The Difference between Empire or Republic

Introduction

Due to its supervisory role, the United States designed a policy aimed at promoting its own security and that of the entire world. Galula (2006) notes, that the policy was necessitated by the need to harmonize the differences that existed between different parts of the world. The policy has helped to control the kind of traditions and practices that occur in different parts of the world in a bid to making the world a comfortable place to live in irrespective of the existing differences. According to Galula (2006), the policy also aimed at preventing nations and individuals from carrying out any form of sporadic wars against other nations. The policy bars the countries that are perceived to be unstable from possessing weapons of mass destruction. The reason behind this is that such weapons may help only to encourage and sustain wars between different nations and this may cause unnecessary massive destruction.

According to Galula (2006), the United States has been criticized especially from the Arab World in its attempt to control the kind of weapons other nations can possess and use. This provision of the policy has mostly affected the Middle East with which it has been in constant wars. Galula (2006) adds that as much as the United States will still be playing its role of being a watchdog against any terrorists’ attacks, it will still face this kind of opposition. Galula (2006) noted that this role has put the lives of U.S. citizens at risk for over five decades. Some scholars have even cautioned that the country’s own national security has been compromised because of such policies which overemphasize the country’s international role.

Internationally, the U.S. policies have been criticized of being biased towards their allies which, according to the opponents, is the major cause of the failure of the policy in ensuring peace and democracy. Galula (2006) argues that, as long as the U.S. will still offer discriminatory military and other forms of supports to its allies and abandon its opponents, the opponents will use such segregation practices as a uniting factor to consolidate a solid support. Galula (2006) also questions the possibility of realizing success in this fight noting that this biasness has made the U.S. to have more enemies than friends. With more negative impacts being witnessed each year, scholars and various leaders have raised doubts on whether this policy will remain relevant.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Intervention During the Kuwait War

Schmidt (2005) noted that the war at Kuwait happened in the year 1991. According to him, the war was instigated by the United State’s move to counter the attack on the people of Kuwait by Saddam Hussein’s allied soldiers. The war graduated into a worst state extending into the neighboring countries like Baghdad with many civilians being wounded while a good numbers also lost their lives. According to Schmidt (2005), the United States’ second failure in this war was its failure to provide the required humanitarian services as stipulated in the provisions of the policy that it claims to implement. As a result, even those whose deaths could be avoided lost their lives. It was also a form of injustice to the many innocent civilians who lost their lives. 

Knowing Saddam Hussein as dictator, the United States had believed that leaving him to control the whole of the Middle East region would be a set back to the war against dictatorial leaderships. The United States therefore argued that its involvement in the war between Kuwait and Iraq was purely to stop the tyrannical leader, Saddam Hussein, from extending his brutal actions to these parts of the world. However, Iraq interpreted the move by the United States and its allies to mean that it was intended to remove their leader, Saddam Hussein, from power (Schmidt, 2005).

Schmidt (2005) observed that with the spread of this allegation, the communities that were the key opponents of Saddam Hussein like the Kurd community and the other civilians started to demonstrate against the leadership of Saddam Hussein. These groups got motivation from the understanding that the United States would support any movement against the then country’s greatest enemy, Saddam Hussein. However, the result was lethal and the worst ever expected.

According to Schmidt (2005), Saddam went to the extent of using chemicals to kill in masses those who had taken part in the protest against his leadership. This again demonstrated the inability of the US to implement the policy to the latter. In this case, it failed to protect the civilians’ freedom of expression and also to protect these nations such as Baghdad which never took part directly in the war against such acts. This was a clear demonstration the policy was not applicable to all parties (Schmidt, 2005).

