Theoretical Framework: Understanding Multipolarity
1. The word “Cold War” indicates the time when the time of antagonism of Soviet America dominates the international system. The period was from 1945 to 1961. Various scholars have emphasized in multiple facets of the competition. The war has been at once the political, ideological, cultural, strategic contest and military contest. This took place between the United States with their allies at one side and the Soviet Union and their allies lying on the other hand.
The relationship between these two countries was a tensed one. The Americans were wary of communism of Soviet Union. They were highly concerned about the blood-thirsty and tyrannical rule of Joseph Stalin in this own nation. The Soviets for their part resented the America a long time refusal in treating USSR as an authorized part of the international community (Levering, 2016). This also included the delayed entry to the Second World War. It leads to the death of about ten million Russian people. As the war terminated, all the grievances got ripened to an immense sense of hostility and distrust mutually.
As this war ended the expansion of Soviet in Eastern Europe increased the fear of Americans regarding the plan of Russia to dominate the world. At the same time, USSR came in resenting what they have been seeing as the bellicose rhetoric officials of America (Masco, 2013). This also included the arms buildup and the interventionist method to the international relations. In this kind of hostile scenario, no party has been entirely blaming for the Cold War. Moreover, various historians believed that it was inevitable.
The cold war witnessed two phases after its ends. The first one extended from 31st December 1991 till 11th September 2001. The next one was from 9th November to till date. The first phase of the post-cold war has been created on the basis two kinds of assumptions. In the first case, it was assumed that U.S. had been the ruling military and political power. However, that kind of power has been less critical than the previous (Sarotte, 2014). This is because the economy was the new point of focus. The next phase has been revolving around three great powers. This included Europe, China and U.S. However; this included a significant change in the U.S.’s worldview. They then assumed that this pre-eminence included the power in reshaping the Islamic world by military actions. On the other hand, Europe and Chine single-mindedly concentrated on the economic matters.
After the war, the nuclear weapons and their effect continued to be an element of international relations. However, there is now a rising awareness towards the nuclear proliferations and an arms race by disarmament measures and arms control. The age of colonialism and imperialism came to an end. Neo-colonialism characterized the relationship between the previous colonial masters and new states (Woodhouse, Bruce & Dando, 2016). Humankind completely realized the danger of the future world. However local wars and ethnic conflicts continued to shape the international politics. In the current era of developed global interdependence, the nation states, though powerful, see themselves compelled to keep their objectives and power under restraint. The rise of nuclear weapons and additional ones of mass destruction adversely impacted their role in international relations (Turk, 2014).
The Aftermath of the Cold War and the Rise of New Global Powers
Moreover, decolonization lead to the rise of various sovereign nation states to play a role in international politics. They failed to be robust and active, however, due to their new problems and ambitions. Thus the outcomes could be summarized by three points. Firstly the development of international relations increased theoretically and decreased practically to use the force to secure the interests (Van Apeldoorn & De Graaff, 2014). The era also witnessed the advent of supernational organizations and transitional political and ideological movements.
The era moved towards a nuclear and multi-polar international system. Thus for this, the Theory of Multipolar world is needed to be understood. The nuclear option, on the other hand, is a parliamentary process allowing US Senate in overriding the precedent or rule. This world insists on the presence of few independent and sovereign centres of the international strategic decision-making at internal level (Litsas & Tziampiris, 2016). It never considers the sovereignty of current nation-states and declared a purely legal level. This is never confirmed by the existence of enough potential in strategy, politics, economics and power. Further multipolarity is never reduced to non-polarity or materialism as in never put a core of decision making or pole into international government.
From a scientific view-point, there has existed no complete theory of the multipolar world till date. Further, it is not found among the various classical paradigms and theories of the international relations. Looking that in the new post-positivist theory is a failure (Margulis & Porter, 2013). This has been not totally developed in its ultimate aspect, the area of geopolitical research. This theme is openly comprehended and till lying behind the scenes. Moreover, it is treated in extreme biased way under the international relations.
In spite of that more works on the world politics, foreign affairs and international politics is dedicated to the idea of multipolarity (Kurowska, 2014). A rising number of researchers have been trying to describe and understanding multipolarity as the possibility, precedent, phenomenon or model.
