Lest we Forget Libya!

Every week we look at an article that is making inroads in the field of international relations. In the recent weeks, the world has been grappling with the war in Gaza, the Ebola outbreak in the Western African states of Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea and Nigeria. The embers of the conflict in Ukraine seem to be cooling off while infighting in Iraq has seen America sending rescue missions. Closer home in Tanzania, there seems to be no answer to the constitution deadlock. I hear the ruling party is flexing its political muscles while the UKAWA group remains intransigent. 

On Libya. While the global media casts its cameras in Gaza, Ukraine, Iraq and West Africa, the infighting in Libya seems to be forgotten. I asked my Canadian-Libyan friend Amjad how Libya was fairing after the fall of Gaddafi, and his answer was "The militants have taken over". Foreign Policy Magazine in the Passport series looks at the situation in Libya. Titled "Don't look Now, but Libya is Falling Apart", the author,  Siddhartha Mahanta, explores how the militants are fighting for the control of the oil wells in Libya. NATO intervention in Libya in 2011 which led to the fall of Muammar Gaddafi has been a subject of international debate. When the UN Security Council passed Resolution 1973 for a no-fly zone over Libya on 17 March 2011, the fall of Gaddafi was inevitable. The legitimacy of the resolution under the pretext of Right to Protect (R2P) is also a subject for debate. Critics of the UNSC further highlighted its flaws with the passing of Resolution 1973. 

Libya is now in the hands of hungry militants who are fighting themselves. One wing of the militants are aligning themselves with Islamists. Just like Iraq was stable under Sadam Hussein, so was Libya under Muammar Gaddafi. One excruciating fact is that both countries were undone by UNSC resolutions, which were against international law norms. As ISIS continue to wreck havoc in Iraq, the militants in Libya will get more radicalized. At whose expense was the brutal removal of Sadam and Gaddafi? The people of Iraq and Libya must be cursing and questioning the motives of the powers that be. But as we say in international relations, albeit in the realist thought, 'States pursue power at all cost and their primary concern is state survival'. 

 

#WorldPolitics: Why is the World Cup more exciting than World Politics?

I will be posting links to interesting articles touching on International Politics and Foreign Policy in my blog from today. 

Here is an interesting analysis by Hamid Dabashi, one of my favorite authors and commentator of world affairs. He ponders why the World Cup is more interesting than World Politics. Even though he hasnt mentioned the fact that he has been over the moon for Iran national team qualification to the World Cup and the somewhat inspiring performance, I believe this article has been highly motivated with #TeamMelli. I was also supporting Iran by the way.  

Here is the article courtesy of Aljazeera:  Why is the World Cup more exciting than world politics?

Iran World Cup Cartoon

The Legacy of Kenneth Waltz: How he changed International Relations

By BarryR. Posen via Foreign Policy Magazine

Kenneth Waltz made critical contributions to the development of international relations theory, the debate on U.S. foreign and security policy, and the training of a new generation of international relations scholars. In the course of these contributions he has also served as a model of clarity of expression and logical argument. 

Waltz's first critical contribution to international relations theory was his elucidation of the "levels of analysis" problem in Man, the State, and War. The categorization of explanatory theories into ones that respectively stress the role of human nature; state-level political, economic, and social systems; or the anarchical condition of international politics has proven a critical building block of modern international relations theory. 

Through his exploration of theories at different levels of analysis, Waltz took the first giant step of his theoretical career. Even readers who do not wish to take the same step find the path illuminating. Waltz poses two major questions: If bad humans are the cause of war, why is there so much peace? If bad states (or societies, or economies) are the cause of war, why are so many good states implicated in wars? Why does war persist despite variation in the nature of the states and societies that make up the international system? Waltz suspected that classical realism and balance of power theory would tell us something about this -- but at that point he could not quite put his finger on it. 

The device of "levels of analysis" has become a ready element of our vocabulary about international relations theories. It travels well. Even novices quickly grasp its utility, and find themselves better able to organize both their own and others' arguments after a brief introduction. More importantly, Man, the State, and War makes the case that there must be something distinctly "international" about international politics, which Waltz suspected could be traced to the absence of a sovereign. The book maps out a space that subsequent theorists, including Waltz, would then need to fill. After we read the book, we know this. Some may disagree with Waltz's subsequent arguments about the share of international politics that can be explained by "third image" -- or system-level -- theories, but none can dismiss them. 

