textbook part 4

Question 1

three different intervention scenarios:

Answer 1

defending human rights
providing military aid
the ‘war on terror’.

Question 2

Defending human rights

Answer 2

Defending human rights has been a persuasive motive behind many military interventions.
Intervention in defence of human rights certainly puts the interventionist on the moral high ground.
However, there are instances where such a defence has been a pretence and provided cover for other less-laudable motives.
One of the more recent instances is the action of Russia in Ukraine.

Question 3

Providing military aid

Answer 3

This scenario is a familiar one to the superpowers.
Basically, it involves providing military aid to less-powerful countries to keep them on the same side.

Question 4

motives for wishing to provide military aid, including:

Answer 4

• Because the country’s location has a strategic value in a wider power struggle, for example US aid to Pakistan to help in dealing with its troubled neighbour, Afghanistan and the Taliban (Figure 12.13).
• To deal with incursions that threaten a country’s stability and allegiance, for example UK aid to Kenya to help protect it against Islamist attacks from Somalia.
• To ensure access to valuable resources, for example UK aid to oil-rich Saudi Arabia.

Question 5

Libya:

Answer 5

• One of the most recent examples was the overthrow of President Gaddafi in Libya in 2011.
• He and his immediate supporters were thought to be complicit in a number of terrorist acts, including the downing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988.
• They were also guilty of seriously abusing the human rights of many Libyan civilians in the course of maintaining their political grip on the country.
• A multi-state coalition began military intervention in the form of an arms embargo and the imposition of a ‘no-fly zone’ over the whole of Libya.
• The latter meant that Gaddafi could not conduct airstrikes against those who were trying to dislodge him from power.
• The intervention did not involve sending in troops, rather just securing the country’s air space as well as its inshore waters so that there was no external support for Gaddafi’s forces.
• Gaddafi was deposed in 2011 but, since then - as in many of the countries involved in the Arab Spring - the removal of one regime has so destabilised the situation that rebel factions or militias are now fighting one another to gain the political upper hand.

Question 6

Russia in Ukraine

Answer 6

• Russia is not a country widely recognised as a champion of human rights.
• However, the protection of the human rights of an enclave of ethnic Russians was the excuse used by Russia when it invaded Ukraine in 2014
• The real motive was more likely the need it felt to annex a strategically important territory.
• Possibly Russia was prompted to do so by the likelihood of Ukraine becoming a member of NATO.
• In the event, NATO troops would gain legitimate access to one of Russia’s most important front doors.
• It was this threat that no doubt persuaded Russia to annex the whole of the Crimean Peninsula and to strengthen its land border with Ukraine by allowing its troops to encroach over it.
• Clearly, taking Crimea and sending troops to occupy eastern Ukraine was a serious assault on Ukraine’s sovereignty.
• Rather than run the risk of all-out war, however, the West thought it prudent not to contest the assault.

Question 7

UK military aid to Saudi Arabia:

Answer 7

• The UK and Saudi Arabia have been allies since 1915 when Saudi Arabia became a British protectorate.
• In 1927 Saudi Arabia became an independent state.
• In 2005 the UK and Saudi Arabia concluded a military agreement whereby the UK would equip Saudi Arabia with fighter planes
• Since then the UK has sold Saudi Arabia nearly £10 billion worth of defence equipment, and Saudi Arabia has invested over £60 billion in the UK, mainly in joint ventures and real estate.
• Over 30,000 UK nationals live and work in Saudi Arabia and it is the UK’s largest trading partner in the Middle East.

Question 8

In recent years, relations between uk and saudi have become strained over three issues.

Answer 8

It has been rumoured that Saudi princes received tens of millions of pounds in so-called commissions as a result of awarding arms contracts to British firms.
Saudis are mainly Sunni Muslims; supplying arms to them is seen by Shia Muslims as the UK taking sides in the deep-rooted antagonism between them and the Sunni.

Saudi Arabia has a very bad record with respect to human rights, most notably free speech, women’s rights and capital punishment. Also worrying is the claim that Saudi Arabia is the cradle of Islamist extremism.

There is some reluctance on the part of the UK government to apply too much pressure on human rights issues for fear of losing lucrative military contracts. There is also, for better or worse, a geopolitical imperative that Saudi Arabia is a key Western ally in a region with both oil and terrorism.
Indeed, it may be that economic and geopolitical interests ‘trump’ human rights

Question 9

Waging ‘war on terror’ and torture:

Answer 9

A few years ago, the Taliban and al-Qaeda were reckoned to be the world’s most loathed terrorist organisations.
Today it is IS (also known as ISIS, ISIL and Daesh).
It is causing much trouble in the Middle East and has mounted occasional terrorist attacks in other parts of the world.
As a consequence, the Western superpowers find themselves increasingly embroiled in a war on terror.

Question 10

It is clear that the international military campaign against IS is motivated by three main concerns:

Answer 10

The political stability of the Middle East
Safeguarding access to the region’s great oil reserves
The serious abuse of human rights.