After the creation of U.N. in 1945, the international law has been sought in configuring itself as the universal system. Its applicability and relevance is influenced if not directed by the political power. Currently the downfall of the West and the advent of China and other neighboring countries of it have poses specific challenges for the international institutions and laws. In this was the international system has been appearing to move towards the framework of multipolarity. This includes different power sites competing to exert influence in the current world. There have been the contributors from various nations delivering the view-points from the guidelines of international law and relations theory. Form here the international law in the multipolar world has been addressing the implications that the multipolarity has been posing for the international legal system.
Under this framework, the advent of Russia and their increased military expenditure for the last decade represented the possible origin of instability for the following order of the world. Previously the nation was famous for exporting high quantity of gases and oils and controlling the European provisions of the energy resources. Thus the military spend of Russia increased by 16% since 2008, with a 9.3% rise in 2011 (Jaeger, 2014).
Implications of Multipolarity for International Relations and Law
Further, different prospects of a great rivalry in power have been influential in East Asia where the financial advent of some actions represented a severe source of instability for the nearest future. For instance, the downfall of US and progress of China undermined power balance in Asia. It brought old rivalry between Japan and China. The stability of this area appeared more complex to gain shared universal values and same cultural understandings.
Thus, the return on multipolarity implies a more instability among the high powers. The presence of nuclear powers continues to be an element of concern and indicates that the future world might not carry the potential weakness of multipolarity but also the dangers around nuclear proliferation. Thus the next world under multi-polar framework would be potentially unstable than the previous periods of multi-polarity as witnessed by the history of mankind. Therefore for the first time, the world would turn to be both nuclear and multipolar.
2. About a decade ago, United Nations sent their peacekeepers to small nations of Central Africa. They go complete support from the government of U.S.A. Most of the policymakers believed that it could be straightforward mission helping to restore the battered reputation of U.N. after their failures in Somalia and Bosnia. However, very few of them could imagine that after ten years the nation of Rwanda would turn into a crisis still haunting the people’s souls.
The “Ghosts of Rwanda” is a famous documentary film marking the tenth anniversary of the Rwandan genocide. This was a massacre sponsored by the state where about eight hundred thousand people of Rwanda methodically murdered and hunted down by the extremists of Hutu. This took place in mid-1994. The international community and U.S. here refused to intervene here. The international community utterly was unable to prevent and halt this atrocity (Nsabimana, 2017). Various complex and interconnected factors were lying here leading to international inaction. This included the misguided perspective of African Conflicts, peacekeeping fatigue and bureaucratic style of U.N.
For the current case, the instance of the women present during the genocide and rushing to U.S. Congress pleading to assist her people is taken. She was replied back by saying they never considered any friends and just only have interests.
It is believed that U.S. must have volunteer source generated to intervene in the further conflicts and genocides of nature. However, according to other opinions, the U.S. was devoid of any interest there (Minear, 2013). The genocide has been just a senseless killing and destruction. It was only meant to damage the human beings. At least thousands of soldiers could be sent to maintain the security zones for the possible victims of genocide.
The country of Rwanda drew the attention of the entire world for scourging the sexual violence that took place in the war. Under a landmark judgment, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda identified humiliation of people if needed to destroy any group as the ground for genocide (Huggins, 2014). This violence also led to research and made the world aware of the ethnic conflict and genocide. This helped in debunking the myth that the tribal violence in Africa is the outcome of old immutable hatreds (Audergon & Audergon, 2017). The genocide has been a premeditated choice of the small elite intent towards staying in power. The nation has turned cautionary tale for the international mediators regarding the risks to use the democratization as the strategy to end the civil wars. Further, multipartyism brought an ethnic extremism to the forefront of politics of Rwanda. This new opposition parties pushed the dominating elite to take radical measures in ensuring the survival.
Conclusion
Further, the researchers from various documentaries made on the genocide at Rwanda cast light on the darker side of human psyche. This showed how the ordinary people have been turning to be able to extraordinary violence. About twenty percent of Hutu men were found to commit violence in this genocide (Majindu, 2015). Another research proposed that the remarkable level of the widespread participation might be traced in the art of the high population density of Rwanda. This dense social networks characterizing rural Rwanda was able to amplify the powerful social forces of the coercion, cooptation, and conformity at work while the genocide was going on (Brown, 2017).
