Aby The Liberal

Dmitri September 29th, 2007

As an international political site, we often get accosted by peace lovers for our in-depth analysis on military issues, like the comparison of nuclear and conventional military strengths among rivals. The intentions of most dissidents are entirely honest and for noble reasons, after all who wouldn’t want a peaceful world where growth and human prosperity is not stifled by wars and conflicts? The United Nations was set up with this objective in mind, to promote peace and to act as a platform for nations helping them resolve conflicts using peaceful diplomatic methods. Yet, a peaceful world without wars and conflicts is hardly in sight and the UN seems to be getting more irrelevant day by day. One might ask, what could be the reason for such a trend? One of the answers would be found on the concept of how real geopolitics is decided by military options and economic choices rather than moralist idealism.

A news video showing Russia’s recent vacuum bomb test: Military power games to ensure diplomatic peace

A lot of foreign policy decisions in global realpolitik are decided by the game of exercising options, often dubbed by analysts as the “Game Theory”. Diplomatic solutions in case of conflicting interests works only when both parties have an advantage over the other party so that one cannot use force against the other. Wars are unavoidable between nations and global peace an unattainable dream because of this political reality. A nation that can afford political or military force over opponents without severe fallouts to itself wouldn’t want to bother with the aches and compromises of diplomacy, especially if the gains from wars are high.

A better understanding of the politico-military game theory can be had by using United States and its foreign policy as an example. The US is chosen because of its dynamic and highly active foreign policy which ranges from using diplomatic treaties to coercive military force against nations to achieve its goals. The trends of US foreign policy dealings with Russia/Soviet Union, China and other military adversaries have always been different from that of weaker countries in South East Asia and West Asia (Middle East). While militarily weak countries like Vietnam, Iran, Iraq and Yugoslavia have  been on the receiving end of US aggression; China and Russia enjoyed a lot of freedom in pursuing an actively anti-US military policy without any fallouts.

One notable example of US restraint from using military force against a strong adversary was the Korean Air Lines Flight 007 shoot-down by Soviet Union in 1983 which lead to 269 fatalities, several of them American passengers including the US Congressman Lawrence McDonald. The reactions to this incident ranged from political condemnations as ‘crime against humanity’ to increased military exercises. Although there were high tensions, a military strike on Russia was never an American option. If any of the Gulf or weaker Asian countries shot down the aircraft, they would have inevitably faced the wrath of United States in the form of a war or at least a military strike involving indiscriminate carpet bombing of a city. A notable incident of this angle would be the US strike on Tripoli, Libya in 1986 (Operation El Dorado Canyon) which took out an entire city block, caused an estimated 500 casualties. The strike was in response to the Libyan bombing of a Berlin disco and military strikes on a US aircraft carrier close to its territorial waters, which killed 2 US serviceman. While a Soviet shoot down of a civilian aircraft containing a high profile US dignitary, a Senator was met with nothing more than diplomatic outrage, a much smaller Libyan strike met with a severe and larger military response.

The reasons for such contrasting responses is pretty obvious, a military strike on a Russian city would have resulted in Soviet forces retaliate by taking out an entire US city; possibly lead to an escalation to a full scale nuclear war. Libya on the other hand had no such military power to do such a thing, it was left to its ingenuity to strike back, which resulted in the bombing of an American aircraft Pan Am Flight 103, killing all 243 passengers on board. The initial misdirection of the US investigations towards Iran indicated that the US did not expect any serious repercussions for its Libyan air strikes.

Considering how military strengths between nations decide the political strength behind their foreign policy, it would be be naive for an internationalist to avoid the area of military comparisons while analysing international politics. A strong and powerful military acts as a strong motivator against a non-diplomatic attack by external forces. This is not to say that it is right to use a strong military to fighting further wars, as US does (which brings home more unforeseen troubles than solve them). To win peace, one has to have the capacity to win wars or as in the nuclear age - cause at least a strong deterrence against a potential or existing adversary.

• World Politics , Internationalism , Military
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