugees forced unwillingly out of their own country. Globally, about one person in a hundred is either a refugee or displaced, i.e. forced unwillingly to move within their country. Other mass migrations are more ambiguous, particularly the uncontrolled flows in poorer countries from country to city. When either or both the migrant and the place of immigration is unwilling, problems are bound to arise beyond mere acculturation. These truly global issues can best be dealt with at the global level.

(N) Maintaining Global Financial Order:

One major aspect of globalization is the interdependence of national finances. This reflects the vast, expanding scale and global nature of: international trade (goods; services; technology), investment (short-term; direct), migration (personal assets; remittances), and the related or speculative financial transfers (now worth about $1.5 trillion daily). This reality limits all governments' control over national fiscal policies, exchange rates, economic success, and debts, and can threaten national stability - increasingly through external financial developments. Resulting world-wide issues include: the need for/terms of global financial rules and assistance; the nature, control and value of (national) currencies; the optimum rules for foreign trade, investment and migration; the damping of irrational confidence, price, stock-exchange frenzies; the elimination of tax havens and money laundering. All involve the UN system (particularly the IMF-World Bank).

(O) Optimizing International Trade:

As the volume and value of international trade grows, it raises new problems of negotiation, regulation and adjustment. The World Trade Organization will have a key role in dealing with the rapidly growing trade in services, chronic problems with agriculture, the issues of international investment and corruption, environmental and labour standards, and the taxing of international trade between parts of supra-national corporations. Many economic agreements are already global. They will inevitably grow in number and complexity as trade blocs form.

(P) Dealing with Failure and Anarchy:

The collapse of major institutions, both national and international, including numerous failed states, is foreseen as a delicate predicament for the international community. The UN may be the only acceptable resident physician in many cases. Two problems inevitably arise: the degree of global control and help that is tolerable yet sufficient, and the enormous cost and possibly time-scale involved. For many reasons, however, a political-security black hole can no longer be left unattended by an interdependent community.

(Q) Accommodating Non-State Power:

The influence, wealth and activities of many non-state trans-national organizations (NGO's, corporations, ideological movements, media, etc.) is approaching or exceeding that of sovereign states. The international rules in regard to such bodies remain very limited. One reason is that they may have no genuine nationality and/or can play one state off against another. Somehow such organizations must be persuaded to respect a minimal system of supranational norms, or jurisdiction if necessary. Only the UN system has any hope of accomplishing this.

® Optimizing Global Knowledge:

In a knowledge-driven world, the maximum and most rapid exploitation of accurate information and essential technology should be facilitated, if only to the general welfare. Assisting in raising global access to information is a challenge so big and beneficial that it falls on the UN. Third World states can be assisted electronically in gaining entry to the most essential pools of knowledge, particularly to exploit modern technology for rapid and general education. The distortions and instability that accompany the global revolution can thus be absorbed as quickly and painlessly as possible, and the Third World make a major contribution to global sustainable development.

(S) Alleviating Global Distress:

The avoidable frustration, hopelessness and anguish of billions of humans, brought about by absolute privation, and extreme and growing income divergence, both within and between states, must be addressed - if only for enlightened self-interest in global stability. The international community through the United Nations has a unique capacity, and so responsibility. We must try; there is no rational excuse.

The Global Challenges Forum

Date: 2015-12-11; view: 2265