Introduction
The article ‘IR-Theory and Transformation in the Greater Middle East: the Role of the United States’ written by Koninklijke Brill NV explains the failure US military in accomplishing their goals and objectives during the cold war of the middle east. The article is an analysis of the war’s aftermath and information is collected from several liberal and realist theories and ascertains that US failed in achieving the aim of hitting Iraq. International relationship theory involves collecting theoretical data about how countries relate and how internal policies of a government can be influenced by those of other nations. The author decide to choose the topic on American war against middle east since it’s a critical idea with many people raising questions on why and how their aim was not achieved.
America is a very powerful nation and its policies are well defined and should not lead to regrets, therefore the article tries to explain why US has not been achieved this in the post-cold war era. Brill argues that the realism theory supported the results as the military monopoly power has no connection with foreign government policies beyond borders. Moreover, contribution of the liberal theory is majorly used in the article to show the exact results of failure. John Luke’s contribution to liberal theory relating to relationships of different countries is emphasized to criticize the monopolistic power of the US. In the support of both liberal and realism theories Tocqueville argues that America is surrounded by other powerful nations such as France and UK and thus its decisions on international issues have to be supported by these nations to ensure their success. Western Europe was the first to be civilized and thus America’s success and power resulted from their European colonization an issue thus cooperation with these nations was important for their success.
With the two theories failing to offer adequate support to the results of the war, Brill uses other aspects to answer the critical questions about US military failure. The main theme of the article is war and Brill goes to an extent of criticizing the perspective of the American military where he argued that the perspective resulted to the failure. This failure could have resulted from the perspective that US invention in the war was due to their hatred to Muslim community given the war was initially for Israelites verses Iraq.
A country is state that has a single interest and act rationally when it comes to negotiations. Brill successfully enable the readers to understand the notion that countries act to maximize their well being without minding the effects on the others. This insinuation has been challenged by Buchanan 1954 who claims that states should exist in a war state so that the power politics can be affected. The author compares countries with business units whose aims are to make profits. He asserts that countries desire to be monopolist but they cannot survive sine the success requires inputs from various parties. As such, most countries have decided to behave like oligopolies where they bully small economies since they decisions do not have impact on the wealthy nations. This is a very accurate observation that happens in the real world where countries merge to bargain for treaties that are of interest to them.
Russia has been the main threat to the American effect in the Middle East during and after the cold war. None of the Middle East government has opposed the American military power but America has not been able to fulfill its intentions. A good example that the author uses is where the Americans wanted to destroy a section of Egypt’s ‘army only to be opposed by Israel and other countries in the Greater Middle East. According to Brill, this acted as a setback to American influence in Greater Middle East. Priest (2005) outlines that the American military has divided the world into four military districts each with a commander with a full package of instructions since it is a military monopoly. This was sealed when the Soviet Union collapsed leaving the US as the sole superpower.
America is termed as civilized nation with well-set constitution with which all American citizens respect while the Middle East countries with Iraq included can be termed lowly developed. The non-civilization of Iraq citizens makes it hard for the US military to hit their target on the war. These people are not governed by any law and thus every strike that leads to killing of innocent people by the Americans occurred to them as a motivation to hit more. Therefore Americans failed when they decided to use force on a country dominated by barbarians as these people did not life and viewed the life of some citizens as minor. Moreover the Muslim religion allows for mass killing to attain a certain objective such as maintain Gods chosen leader in power. The article shows that a non-civilized country will always win a war against a civilized nation if the civilized nation does not lower its civil rate. Evidence is seen in the conflict between the European countries and the African countries during colonialism where the Europeans turned inhuman jus to win the case.
Brill inputs a lot of basic facts that happened in the Middle East. The Americans wanted to block the Iraq government from nationalizing the oil in the country. The Eisenhower doctrine was devised in readiness to attack the country. However, the author says that the plan had to be abandoned soon after the Russian and Chinese governments recognized the new regime. The author must have done a lot of research on the issue since most information on this context is accurate as far as ‘I am concerned. It is true that countries can change plans if they do not receive adequate support from influential countries.
