Dear Friend,
What will happen if a chicken farm is in lockdown indefinitely? It's a hilarious read
Kindly support honest journalism to survive. https://countercurrents.org/subscription/
If you think the contents of this news letter are critical for the dignified living and survival of humanity and other species on earth, please forward it to your friends and spread the word. It's time for humanity to come together as one family! You can subscribe to our news letter here http://www.countercurrents.org/news-letter/.
In Solidarity
Binu Mathew
Editor
Countercurrents.org
The Corona Chicken Farm
by Satya Sagar
What will happen if a chicken farm is in lockdown indefinitely? It's a hilarious read
Lockdown, hardship and childbirths without healthcare
by Dr Ahmed Raza
The agony of pregnant women and childbirth have been
another hardship of nationwide lockdown which have been overlooked even after passing of more than one month as a number of incidences of delivering babies road-side, outside the hospital or en-route are still continuing to rise. Though, police and other emergencies care remain intact extending their full support by providing vehicles and ambulances to the pregnant women during their labor pain.
Students in Jammu and Kashmir also deserve high-speed internet
Co-Written by Rabiya Yaseen Bazaz & Professor Mohammad Akram
Students in Jammu and Kashmir also deserve high-speed internet for their educational needs during the outbreak of COVID-19
Militarization and Deployment of the Panopticon amid Coronavirus Outbreak
by Parul Verma
The Panopticon Gaze, that was once a
metaphor to study the relation between system of fabricated social control of civilians in a disciplinary situation, is now a global reality amid the Coronavirus outbreak, and is being deployed by the government worldwide to supervise every movement of its citizens. The result of this deployed surveillance has led to a social acceptance of docility and its internalization by the people. The real danger here is not that the people are being repressed by the state-sponsored surveillance, but that they are carefully fabricated and willingly woven in it. This means – whipping, shooting, enforcing censorship, brutal crackdown on voices of dissent, deploying mass surveillance and normalising draconian laws, all in the name of containing and preventing the pandemic.
The Panopticon Gaze, that was once a metaphor to study the relation between system of fabricated social control of civilians in a disciplinary situation, is now a global reality amid the Coronavirus outbreak, and is being deployed by the government worldwide to supervise every movement of its citizens. The result of this deployed surveillance has led to a social acceptance of docility and its internalization by the people. The real danger here is not that the people are being repressed by the state-sponsored surveillance, but that they are carefully fabricated and willingly woven in it. This means – whipping, shooting, enforcing censorship, brutal crackdown on voices of dissent, deploying mass surveillance and normalising draconian laws, all in the name of containing and preventing the pandemic.
Implementing the ‘Plague Model’ for Deploying National Surveillance
During early modernity, the ‘Plague Model’, as Foucault agrees, was superseded by a new model of power, that had its roots in the fear of plague. “If it is true that the leper gave rise to rituals of exclusion, which to a certain extent provided the model for, and general form of the great Confinement, then the plague gave rise to disciplinary projects” (Discipline and Punish, 1975). The Coronavirus pandemic has become biopolitical project, where governments, as advised by the medical body, are deploying national surveillance, eliminating all democratic liberties under the pretext of “health-safety-survival”, thereby, governing the population as the State would ideally fantasize– as docile biomass. From Russia, Philippines, Ghana, Hungary, India to Israel, authoritarian leaders are imposing draconian laws to restrain, regulate and restrict privacy of civilians.
The Russian government has introduced a surveillance mechanism to track the spread of coronavirus. While this can be considered as a precautionary measure to contain mass contamination, but its deployment has surpassed the basic level of monitored and controlled surveillance. From location tracking application, CCTV cameras with facial recognition, tapping mobile phone data, credit cards to QR codes, one can label this form of extremely intrusive electronic policies as nothing but ‘cyber-gulag’. On the other hand, Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte (on April 2nd, 2020), ordered strict deployment of police and military personal to “shoot dead” any protestors, human right activists, and opposition, who opposes his proposed lockdown measures. The proverb ‘Killing two birds with one stone’ has come alive, both literally and statistically. On April 5th, 2020, a 63-year-old civilian was shot dead by the military in the town of Nasipit in the southern province of Agusan del Norte. “This is an unprecedented health crisis, but President Duterte is focusing on attacking freedoms of speech and assembly,” said Butch Olano, a director for Amnesty International in the Philippines. A similar political-social digital surveillance narrative has been deployed by the President of Ghana Nana Akufo-Addo, who has introduced a new law that normalizes shooting and whipping of Africans. The new law not only gives the President the power to use the loaded gun as he pleases, but allows security officers to use guns, whip, and tear canisters against any man, if found disobeying the lockdown regulations. This law, in its all account, neither has any sunset clause nor mentions COVID-19 in its legislation. In short, a draconian law in its full swing. Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has approved tapping of classified cell phone data to track the movements of people. The surveillance policy would sift through the geolocation data routine of millions of residents in Israel and West Bank, collected from the Israeli cell phone providers. The most interesting part is the order to close all courts and legal entities, delaying his scheduled appearance (17th March, 2020) in the court for corruption charges against him. Moving swiftly to India, not only Prime Minister Narendra Modi is being heavily criticized for mistreatment of millions of migrant workers during national shutdown, but also for communalizing the pandemic and hounding Indian Muslims. From blaming China initially for being the “creator of coronavirus”, the right-wing narrative moved conveniently over a month to blaming and labelling Muslim minority as the “super spreaders of Corona and Corona Jihad”. The announced rationale for deploying national surveillance by the government around the globe remains the same – to contain and prevent the pandemic. However, in the name of medical urgency, draconian laws are being enforced to strip civilians off their anonymity, privacy and democratic liberties. Thereby, reducing citizens to nothing but a docile and obligatory disciplined biomass. What one must question is the use of non-medical mandarins of powers to contain the virus, and the deployment of coercive methodologies to preserve the viral ideologies of those in power.