Waltz's second contribution to international relations theory is to be found in Theory of International Politics. There, Waltz distills the product of years of thinking about the "third image." He develops the distinctive concept of "international structure" as the distinguishing feature of the international political system. Structure is the minimalist device that captures the basic causal forces and variables of the international political system. Structure is made up of an organizing principle (anarchy) and the distribution of capabilities (polarity). From that, Waltz deduces many of the characteristic patterns of behavior one should find in the relations among autonomous actors. Though Waltz overlooked certain possibilities, such as unipolarity, and left much room for argument about some of his specific deductions, one cannot come away from Theory without a keen appreciation of the constraints and incentives imposed upon states by the condition of anarchy. These lead to the competitive behaviors that are so familiar. 

Kenneth Waltz was one of the most influential international relations scholars of the last half-century. Even if he had produced no students, his books would stand as rocks in the road. Nobody trying to understand international politics can avoid them. But Kenneth Waltz did produce many students, who built on his work in their own scholarship, further refining the realist model. Even international relations theories based on other premises must engage with structural realism. Kenneth Waltz found what was international about international politics and built the foundations of the field.

Man, State and War: Thank you Kenneth Waltz, now Rest in Peace

Nicodemus Minde 

As a student of International Relations and an aspiring theorist of the discipline, the news of the passing of Kenneth Waltz is sad. This guru embodied the neo-realist theory throughout his great academic history. Ken was the author of several enduring classics of the field, including Man, the State, and War (1959), Foreign Policy and Democratic Politics (1967),  and Theory of International Politics (1979).   His 1980 Adelphi Paper on nuclear proliferation ("The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: More May Be Better"), was also a classic, albeit a controversial one. 

Kenneth Waltz

As a first year student at the university studying International Relations, Ken's works came in handy. We dissected and unpacked various theories of IR. Theorist such as Hans Morgenthau, the father of realism were introduced to us with the monumental piece of "Politics Among Nations". Others such as E.H Carr, Thucydides, Niccolo Machiavelli also epitomized the realist discourse. The epistemology and ontological points of departure came in handy when unpacking the theory debate. This being said, Kenneth Waltz remains my all time favorite theorist in International Politics. I have read his book "Man, State and War" and it together with the monumental seminal work on foreign policy of "Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis by Graham T Allison remain as my all time favorite reads in international relations. 

 

In essence, Waltz's thesis in the book "Man, State and War" is on the causes of war in a contextual framework of the man and society. Using units of analysis, Kenneth Waltz divides international relations theory into three images: that of man, state and system. He looks at the three images vis-a-vis each other and forms his theoretical premise of the causes of war. Interesting in this reading was his analysis of man within a polity or society. He asks "Can man be best understood by studying society or by studying man?" His analysis is premised on the conception that man is born good but it is society that erodes their character. 

 

Writing recently on nuclear deterrence in Iran and the politics of the bomb, Kenneth Waltz reminded us of his unique analytical skills.  In Foreign Affairs magazine, Professor Kenneth N. Waltz says it is time to back off and let Ahmadinejad develop his nuclear weapons. I wrote in this blog before on Waltz's perspective. He believed that a nuclear Iran will bring stability in the Middle East region. Just the standoff between India and Pakistan that cooled down through nuclear deterrence, Waltz believed Iran-Israel tensions could be healed this way. 

 

I eulogize Kenneth Waltz's on his excellent and critical formulation of IR theories and events. I have never met his in person but through his great works. He introduced me to the discipline that is International Relations. We debated and argued on the images as conceived by Waltz in class both at undergraduate and graduate studies. My analytical skills within the corpus of IR have largely been influenced by this great scholar. In scholarship, one is acclaimed and despised in equal measure but for me, Waltz remains one of my great mentors.   

All politics is local? Why International Relations then?

 Nicodemus Minde

They say all politics is local, or rather all politics is domestic. As a student of international politics, this saying could mean I wasted four years of my undergraduate studies plus other two for my graduate studies. After meditating on the phrase for a long time through inspired reading and philosophical and epistemological analysis, I think I got a counter phrase or rather a complementary phrase. Yes, indeed, all politics is local but after reading an article on Al Monitor, the Middle East website on "What Russia learned from the Iraq War" I can confidently say that "all politics is local. All international politics is a derivative of jostling for hegemonic status either regionally, continentally or in many occasions global". 

The pursuit of individual freedoms, justice and rule of law as embedded in the DNA of American constitution is local politics. The desire to push this enduring tenets to a global audience either through implicit or explicit tactics is what can be termed as international politics. When Putin was quizzed over Russia's position on the Iraq War 10 years ago, he said it was their problem. This is despite the fact that Russia as a global player should have positioned itself with 'the allied forces' against the forces of evil or 'axis of evil'. This then, is how domestic politics plays the role of international politics. When America supported the "Orange Revolution" in Ukraine yet Russia had publicly declared they would work best with George Bush and not John Kerry during the elections, the concept of internationalization of domestic politics manifested itself. A great read from Middle East Al Monitor has opened my international relations eyes wider. Thank God for daily insights.