The article also sees the maintenance of military power and economic and social growth and development as two major government aims that run concurrently. In an effort of the US to improve its economy many industries were started and this increase in production increased citizen’s income resulting to purchase of many vehicles. Both machinery and vehicles increased the demand for oil and thus the US government was forced to US its military power to control the oil prices as it had exhausted its domestic oil production. Therefor their power was to be defined by the oil producers who were their enemies and although they strived to form military corridors lack of adequate power source limited their action.
It is utterly unreasonable for the author to claim that the US has the power to control a country’s fate as it wishes. The articles suggest that the US army can intervene in a country’s domestic issues and change administrations to align it according to their wishes. This is utterly no possible in the 21st century. If fact, various nations have started strengthening their militaries to counter such violations. However, the US has the right to act when national security is threatened by a foreign government. A good example is the case of Afghanistan that led to the 9/11 attacks. The US military had to topple the Taliban government for providing safe havens to terrorist.
Other factors that brill inculcated as being a solution to the raised questions on Americas failure included power projection as well as industrialization, being on the limelight , development and leadership qualities in addition to the role played by foreign policy.
With the onset of industrialization, every nation is striving to be the best industrialized country so as to acquire power. The US government has had the required skills to provide best industries but they lack some important inputs such as oil. The Americas involvement in war was to prevent privatization of these oil resources that would greatly affect their industrialization and later deprive them power. Eurasia on the other hand has joined efforts making the Eurasian industrial energy complex in an effort to acquire these oil wells. Americas strike on Iraq majorly aims at destroying this Eurasian union and achieving the control of the oil wells but the Eurasian economy is very strong to be hit by a foreigner
Brill cites the American ambassador to the UN in2005 saying that the UN Security Council should have US as a sole member. This cannot be a good idea since controlling global security is a very complicated issue that calls for input from many leaders. As such, it is not relevant to claim that America can be a sole member in the Security Council. The Americans has infiltrated domestic issues of countries like china through recognition of the rebellious Taiwan and Tibet as independent states. This is a situation that can draw hatred and a war eventuality in today’s world. This would harm civilians if china decides to retaliate forcefully.
Brill shows that the policies made by the US as strategies to win the war were different from those made by the Israelites. The original war was between the Israelites and its neighbors and US only acted a foreign supporter that would not be successful without the support of Israelites. The Israelites holds their civilization and at no time devalue human life. Therefore the act of the US to kill all the primitive Iraq citizens contradicted the Israelites domestic policies.
Conclusion
In a way of conclusion, it is important to maintain sound d diplomatic relations with other countries. International relations are important in determining the development or influence of a country. Brill suggest that it is the work of diplomats to ensure that the brokers the most favorable deals as far as their countries are concerned. However, it is important to make several observations; First, author has not provided enough proof to the issues where the US military can influence regime change in a country. The information is not backed by relevant materials therefore it not right to say that the American government bullies nations which do not play to their tunes.
According to Brown (2001), states should engage in international relations that are based on mutual benefits rather than harassing other nations. Military might is not a factor that can boost country’s image internationally. Brill explains how the US government was limited in acting in the Greater Middle East in the 1950s due to lack of support from the other powers. As such, the US could have been in a good position to launch its assaults if it has clean relations with Russia and china. This leads us to a conclusive statement that good international relations can boost or destroy the image of a county which leads to failure of virtually every action that the country decides to undertake due to insufficient support from other stakeholders.
Work Cited
Brown, Don, and Andrew Arnold. America Is Under Attack: September 11, 2001 : the Day the Towers Fell. New York: Roaring Brook Press, 2011. Print
Priest, Simon, and Michael A. Gass. Effective Leadership in Adventure Programming. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics, 2005. Print.