Irrespective of the awareness of the U.S., the events worsened, leading to the documented Kurd massacre. The Massacre was characterized with a number of inhuman acts leading to hundreds of deaths. Unexpectedly, the U.S. acted by bombing Baghdad in what could be described at the pretence of stopping the further actions of the Iraqi soldiers in Kuwait (Schmidt, 2005). However, this action by the U.S. has widely been condemned. Records have shown that many innocent people died in the bombing and the war in general. This policy has therefore been criticized of giving the U.S. unnecessary power which worsens the situation. These instances have clearly been used to demonstrate that the policy that was purported to ensure the rights and democracy of all people all over the world was a mere tool of furthering the interest of the United States (Schmidt, 2005).

Reaction against the Iran Nuclear Plan

Slomanson (2011) observed that the U.S. foreign policy burrs certain countries, especially those which had been observed to be in constant war, from holding weapons of mass destruction. However, the rule was made a bit lenient on the leaders who showed high level of morality and established stability in their nations. Nagl (2006) noted that the belief was that the nations which are politically unstable have high possibility of involving themselves in unethical actions.

It also required that all the nations which had the qualification to handle these weapons had to join certain international treaties. Such treaties would then select a larger governing body being placed in charge of the mass destructive weapons. This provision was to ensure accountability among the various nations which were given the right to make or/and use the weapons. Such nations would therefore be answerable for any terrorists’ attack in which such weapons are used. This measure was meant to ensure a sustainable security of both the individual states and the international community (Schmidt, 2005).

It was therefore obvious that any action to implement this provision would work against the Iran’s plan to strengthen its nuclear base. The state and the nature of Iran made it to largely be affected by the policy. The U.S. describes Iran as a country which has the weaponry to cause a state of disability in the whole world. This argument was majorly based on the past reactions of the country against Iraq. It was also argued that Iran had a strong link with the weaponry. Schmidt (2005) noted that the United States joined the war specifically to protect itself and people of the Asia from any attack by Iran. The United States therefore had to support Iraq in this war.

According to Schmidt (2005), a close examination of the U.S. actions in these two countries reveals that the U.S. actions are simply based on the need to protect itself and selfish interests. The U.S. was afraid the Iran would strike it in revenge to the loss it caused Iran during its war with Iraq. This partial and bias reaction also demonstrated that the policy merely existed to serve the interest of the United States and not the purported provision of security for all. In other words, the U.S. is ready to do all that it takes to ensure that its interest is achieved irrespective of the effect that its actions will have on other nations (Nagl, 2006).

A clear look at the U.S. actions has revealed that its involvement in any foreign peace keeping mission is only limited to situations in which its security is threatened by either of the parties involved in the war. In the case of Iran it has been argued that the U.S. saw the war as an opportunity to obtain some nuclear weapons from Iran as well as that of strengthening its weakening security. According to Nagl (2006), by the end of the war, the U.S. involvement resulted into more bad than good. He noted that many of the lives were lost including those of the soldiers and the civilians. The war also saw the U.S. use too much of unplanned tax payers money which caused it the long enjoyed economic stability.

Examination of the Conflict Over Korean Peninsula

Hanlon and Mochizuki (2003) noted that the main cause of conflict in Korea has been the control of the Peninsula. The issue has been responsible for the long period war between the South and the North Korea. It has since split other countries into two groups with one group supporting the South Korea while the other supporting the North Korea. Price (2008) has noted that USA and other countries stood after the South Koreans against the North Koreans. This made other opponents of the United States like China and Russia to join the war in support of the North Koreans. The result was a massive war in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Even though the U.S. still argues that its joining the war was purely on the need to protect the South Koreans, research has shown that it was also partly meant to root out the communists in South Korea. According to Gonzalez (2009), the U.S. leaders believed that this was an opportunity to curb the spread of communism in a country whose leaders were seen as staunch communists.

According to Gonzalez (2009), the war did a lot of harm than good to the long term enemies, the United States and the USSR, which had started to experience some reconciliation after the experiences in the Second World War. The pressure started to build up again because of the resulting suspicion. Gonzalez (2009) notes that apart from rekindling the past enmity between the two supper powers, the war destabilized the then established free market because the war made the nations allied to the USSR to withdraw their dealings with the United States and vice versa. Equally, the relationship that had started to develop between the allies of the two countries also worsened.