Verdict
This article is not anti-statist in its plasmatic structure. Nonetheless, it expresses the sentiment of each, who has begun to question the magnitude of democratic damage that these draconian laws will manifest into. Rather than a desperate attempt to ‘pathologically intrude’ within the democratic rights of its citizens(militarization and deployment of draconian surveillance laws), the State must surveillance and contain the ‘pathogen intruder’(coronavirus), by providing the healthcare professional and working class the resources to fight-survive-reverse the medical-economic-social damage done by the pathogen. Remember, if the former continues, the power will emerge from authoritarian to totalitarian, after the sunset of the pathogen, with each citizen carefully fabricated and willingly woven into it. This would give birth to the primordial classic dilemma of a liberal democracy, where one ought and must do a rigorous analysis and formulate strategies to de-commodify healthcare sector, re-tool the positioning of the subject-State relation, without abandoning the collective solidarity to fight the pandemic, or simply surrender to the State.
About Author– Parul Verma, a post-graduate in Clinical Psychology, Philosophy and English Literature. Her work on Israel-Palestine conflict and communal lynching in India has been published in diverse international media publication and academic journals. To reach her, mail at parul_edu@yahoo.com
Jumping in to conclusions on COVID: People, State and the Scientists
by Kesavan Rajasekharan Nayar
The close
collaboration with people, the State and the Scientists have been responsible for controlling the present epidemic. Incomplete and half-baked wisdom, sometimes based on opinions and assumptions always lead to ineffective solutions by the State. It is an hit and run approach! But such badness in the form of assumptions can lead to goodness if scientists and scholars are allowed and encouraged to undertake studies, both quick and long-term to generate evidence. It will only help the State to undertake effective actions.
COVID-19 Cure Should Not Become Worse Than The Disease
by Prem Verma
The Covid-19 pandemic, and the government’s response to it in the form of a hastily implemented national lockdown, has created an unprecedented crisis for the people of India. As the lockdown now enters its fifth week, from the perspective of the urban and rural poor who form the overwhelming majority of
our population, the situation is increasingly one where the cure is proving to be much worse than the disease. As calls are being aired by certain sections to extend the lockdown beyond its May 3 deadline, we, the undersigned, urge the government to take up the following concerns immediately
Letter to the Prime Minister of India
The Covid-19 pandemic, and the government’s response to it in the form of a hastily implemented national lockdown, has created an unprecedented crisis for the people of India. As the lockdown now enters its fifth week, from the perspective of the urban and rural poor who form the overwhelming majority of our population, the situation is increasingly one where the cure is proving to be much worse than the disease. As calls are being aired by certain sections to extend the lockdown beyond its May 3 deadline, we, the undersigned, urge the government to take up the following concerns immediately:
- The government must ensure that adequate food supplies reach the entire population – and particularly those sections that need it the most – during the period of lockdown and after. Regulations should be relaxed to provide universal access to PDS. It must also desist from ill-advised schemes such as utilising grain stock for making hand sanitiser solution. Care must also be taken to ensure nutritional quality in the food supply, essential for maintaining the immunity levels needed to resist any illness.
*The unplanned implementation of the lockdown has caused the deaths of several migrant workers and others, whose families must be compensated for this manmade tragedy. Due care must be extended to their compatriots, presently held in inhospitable conditions in various shelters. Since four weeks of lockdown have already passed, and this period exceeds the recommended quarantine period for Covid-19, provisions must be made for those who are not infected among this stranded population to return to their homes in specially arranged transportation, with necessary cooperation between states.
*The lockdown has severely disrupted agriculture operations and production, which in most states are now dependent on migrant labour and heavy machinery. Several instances have been reported of produce being wasted or destroyed; especially ironic given that thousands have been pushed into near starvation conditions. In view of the deep blow delivered to the economy and to labour markets by the lockdown, measures to ensure long term food security must be initiated on a priority basis.
*The Central government must abandon the top-down approach wherein it overwhelmingly controls every aspect of Covid-19 policy from testing to lockdowns – and opt for a decentralized approach where decisionmaking is largely vested with state, district and local levels. Rather than impose a ‘one size fits all’ model, the Centre should act as an enabler for local action. In fact, the feedback this would allow will only contribute towards a more effective Central response to the crisis. Full transparency in policy matters must be ensured by regularly publishing relevant information in an accessible form.
*Stringent action must be taken against public and private institutions from acting in a discriminatory manner towards any group based on religion, caste, class or gender. Fake news, sensationalism and rumour-mongering by the media designed to feed Islamophobia and give a communal tinge to a public health crisis, or to generally spread panic and fear among the public must be strictly curbed.
