World Affairs

We have two very informative articles for you in this issue of World Affairs. First Adam Pronaszko presents a very analytical and thoughtful article on the reasons wars are fought in Why We Wage War. Then R Anderson summarizes the South Ossetia War, a conflict between Russia, Georgia, and South Ossetia.

Why Wage War - By: Adam P

Today I asked myself a philosophical question, “Why wage war?” After about twenty minutes of pondering this question I came up with this answer: to reduce or eradicate power and influence of those who you are waging war against. Power is what can be used to force its will on its opponent and even its own people. Influence is what draws people to its cause.In a very basic sense all power and influence is derived from people, thus if you kill everyone who has power or influence then you will achieve your goal. However is this truly a viable option?

Let us think back to World War II, did we kill or punish every single Nazi to end Nazism? No, we removed the source of power it had by defeating (NOT destroying) it’s military. Without its military the Nazi government could not exist, as it was a government controlled by an ever increasing minority that forced it’s will on the people. However that solved only part of the problem, we now had to deal with what influenced the Germans to become Nazis in the first place. There you have the reason why the Nazis were defeated; we removed both their power and influence.

Now, what about terrorism? What is there source of power? I would argue with you that terrorists have very little power to enforce its will on people. It simply cannot in any significant manner, as the Nazis did, require people to participate in its military operations and create concentration camps for all those of their own people who did not go along with their will.

The ability for the terrorists to create death and destruction is dwarfed in comparison to that of the Nazis. This is not to say it is not significant, but we still have yet to solve the reason behind crime so there will always be people who are willing to kill others for whatever cause it may be. Almost any small group of people could have orchestrated an attack similar to that on 9/11. So I will argue that the terrorists do not, and never had, any actual power, which leaves them only with influence.

You can have influence without power however you cannot have power without influence. Thus if we continue to let the influence of terrorists grow they will eventually have enough power to cause multiple catastrophic events. So we need to remove the influence that terrorism has over people. So we need to know, what causes people to become a terrorist?

The influence that terrorist organizations have over its members is the promise of a society that reflects their cultural values and opinions. However how does that make the west its enemy? Well the problem has occurred where the west has gone into their sovereign land, denounced their values and forced their own upon the people. For example we do not believe women should be forced to cover their faces and that not doing so is punishable by death, however they do. Some would rather die than give up these values. Thus when the west goes to these places and forces them to adopt values they find contradictory to their own they are willing to die to get them back.

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South Ossetia War - By: R Anderson

South Ossetia is a province of Georgia that declared independence from their parent nation in 1992. It has not been recognized as its own independent nation but has been running essentially independent from Georgia. The majority of the population of South Ossetia is Russian with only 15% or so being native Georgians.

Late on August 1, 2008, fierce fighting began between the nation of Georgia and the semi-independent province of South Ossetia. Georgia claimed that South Ossetia had shelled several villages in Georgia. South Ossetia denied the attacks and the fighting began. Fighting continued, and on August 3 many South Ossetians began evacuating in to southern Russia. Then on August 5, Russia stated that if the conflict between Georgia and South Ossetia continued they would intervene. 2 days later the president of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili ordered the Georgian troops to cease-fire. Despite the apparent cease-fire attempt the fighting continued and intensified, with the very man who had ordered the cease-fire just hours earlier demanding that Georgian forces capture the capital of South Ossetia, Tskhinvali. Georgia’s forces shelled and captured Tskhinvali.

Following this offensive, Russia responded by sending troops across the border into South Ossetia. In five days Russia pushed back Georgia from South Ossetia and destroyed the majority of Georgia’s military infrastructure with bombing raids deep into the country. During this time Russia also dropped paratroopers in to Georgia to destroy military bases. On August 12 president of Russia, Dmitry Medvedev, stated that he had ordered an end to the conflict in Georgia. Despite this, airstrikes were still targeting civilians and the Georgian town of Poti was taken and occupied by the advancing Russian Army. August 16 saw the Russians just 34 miles (55km) outside Georgia’s capital of Tbilisi. The same day the president of Georgia signed the Six Point Peace Plan proposed by President-In-Office of the EU, Nicolas Sarkozy, and approved by Medvedev.

Following the signing of the peace plan by the president of Georgia the Russians started pulling their forces back from Georgia on Monday, August 18.

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