Hanlon and Mochizuki (2003) noted that the other argument against the policy has been that the United States’ involvement in this war was totally against the spirit of democracy. The opponents of the policy have maintained that the U.S. never took into account the need to promote democracy and that of respect for human rights. This argument is based on the fact that majority of the members of the public lost their lives during this war which left people wondering whether the war was necessary in the first place. Price (2008) reveals that it seemed that the United States had intended to use the opportunity to paralyze the growth of the country that had been seen to be its long term enemy. The shape the war took was far from the intended purpose of the then need of pushing the North Koreans from the Parts of the South Koreans’ territory which they had occupied illegally. According to Price (2008), these facts of ill motives by the United States government negates its earlier claim that its involvement was purely intended to assist the people of the South Korea.

The Case of the War on Taliban

Due the event of the September eleventh, the U.S. took as its top priority need to provide security to its own citizen. Gonzalez (2009) observed that this led to a further ineffectiveness of the foreign policy. This is because the country openly began to take advantage of the priorities it enjoys to attack any country that she believed was involved or had the potential of involving itself in terrorist attacks. What worsened this situation was the claim of responsibility of the ninth September’s bombing by the Al-Qaeda. Additionally, the Afghanistan bases of Taliban were also believed to have assisted in this mission. The U.S.’s war against Afghanistan was on the understanding that it was the country where Osama was hiding. This was worsened when the Taliban never took part in an operation of the government of Afghanistan which made the U.S. to take a drastic move of sending its soldiers purporting that it wanted to restore peace. However, Gonzalez (2009) downplayed this claim noting that the major aim of the U.S. was to find the whereabouts of Osama Bin Laden.

According to the Network of Concerned Anthropologists (2009), the U.S.’s major reason for involving itself in the Afghanistan was to protect both itself and the world against the brutal attacks of the terrorists. This network argues that the U.S. took this opportunity to revenge against the Afghanistan. The operation was brutal by nature leading to the killing of many Afghans most of which were innocent. It also led to destruction of infrastructure and paralyzed the functioning of the government. The cities such as Kabul were totally destroyed and their operations brought to a stand still.

It is sad that all these destructions caused to an innocent country were in the name of searching for Osama B. Laden whom no one was even aware of his whereabouts. The attacks were against the very virtues the United States had promised to support. It compromised democracy human rights and never promoted world peace. This policy proved to be more harmful to the Afghans. The U.S. also was not an exception as its actions against these countries attracted the reactions of more enemies which viewed them as biased. This increased the level of insecurity in the U.S. itself and for its citizens. It is therefore fit to say that the policy has not worked even for the international community.

The Case of Saddam Hussein

The next action by the U.S. was the issuance of ultimatum by the U.S. president George Bush to Saddam Hussein to quit power and leave his own country. According to Cockburn (2002), this was a reaction by the U.S. government to the refusal by Saddam to surrender his nuclear. However, the U.S. effort to capture Saddam was not a part of the policy. The U.S. had taken advantage of the need for an operation to seize the dangerous nuclear weapons that were believed to be hidden in the country. Their misplaced opportunistic effort to capture Saddam Hussein was never successful. However, Cockburn (2002) has noted that instead, a big quantity of resources was destroyed while many also lost their lives especially during the bombing.

The U.S. foreign policy has continuously been seen as a tool which was designed to deny the other world leaders’ their freedom and other nations a chance to make or take over the control of weaponry. It has thus given the U.S. a free and justified way of exercising its authority over other nations and regions of the world. The policy has not helped to the developing nations either. Instead, such acts like the destruction of the Iraq’s oil wells and infrastructure has led to further economic downturn (Gonzalez, 2009).

The war also led to the worse economic sabotage in the markets as the U.S. stopped importing its oil from Iraq as an attempt to give the market control to its own allies (Gonzalez, 2009).  At the stop of the war, the economies of the two countries, Iraq and Iran, had suffered a great set back as the U.S. failed to support the nations after the end of the war. This caused redirection of funds that would have been used to improve the economy of Iraq and Iran. The case of these two nations shows what the U.S. policy has caused various nations in which it has been applied.