*The government must not take advantage of the present crisis to stifle dissent and target those who question its policies, as with the students and activists booked under the draconian UAPA Act recently.
*Stop digital surveillance and invasion of privacy in the garb of controlling Corona Virus.
Prem Verma, Convenor, Jharkhand Nagrik Prayas,Ranchi
For India’s untouchables social distancing has always been the daily reality of their lives
by Gurpreet Singh
The COVID 19 pandemic has resulted in anxieties and mental health stress for many in an era of self-isolation in places like North America But a group of oppressed people in the world’s so called largest democracy, has been enduring social ostracizing for centuries.
Traversing the Pandemic in India- Is ‘Physical Distancing’ covering the lost opportunity?
by Sanghmitra S Acharya
Despite cases and deaths mounting, an end to the restrictions awaits an insightful decision. While taking from the PM’s contention that health has to be secured over and above the economy, a leaf can be drawn from the American President’s tweet on March 23, 2020- ‘We cannot let the cure be worse than the problem itself…’ This is when the ‘lockdown was for 15 days and the quantum loss much more than ours. Therefore, it appears that lockdown could be a measure to partially address COVID-19, but not necessarily the best one- all the more when the infectivity of the virus is much higher and the fatality much lower, and the numbers in India remain much less than the other countries despite the population size and the density.
COVID-19 and Online Teaching: Challenges for the Inclusion of Disabled Students in Higher Education.
Co-Written by Afaq Ahmad
Mir & Zaraq Jahan
Online teaching has been welcomed by both educators and students as an opportunity to get acquainted with the technologically led advanced learning system like that of the western countries. However, e-teaching when put before those who are not much aware about the virtual system of education, is futile. People with disabilities mostly fall under the category of vulnerable groups. In academia, people with disabilities face many problems related to accessibility and learning resources. In a county like India, major population resides in remote areas having less connectivity to internet.
Clash of the Titans: Tragedy of Great Power Politics and Soft Power, the Means to Success in World Power Politics
by Harsha Senanayake
Offensive realists and soft power account on international relations are holding a parallel interpretation. The major contradiction is the way they describe the power and utility of the power resources to address the national interest of the respective countries. Both of the groups represent the realist school of thoughts, thus the best way to address survival and hegemony is implementing these two ideologies in a parallel account.
Introduction
International relations academia shaped by many schools of thoughts and different schools of ideologies. The evaluation process of the field dominated by these ideological groups and different school of thoughts in altered time frames. These groups describe the phenomenon of International System based on their straightforward aspirations, because of that the field itself found ambiguous and complicated to define. Through, this paper the researcher attempt to define a few major concepts of international relations based on two competitive theoretical aspects. To address this requirement the researcher selected two emulative classics; which represent two contested realist schools. The first classic was “The Tragedy of Great Power politics” written by John J. Mearsheimer and the second classic was “Soft Power: The Means to Success in Word Power Politics” which authored by Joseph S. Nye, JR. Based on these two classics the researcher collects offensive realist and defensive realist accounts on major concepts of International Relations like Interest, Power, International Order, War, Survival, and Hegemony.
The paper selected these two classics in terms of the relevance on the field. The realist ideology shaped the discipline since World War I under any circumstances. The realist account divided into parallel sub theoretical scholarly groups due to the changes in international politics and international relations, although these groups never fed away from the big picture of international relations. Mearsheimer argues that world politics can be identified through the survival of fittest theory, although the concept of soft power is providing a contradiction position over the offensive realist argument. Essentially, Joseph Nye describes “soft power as an ability to attract and co-opt with rather than by coercion and hard power tools, using the force of giving money as a means of persuasion.” (Nye, 2004) This account contradicts with the basic arguments of hard power or offensive realist arguments. According to hardcore offensive realists, actors of the international system should need to address their national interests based on power capabilities and based on military capabilities of respective countries.
These two schools of thoughts maintain separate lenses to describe the world affairs and state behaviour, in a similar account they maintain analogical arguments as well. Based on these diversities and similarities the researcher selected Mearsheimer and Joseph Nye’s ideology on international relations to describe the main elements of the field. The researcher describes the theoretical aspects of hard power realists and soft power thinkers based on their ideology of the key features of International Relations.
International System
According to offensive realists, the sovereign state is the main actor of the international system. State shaped the international system largely based on their national interests. Essentially, offensive realists did not address the role of non-state actors. Because the state is the only actor in the international system who concern to maximize their power capabilities to achieve national interests of particular states.
“…offensive realists assume that the international system strongly shaped the behaviour of states” (Mearsheimer, 2001)
Power shaped the behaviour of sovereign states in international relations. Offensive realists offer diminutive attention to domestic or individual political considerations of the states. Strongly, offensive realists believe that sovereign states as black boxes or billiard balls which not shaped by domestic politics or individual aspirations. They excluded the domestic politics and the other major elements which shaped the national foreign policy decision-making process of the country from the main picture of their ideology and conclude offensive realist argument on a state. According to this perspective, all the states can be identified as a power maximizers and their ultimate goal is to address power requirements to fulfil national interests. For that, all the states are contesting with each other to mobilize relative power capabilities of the state and ultimately in great power politics states consider to achieve hegemonic power over other great powers. The account of offensive realism draws a picture of international order with the concern for power. On this account, they placed power as a core ideology of the international system. International order shaped necessarily by the power elements of the states. Power shaped the relations and behaviour among the states.
