Friday, August 7, 2009

World Police Analysis

To analyze the topic of the U.S. being the world police we need to dig a little deeper into the idea of the use of a democratic account of law, and how this force would conduct itself.

With respect to the democratic account of law (Orford 2009)that our text discusses it seems apparent that the best way to police anything is with a democratic vote on how to handle military and humanitarian interventions. In order for a police force to be trusted and respected its actions cannot be the result of the interests of larger countries, or large world businesses. Some set up like the U.N. has to take the lead on making the decision on how to act. The U.N. has yet to have the make up a military force of its own to use to police matters but in the case against North Korea they have at least issued a list of economic sanctions against the country. These even targeted specific businesses (Landler 2009.) If anything these sanctions could slow the North Koreans ability to access the global financial system (Soloman 2009.)

Even if we had a truly democratically led world police how would they go about conducting themselves? Stopping the North Koreans from continuing nuclear arms research is the goal. The confrontational approach (Bleiker 2009) seems to have its problems. If military action is used, people die. If sanctions are enforced it's usually the general populace who suffers. Also if we begin labeling the country as evil then the likely hood of negotiations begins to diminish and the prospect of war becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Bleiker mentions a preferable choice of engagement instead of confrontation. The Standard (2009) reported that very recently Bill Clinton was successful in negotiating the release of two U.S. journalists from captivity for crossing into North Korean territory from China. During those supposed humanitarian negotiations the topic of nuclear weapons was discussed. We've yet to see if this positive result to a dangerous situation will yield some positive actions by the North Koreans. If anything, Hillary Clinton has hopes that the North Koreans can see that they can have a positive relationship with the U.S. going forward (Holland 2009.) This seems like a more productive outcome. If that's the case does the world police then need to be thought of as superior negotiators first before they are thought of as a mighty military? For these negotiators to work they would need to respect the heads of state that they are speaking to and avoid any appearance of self righteousness (Findley 2008.) The U.S. may be able to help finance a military but I don't believe it could represent the strongest negotiators. An example would be the volatile middle east. Lawrence Davidson (2009) states, It is the militarism, neo-liberal economic interventionism, political subversion and immoral arming of the military and civilian thugs who presently run so many Middle Eastern countries, which has earned the U.S. the epithet of the "Great Satan." With a name like that the U.S. is clearly not the people to represent the globe in negotiations for a world police.

I would tend to believe that the world police, U.S. or not, needs to invest in negotiations first with a strong military to back up what was agreed upon. Negotiators would be sent out with an agenda based on an international council and not based off of one country's ideology or one global business's ideas. Hopefully the military would never have to be used as the decision of what to do in any given situation would not be based on anyone's fundamental ideas or interests but one that is best for those involved as well as the rest of the world.

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