Is Deterrence Still a Useful Concept - Coursework Example

Is Deterrence Still a Useful Concept? Abstract Deterrence was a commonly used war strategy during the cold war, but the end of the war did not bring the use of such strategies to a close. The military-industrial complex has kept the economy of our uni-polar world at a delicate equilibrium for years now, providing employment and encouraging global unrest. Deterrence has progressed from a war tactic to an act of oppression over ethnic minorities and third world countries, leading to expensive intelligence and espionage tactics that leave the world confused and unable to do as they please. This lack of freedom to voice ones opinion or do as one pleases has led to widespread hopelessness in developing countries and blissful ignorance in developed nations. Deterrence as it suggests, refers to the intimidation of other parties through a show of superiority or by taking away of privileges. It is quite a common concept, with examples of it to be found throughout centuries of our world’s history. To make this concept easier, it can be explained as a parent taking away privileges if a child misbehaves; or a spouse threatening to deny their significant other of carnal rights if their needs are not met. On a more political front, for centuries, kings have been threatening to kill merchants and travelers from other lands unless they were promised a regular supply of taxes, food supplies and estate. Even the church has used deterrent, intimidating their followers into paying high taxes to skip the wrath the almighty has in store for them. A deterrent for nations can be in the form of sanctions, military threat or bans and treaties which negatively affect the economy of the country in question and are usually undergone to show political superiority, enmity or just to gain economic power.1 Deterrents might even harm both parties involved, but sometimes that is a risk a state is willing to take. During the cold war, the United States and most of the western world had sanctions on the USSR and countries that supported them and vice versa, hurting the world economy. However, the USSR was not just any country; it in itself was a power to contend with and had counter deterrents to threaten the US of A with. The world that we live in today is a uni-polar world, meaning that there is only one super power calling the shots of the world’s economy, that being the United States, considering it represents twenty percent of the world’s consumer market. Therefore, a crash in their economy, as can be seen these days adversely affects the economy of the globe, sending half the countries towards bankruptcy and destitution. However, the post world-war two worlds emerged as a bi polar world, meaning the globe was governed by two major powers-the communist USSR in the east and the capitalist USA in the west. Not only did their territories stand on almost opposite ends of the globe, their ideologies stood poles apart as well, but this helped maintain a fragile balance in the world known as the cold war. Between 1947 and 1990, both these super powers were breathing down each other’s necks in the world’s most expensive cold war. The war was fought on an idea that the Americans had. The end of World War two had seen a rapid rise in communism in the East, either under duress or by choice for many countries, including China, Korea and Vietnam. Not only that, the end of world war two had led to the birth of so many new nations that the capitalist west was concerned that if they all got influenced by communism, it might lead to the entire region switching to this doctrine, and the doctrine spreading until eventually the entire world became a communistic haven.2 This theory of the west is known as the domino effect theory and the cold war was basically fought between the communists of the USSR and the capitalists of the USA over the better form of world order.3 Communism gave power to the hands of the people, while capitalism holds all power in the hands of the few rich who can afford it. Power is a narcotic of such strength that nothing can compare to it and of such addiction that once one has it, they would kill rather than give it up. Therefore, those who could afford it fought long and hard so they would not have to share it-and eventually won the cold war. It had its disadvantages-what war doesn’t. Even if a single bullet was not fired, the actual process of deterrence, the arms race, the political enhancement and economic and infrastructure build up cost both these countries a lot.4 But -believe it or not-it helped them as well. The arms race led to thousands of dollars going into research and development of arms and emerging with nuclear bombs so powerful they would make those used in world war two seem harmless.5 Technology also improved at fast paces, leading to the inevitable progress from super computers of the fifties to laptops and the internet we use in our homes today. Of course, much of this credit goes to the space race. Having two super powers of equal influence fighting to declare their supremacy made them try hard to be better at everything than the other. The Russians were the first to send a cosmonaut into space, however, the Americans were the first to land one on the moon. Then there were the spies. Everyone has read or seen some novel or book from the sixties, obsessing over secret agents, double agents and other such things which we today refer to as a good read. Even considering such things to occur in real life would have to be considered paranoia. The thing is, in the US, intelligence was constantly trying to find out what the Russians were up to, leading to them having one of the most elite secret services in the world. This also actually led to agents, double agents, spies and a lot of speculation. Senator Joseph McCarthy, a US senator of state proposed that any citizen who seemed to support the communists or appeared to be a communist sympathizer was to be prosecuted. Most people who were anti-war were therefore arrested as communist supporters and later freed, but the damaged invariably had already been done. During the cold war, on his farewell address, President Eisenhower referred to the military-industrial complex, something that can be described as an ‘iron triangle’ of power shared amongst the industrial, commercial and political spheres of a country.6 To be described in simple words, it is a theory which states that if a country is at war, it is good for the economy as it boosts production of arms, uniforms and food, creates employment, raises GDP, gives politicians a purpose and helps them increase their power and popularity as well as increases