The present international system

出自香港新聞網 - 樹仁新傳系學生實習習作

Question A) The present international system is undoubtfully the greatest, the most complicated, however, also the most inaccurate in the world.

It is difficult to describe accurately but I would say that the present international system is still a stable anarchic system with growing neoliberalism and has one major power (unipolar).

Firstly, there is actually international law, which binds states and other agents in world politics in their relations with one another. However, there is no government above states, which means there is not a legal troop or ‘police’ to enforce the law. Although United Nations aimed to keep world peace, the organization has not the legal power to punish states. The anarchic situation has not been changed for many years.

Secondly, since world war, we can see that the world is no longer always consumed by warface, though conflicts were still existed, for example, the Cold War, though the politic between U.S. and Soviet Unions was so tense, war is no longer the only exit to solve the problems. The world was not doomed in a dog-eat-dog environment anymore.U.S. and Soviet Union compromised a Bilateral Start Arms Reduction Agreement in order to restrain the security dilemma between them. In cause of states are valuing economic well-being and so as political, social, and cultural objectives more and more, states in turn to use carefully designed institutions for international cooperation to overcome the anarchy and violence of the international system. The growing number of states joining in international organization, such as China entering WTO, Japans’ attempt being one of the permanent members of Security Council in UN, tell us that states nowadays prefer the idea that international relation is a variable-sum game (which all states have mutual benefits if they involve in cooperation) more than a zero-sum game. Neoliberalism is so as the main school in the present international system. However, structural realism is still a common but a decaying school of international relations theory. Under the circumstances that the three assumptions of structural realism still stand, many state still consider their survival at the first place, sometimes reliability between states is hard to form, especially in security-related issue. As today’s ally may be tomorrow’s enemy, the cooperation between states is always instant.

Thirdly, in the school of realism, the international system is described in terms of polarity: unipolarity, bipolarity, or multipolarity. I would choose unipolarity, which the hegemon is U.S., to describe the present international systems. Regardless of the impact of nuclear weapons, U. S. is the hegemon as its military and economic power dominant among the states in the international system and often has extensive global commitments. U.S. establishes and enforces a set of rules that govern the international system, and it provides a number of global services to its allies, for example, presidents Bush has always been so concerned the civil policy about democracy in China and so as the problem of Taiwan isolation, U.S.’ control of United Nations, to mention but a few. Although China and Japanese is being stronger and that Britain and some other western country are still very strong indeed, no state will challenge U.S. because any challenger is likely to lose. However, the stability of unipolar system is uncertain, when one state becomes preponderant, it is tempted to dominate the system and impose its will on the other states by the threat or use of military force. We can see the U.S. is doing so; it ally Britain to dispatch troops to Iraq saying it is fight for the freedom of the citizens of Iraq and bombard the terrorisms, but actually staring at the petroleum resources of the Iraq. Although many country disagreed with U.S. decision, who dare to challenge U.S.? Nevertheless, according to the long-cycle theory, the hegemon had always been lasts for 100 years regularly and then may delegitimation and deconcentration. Thus, United States is expected to enter the deconcentration phase and be challenged by another power. China seem to be a potential challenging power at the present system, as China economic is growing very fast and that mobilize domestically economic and industrial resources and their conversion into military power to match up against U.S. gradually. In the case of China, internal balancing was used as a try to shift the preponderance structure to parity or bipolar system. From the above-mentioned, it tell us the factors affecting the shaping of the present system are mainly economic, as economic could in turn to military power to maintain state own safety and so as other things too. But of course the factors are enormorous, like nature of humans, regime type, which many theorists contend that it a big element in affecting one’s state policy e.t.c. The factors are ever-changing and so as the nature or structure of the international system, which finally lead to changes in the behavior of states within the system, forming a cycle.

Question B) I do agree international cooperation is beneficial mostly to developed countries. Since most of the cooperation was deal thought an international organization or by signed treaties, the anarchy system could not protect any state from breaking the law, it only depends entirely on national power. Reciprocity only works if the aggrieved state has power to influence the violator. And that the fact is all great power is developed countries, which can “control” other states no matter by military threat or economic sanction.