The Vietnam War represents the nadir in American military history, its legacy forever ‘scar[ring] the American psyche.’[1] Thus, the Iraq War has been fought in the midst of apocalyptic references to ‘another Vietnam,’[2] as the rejectionists, the Saddamists, and the terrorists[3] continue to derail the American strategy for victory in Iraq. The Vietnam War has fundamentally changed the overall mindset of American leaders and the American public; the result is a different type of war, aimed at minimising casualties and reducing the length of war in a bid to capture ‘hearts and minds.’ In seeking to understand American behaviour in Iraq, there is an implicit assumption that lessons have been learned from Vietnam, but have they?
This essay will critically analyse the notion that there is a fundamental difference between the tasks of ‘explaining’ (comprehending ‘causes’) and ‘understanding’ (comprehending ‘reasons’). First, the essay will examine the emergence of the sharp division, which has come to be accepted as existent between ‘explaining’ (which is advocated by positivists) and ‘understanding’ (which is advocated by post-positivists). Second, one important consequence of the division will be demonstrated by showing how the intellectual battles between positivists and post-positivists, as well as the occasional attempts at reconciliation between them, have been instrumental in positivism’s dominance. Finally, the work of Milja Kurki will be drawn upon to argue that the concept of causation should be broadened, thereby exposing the interrelated nature of ‘explaining’ and ‘understanding’ without reducing one to the other. This will allow for positivism’s dominance to be effectively challenged.
This essay seeks to refine Organski’s Power Transition Theory by decoupling the dominant state from the world system it embodies.
While positivism has brought a sense of rigor and academic framework to study international politics, it obscures some crucial truths.
This paper will seek to investigate the ambiguous status of child soldiers looking at their victimhood, their level of agency and the resulting post-conflict implications. It will argue that although local communities and child soldiers themselves understand their inherent duality, the international discourse has yet to incorporate it, which leads to an inadequate response.
This essay outlines some of the major constructivist promises and attempts to deduce their direct implications for North-South relations. It concludes that expansion of security communities represents the foundation of the constructivist promise in this area of study.
Hardt and Negri’s ‘Empire’ is heralded as the most successful work of political theory to come from the left for a generation.
For Hardt and Negri, the modern forces of globalization, transnational capital, and the world market have led to the deterioration of the sovereignty the nation-state, which has been replaced by a supranational force, ‘Empire’.
Habermas’ theory of communicative action is fundamentally subjective and therefore weak as a critical social theory, but provides the international community with hope for prospective change.
To enhance a military’s war-fighting capability and to increase the likelihood of success in operations, a network-centric approach to military operations is paramount.
War has been an omnipresent aspect of the international order. Consequently, ‘realism’ sees conflict and war as the defining aspects of international relations. Conversely, ‘idealists’ posit that human reason/different forms of societal organization can curb or even eliminate belligerency. This essay draws on ‘critical theory’ to show that realism is essentially limited in its analysis of the world system.
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