Joseph Nye and main thinkers who develop the theory of soft power is holding a different picture of international order. This ideology naturally altered the offensive realists’ an account of international order. Soft power ideologists describe the international order as a complicated system which contesting state actors as well as non – state actors. Thought, soft power theorists highlighted the centrality of the state in an international system, they emphasize the role of international organizations and the soft power capabilities which exercise by these institutions in the international system. Joseph Nye in his soft power analysis highlighted that all the states pursuit national interests and ultimately all the states focus on maximizing their power over other states. But for that, they need to use soft power strategies rather than cohesive power. According to soft power analysis domestic factors essential to define the concept of power and utility of soft power which emerges within the great power entities. But hardcore offensive realists rejected the value of domestic factors in term of state behaviour and the creation of power. Constructivists highlighted this miscalculation as a mistake of offensive realism. According, alternative views on offensive realists emphasize that exclusion of domestic factors, domestic leadership, and characteristics of bureaucratic system influence to the offensive realist account and it may provide a mythical picture of foreign policy and power.
“… it does not matter for the theory whether Germany in 1905 was led by Bismark, Kaiser Wilhelm, or Adolf Hitler, or whether Germany was democratic or autocratic. What matters for the theory is how much relative power Germany possessed the time. These omitted factors, however, occasionally dominate a state’s decision-making process, under these circumstances, offensive realism is not going to perform as well.” (Mearsheimer, 2001)
Soft power argument on international system highlighted that with technological development; the international system became more complex than it used to be. Thus, America does not act as a unipolar power in word affairs anymore and they make three parameters to describe an international system.
‘the agenda of the world politics can be identified through three dimensions. On the top board of classic interstate military issues, the United States is indeed the only superpower with global military reach, and it makes sense to speak in traditional terms of unipolarity or hegemony.’ (Nye, 1990)
“The middle board of interstate economic issues. The distribution of power is multipolar. The United States cannot obtain the outcomes it wants on trade, antitrust, or financial regulations issues without the agreement of the European Union, Japan, China, and others. And on the bottom, a board of transnational issues, like terrorism, international crime, climate change, and the spread of infectious diseases, power is widely distributed and chaotically organized among state and non-state actors.” (Nye, 2004)
On this basic soft power account and the ideology of international system marked by offensive realists can be recognized as competitive concepts.
Different between soft power and hardcore offensive realism was the way they explain the concept of power and the utility of power in the international system. Offensive realists highlighted the power as a coercive and arbitrary mechanism and soft power describes the concept of power as an ability to co-opt and get others to the concern without using military capabilities.
Interest Power and hegemony
Both hardcore offensive realists and soft power thinkers identify the concepts of national interests, power, and hegemony as interconnected concepts. However, they provide a different account of these concepts based on the core idea of respective theories.
Offensive realist identified the concept of national interest based on power maximization. All the great powers ultimately shaped their national interests to achieve the survival and the portrait the hegemonic power over the other great powers. Thus, all the great powers maximizing their power to achieve hegemony. This account differs from the liberal perspective of interest and power. Similar to offensive realists, liberal thinkers also accept the state as the main actor in international politics. Liberal thinkers emphasize that the internal characteristics of the state were largely shaped the state behaviour in international politics. Offensive realist intentionally neglected internal factors from their explanation of state behaviour. Soft power thinkers and hard care offensive realists-are holding a similar count and they believe that the behaviour of great powers influenced mainly by the external factors.
“… liberal theorists often believe that some international arrangements are inherently preferable to others. For liberals, therefore, there are good and bad states in the international system. Good states pursue cooperative policies and hardly ever start wars on their own, whereas bad states cause conflicts with other states and are prone to use force to get their way.” (Mearsheimer, 2001)
“Liberal thinkers believe that calculations about power matter little for explaining the behaviour of good states,” (Mearsheimer, 2001) but this account completely different from the offensive realists argument. Realists agreed that creating a peaceful world might be necessary, but they see no particular way to do that because world order fundamentally shaped by the security competition and war.
The realists calculate power competition as a zero-sum game between states actors, for that they should need to utilize military power capabilities of the state. However, Joseph Nye marks his remarks on “Soft Power” and emphasize that appropriate way to address national interests is the use of soft power skills of the country. Among the great power politics, no state was able to declare victory against another great power. Mainly, all the great powers maintain nuclear warheads to counter the external aggregations. International organizations and other non-state actors in the international system continuously maximizing power capabilities and threaten the state supremacy in the international system. Thus, Joseph Nye describes that a single state cannot counter the activities of non-state actors, mainly terrorist groups. Because of that states, should needs to exercise soft power capabilities to win the heart of the people and citizens of respective countries.
The United States of America can be identified as a remaining superpower in the international system in terms of military capacity. The 9/11 attack substantiated that single countries cannot counter-terrorism. Thus great powers should need to make alliances with each other to address national interest, survival and protect their hegemonic power. Soft power account identifies the value of cooperation for winning the peace. However soft power should need to play a major role in creations of cooperation.
