Deliberate Use of Force by the United States - Essay Example

? U.S Empire The United s, since the fall of the Soviet Union, has been the sole world superpower and because of this, it has had to bear the burden of policing the entire globe to ensure that it not only protects its interest but also maintains peace. While this has been the case, however, there have been instances where it has been called upon to participate in the resolution of intrastate violence in the various nations of the world in order to bring peace in divided societies. It can be said that the United States does have the ability to bring conflicts into swift conclusions using the leverage that it has over all the other countries in the world. While this is the case, however, there have been instances where the United States has tended to take the wrong actions when it had the opportunity to use its massive leverage to help resolve the conflicts taking place in divided societies and its interventions in such conflicts have made some of the situations on the ground worse than they were before. The American military capability cannot be denied but its use in almost every conflict situation in the world is not advised because of the fact that not all conflicts can be resolved militarily. The foreign policy of the United States as it is currently is not compatible with the realities of the situation in the twenty first century because the times of wars of aggression are long past and an age of absolute global peace is fast approaching. The policy of taking sides in domestic conflicts in such situations as in Israel, Syria and Libya, instead of endearing the United States to the world as a global peacemaker, has ended up doing the opposite, earning this country a bad name on the global stage. It can therefore be said that the United States does not currently have the capability of resolving intrastate violence in divided societies and that in order for it to be able to do so, it has to have a massive overhaul of its foreign policy. The fact that the United States has been proven not to have the capacity for ending intrastate violence in the various societies in the world has created a situation where it is not trusted in matters of conflict resolution. This is mainly because in most of its interventions, it has consistently taken sides in local conflicts; a matter which has earned it many grievances from the excluded parties. There has developed a situation where it has become a necessity for the United States to change some part of its policies concerning interventions in intrastate conflicts so that it can easily bring such conflicts to a speedy end. Among the means which can be suggested is through the development of a strong neutral stance in such conflicts in order to make the opposing sides feel comfortable with American intervention because taking sides more often than not alienates a part of the society; mostly against the power that is attempting to bring peace in the respective region (McGarry & O’Leary, 2007). The development of a strong diplomatic resume would help the United States a great deal when dealing with intrastate conflicts because there would be level ground for the conflicting sides to come to an amicable solution. This was seen in recent times in Kenya, where during the violence which erupted after the 2007 elections, the United States stepped up its diplomatic machine to ensure that peace was returned to this divided society. The swift intervention in this conflict by the United States government, led by the then Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice helped in a massive way in the swift ending of the conflict and the return to normalcy in Kenya (Adeagbo & Iyi, 2011). Diplomatic means should therefore be a priority for the United States in its endeavor to foster peaceful societies all over the world. The capability of the United States as a global diplomatic force is among the greatest in human history and this can be used to great advantage in the resolution of intrastate conflicts all over the world. While this is the case, the Syrian conflict has come to show the greatest weakness of the American diplomatic machine and this has been recognized as its partisanship when it has come to this conflict. The fact that the United States wishes to increase its influence in Syria through the setting up of a government that is friendly to it has led to the official government stance that the Syrian president, Bashar Assad should leave power. However, while such a move would serve the American interests in the region, it will also end up alienating the supporters of the Assad regime, who form a significant percentage of the Syrian population. The condition of the American government that Assad must go is perhaps among the reasons why the conflict in Syria is still ongoing with no hope of resolution in the near future (Sorenson, 2013). The United States should wake up to the fact that it cannot have its way in every conflict that takes place in sovereign nations because if it does force its wishes on the people of such countries, then there might be a situation where there is hostility towards the United States. The Syrian crisis, for example, can only be resolved through diplomatic means, where the Assad government and the rebel forces are brought to the negotiation table with the only condition being imposed on either of them being their agreeing to a ceasefire. Once this is done, then the negotiations for a peaceful resolution of the conflict can begin, with the United States acting as a neutral overseer and not as a facilitator of part of the conflict. It can further be said that the history of American intervention in intrastate conflicts has not been as glamorous and heroic as some individuals have painted it. It is a fact that most of these interventions have proven to be disastrous not only for American foreign policy decisions but also for the countries involved because while some have ended up being failed states, such as Libya, there are others which have become divided along ideological lines, like North and South Korea. The failure of the United States in its interventions globally has been based on the fact that it tends to put its interests first before those of the parties involved. This is the case as it happened in Vietnam and Korea where the United States intervened, not because of the humanitarian crisis which was taking place in these nations, but because it was fighting an ideological battle against communism (Jones, 2008). The fact that these attempts ended up failing, first through the partitioning of the Korean nation and through the American withdrawal from Vietnam, is a true testament of the inability of the United States to carefully consider the situation on the ground before taking any action of intervention. Vietnam is among the worst foreign policy disasters of the United States in its history because while thousands of its servicemen lost their lives in the conflict, it did not achieve its goal of preventing a communist takeover of the whole of Vietnam. As a result of the weak policy decisions of the governments that presided over the conflict, it is the United States which ended up paying the price through the loss of American lives as well as its humiliating withdrawal from the country (Berger & Reese, 2010). It can therefore be said that while the United States has the capability of intervening in intrastate conflicts, its main failure in such interventions has always been the taking of sides, thus making the situation worse than it was already. The American influence has been felt in the diverse number of recent intrastate conflicts all over the world and among these has been that of the Sudan. Because of its stance against Omar el Bashir of Sudan, the conflict in the Darfur region of the Sudan is still ongoing and this is despite the ongoing United Nations peacekeeping mission. The main challenge to the resolution of this conflict has been because America has come into the negotiating table with a fixed mind on many of the diverse issues that are the cause of the conflict. The United States, looking upon President Bashir as one accused of war crimes by the International Criminal Court as well as a sponsor of the Janjaweed militia in the Darfur conflict, has failed to consider the fact that Bashir is among the key players in the conflict who can facilitate the coming of eventual peace in the Darfur region. The United States should not dismiss Bashir as a war criminal and seek his punishment, but should consider the greater goal of bringing lasting peace in the Sudan (Layne & Thayer, 2007). The need to bring down one man should not overshadow the need to save hundreds of thousands of lives since so many lives have been lost from the beginning of the Darfur conflict. The ability of the United States to accept its diplomatic mistakes and correct then would go a long way in ensuring that its interventions in intrastate conflicts are not only credible but also acceptable to both sides of the said conflicts. The deliberate use of force by the United States under the aegis of NATO in the Balkans is among the best exceptions that can be considered to be a success of American foreign policy. The fact that its participation acted as a deterrent rather than actively taking sides ensured that the Serb forces in both the Bosnian war and the wars that were taking place in Yugoslavia did not get out of hand. In fact, it can be said that it was because of the American led intervention in this region that prevented the large scale Serb massacre of the other ethnic groups in the region, ensuring that they were brought to the negotiating table for a peace settlement. The fact that many of the actions taken by NATO in the conflict can be considered to have been preventive in nature created a situation where both sides of the conflict, tired of the war, ended up coming to an amicable conclusion of the conflict (?or?evic, 2012). The American intervention also paved the way for the development of a clear resolution to the conflict that had resulted in the crumbling of the Yugoslavian federation, since the various people within the constituent states were able to determine their own destinies through the formation of their own nations without the interference of the Serb dominated government. While one would praise the efforts of American intervention in the conflicts of the Balkans as among its greatest successes, one would also say that this was an exception and not the rule because similar interventions in later conflicts proved that the military interventionist policy is not necessarily always the best. Thus there has developed the need to ensure that the American policy towards military intervention in intrastate conflicts be changed, so that it can be more objective in its targets than in the current situation where it intensifies the conflict rather than ends it. In conclusion, it can be said that the development of the United States policy on matters concerning intrastate conflicts need to be changed so that it can be more effective in its role of global policing. The need for more caution when undertaking any military or other interventions in intrastate conflicts should be emphasized by American policymakers whenever there is a call for such intervention. The American involvement should focus more on deterrence rather than either active participation or the seeking of regime change, since it is not the place of the American government, but the people of the states in conflict themselves who should choose their own leaders. In such a situation, the United States should only be the facilitator of negotiations leading towards a democratic process where the participants will involve all the parties in the conflicts, and not only those that America chooses to the exclusion of others. Thus will the United States regain its credibility as the world leader in matters concerning the resolution of intrastate conflicts. References Adeagbo, O. A., & Iyi, J. (2011). Post-election crisis in Kenya and internally displaced persons: A critical appraisal. Journal of Politics and Law, 4(2), 174-179. Berger, M. T., & Reese, J. Y. (2010). From nation-states in conflict to conflict in nation-states: The United States of America and nation building from South Vietnam to Afghanistan. International Politics, 47(5), 451-471. ?or?evic, V. (2012). Hesitant to engage: US intervention in the Balkans from Yugoslav dissolution to the kosovo campaign. Stredoevropske Politicke Studie, 14(2), 227-247. Jones, M. (2008). Replacing France: The origins of American intervention in Vietnam. The Journal of American History, 94(4), 1316-1317. Layne, C. & Thayer, B.A. (2007). American Empire: A Debate. New York: Routledge, McGarry, J. & O’Leary, B. (2007). Iraq’s Constitution of 2005: Liberal Consociation as Political Prescription. International Journal of Constitutional Law. 5 (4), 670-698. Sorenson, D. S. (2013). US options in Syria. Parameters, 43(3), 5-15. Read More