In this conflict a new international system is identified known as R2P or “Responsibility to Protect” has emerged out. It was a worldwide political commitment endorsed by every member states of U.N. to prevent war crimes, crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing and genocide. This theory to protect is by underlying premise of responsibility entailed by sovereignty. This is to protect every people from human right violations and mass atrocity crimes. It is on the fundamental ground on the respect for the principles and norms of international law (Bellamy, 2015). This is especially underlying principles of law related to security and peace, sovereignty, armed conflict and human rights. The R2P delivers a system to employ the measures already existing. This indicates the mediation, economic sanctions and mechanisms of early warning. This is to prevent the atrocity crimes and to safeguard civilians against their occurrences.
The R2P is the emerging international security and norms of human rights seeking to enhance the ability of the state to protect the civilians from the four atrocity crimes on mass. They are crimes against humanity, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and genocide (Mana, Stephenson Jr & Zanotti, 2016). The core tenet of R2P has been that sovereignty defining the state’s features entailing responsibilities and physical and political jurisdiction. The state has been the right to control the affairs under the borders. However it has been also the principle responsibility to shield populations under the borders from those four crimes.
The commitment of R2P has been outlines in the three pillars. In the first pillar the sovereign states possess the obligation and carrying the fundamental responsibility in protecting their citizens from the mass atrocities. In the second pillar the international community possesses the liability in assisting the states in the capacity building for fulfilling the roles to prevent various mass atrocities prior, after and during that conflict. In the next pillar as the state in the question fails in acting properly, the role does that in a decisive and timely matter humanitarianly, diplomatically, peacefully as the huge resort through a stronger measure. Thus it falls to a higher community of states (Hehir, 2013).
The theory of R2P has been working in the premise of three elements. The first one is the responsibility to prevent. This indicates the obligation to secure the mass atrocities, develop early warning systems and point out the roots of conflicts (Bellamy, 2014). Then there is the responsibility to react. It denotes the commitments of measures that are needed to be taken in front of the mass atrocities. The last one is the responsibility to rebuild. It refers to the obligations of the International community after the intervention for building and preventing the occurrence of mass violence again.
In this age of imploding nations that has been not going away the international community requires an entirely new set of tools and conceptual base for conflict resolutions. R2P a new global security and doctrine of human rights have been holding that the worldwide community possesses the responsibility in helping to protect populations from the various crimes as discussed before. Apart from this it also includes the decisive and timely military action. This must be the last resort while the nation states would not or could not safeguard their populations from those threats. R2P has been adopted by every nation of U.N. World Summit during late 2005.
Moreover, R2P has branded military intervention as the scope of last resort. It has laid out the particular cases where the radical step is deemed necessarily (Hehir, 2013). For thoroughly implementing R2P, the proponents require to create political will in every country and then reform the processes at U.N. Hence the action is taken on a timely manner.
This new doctrine has been developed in large part against the tragic failures of the nation. Further, there has been no central headquarters for R2P coordinating the efforts. Thus the participants have been planning to draft a summary document and hoping to contribute to creating a core infrastructure to make R2P a reality.
The International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty or ICISS never so this theory as the only way to fulfilling the liabilities to protect. There has been an initial and overriding role in preventing the risk to the people rising initially. This has been both in short-term economic, diplomatic and political responses and the long-term development assistance. However, if the theory fails, and more aggressive intervention occurs, then there exists the responsibility to follow through. Moreover, it must be rebuilt with effort and time needed to assure that the original issue never reoccurs.
References:
Audergon, A., & Audergon, J. C. (2017). Contribution of worldwork methodology for violence prevention and community recovery after mass violence: An example from Rwanda. Psychotherapy and Politics International, 15(1).
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Bellamy, A. J. (2015). The Responsibility to Protect turns ten. Ethics & International Affairs, 29(2), 161-185.
Brown, S. E. (2017). Gender and the Genocide in Rwanda: Women as Rescuers and Perpetrators. Routledge.
Hehir, A. (2013). The permanence of inconsistency: Libya, the Security Council, and the Responsibility to Protect. International Security, 38(1), 137-159.
Huggins, C. (2014). Land Grabbing and Land Tenure Security in Post-genocide Rwanda. Losing your Land: Dispossession in the Great Lakes, 141-163.
Jaeger, H. M. (2014). 10 Neither Cosmopolitanism nor Multipolarity: The Political Beyond Global Governmentality. The post-political and its discontents, 208-228.
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