Question 11

Given the subversive nature of IS…

Answer 11

there can be little doubt that surveillance of suspects and intelligence gathering are going to play an important role in the fight against it.
Indeed, this is likely to play as critical a part as overt military action.
On this more murky battlefield, it may be tempting to resort to one of the activities that figured prominently in the UDHR in 1948: torture and rendition.

Question 12

Rendition:

Answer 12

The practice of sending a foreign criminal or terrorist suspect covertly to be interrogated in a country where there is less concern about the humane treatment of prisoners.

Question 13

IS in Iraq and Syria

Answer 13

• IS is an opportunist terrorist organisation with no respect whatsoever for human rights.
• Its roots lie in al-Qaeda’s operations in Iraq
• It took advantage of the power vacuum in Iraq created by the withdrawal of Allied troops from that country and the civil war in Syria.
• Quite by surprise, and almost Aleppo overnight, it grabbed some corridors of territory in both countries and put together what it declared as a ‘caliphate’.
• From there IS wages its so-called jihad, or defence of Islam, against all other religions.
• The trouble with this is that there is nothing Islamist about IS.
• It has hijacked and perverted Islam to suit its own barbaric ends: IS is nothing other than a ruthless band of deluded psychopaths.

Question 14

IS has pursued a strategy of annihilating minority communities…

Answer 14

• The victim communities include Christian Assyrians, Kurds, Shabaks, Turkmens and Yazidis.
• In Syria, the victims have been Ismailis and Alawis.
• Four NGOs have details about summary executions, forced conversions and rape.
• Such activities are tantamount to war crimes and genocide.
• Clearly, there is an immense military challenge here - first to contain IS and then to exterminate it.
• Some military experts believe that the only way IS is going to be beaten is by direct engagement on the ground, and not air strikes alone
• Meanwhile, IS is eyeing up other parts of the world to add to its ‘caliphate’.
• Afghanistan looks like being the next victim, or possibly Libya.
• IS would again be taking advantage of spatial power vacuums
• The battle against IS is going to be more than a military one.
• A battle of minds is also involved.
• IS is very good at using modern communications to brainwash, groom and recruit young Muslims to the ‘jihad’.
• It is also very good at creating jihadist cells in distant major cities and activating them to kill large numbers of innocent civilians.
• There is no greater violation of human rights than the slaughter of innocent people.
• The intelligence services of the USA, UK, France and other countries will have a big part of play in identifying and neutralising these cells.

Question 15

Torture and rendition:

Answer 15

• In this age of international terrorism, the need to identify terrorists and their cells and to eavesdrop on their scheming has become a high priority for most Western governments.
• Thanks to modern communication technologies, much can be done by ‘listening in’ to what is being plotted and identifying who is in the loop.
• But there is still a need to apprehend terrorist suspects and to elicit as much information from them as possible.
• The key word here is ‘possible’, because most governments have signed up to the UN Convention against Torture (1987).
• This prohibits physical or mental duress being used to extract a confession or important information from individuals.
• It is suspected that many signatories to the convention still use torture and acts of cruel, inhumane and degrading (CID) treatment in their questioning of key terrorist suspects.
• It is fairly clear that the USA has done so in the wake of the terrorist attack on the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York on 11 September 2001, when some 3000 innocent civilians were killed.
• In the immediate wake of this horrific event, the US government was clearly under considerable pressure to track down those responsible, no matter how.
• The imprisonment of suspects without trial at the US base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, was one outcome
• In recent years, a number of people have claimed to have been subjected to torture and other forms of ill-treatment in Guantanamo Bay, Afghanistan, Egypt, Iraq, Morocco and Pakistan.
• In this context of torture and CID treatment, it is important to mention rendition.
• This is the practice of sending terrorist suspects covertly to be interrogated in a country where the humane treatment of prisoners is less of a concern.
• One can only guess how many countries today are taking this route in order to avoid being accused of directly contravening the UN Convention against Torture
• The challenge for the individual country trying to root out terrorists and ensure national security is that these vital ends do not justify this one means - torture.
• Clearly, this can make for a great deal of frustration.
• The issue of torture really does raise a minefield of moral issues.
• Whose rights are more important: the rights of terrorists not to be tortured, or the right to life of those who could become the victims of a suicide bombing?
• To say that all humans and all human rights are equal is morally correct, but it does not always help to resolve issues like the one just posed.
• The same applies to military intervention.
• Who is to say what is right and what is a contravention of territorial integrity and human rights?

