7/25 Weekly Edition: Realism: Friend or Foe?
Devoted readers will remember our last weekly edition exploring the nuances of Joseph Nye's soft power and how negotiations and culture can impact political decisions. Shifting to explore such a concept's binary opposite coined by the same man, hard power is the use of military and economical means to influence the behavior or interests of other political bodies. Sadly, this world we live in is not a utopian one, and hard power is often applied to maintain checks and balances for our dynamic world, thus warranting further discussion. This week's articles contain a preview of multiple case studies evaluating realism at work, an opposing liberalist lens arguing what powerful actors must do in Haiti's crisis, and a mixed analysis of evaluating territorial integrity in the ongoing Ukraine conflict. Enjoy.
-Joshua Zhang, Editor-in-Chief
Different branches of Realism provide different explanations for the causes of states’ efforts to increase their own power. Still, they ultimately conclude that the effects are the same: International Politics is a stage with results determined not by principle but by rationality.
When Haiti, the poorest country in the western hemisphere, is suffering from past racist policies, natural disasters, as well as social-political instability, humanitarian actors have the responsibility of providing humanitarian aid and protecting a sense of security in response to their crisis.
What the West now needs is not only a change in how the argument is framed but a change in mindset and an understanding that it is incredibly naïve to believe that everyone would approach the Western notions of freedom and democracy the same way the Europeans and the Americans do.