Joseph Nye describes the concept of power as an “ability to get what you want through attraction rather than coercion or payments. It arises from the attractiveness of a country’s culture, political ideals, and policies. When our policies are seen as legitimate in the eyes of others, our soft power is enhanced.” (Nye, 2004)
But offensive realists hold a different picture of power. Offensive realists maintain similar accounts with the idea of power given by Morgenthau. Classical realists marked that sovereign states are governed by humans based on their willpower. Morgenthau describes it as a “limitless lust for power.” (Snyder, 2003)
States continuously takes opportunities to take the offensive and dominate other states. All the states are continuously seeking the opportunities and they are fighting to take the maximum share of the world power. There is no space to maintain the status quo and ultimately all the states accumulate their power against other states. Offensive realists-are rejecting the idea of relative power maximizing. The international system is anarchical. It means there are no central authority or central governance body over the sovereign states. Offensive realists describe the anarchy as lack of ordering principles. Thus, all the states should need to protect and promote their national interests based on the status of self-help. According to the realist perspective, international system pleasure great powers to compensation for the balance of power. But offensive realists argued that all the great powers have continuous power struggle among them. Based on that account, relative power capabilities are not enough for survival. Ultimately, great power needs to target to accumulate absolute power to reach the hegemony over other states by maximizing the hard use of military power.
But Joseph Nye highlighted the power as the ability to get outcomes one wants.
“When we measure power in terms of the changed behaviour of others, we have first to know their preferences. Otherwise, we may be as mistaken about our power as a rooster who thinks his crowing makes the sunrise.” (Nye, 2004)
The concept of power always depends on the context of the international system and the relations among nations. Soft power highlights “the state ability to take the consent of other states and influence to their behaviour without commanding it.” (Nye, 2004) Sometimes great powers can use their objective power capabilities: culture, language, religion. The second definition of soft power is finding the capabilities and possessions of the state.
“the possessions of capabilities or resources that can influence the outcomes… they consider a country powerful if it has relatively large populations and territory, extensive natural resources, economic strength, military force, and social stability.” (Nye, 2004)
According to soft power theorists, hard power or offensive military power cannot address the national security concerns or outcomes which states want to have, without damaging the state itself.
For instance, Joseph Nye highlighted ‘in terms of resources the United States was far more powerful than Vietnam, yet America lost the Vietnam War. And America was the world’s only superpower in 2001, but they failed to prevent September 11.’ (Nye, 2004) Accounts of Nye emphasize that offensive realists and generally all the scholarly groups of realists’ umbrella failed to describe the reasons behind these incidents. But soft power thinkers draw the line on American foreign policy and less identification over the soft power skills as a foreign policy tool. Because of that America failed to create a popular culture over other great powers, the rest of the states and non-state actors.
Offensive realists mainly focus on the national interests of great powers because they have much for potentiality to influence the international system. Thus, through national interests, all the great powers seek opportunities to gain more power over their rivals. Hegemony can be identified as an ultimate goal of the great powers but in a similar account, great powers work as a revisionist idea as well. Mainly they are forced on,
- To change their status quo
- To change their positions in the international system
- Maximizing the power share on international power relations. (Mearsheimer, 2001)
The “bedrock assumptions” (Wilson, 2008), which describe by realists thinkers stressed that great powers inherently possess some offensive military capabilities. In the international system, states can find uncountable causes for aggression, and no state can believe other states or their behaviour. As rational actors in the international system all the states aware of their external environment and looking for strategical solutions to address the state survival. Interpretations gave by offensive realists over the concept of survival is analysis it as a fundamental goal of the state.
“…soviet leader Josef Stalin put the point well during a war scare in 1927, ‘We can and must build socialism in the Soviet Union. But to do so we, first of all, have to exit.” (Mearsheimer, 2001)
‘Great powers always fear each other. Because of that, all the great powers can attack or conquer other great powers, because survival is their ultimate goal. Fear creates suspicion among the great powers and because of that, there has limited room for trust. In this account, realists make an argument that all the great powers are potential enemies and the best thing is to make power capabilities to dominate others.’ (Snyder, 2003)
Under the self-help, offensive realists do acknowledge the formation of alliances. But according to their point of view the alliances are “temporary marries of convenience.” (Mearsheimer, 2001) But soft power theorists make a counter-argument on this factor.
‘In the early period of history, great powers had liberal space to access to the power resources. Because of that, all the states exercise their power capabilities as a strength for war. But with the development of the international system with technology and nuclear power, the strength of war necessarily changed.’ (Nye, 2004) Because of this evaluation, any of the single power failed to dominate the world system. Thus, states need to co-opt with each other by using non-cohesive methods. Soft power can be described as the second face of power. ‘Soft power provides the different type of currency to address the national interest of the state, to engender cooperation without devaluating self- infrastructure facilities and self-wealth.’ (Nye, 2004)
The major difference between hard power and soft power which picked up by Joseph Nye can be described following way.
“The distinction between hard power and soft power is one of degree both like the behaviour and in the tangibility of the resources. Command power- the ability to change what others do- can rest on coercion or inducement. Cooperative power the ability to shape what others want- can rest on the attractiveness one’s culture and values or the ability to manipulate the agenda of political choices in a manner that makes others fail to express some preferences because they seem to be too unrealistic… soft power resources tend to be associated with the cooperative end of the spectrum of behaviour, whereas hard power resources are usually associated with command behaviour.” (Nye, 2004)
End of World War I, the Americans changed their foreign policy dimension and hunt the dream to be a global hegemon over the world. Wilson and Roosevelt, they did not place themselves on an offensive realist paradigm and they used the American democratic model, American values to address the other great power. By using soft power resources they attracted great powers and got the world consent to follow the American model and American values.