Question 16

A range of measures:

Answer 16

Given the diversity of interventions and hoped-for outcomes, it is hardly surprising that there are many possible yardsticks for assessing whether or not the outcome has been successful.
Let’s keep the focus on human development and human rights

Question 17

Possible measures for evaluating intervention outcomes

Human development

Answer 17

Possible measure:
Life expectancy
Provision of healthcare (doctors per
100,000)
Literacy rate (% of population)
Quality of physical infrastructure (% with access to safe water and sanitation)
Per capita GDP or GNI

Question 18

Possible measures for evaluating intervention outcomes: Human rights

Answer 18

Freedom of speech
Gender equality (gender index)
Democratic elections
Respect for minorities
Recognition of refugee status

Question 19

There is no one measure that stands out from the rest.

Answer 19

Indeed, there is much to be said for using more than one measure.
However, the measures that are most frequently used are those for which statistical data are readily available.
In this respect, progress in human development is much easier to measure than progress in human rights.
Human rights indicators are rather slippery; they are qualitative rather than quantifiable, but are no less significant because of that.

Question 20

The importance of democracy:

Answer 20

Today’s world is crudely divided between those countries in which democratic government is deeply rooted and those in which there are much more authoritarian forms of control.
Broad respect for human rights is more likely to flourish in a democracy than in a one-party state.
Indeed, the essence of one-party government is that it safeguards against opposition.
Following the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 and the emergence of the Soviet Union and its satellites in Eastern Europe, much of the Eurasian continent came under communist and authoritarian rule.
There was little room for democracy as known in the West. But the seismic events of the 1980s were to profoundly change that situation.
The ‘free’ world looked on and kept its fingers crossed that democracy would prevail.

Question 21

The importance of economic growth

Answer 21

Economic growth promises power and prosperity, but not necessarily respect for human rights.
A serious tension can exist between economic growth and human rights, particularly if a country is keen to fast-track that growth.
But even less-ambitious governments are tempted to give economic growth precedence over human rights. One country in the economic fast lane is China.

Question 22

The collapse of the USSR:

Answer 22

• For nearly 45 years after the end of the Second World War, the Soviet Union was a superpower locked in a so-called Cold War with the Western superpowers.
• It was a vast country stretching some 10,000 km from Eastern Europe to the east coast of Asia
• The Soviet Union was a single-party state governed by the Communist Party.
• It was, in fact, a union of fifteen sub-national republics.
• It also controlled ‘satellite countries’ in Eastern Europe, such as East Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Bulgaria.
• All of these satellites (known as the Eastern Bloc) had communist governments.
• In the late 1980s the satellite countries began to shake off Soviet control.
• Change began in Poland and spread to Hungary, East Germany, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia (since split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia) and Romania.
• Perhaps the most publicised act was the pulling down of the Berlin Wall in 1989, which had separated communist East Berlin from capitalist West Berlin.
• The peace treaty that had ended the Second World War saw the whole of Germany divided into two.
• The length of the border between East and West Germany was marked by a huge and impenetrable fence to stop East Germans defecting to the West.
• In Berlin, it took the form of a massive wall.
• The fall of the Berlin Wall paved the way for Germany’s reunification
• In December 1991, the world watched in amazement as the Soviet Union disintegrated into fifteen separate countries.
• The collapse was hailed by the West as a victory for freedom and democracy, and as proof of the superiority of capitalism over communism.
• Three of the republics - Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania - quickly aligned themselves with the West.
• A truly remarkable feature of this great political rupture was that it was achieved without any significant military intervention or bloodshed.
• Its outcome was that some ten states in Eastern Europe achieved independence and became democracies and market economies.
• All that is left of the Soviet Union is the Russian Federation.
• It has moved towards capitalism but retains a one-party government.
• Political power rests largely with one man, Vladimir Putin, who has held power since 2000, alternately serving as president and prime minister.

Question 23

China: economic growth rules, OK?

Answer 23

Ranked 124th in the world according to the size of its GDP in 1976, China has since made gigantic economic strides.
Today a figure of US$ 11212 million makes it the second largest economy in the world and puts it well ahead of its nearest rivals, Japan and Germany.
Remember, however, that China is not only a vast country - it also has a huge population.
Its population has expanded by just over half since 1976, from 0.9 to 1.4 billion.
For this reason, per capita GDP growth has been much more modest.
Indeed, China has only climbed up the global rankings from 160th to 141st place.
Today’s figure is US$ 9800 per capita (Figure 13.2).
Although China remains a communist country, there is no doubt that a major factor in its economic progress has been its gradual involvement in the capitalist global economy.
This in itself inevitably creates a political tension, as the population becomes increasingly aware of a very different (much freer) world outside their boundaries.
Within China, economic success has come with a price: massive environmental pollution, largely thanks to its expanding manufacturing industries, and the persistent abuse of human rights
In 2015, the Chinese economic miracle showed the first signs of slowing down.
By this time many Chinese people had come to enjoy consumerism.
Might this economic downturn lead to widespread protests and, once again, sharpen the focus on human rights?
Another critical question needs to be posed: how important has authoritarian government been in explaining China’s economic success?
Would the economic progress have been so swift under a rather different political regime with more respect for human rights?