What are the benefits and limitations of an « ever closer union » as found in the European Union ?
Essay - 7 pages - International relations
The forthcoming enlargement of the European Union put on the agenda questions about its future and its actual situation in the “ever closer union”. Indeed what can we say today about this process? Is it a success or a failure ? Can the European Union still be closer, or has it reached...
The Grand Chessboard by Zbigniew Brzezinski
Essay - 6 pages - International relations
Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Carter's Security Adviser between 1977 and 1981, is currently a member of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He is also a Professor at Johns Hopkins University and used to teach at Harvard and Columbia. ‘The Grand Chessboard - American...
Economic and commercial consideration in the American foreign policy
Essay - 4 pages - International relations
The American imperialism began about 100 years ago, in 1890, with the end of the Frontier, an imaginary line that separated civilization from wilderness and that was constantly moving towards west. The Second World War, the rise of new markets, development of new technologies stimulated the US...
Dimensions of culture
Essay - 5 pages - International relations
Geert Hofestede defines culture as "the collective programming which distinguishes the members of a group and who differentiate them from the others?. According to Hofstede, there are four criteria which determine culture and they are power distance, individualism/collectivism,...
Was the Gulf war a just war?
Essay - 6 pages - International relations
Just two days after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1991, Saddam Hussain became a new threat to the world order. Saddam Hussain, who had deliberately violated the international rules by aggressing Kuwait, one of his Arab neighbours as a result of which the war against Iraq became inevitable. Ten...
Jihad Vs. McWorld by Benjamin Barber. Two opposite tendencies that threaten democracy
Essay - 5 pages - International relations
Benjamin R. Barber is a professor of political science and director of the Whitman Center at Rutgers University. His popular books are Strong Democracy (1984), An aristocracy of Everyone (1992), and Jihad Vs. McWorld (Times Books, 1995). Jihad Vs. McWorld, his last book was published in the...
Does the notion of 'Rogue states' make sense?
Essay - 6 pages - International relations
According to George Bush's declaration in his state of the union speech to Congress on January 29th, an axis of evil threatens the peace of the world reminds us of Reagan's description of the USSR as an evil empire. In this speech, he clearly pointed a finger directly at three countries...
Is military intervention ever morally justified ?
Essay - 4 pages - International relations
Intervention has to be considered as a moral problem which has become all the more accurate that intra-state conflicts have dramatically increased. In the case of an inter-states conflict, military intervention can be both lawful and moral. But, in the case of an intra-state conflict, if no...
Do the needs / rights of our compatriots take precedence over those who live beyond our state borders ?
Essay - 4 pages - International relations
States keep hesitating between what they consider their moral duty towards the human beings of the whole world and the pursuit of their own interests. When President Clinton flies to China, his discourse shows both the care his nation takes about Human Rights and the fear that his going on too...
To whom would the US be accountable and for what?
Essay - 7 pages - International relations
On 20th December 1999, demonstrators in front of the American embassy in Panama demanded that the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights of the OAS should take a decision in the Salas vs. USA case. For the first time in history, a huge group of people lodged a complaint against the United...
WTO dispute settlement, various means other than panel procedures continuity & change
Essay - 12 pages - International relations
The aim of the GATT procedures has always been to resolve disputes, whenever possible, through agreement between the parties, rather than by seeking to identify treaty violations . With this sentence, Professor Merrills clearly referred to the two possible methods (the diplomatic-political manner...
Has re-unification fundamentally altered Germany's policy towards European Integration ?
Essay - 5 pages - International relations
Even if Germany's policies underwent some changes since 1990, unification was not the earthquake many (perhaps particularly in France) feared. It did affect German's policies on a short-term basis, especially toward economics, because the unification cost was or is still amazing. But,...
Hedley Bull's The Anarchical Society. London, Macmillan, 1977
Essay - 6 pages - International relations
Bull's The Anarchical Society is a ground-breaking book that proposes novel, powerful concepts for reading today's world order as well as the order that prevailed in the world in 1977. Today more than ever, we need the idea of international society, even if it has to be revisited to fit...
A monetary Union in East Asia?