the import and export of goods and services (leasing soldiers to NATO and the UN). Another advantage of war is that during a war, people don’t realize the economic benefits of it and if the country shows a budget deficit, it can be blamed on high spending on defense. The period after a war is when a country actually gets affected, with high levels of unemployment, low production as the industry shifts from defense goods to commercial goods and shortages.7 To deal with this, it is proposed that an economy as large as the United States tries to be a constant deterrent to smaller states and developing economies to create employment and keep their economy from falling. Basically ever since the cold war ended, to balance out the negative effects of this ending war, the concept of compellence jumped in. Compellence is a lot like Deterrence as it tries to change the incentives and goals of the opponent to force the opponent into changing the course of action. It is different because unlike deterrence where you are trying to force your opponent not to take any action, in compellence you are just trying to change the action to something else. The United States is known to deal with falling economies by waging tiny wars or threatening countries of them. After world war two, the United States has been at a constant war with one country or another.8 This is a fact not very widely known about the US, as normally just those battles are publicly discussed that actually made a difference to their economy. This proves the military-industrial complex and portrays the overpowering factors affecting the economy. The cold war provided a time of relative peace where both nations had no intentions of fighting a proper war, but were content threatening each other of it. Both the countries achieved extra ordinary technology in weapon making. Nuclear weapons were created and tested just to scare each other. Airpower was given a lot of importance mainly because of the distance between the two countries. Fighter jets became better and better. The USSR made it till Cuba and the US finally fought with them in Afghanistan. Both countries had reached Nash equilibrium decades ago, and were just waiting for one of the parties to back off. Which happened, when in 1991, on Christmas day, the USSR announced the end of the cold war and the breaking up of their nation as it had once stood. Apparently the good those forty five years of cold war had done had all been unraveled in three year of battle in Afghanistan. However, the winner greatly benefited from this. While people in Russia were dying of cold and starvation, the US economy boomed, stock markets going crazy. They still had the infrastructure and resources to continue their research and emerge from this time the greatest uni-polar world power yet. Deterrents helped the USA well during the cold war, keeping the world from a third world war, saving billions of dollars that were spent on infrastructure and technology instead and generally saving the US from a fate similar to that of the USSR. Why, then should the concept of deterrence die with the death of a nation? It served America well once. Why should it stop now? Being the only power in the world, the US is responsible for almost seven billion people in the world today. The focus on nuclear weapons is still the same. United States is still trying to invent better missiles, they are still not satisfied by the rage of their fighter planes and they still need more submarines. The president of the United States is considered to be a position where one is the ‘king of the world’. How would such a powerful economy operate and keep its power without deterrents? Deterrents have their advantages for all sorts of convenience for the ruling class. In world war two, over four million Jew, and many other minorities were killed. Throughout history, however, no matter how much it might be denied now, the Jewish, African race and gypsies were despised in different parts of the world. When the war ended, to make sure retaliation doesn’t occur, the ruling countries, America, Britain, France and Russia decided to give the Jews their ‘promised land’ back, a land which has been fought over for over a few hundred years due to its significance to three different faiths. The Jewish race was given land and the country of Israel was born. Through their acts of deterrence, they fought off the people who actually already lived there and claimed it as their own. Over the last sixty years, everyday has been a battle for both the Palestinians-who belong to that place-and the Israelis-who do not want to cooperate with the locals. The world has long forgotten that anyone but Israelis ever lived on that land and has turned a blind eye to the ‘minor skirmishes’ that kill thousands of innocent civilians annually and force children to be borne unto a land of war. The independent State of Palestine was founded in 2008, and lasted a mere few weeks when the same battles broke out: only now, they weren’t skirmishes but a war of two nations. Yet the world turns a blind eye because it suits them to have most of the world’s Jews gathered in one place as those who live in other countries inevitably tend to be rich and powerful and the envy of those around them. Even the black were given their own country, that of Cameroon and were left to wage civil wars and fight amongst themselves because disunity in developing nations is another guarantee the world will remain uni-polar. In 1996, the USA came out with the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), to unite the forty four nuclear powers of the world and make them sign an agreement stating they would not use or test nuclear arms ever again unless attacked first.9 Pakistan, India and North Korea were three of the countries who refused to sign this treaty, leading to strict trade sanctions and embargoes placed on all three countries. These countries were declared ‘red zones’ and American citizens discouraged from traveling there or doing business in these regions, effecting their tourism and economy. The treaties had to be signed and ratified by each country. Some countries like China and Iran signed the treaty but did not ratify it; so the treaty was never actually passed. This suited the previous republican government well as it meant that they were not liable if they attacked any country with weapons of mass destruction, and that acted as a successful deterrent for many countries to grant them exorbitant favors like waging wars from their lands, and even sending developing countries’ armies before their own to minimize their casualty count. While president George W. Bush was serving his second term