The States of the North - Essay Example

The s of the North (West/Rich/Developed) are responsible for the problems that plague international relations Introduction: The modern world is divided into two distinct parts. The states of north are mostly consisted of those nations which are developed in terms of economically as well as have great power in terms of arms ad weapon. USA, UK Canada and many other countries are considered as the superpower of the world. Likewise, there are number of countries which are considered as poor and underdeveloped and the governments of those nations have to rely on the developing nations for every single operation. Not only the poor and underdeveloped countries, there are number of developing countries as well like India etc. who rely on these developed countries to some extent. There are number of countries form the South America, Africa, Middle East are rely on the developed nations. All these nations are considered as states of West. In this paper, the focus is on to justify whether the states from north are the key responsible parties for various kinds of problems such as armed conflict, economic and political disturbance. Here are some key points in for and against of the above statement. States of North are responsible for problems that plague international relations: Armed conflict: In the world, there are number of wars that have taken place in the 19th and 20th century. The World War I and World War II are two of the main fights of 19th century which involved number of countries. If one consider both the cases, then it is very clear that both UK and USA are on the same side in both the wars. Not only that, both these wars have taken place with a common objective and that was to establish their dominance over the rest of the countries. The World War II was initiated to destroy the Hitler regime in Germany. Later on USA was also involved in dividing the USSR; they were not directly involved in that war, but provided support in every possible ways. The trend is continuing in the 20th century as well. There are number of reports which suggested that the involvement of USA as well as the UK government in Iraq in the year 2003 was not a mistake but an entire deliberate strategy. As RT.Com in their review has clearly mentioned that “The occupation of Iraq launched a decade ago was an implementation of the idea to create of a mono-polar world” (RT.com) There is a another very well established thoughts behind all this incidents as RT.com in their report has mentioned that “American leadership first sets a political goal and only afterwards brings grounds for it.” Great example of this was the reason mentioned by the US assembly as well as the media who always spreading false information that Iraq possessing great volume of weapon which are capable of mass destruction. Stokes in his report directly points his finger towards US and their allies for death of 150,000 people in the country. “The on-going American Occupation has also created worsened civil strife as well as mass environmental destructions and related public health problems that is associated with American bomb-related released radioactive and other life-threatening pollutions” (Stokes) Goodman in his report pointed finger towards the USA for their involvement in Yemen as well as their involvement of long going “on-international armed conflict (NIAC) with al-Qaeda and associated forces, including al-Qaeda of the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) in Yemen (sometimes termed a “global NIAC).”(Goodman) Political and Economic Conflict: In the initial stages, there are number of countries, which are strong in different fields –be it technology or agriculture or industry or science. But slowly the scenario started to change as the number of countries like USA, UK Canada started to capture all the growth point both economically as well as in terms of science and technologies. In modern world, all the best technology universities are in few countries, all leading IT players have their headquarters in the USA or UK. USA has now become the powerhouse of all technological development and innovation. As a result, there is a great economical imbalance among the north and south states. In recent years, USA is going through a great level of economic crisis. As Root in his review has mentioned that USA is going through its greatest depression ever and this was mainly due to continuously developing social, economic and political problem. The government spending in USA is increasing and as a result government is not able to place new orders for the developing and poor nation-nations which are rely on UK, USA for the growth of their economy. To established their dominance over others, USA government has make it sure that all the developing and under developed nations must rely on them, and in present economic crisis, it is creating a big problem all over the globe. In countries like Afghanistan, Yemen, Iraq-where politics also controlled by the USA, the US army facing continuous threats as well as attacks from the separatist which creating huge protest not only in those nations but also in UK and USA as well. So as whole USA and other developed nations is some way or other responsible for the entire political and economic imbalance in the underdeveloped and poor countries. (Barden & Dantas; Root) Shah in his review has clearly mentioned that “Behind the increasing interconnectedness promised by globalization are global decisions, policies, and practices. These are typically influenced, driven, or formulated by the rich and powerful. These can be leaders of rich countries or other global actors such as multinational corporations, institutions, and influential people.In the face of such enormous external influence, the governments of poor nations and their people are often powerless. As a result, in the global context, a few get wealthy while the majority struggle.”