The USA, Russia and China all interfere or have interfered with smaller states: USA in the Americas and Far East: Russia in Europe and Middle East: China on an economic and technical fashion and not yet military.
interference and non-interference can equally be seen as part of the humanist critique of war, whereby diplomacy dominated and state boundaries and rights were acknowledged. The Peace of Westphalia at the end of the Thirty Years War, based mainly but not entirely on religious disputes, established that no state had any right to interfere with another state's sovereignty or meddle in its internal affairs. While Machiavelli had proposed the 'the self preservation of the state with all means at any price'.
Great states require stasis and advantages for themselves, but often their interference creates problems and turbulence. Afghanistan, Vietnam, Hong Kong and perhaps soon offshore states. Do you agree?
The right of peoples to self-determination should be respected by great powers.
I do not think that it was a wise decision from the Soviet Union to intervene in the Hungarian popular uprising of 1956, to give one historical example.
The P of W was born when the world population was under dictators. As such it was an agreement between nonconsensual rulers to not meddle in each others' "internal" affairs. To this day the concept is upheld on behalf so-called "legitimate" governments, in what is in truth a practical matter in recognition of these governments' ability to execute mass violence and terror.
Where state bodies in fact represent the will of the people they oversee, this right to be left alone is valid. The most basic elements of human rights are the highest guiding principle.
Yes of course.Sometimes great power like United states can interfere in Middle east , we can make analysis why is bad decision... But its possible that United states can be a good exaple of economic and miliatry aids, in Ethiopia, Israel, Jordan, Egypt etc . Therefore creating a good alliance with other strong states that will respect the International law to protect. Small can be very constructive and unpredictable in using there weapon and territorial size to compete with those big power, in my opinio...
The Hungarian, Czechoslovakian and Afghanistan involvements of the USSR can be said to have increased suspicion against it and brought about its end as the Vietnam War is still affecting the US. The failure of sophisticated arms against a small country intent on national geographical integrity and freedom from western control is a marker. The involvement of the US and Britain in the middle east, turning over democracy in Iraq and promoting the Shah in Iran caused long term problems.
If the larger countries help smaller ones surely it should be contractual with outside guarantees?
US involvement in Japan brought that country prosperity both in the 19th century and after WW2.
Hi Stanley Wilkin
Note that the "failure" of sophisticated arms of large countries against small countries owes to a moral restraint of those peoples of the former against wiping the latter off the map.
On your next poaragraph, depends on what is considered the "country," what is the nature of the help, and who is the contracting party. A counterexample is intervention against genocide that is being committed by governmental or nongovernmental parties. These are often met with wide approval and of no direct benefit to the intervener.
Karl,
My concern is the quote from Machiavelli, in that larger and more powerful countries always arrange matters to their benefit, not simply from greed but fear as well.
Intervention is fine but is difficult or impossible to effect against really powerful polities. Especially when the matter concerns interval aggression against specific populations.
The Bangladeshi groups pushed out of Myanmar-does this represent an intervention cause? Any large country could have stepped in but what would the resolution have been and surely Myanmar would have declared national integrity of borders?
"My concern is the quote from Machiavelli, in that larger and more powerful countries always arrange matters to their benefit"
Untrue, once. US has had overwhelming power. BY Mr. M's priorities it should have by now established utter domination lest another later be able to (which is becoming less theoretical).
"Intervention is fine but is difficult or impossible to effect against really powerful polities. Especially when the matter concerns interval aggression against specific populations."
In many match-ups the asymmetry is extreme and I think the difficulty comes as much from a limit to charity, arguably misguided concern, and a squishy will.
Tremendous progress toward the good has been achieved with might, and it could go a good deal further.
On your specific example, forced relocation itself is probably not a high enough crime for crushing intervention. Chronic mass imprisonment, torture, and execution would be, especially if the government is ascending in the world as a result.
There is an example internal to the US. An extremely bloody war was fought between north and south over moral atrocity with the utter crushing and control of the opponent as the goal, which was achieved. (Today, very fine and loyal soldiers of the Union come from the south).
The US civil war was surely mainly about preserving the union. That 'moral atrocity' continued in a number of forms and is still tweaking the US's polity as a whole. It is unlikely to go away soon and its resolution is hard to see. Self-preservation is not high morality I suspect.
Stanley Wilkin That is a common suspicion but doesn't stand up to examination. By the time of final crisis preserving the union was key, but the reason it reached that point was that northerners (quite religious at that time) were intensely not ok with these happenings continuing to expand, which were not in their own states.
Yes, they were expanding their slavery franchise and clearly it needed to be stopped but would other means have been used if the union itself was not at risk? The South itself was expanding the franchise because its culture was at risk and would have been in an inferior position to the North if slavery did not only continue but expand. Pragmatism might have prevailed, and the habit continued until the US finally imploded through the contradiction.
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Political Science