But offensive realists talked about the hegemony in terms of a regional and global hegemon. Generally, all the regional hegemons do check and balance over other regional powers and their power capabilities. Since other hegemons develop their power capabilities and ultimately it threatens to self – survival. On this basis, scared states utilize their hard power to enhance national security. State population and the wealth of the state facilitate to develop hard power capabilities. ‘Population and wealth can straightforwardly transfer to military power. The fear of great powers and the inherent features of the international system did not allow great powers to put aside power considerations and promote peace. Ultimately, great powers cannot trust each other and as well as their effort on peace.’ (Snyder, 2003)
Conclusion
Offensive realists detected power in terms of materialist and based on resources of the state. Secondly, they defend it as an ability of one influence over other states. The balance of power in the international system depicted by offensive realists in term of a balance of military power. To accumulate military power over other great powers, states should need to mobilize resources and population. This mobilization process ultimately directed states to highlight their power- projection capabilities. The decisive level of the power projection portraits the capacity of great powers to influence global affairs by using their military power. Mearsheimer screamed four possible ways to draw state influence over other great powers. ‘Blackmail, war, balancing and buck-passing’ (Mearsheimer, 2001) identified as four possible ways to pursuit power. All the states including great powers are pursuing self-survival and hegemony. To do that states have to accumulate the maximum level of military power while deterring external powers which capable enough to be a treat to self-national interest.
However, in the modern technological world offensive power get limited due to nuclear deterrence. All the regional hegemons acquired nuclear power. Because of this matter balance of nuclear power shaped the international order. None of the great power declared open war against other great powers because of nuclear capability. On another hand, larger sea spaces counter the offensive military power of greater powers. Because of that modern-day international system and states power over other states largely shaped by soft power capabilities of the states. Rendering to Joseph Nye, great powers address their respective national interest through soft power capabilities and survival, hegemony also relays on the ability to co-opt with other states.
Interdependency and Inter-connection shaped the current international system. Thus, all the great powers consume their soft power over other states and international institutions subjected to the influence of soft power utility of great powers. The United States of America can be a significant actor in soft power politics. Most of the multi-national organizations and business faces operated by Americans. American cultural soft power, political values, and foreign policies directly influence to other great powers. The UK, and Norway posture the peacebuilding capabilities of them over external countries and influence to other nations. China utilizes their language, market economy, and Confucius institutions to develop its hegemony over the world order.
Finally, offensive realists and soft power account on international relations are holding a parallel interpretation. The major contradiction is the way they describe the power and utility of the power resources to address the national interest of the respective countries. Both of the groups represent the realist school of thoughts, thus the best way to address survival and hegemony is implementing these two ideologies in a parallel account.
Bibliography
Mearsheimer, John J. (2001). The Tragedy of Great Power Politics. (p.1-6, 11-13, 16-23, 30-45, 51-87, 139-161, 170-186, 255-261, 355- 361), Fifth Avenue, New York: W. W. Northern & Company.
Nye, Joseph S. Jr. (1990). Soft Power. Foreign Policy, 80, 153-171.
Nye, Joseph S. Jr. (2004). Soft Power The Means to Success in World Politics. (p. X-XI, 2-13, 16-31, 34-39, 42-67, 75-85, 91-100, 105-115, 142), New York: PublicAffairs.
Snyder, Glenn H. (2003). [Review of the book The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, by John J. Mearcheimer]. International Security, 27. 151-157, 161-170.
Wilson, Ernest J. (2008). Hard Power, Soft Power, Smart Power. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 616, 110-124. DOI 10.1177/0002716207312618.
Harsha Senanayake is a researcher at Social Scientists’ Association- Sri Lanka and a visiting lecturer at the University of Colombo, Sri Lanka. He has acquired a masters degree in International Relations from the Department of International Relations, South Asian University, New Delhi, India and a specialised degree in International Relations from the Department of International Relations, University of Colombo. Harsha serves as an AIPE fellow- TFAS USA. He has authored few books including The Changing Patterns of USA- Japan Security Relations: Case Study of Okinawa and The Human Security Discourse and Seeking Peace: Field Work Analysis Based on the Sri Lankan Civil War.
Black Sea Pollution
by Naveed Qazi
The Black Sea is dying. Under the current bad environmental conditions, more than one hundred sixty million people in Bulgaria, Ukraine, Russian Federation, Romania and Turkey are exposed to danger.
The Black Sea is dying. Under the current bad environmental conditions, more than one hundred sixty million people in Bulgaria, Ukraine, Russian Federation, Romania and Turkey are exposed to danger.
The amount of marine litter in the Black Sea is twice as high as in the Mediterranean Sea. The concentration of some toxins exceed their threshold value, according to results of the Joint Black Sea Surveys presented by the EU/UNDP-funded project “Improving Environmental Monitoring in the Black Sea: Selected Measures” (EMBLAS-Plus), and the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources of Ukraine at a press conference in Odesa on July 29, 2019. The surveys were held in 2017 – 2019 in the coastal waters of Georgia, Ukraine and Russia and in the open sea.