The Libya Conflict Intervention

Another case where the policy has been applied is Libya. Gibson (2011) noted that the recent capture of the Libyan tyrant leader may have been carried out in an attempt of hiding some conspiracy. It is also argued that with the kind of operation in Libya the war would have been long won. Various political analysts have also used the President Obama’s speech which was delivered to the members of the congress. It revealed that the major reason for the involvement of the U.S. was to help in controlling the situation in a bid to preventing any form of crime against humanity and any breech of the international security policy (Gibson, 2011). It is also good to note that the major reason for this action was to get Gaddafi out of power even though the war and destruction has continued to date.

Some analysts have also faulted the U.S. involvement in the Libyan case. According to Gibson (2011), a close reflection of the history of the U.S. would reveal that the super power is acting to cover some of its past mistakes. The country had supported certain dictators and imposed them into the leadership of various nations. One of such cases has been that of Iraq. Gibson (2011) noted that it is through the leadership of the United States that Hussein had raised into power. 

The current happenings in Africa like that of Tunisia and Libya is a clear indication to the world that the continent is undergoing a democratic revolution. With the Gaddafi’s case, the U.S. enjoyed the control of the country and that of the surrounding nations through controlling his tyrannical actions. Gibson (2011) notes that the U.S. fears loosing the control it has been enjoying. This is another case of the failure of the U.S. foreign policy. The expectation is that the involvement of the international community should be aiming at restoring the normality.

However, this has never been the case in any war in which the U.S. is involved. The interventions have often never achieved the required peaceful negotiation and war free interventions. It has instead insisted on dealing with individuals whom it considers as a key to the conflicts which it does without any consideration to the rights of the citizens of the nations involved. The policy is therefore very ineffective as far as the restoration of peace is concerned. The policy has worked to damages the existing peace while prolonging the period of turmoil in the name of peacekeeping. 

Challenges in Achieving World Peace

Through this discussion it is evident that the U.S. foreign policy has downfalls. Of every war that the United States has been involved, the impact has always been worse and takes more time than was expected. The U.S. policy is still criticized of having caused the collapse of the market. This was clearly indicated by the relocation of several investors and those who were providing key resources as people were moving from the countries which allied themselves with the U.S., the policy has also been criticized for the continued war in Libya which is responsible for the increase in prices of the oil products. The citizens of Libya and those of the countries which depend on it for oil have suffered inflation and thus high cost of living as a result of the collapse of the wider oil markets. According to Gibson (2011), the current U.S. policy can not achieve the envisioned peace because it is part of the threat for peace.

Gibson (2011) has noted that with wars erupting in several nations and various nations experiencing challenges ranging from economic related challenges to democracy related challenges, such policies that can bring the world together are needed now than never before. The current U.S. policy has proved incapable of ensuring the world policy and granting citizens and nations with equal chances to enjoy the fruits of real democracy. Today, even the developing nations that had started to make an impact in global markets are slowly retreating to trade on their own. The different cases discussed in this paper give a clear indication that the U.S. have failed in its attempt to ensure world peace. Instead, U.S. had been using wars and authoritative leadership to control nations. The U.S. government controls by a culture of war and domination rather than peace and democracy stipulated in the policy (Gibson, 2011).

Conclusion

In conclusion, the policy has made the U.S. more of an empire than a republic. This is because the policy has given the U.S. power and the authority necessary for it to attack and launch offensive action against any nation which it believes is planning or is already engaged in terrorist activities. The U.S. has been having problems with nations which want to gain the control of the weaponry like the Iran and North Korea. The U.S. has thus been described to be the official terrorist whose actions against other nations are justified under the foreign policy. The U.S. foreign policy thus exists to intimidate less powerful nations and leaders. The control of the world through this foreign policy puts the U.S. at the status of an empire rather than a republic.