Essay - 21 pages - International relations
We will first try to understand the reasons why Asia needs monetary cooperation and the problems it will encounter. Then we will take a look at the current areas of discussions and the various schemes of cooperation. Finally we will analyze the alternatives available that might emerge in the future.
The political involvement in the context of war: A moral dilemma for NGOS
Essay - 7 pages - International relations
Nowadays, Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) are subject to ethical dilemmas when it comes to accomplishing their goals. When helping people, irrespective of the approach used, it is important to consider both the environment, to adapt oneself to it and the consequences of the aid provided....
"Washington bears a considerable amount of the responsibility for the radicalism of the Iranian Revolution and the resultant deterioration in US-Iranian relations" - published: 09/03/2002
Essay - 3 pages - International relations
'When examining the policies that the United States conducted toward Iran from 1945 to 1979, one cannot help but realize that Washington bears a considerable amount of the responsibility for the radicalism of the Iranian Revolution and the resultant deterioration in US-Iranian relations.'...
"When you look back at the role that Washington has played between the Arabs and the Israelis, it is clear that the United States could end the Arab-Israeli conflict tomorrow, if it so desired" - published: 09/03/2002
Essay - 3 pages - International relations
The picture taken at the Washington summit right after the Madrid conference just says it all: Rabin and Arafat, the representatives of the two most antagonistic peoples in the modern world, shake hands under Clinton's blessing. Thus it may seem that the American presence and participation is the...
'Washington bears a considerable amount of the responsibility for the radicalism of the Iranian Revolution and the resultant deterioration in US-Iranian relations'
Essay - 3 pages - International relations
'When examining the policies that the United States conducted toward Iran from 1945 to 1979, one cannot help but realize that Washington bears a considerable amount of the responsibility for the radicalism of the Iranian Revolution and the resultant deterioration in US-Iranian relations.'...
Why is the Middle East so important for the United States?
Essay - 4 pages - International relations
The reason why the US finds the Middle-East baffled, it is due to the complexity of both the Middle East and the perception of America which is shaped by a wide range of antagonistic interests that combine, for example, considerations of oil supplies, maintenance of general stability and the...
Communism in the USA - published: 29/01/2002
Essay - 3 pages - International relations
To establish a real picture of communism in the USA and to understand its actual situation, I will first talk about the reasons why the USA cannot be seen as the best place to be a communist and then I will ask myself whether we can say there is an agony of communism in the country since 1990.
The Zapatistas movement
Essay - 6 pages - International relations
When the Zapatista army emerged from the mountains and jungle of the previously forgotten Mexican state of Chiapas in the early hours of the 1st January 1994, (the ones without faces, the ones without voices) they stepped directly into the media spotlight, making front page news around the world....
The drug trade
Essay - 6 pages - International relations
In the shuffle of the post Cold War geopolitics of transnational threats, drug trafficking suddenly appeared as one of the new major threats to the world order. Yet the drug trade has undergone a long time-span evolution over several centuries. This challenge to regional security is all the more...
China : a power in transition
Essay - 6 pages - International relations
Deng Xiaoping's death on February , 1997, left China without the " father " of the evolution it had been following since 1978. . Though he was a survivor of the Long March, he repelled a lot of Mao Zedong's inheritance and introduced his country to what is certainly the single most...
How to prevent another desert war?
Essay - 5 pages - International relations
My purpose here is not to draw the historical background of the Western Sahara conflict (as it has already been done) but to give some insights on how to prevent another war in the unstable area of Maghreb. The Western Sahara is known to be the last colony of the world that has existed in spite...
US-Japan and US-China Relations
Essay - 8 pages - International relations
The development of the Asian economy (China and Japan in particular), has had a great impact on the US-Japan and US-China relationship. Fears of a trade war between the world's two largest economies have worsened since the implementation of the GATT (1988-1993). The relations with the China...
The "Arab World"
Essay - 10 pages - International relations
The feeling of being a part of the Arab nation is hindered by the diversity of territories and nations, by the divisions determined by historical backgrounds and an unequal access offered by the territories of the different states. These disparities led to national egoism. Nevertheless, the...