The litter flowing into the Black Sea, studied by EMBLAS, mainly comes from four major rivers: the Danube (which flows through several European countries, including the Republic of Moldova and Ukraine in the Eastern Neighbourhood region), the Dniester (Moldova and Ukraine), the Don (Russia), and finally the Rioni, which flows through Georgia.
The research by EMBLAS has it that eight three percent of marine litter found in the Black Sea is plastic namely bottles, packaging and bags. Large rivers such as Danube and Dniester bring to the sea from six to fifty items of litter per hour. Micro plastics have also been found in the sediments of Black Sea both in its shelf parts and in the depths of more than 2,000 m.
Some priority hazardous chemical substances are also present, which makes it the most polluted sea in the world. These substances include benzo(a)pyrene, several pesticides, insecticides, mercury and flame retardants in fish. In addition to that, over one hundred twenty four chemicals, dangerous for the sea ecosystem, and human health, were identified including persistent organic pollutants, metals, pesticides, biocides, pharmaceuticals, flame retardants, industrial pollutants and personal care products. These substances had not been monitored earlier, and they are now proposed to be included for regular monitoring.
In history, it was in the 1970s and 1980s, when the Black Sea ecosystem suddenly collapsed. There were vast amounts of dead plants, and animals that covered the beaches of Romania, and western Ukraine, and between 1973 and 1990, losses were estimated as sixty million tons of bottom animals, including five million tons of fish.
The most significant factor attributing to Black Sea’s pollution has been the massive over-fertilisation of the sea, by compounds of nitrogen and phosphorus, largely as a result of agricultural, domestic and industrial sources. This over-fertilisation produces eutrophication, which has changed the structure of the Black Sea ecosystem.
Eutrophication is the over-enrichment of water bodies with organic matter that results in lack of oxygen, and severe reductions in water quality, and in fish and other animal populations. The effects of eutrophication were felt across the entire Black Sea.
As a process, the nitrogen and phosphorus compounds (nutrients) enter the Black Sea from sources from around seventeen countries in its drainage basin, particularly through rivers. It is estimated that the six Black Sea countries contribute about seventy percent of the total amount of the substances flowing to the Black Sea, as waste from human activities. Some of this amount and almost all of the remaining thirty percent (from the other eleven non-coastal countries) enter the Sea through the Danube River.
By the time the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, water quality of Black Sea had dwindled from the inflow of industrial strength agricultural fertilisers. At that time, scientists warned aloud that Black Sea might become the first major waterway devoid of life. It was this point that the newly empowered ex-Soviet states came up with an action. They formed the Black Sea Commission (BSC), whose secretariat sits in Istanbul, and drew up the Convention on the Protection of the Black Sea Against Pollution, which came into force in 1994.
The system is more complicated than most, making the protection of Black Sea a challenge. Dense, salty waters flowing in from the Bosporus Strait sink to the bottom, while fresh river water that drains from five major rivers floats overtop. This means that the fertiliser runoff concentrates on the sea surface, stimulating the rapid progress of microscopic algae, and suffocation of marine creatures.
This lack of mixing also leaves nearly ninety percent of the Black Sea naturally devoid of oxygen, limiting the range of species that thrive in the waters. And to complicate matters, as bacteria feed themselves on organics, such as plants or dead creatures, in this oxygen-less environment, they naturally produce hydrogen sulfide (H2S). As the world’s largest reserve of H2S, maritime authorities carefully monitor the gas, every now and then.
For years, the Black Sea’s agony was hostage to Cold War suspicions. But, what seemingly separates these water woes from most previous crises is the apparent inability of officials in Russia, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Romania, Turkey and Georgia, the six-shoreline countries, to set aside their political differences, to work for the sea’s survival. Relations have soured to such a point that a number of governments have broken off some diplomatic relations. Whatever good had existed to tackle environmental degradation has long since melted into thin air.
According to an article by Hugh Pope in The Independent: ‘Dams have cut the flow of main rivers by up to a half. The level of lifeless, sunless water has now risen up to one hundred twenty metres below the surface, suffocating the once fertile north-western coastal shelf. The marine food chain, already under severe pressure from overfishing, was hit by a parallel invasion of jellyfish. Oyster beds were the first resource to disappear, attacked by an invading Japanese sea snail in the 1940s. Nearly thirty kinds of marketable fish have dwindled to half a dozen. Tourist beaches have to be closed when they turn brown and smelly. And the sea grass fields in the north-western coastal shelf have shrunk to a fifty- square kilometre patch, five per cent of their former extent.’
During the war in 2014, when Moscow threw its support behind separatists in the Donbass area of Eastern Ukraine, and then annexed the Crimean peninsula, there were unique complications for the sea. No longer in control of large swathes of their waters, the Ukrainian environmental authorities ascertained that they were unable to keep a watch on the waste that seeped from stretches of their coastline. Increased Russian and naval exercises have had also led to the closure of some parts of the Sea to civilian traffic, preventing environmental groups from conducting surveys.
In the sea, the Dolphins now are already endangered. The monk seal has already disappeared from Black Sea waters over the past decade, after a series of tourist resorts laid claim to its last cliff-side habitats in Bulgaria. Stocks of anchovies, a favored delicacy from coast to coast, are seemingly on their last legs. So low are most other fish stocks that Romanian conservationists say their country’s fishing fleet has largely switched to hunting sea snails, and other critters, in order to stay economically relevant. With the result, victimised by overfishing, six out of the seven sturgeon species are now seriously endangered.