in office, there were minor ‘cold wars’ of sorts that rages between the US and Iran and the US and north Korea, Pakistan being at the epicenter of both. The advantage of nuclear technology is that it can provide developing countries with advantages like cost-efficient electricity and energy when it is not otherwise available. However, after accidents like Chernobyl and the nuclear power plant in the United states, more research is needed to make such plants state-of-the-art affairs and safer for the workers there. Such research was not allowed, though and led to the American air force preparing for strikes over both nations. Pakistan was also accused of providing these ‘irresponsible’ states with nuclear technology and their top nuclear developing expert-a man now in his eighties- found his name on the most wanted list. This fiasco was eventually handled when Iran denied any plans of research into nuclear technology. North Korea put forth their ideas on how nuclear power will benefit their infrastructure but was shot down. The idea that they were not deterred by the American’s threats riled up the commanding heads of the US and war was on the verge of breaking out when North Korea denied any involvement with nuclear technology to save their country from the threat of war. Having had a war with the US in the past, it was not exactly a prospect that excited them. During the afghan war, the government of Afghanistan was offered great sums of money and arms and ammunition by the United States government to wage war against the Russians.10 If they didn’t cooperate, of course, there would have been neck-breaking sanctions imposed on them-not just by the USA, but by friends of the USA hurting their economy almost permanently. The Afghanis were trained in combat by American soldiers and sent to fight an American war. They won for the Americans and just as they started strengthening their rule in the state, in 2001, the Americans waged war on them, blaming them for the September 11th incidences, and forgetting they were ever great allies of the world power. During the Lebanese civil war, Iraq was a major ally of the US. The US government gave Saddam Hussein his rise to power and made him their number one ally. When he stopped listening to them and started thinking for the benefit of his own people, they imposed sanctions so strict, the entire country was forced to unhappiness and destitution. Eventually, the American army came in seeing no significant form of defense anymore and destroyed what was left of the country’s infrastructure, as a message to any world leader who might think he is in position to say no to the American government. Not only that, they stayed back in the country despite the country’s own nationals wanting them to leave their soil, claiming it is in the best interest of the people of Iraq, when in fact controlling the sales of Iraqi oil puts the American pockets’ interests first. The most famous act of post-cold war deterrence happened a mere seven years ago, the impact of which we are still seeing and living through. President George W. Bush gave his historic speech after the September 11th terrorist attacks where he stated “You are either with us or with the terrorists.” This little statement was the beginning of the ‘War on Terrorism’ a pointless needle-in-a-haystack hunt for some big bad wolf that doesn’t really exist. This war has seen trillions of dollars being spent, tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians dying pointlessly and the world inflation rates going through the roof while for the first time in eighty or so years, the American economy has crashed to its lowest ever, causing global unemployment, destitution and a general attitude of hopelessness. Of course, no one was in the place to tell the American president that their war was their own and even Switzerland –a neutral country for decades-was forced to choose a side or risk being in the US’s bad books, which no country on earth can really afford.11 With the advent of a new United States President, the world looks towards him for peace and solidarity. The over use of the power of deterrence in the last president’s term reached the height of ridiculous, where they forced the Pakistani government to close down most schools that taught the Islamic curriculum, calling them breeding grounds for terrorists. Muslim girls in France were forced to stop wearing head scarves to school as it showed religious unity and belonging to a particular sect. Drugs are still on the rise and poppy cultivations are thriving while every young adult is indulging in some form of narcotic or the other; mostly because they do not know better. Rather than educating the masses, the world is cultivating an innate fear of the outside world and certain spheres of education, saying that certain types of education can lead to brainwashing and extremism; which go hand-in-hand with terrorism these days. Families are discouraged from teaching their children about their own religion or that of others. Schools in most countries are banned to talk about God and ethnocentrisms-or even plain patriotism is discouraged, with the consideration that it might breed aggression. However, patriotism seems to only be discouraged in developing nations. Deterrence is only for the personal gain of the state. In theory, deterrence might not be needed in the world anymore, it would be a more peaceful place and there would be more equilibrium in almost all spheres of life. However, in practice, we live in a uni-polar world, and no one with so much power will voluntarily distribute it evenly. Therefore, deterrence is a way of life. It leads to frustration in the masses and those who have nothing to fight back with make weapons of themselves and blow themselves up to make a point. The time has come that we change this way of life and find a better one. Deterrence might do well to the economy but who says it’s the only way you can improve the economy? We need to stop the arms race of all kinds and instead work on arms control. The technology we have obtained should be put to a better use and this might be hard but not impossible. Deterrence is stifling and any person or state not allowed to control their own thoughts or actions for their own benefit as they see fit should have the right to retaliate or at least bargain in their favor. The new world order of uni-polarity has stolen the fundamental rights of freedom from billions of people and this should be considered when governments make decisions for their states before tossing their people around as if they were nothing more than rooks on a board of chess. 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