International Relations the North Atlantic

International Relations

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization has been, since the end of the Second World War one of the most important forums of discussion and action of the Free World. Its main rational related to the actual notion of the international political system as a bipolar system. More precisely, it was aimed at a strategic threat which at that time was represented by the Soviet Union. After the fall of the Communist regimes throughout the world but most importantly in the U.S.S.R., the scope and range of NATO was clearly put into question. The actual reason for being was undermined as many thought the existence of the Alliance to lack any functional role in the world (Nye, 2005).

However, as history moved on, the issue of NATO as an star alliance soon reemerged and once the events from 2001 reshaped the image of global conflict, so too NATO re envisaged its place and mission in the world. From this perspective, Charles A. Kupchan's article in Foreign Affairs, "NATO's final frontier" is a valuable piece of advice and food for thought for decision makers and stakeholders.

His main argument focuses on the belief that NATO, given the international context as well as the evolving nature of world politics, must take into account Russia as a potential member state of the Alliance. This argument is based on one of the most important mistakes and at the same time lessons of history. In this sense, he argues that Russia must be engulfed in a certain scheme of cooperation with NATO, regardless of its nature, in order to prevent a mistake such as the one experienced after the First World War.

In other words, the experiences had after the Wars of Napoleon and after the Second World War have shaped the world order. After Napoleon the Vienna Congress offered the power balance and equilibrium which enabled Europe to have one of the most stable periods of its history. The Second World War offered the United Nations and above all, a framework of cooperation. Despite the bipolar nature of the world, the equilibrium that existed was assured by precisely the certainty that nuclear power, the final threat of humanity was retained by solely two actors, which were also the most important elements of the international scene. By contrast, the First World War left outside the circle of cooperation, the League of Nations, two of the most important powers of the moment, the U.S.S.R. And the German Reich. While the former was an organization with little political and practical power, the latter had strong revisionist intentions which led to the Second World War.

Kupchan's theory advances on precisely these lessons of history and points out that although NATO was by its nature an anti-Russian structure, without it, "the containment of Iran's nuclear ambitions, arms control and nonproliferation, the stabilization of Afghanistan, counterterrorism, and energy security" would lack any support (Kupchan, 2010). Indeed, NATO is forced to change its attitude towards Russia as the international context is changed dramatically and challenges such as terrorism, Iran, or energy are largely influenced by the Russian state. More precisely, in terms of Iran, Russia has solid influences, as for Afghanistan. As for energy security, Russia is one of the most important players on the market and can thus influence decisively the European energetic security. From this point-of-view, Kupchan suggests that, given history, it is better to have your enemies closer than to isolate them and enable them to eventually strike back.

Topic 2

The prisoner's dilemma is one of the most important game theories applicable to international politics and relations. However, this theory plays differently, depending on the approaches it entangles. In this sense, from the point-of-view of the realist theory, the best choice for the prisoners is to both defect. This is largely due to the fact that the realist theory is based on a rational line of thought. Realism deals with realist and rational actors (Guzzini, 1998). Their choices are not based on feelings, emotions, or unquantifiable measures, but rather on practica, pragmatic, and rational choices. In this sense, cooperation is not possible and given the prisoner's dilemma, the only choice available for a realist prisoner is that of maximizing its gain and defecting, in hope of the lightest sentence.