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John Ranshaw

Professor Gordon

UWRT 1103

March 22, 2017

The Mystery of US Intervention

The United States is the most powerful nation in the world today and it is not uncommon

for people to not really grasp what that truly means. People dont realize that we, as a nation,

hold ourselves to a high moral standard and that all our decisions are based on our identity as a

nation. One area of our foreign affairs that seem to be getting the most criticism recently is that

of United States intervention. Intervening, in the sense that we either supply money, food,

weapons, or soldiers on the ground to help assist foreign nations in a time of crisis. The real

question behind these actions is what drives us to intervene in the first place? The reasons that

seem to drive us to help result from some sort of benefit that we will gain as a nation in helping

at all, however, the benefit is not always the same every time nor does it always only benefit the

US.

First you must start with the morality of intervention to really understand why the

question remains as to how and why the US was able to pull it off. Intervention itself is immoral

and illegal yet the US does this all the time to other countries. Intervention is the grey area

between intervene and interfere. Everyone looks at intervention in different context based on the

situation at hand. Intervention is essentially the violation of sovereignty of a country just short of

war. When intervening, there are two ways it is mainly justified, either the country pushes for

acceptance from the country that is being intervened or the intervention itself is defined in the
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context of nonintervention. The overall understanding that nonintervention includes no real

substantial support taking place. The right and wrong of intervention is why the US getting

involved is not appropriate nor allowed.

It comes to our attention that there are two keys for intervention to be overlooked and in a

sense allowed, those being that the country trying to intervene must retain a large portion of

power and influence within the world as well as a reliable cause. That international relations lie

on the fundamental idea that power is needed for foreign relations to occur. That a single country

to be able to be involved in foreign affairs must be one that holds substantial power. This idea

developed thanks to the cold war that the US and Russia were involved in. We today in the

world, have a hybrid of a uni-multipolar system of power in which we have many major super

powers and many minor super powers as well. US has sole preeminence in every domain of

power: economic, military, diplomatic, ideological, technological, and cultural. How world

power plays a role in control across the world and intercontinental relations. The cause for the

US intervention has been a topic of debate for the past couple of years and is really becoming a

prominent subject. The US never really has a solid reason for certain interventions, however,

they instead hide their intentions behind a general statement. For example, our involvement in

Iraq and Afghanistan were all said to be about fighting the war on terror. When really during that

time there was no real terror threat at the time. Another aspect involved in what cause we state

for intervening is derived from our national identity. National interests derive from national

identity and that is the premise for the reason of certain US intervention. US identity is founded

around two major components: culture and creed. Meaning that the culture is the melting pot in

which we live in today and all of the cultures that assimilated and joined into our society bring

about our need to respect and hold these traditions as our own. Creed includes our for fathers
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writing that include words such as freedom, equality, and democracy which shape our every

founded principles that this nation was built upon. These ideas are what shape our reason to

intervene as our duty as a nation to make the world more like the US itself. The reason we get

involved in other countries is solely based on our interest and those interests come from how we

became a great nation.

One distinct reason for the US intervention in struggling areas of the world is to maintain

economic balance and support American businesses. Some reasons for influence is protect those

businesses that have plants or producers in those countries, that are important to our economy.

Overall, we make sure that the big businesses dont fail to keep the US in the driver seat as the

worlds superpower. That if the economy in a country goes down the rest of the worlds economy

begins to crash in response. This idea is that we must get involved to avoid shocks, so are

involvement is stemmed in resistance to possible shocks aboard that may cause undue influence

to American interests. Acting as a political and economic police force for the world to keep the

world market in check.

Another common reason is that we find ourselves looking at situations that we feel

obligated to get involved in, acting as a world police. In this country, we tend to look at foreign

problems in a military way. So, send in the marines. Sell military goods. And a lot of the reason

is because we dont really get involved in crises very often until it becomes an overwhelming

problem, and theres almost nothing left to do except using military force. I think as hard as this

is to realize, I think part of the problem is, we dont back up and pay attention to situations as

theyre developing. David Wood explains, senior military correspondent at Huffington post. Per

this, the US is always getting into wars, the count at 74, which are mostly undeclared wars.

These wars arent all boots to the ground exclusive it includes anywhere the US uses its money
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or weapons to help another nation. Reasons for helping vary: nation building, remove certain

rulers, eliminate terror groups, spread true democracy, free people from the cycle of fear, keep

old foes in check, and to settle disputes. The US gets involved where it pleases and that is mostly

in part to the military and pentagon being given a free range of access to do what the please in

intervention thanks to the war on terror. However, these interventions never go smoothly and

almost always end up in some form of failure to the public eye, the US wastes money and troops

to not leave its mark behind. President Obama states that people forget that the US is the number

one superpower in the world and that idea is what gives us the license/duty to get involved in

every conflict related to our nation, in other words the problem. The best way to describe this is a

perpetual war for perpetual peace, as said by historian Charles Beard.