Last hours of studying before my final in my Future of War class. It's probably been my most challenging and favourite class of the semester. My professor is not only an eminent scholar in the field of Political Science, but has also served over 30 years in the US Armed Forces, been the top military advisor to President Bush (Sr) and therefore has, quite literally, seen all there is to see in the Politics of War (ha! see what I did there - Politics of Dance, Politics of War...get it? No? You guys really need to be listening to more EDM).
I come out of this class immensely challenged, politically and academically. It has taught me so much about the complexities of International Relations - it seems fairly daft to say this, but truly until I took this class, I never really grasped now non-absolutist (yes I made up that word) the geopolitical strategic world is. I have a newfound appreciation for the complexities that are involved in the work that world leaders and military strategists do on a daily basis.
It's often hard to understand why politicians make the decisions they do. During my time at Brown, I had taken a myriad of classes where the genocide in Rwanda had been discussed. It is almost universally voiced that that it was the failing of the west (the US in particular) to not have intervened during those 90 days (every time I imagine that over 1,000,000 people were killed in the space of a summer job...a part of me really feels hollow), It is hard not to feel a visceral hatred towards international diplomacy when you read the transcripts from the UN General Assembly and Security Council meetings from that period. The tip-toeing around the G word to avoid taking any responsibility, the obvious lack of knowledge of the region (some members of the GA referring to a war between the "Tutus and Hutsis?") and basically the running-around-like-headless-chickens nature of the UN entity in general.
Bill Clinton visited Rwanda in 1998 and said to the people of Rwanda, "I am sorry. I truly am". (of course not in his 'official', government-endorsed speech...don't get me started on that one) And he meant it, they all did - how can you not? I know they each go to sleep every night knowing that they had it in their combined power to do more to stop the horror.
But if you ever have the chance to, please watch a PBS documentary called "Ambush in Mogadishu". It is basically the factual version of "Black Hawk Down". Less than a year before Rwanda, 18 American soldiers are killed in an unknown city where they are technically not even involved in a war. How does a president who can barely get a coherent explanation from his top military officials for why this occurred explain it to his country, his people, his constituents. And then to make a similar move barely 1 year later? No, it's really not as easy as it sounds.
It's not an excuse for inaction. And I don't think Bill Clinton or his government will ever use it as such, especially in light of what transpired in Rwanda. But, it explains one element of the strategic decision-making. This is really just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the complexity that I have grappled with in this class (and I use it as an example just because I'm reviewing the case study right now lol).
You know something else? We call our leaders, diplomats, governments war mongers. This class shows me how that is, by and large, entirely false. It has shown me how easy it can be for countries to go to war with one another (Russia proved that against Georgia). It has given me fresh perspective on controversial wars like Iraq and Vietnam, it has shown me the complex web of international law, UN resolutions and historical precedence that goes into making and preventing wars. Our professor said that one of the goals of this class was to force us to put our political-party affiliations aside and to begin to understand that war & peace policymaking was as far from black & white as possible. I can safely say I've come to understand that.
Let this post not read like one that passively agrees with every decision authority takes or excuses the obvious mistakes it makes (ooh ooh rhyming couplet), I'm really just thinking aloud about how much I'm learning on a daily basis about the VAST grey area in international relations.
It might seem obvious to some of you realists and pragmatists out there - but, believe me, it has never been to me. I truly believe that morality should guide the decisions that we make - our responsibility to protect and prevent should guide our domestic and international policies. I have always been and hopefully will always be a person whose politics reflect my personal principles. But, putting myself in the shoes of some of the political players in the mind-numbingly difficult situations they have been put in since WW II makes me realise that I would have probably made similar decisions to theirs. As the old cliche goes, we are not all that different.
Should I be happy that I'm beginning to understand politics in a way that allows me to conceive of a future in it? Or should I be mortified that my unbridled activist spirit is slowly being numbed into the senile state of eternal compromise that global politicking requires? Like a good diplomat, I'm plum on the fence.
And now, back to it...Mass Terror as Warfare. Oh, joy.
P.S. - Wish me luck!