(Shah) States of North are not responsible for problems that plague international relations: Armed Conflict: Many people still believes that the war between Iraq and Iran was more or less influenced by the USA and UK. The main reason was to gain power of all the oil supply as USA able to understand that to ensure development it needs uninterrupted oil supply. But in a broader perspective, the main reason of this conflict was more or less the regional rivalry among those 2 countries. The economic as well as political outcome of that war was immense. Neither of the leaders was able to achieve their objective but Iraqi leaders claimed that they were the winners. (Hardy) It was a fact that USA later on attack Iraq showing reason like the nation has a huge amount of mass destruction weapon, but one cannot blame USA only for the wars. In recent years, Obama regime was involved in attack on Afghanistan after the horrifying 9/11 incident in the USA. They attack or war against terrorism was supported by many other nations as they started to believe that it is mainly to the nations of Middle East such as Afghanistan etc. as well as countries in South America who are more or less involved in all those attacks in USA or UK or in other developed nations. In recent years the USA government is targeting Yemen as they do believe that there are number of terrorist groups in Yemen, responsible for various terrorist attacks in the country and if the situation is not taken under control, it may become worse.(Nineham) Economic and Political Conflict: In recent time, world economy is going through most turmoil stage as there are number of countries facing the heat of economic crisis. The growth rate of developing nations like India is slowing down and most importantly the underdeveloped and poor countries of South Africa, South America are not able to tackle the political disturbance and economic crisis of their nations effectively. The amount of internal war among various religious groups is growing rapidly and the political conditions also going out of control. But one cannot put all the blame on the developed nations for this. The economic crises of all these nations have various reasons. The most common reason is the poor education standard as well as social problem. In various parts of the South America and South Africa, the illiteracy rate is till date very high. Child labour is most common in developing countries like India in present time as well. In recent times, it is a proven fact that whatever world spent on making new weapons, if they spent 1% of those in child education then in the year of 2000, all children could have get the opportunity of study.(Shah) It is fact that the developing nations are rely on the developed countries to ensure that their economy grow in a faster pace as sooner than later they can be independent of that help. But in recent years, most of the developed nations are facing high level of economic crisis. In the USA the crisis is very severe, so much as they are forced to stop outsourcing of job to ensure that the level of unemployment in their countries reduced and simultaneous government expenditure can be cut down by reducing the volume of unemployment grants. The financial crisis in poor nations is not only due to lesser level of help from the developed countries, but it is mainly due t the fact that the political situation as well as social condition of those countries are not suitable enough for companies to set up new units there. The level of security is very less so as the possibility of getting qualified employees. Moreover, in poor countries, the political stability is also not their as people often start protesting against the ruling party and sooner rather than later those protest turns violent. This not only disrupts the political condition but at the same time hamper the possibility of economic growth aswell. Continuously going conflict betweenIsrael and Palestine, conflict between India and Pakistan; North and South Korea all are clear example of that. There are several reasons due to which the developing and poor countries are facing economic crisis and according to Gurtner those reasons are: Fiscal problem in various countries; lesser amount of reviews of the monetary policies; trade restriction imposed by the government of various developing and poor countries with others; strong level of south-south cooperation among handful of nations who considered others as their competitors, international restriction on some of the South African and South American countries by the UNO and other global bodies- all these play a major role in this kind of political as well as economic crisis. (Gurtner, 193-194). Conclusion: From the above analysis it is very clear that the developed countries to some extent plays a major role in the creation of armed conflict among the poor and underdeveloped nations and often they themselves get involved in conflict with other countries as well. The economic crisis as well as political dilemma is also often caused mainly due to to unnecessary interference of the world superpowers as well as their economic policy. But one has to consider the fact that entire blame cannot be put on the developed nations as the developing and underdeveloped countries are also equally responsible for this kind of debacle. Their own fault is that they are not able to develop a stable political power or stable government and likewise they are always dependent on foreign aids for their economy rather trying to be independent with their own way of developing the economy. References Barden Andrew & Dantas Luri. Biggest Imbalance in World Economy Is From U.S. Stimulus, Meirelles Says. Bloomberg. 2010. Web; retrieved on 5.8.2014 from http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-10-10/stimulus-in-u-s-is-biggest-imbalance-in-world-economy-meirelles-says.html Entire US ruling class responsible for Iraq war. RT. Com. 2013. Web; retrieved on 5.8.2014 from http://rt.com/politics/pushkov-iraq-war-us-539/ Goodman Ryan. A New War: The United States Involvement in Yemen’s Internal Armed Conflict. Just Security. 2013. Web; retrieved on 5.8.2014 from http://justsecurity.org/2618/war-united-states-yemen-internal-armed-conflict-insurgency/ Gurtner Bruno. The Financial and Economic Crisis and Developing Countries. International Development Policy. 2010. P. 189-213. Web; retrieved on 8.5.2014 from http://poldev.revues.org/144 Hardy Roger. The Iran-Iraq war: 25 years on. BBC News. 2005. Web; retrieved on 5.8.2014 from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4260420.stm Nineham Chris. Yemen: The real reason for Obamas terrorist scaremongering. Counter Fire. 2013. Web; retrieved on 5.8.2014 from http://www.counterfire.org/stop-the-war/16592-the-real-reason-for-obamas-terrorist-scaremongering-hes-losing-the-war-on-terror Root A. Wayne. Why we are on the brink of the greatest Depression of all time. Fox News. 2012 Web; retrieved on 5.8.2014 from http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/08/23/why-are-on-brink-greatest-depression-all-time/# Shah Anup. Causes of Poverty. Global Issue. 2013. Web; retrieved on 5.8.2014 from http://www.globalissues.org/issue/2/causes-of-poverty Stokes, John. U.S invasion responsible deaths of over 250,000 civilians in Iraq. Information Clearing House. Nd. Web; retrieved on 5.8.2014 from http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11674.htm Read More