To counter environmental degradation, some policy planning has also been adopted, in the past, most notably the GEF Strategic Partnership on Black Sea and Danube Basin. The partnership was a multilateral structure established with the cooperation of the World Bank (WB), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), and other financiers, as well as basin countries to address the degradation of the Black Sea and Danube Basin region.
The GEF Strategic Partnership, launched in 2001, was the first major initial funding of ninety five million US dollars in GEF grants to tackle the pollution. It was an initiative coordinated among UN agencies, and the World Bank in support of a country-driven program that addresses the key concern of this basin: pollution from nutrients and subsequent eutrophication that is the cause of many environmental and water use problems.
The GEF Investment Fund for Nutrient Reductions, managed by the World Bank, was another initiative established to catalyze investments, and accelerate action by other stakeholders interested in the recovery of the Black Sea. It aimed to leverage $210 million to complement $70 million GEF grant funds for nutrient reduction investments in the agriculture, and municipal and industrial wastewater treatment sectors, and for wetland restoration.
Quite lately in October 2019, a team of seventeen marine scientists from four countries, including Turkey, have joined forces in a new project aiming at evaluating the degree of pollution in the Black Sea Scientists on board the research vessel “Mare Nigrum”. They carried out sampling of water, sediments and marine organisms to assess the health of the sea, which marks the majority of Turkey’s northern border. The project, “Assessing the vulnerability of the Black Sea marine ecosystem to human pressures” (ANEMONE), was launched with the Black Sea Joint Scientific Cruise. The aim of the Marine scientists is to study this data, through laboratory work, including processing of samples, data analysis and assessment. The results will serve to map the bottom habitats, and to assess the biodiversity, and integrity of the seabed, under the requirements of the Marine Strategy Framework Directive. The results will be shared, collated and published as the report on the “Status of the Environment of the Western Black Sea.”
The project, ‘Waste Free Rivers for Clean Black Sea’, will also be implemented throughout the period 2018-2020, using €1,008,497 in financial aid, allocated by the European Union, under the Joint Operational Programme (JOP) Black Sea Basin 2014-2020. It involves three countries, and facilitates cross-border cooperation between Georgia, Moldova, and Romania, for the introduction of modern waste management practices, in order to help enhance the quality of the environment, and contribute to reducing river, and marine litter in the Black Sea Basin countries.
Naveed Qazi is an author of six books in fiction/nonfiction genre, and can be mailed at naveedqazi@live.com
A Letter To Kannan Gopinathan From A Kashmiri Doctor
by Dr Mohsin Ali Afeeri
People like me want to see you there, we wish you to serve us from an office, holding a chair, reaching out to the people, helping us in distress of situations, hearing our pleas. I am not sure whether my words will reach to you or not but if they does I request you to resume your duty back. Through this letter I would also love to request the PMO & GOI to allow you to join your office back. I know and understand it well that it will surely take a toll on you in person but trust me you deserve that place not a place outside. What you did for me, for us and for whole Kashmir is remarkable and beyond appreciation but we do not really care. We don’t really deserve such amount of love and sacrifice from you
ST Teachers In Scheduled Areas: The SC Judgement Is Regressive
Press Release
The Human
Rights Forum (HRF) takes strong exception to the Supreme Court quashing of the order providing 100 per cent reservation to Scheduled Tribe (ST) candidates for the posts of teachers in schools in the Scheduled Areas. The 22-4-2020 verdict by a 5-judge Constitution Bench is deeply regressive and undermines hard-won rights of the Adivasis. Contrary to what the Supreme Court has stated, it is the HRF’s view that the 100 per cent reservation for STs in the instant case is reasonable, fair, non-arbitrary, permissible and Constitutionally valid.
Despots and Disease: Gossiping over Kim Jong-Un
by Dr Binoy Kampmark
North Korea’s Kim Jong-un was never one to be accused of fitness. Fleshed over, looking every bit the glutton, he has been facing the doctors as a prisoner does the firing squad. Recent rumours of his ill-health have seen much column space dedicated to pseudo-medical commentary, marked by
voyeuristic relish.
The Gates Foundation and the War on Cash: ‘Financial Inclusion’ in an Age of Neoliberalism
by Colin Todhunter
It doesn’t take a great leap of faith to appreciate how in a fully digital system, ‘financial flows’ could be blocked, as Gates implied back in 2015. This already happens in the dollar-centred monetary system. But when there is no cash to fall back on and every single transaction in a society is computerised and can be monitored by the state and private corporations, will the term ‘financial inclusion’ then sound so benign?
Srinivasa Ramanujan: ‘The Man Who Knew Infinity’
Team Umang Library
Remembering Great Mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan ( 22 December 1887 – 26 April 1920)
on his hundredth death anniversary
A
Beacon In The Deep Hinterland
by Moin Qazi
Shalan Shelke is an intrepid and passionate woman with a unique brand of perseverance and determination. She has galvanized the poor, unlettered women in Sangamner, a remote corner of India’s deep hinterland. Sangamner is the site of the confluence (sangam) of three rivers: Pravara, Mhalungi, and Adhala in Ahmednagar district of Maharashtra.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.