The Solution to Conflict

High school students often talk of bringing about "world peace," but our solutions to this extraordinarily complex task are usually limited to sending a few hundred dollars of money to a charity operating in a conflict-wracked region.  While the money helps, it hardly does anything to address the root of the problem.

The map to the right shows the places where conflict has emerged in recent decades: most have either been internal conflicts or conflicts between smaller countries that are not great powers.  In one sense, this is an improvement.  At the risk of sounding naive, I contend that full scale conflict between global powers is becoming increasing unlikely with the expanding complexity of the global market and trade.  However, larger wars have been replaced by smaller conflicts that are often contained to their respective countries or regions.  These wars are usually sparked by racial or ethnic tensions but are driven by poverty and a lack of social mobility.  The solution to these problems, then, lies in education.

In English class, we have been discussing education for the past several weeks.  While our focus has been finding the most effective way of teaching Americans, I wonder what the most effective way of teaching Yemenis is.  According to a report by the United Nations Development Programme, "Education has a significant role to play in preventing conflict and violence.  Countries with high levels of primary education enrollment generally have low levels of violence- and, similarly, children who are deprived of education are more likely to turn to a life of conflict." When organizations assist in  providing education, they are presented with many questions.  What subjects should they teach?  How rigorous should the courses be?  Which history classes should they teach?  Should science classes take religious views into account?  Should there be a religious class?  Can girls legally and safely get to school?  All of these questions and many others like them must be addressed before the education process can even begin.

Based on the very different demographics of each impoverished country in the world, each curriculum must be designed specifically to meet the demands of said country.  However, I believe that the basic goals of education in poor regions should be similar to those of American schools: advancing social skills, learning to work in groups, and developing problem solving abilities.  By pushing an education style that promotes general intelligence and learning for the sake of learning as opposed to focusing on the learning of specific facts, we create an environment that decreases violence, racism, and sexism and replaces it with a desire for personal achievement.  Of course, there's a significant number of hurdles to reach a point where implementing such a policy is even possible, but the ultimate goal should lie there.  Allow the people to learn about themselves in the "mirrors" and their neighbors though the "windows," and the people will be less likely to engage in conflict.

Conflict in the Caucasus… and Boston? - Guest Blog by Ben Wolch

After the announcement that the Boston Marathon bombers were of Chechen origin, the American populace clambered to figure out what on earth a “Chechnya” was.  (The image below shows a Google trends graph tracking the number of times the word “Chechnya” was searched over the past 5 years.)  American’s barely even knew where Iraq or Afghanistan was when we invaded them.  It is important that we are educated on the conflicts occurring around the globe so we understand how our actions affect them.  Part of the current wave of global anti-Americanism is tied to the stereotype that Americans are simply unaware of non-American conflicts.  The backlash over the “Innocence of Muslims” video further proves that you do not need to work for the State Department to affect the image of America.

Chechnya is a region in Russia that has a significant independence movement.  It is located in the Caucasus, the region in between the Black and Caspian Seas, a very ethnically and religiously diverse area.  The region is riddled with conflict, from the Armenian genocide in the early 20^th century, to conflict over even more obscure sounding regions than Chechnya like South Ossetia and Nagorno-Karabakh.  What sets Chechnya apart from the rest of Russia is that the majority of its population is Muslim.  They view the Russian government as imperialist and have fought two full scale wars against them.  Today, their movement continues through insurgencies that mirror Taliban resistance against US presence in Afghanistan. 

But what does this have to do with Boston?  Why did a conflict from half way around the globe make its way into a relatively peaceful American city?  Rebel groups in Chechnya have been exporting terrorists long before the Boston attacks.  Terrorists in Afghanistan and Iraq have received many Chechen recruits and material assistance in their struggles.  While the Tsaernev brothers lived in the US for a considerable amount of time and weren’t just pawns sent by their Chechen overlords to do their dirty work, they still could have been inspired by the mercenaries of the Gulf and Afghani wars.  While it is plausible that the brothers could have harbored resentment to the US government, it still baffles me that they would attack innocent civilians at a non-US government sponsored event.  It is interesting to notice that the attacks took place right next to the stretch of race track that was lined with the flags representing all the countries participating in the race.  If someone wanted to show their displeasure with US foreign policy, the Boston Marathon seems like the last place to bomb.  I am sure over the next few weeks more information will be uncovered, especially since the authorities have the younger brother alive.  In the meantime, Americans will be sitting at the edge of their seats waiting for an explanation.  

Conflicting Lenses

In basic physics classes, high school students spend a unit learning about how light is reflected or absorbed by objects.  Students learn that the appearance of those objects can be altered by examining them through different lenses and filters.  For example, an object that normally is cyan will appear to be blue when seen through a green filter.  Using a green and blue filter to view the same object will make it appear black.

The lenses of literary criticism function in a similar way:  they alter the perspective of the reader by allowing him or her to see the text in a new light.  A commonly used example when introducing the concept of lenses is The Lion King.  To the layman The Lion King is a sweet movie about a lion cub and his friends overcoming obstacles together, but flip on a couple of lenses and the same story could be making bold statements about societal economic class structure or gender roles.

As with physical lenses and filters, multiple literary lenses can be used simultaneously to examine a text without coming into conflict with one another.  For example, in Ray Bradbury's  The Veldt, which tells the story of two children who take control of a futuristic "smart house" to murder their parents, utilizing both the feminist and Marxist lenses together yields an interesting result.  Through the feminist lens, the story seems to be a warning against the arrogance and destructive force that is created by male power structures, with the father as the patriarch and the mother and children as his subjects.  The Marxist lens suggests that the children, representing the Proletariat, are destined to overthrow the parents, as the Bourgeois, who attempt to use a coercive system of technologies and arbitrary rules to suppress them.  Put together, the two competing power structures blend, with the father becoming the active suppressor in the Bourgeois and the mother serving as his passive follower who is devoid of power.

The Veldt also shows that a lens can be used independently in stories where other non-mutually exclusive interpretations exist.  The psychoanalytic lens is very applicable to the story; there are many instances where the children are seen exhibiting primitive behavior (id), the parents are the idealists (superego), and the psychologist attempts to mediate between the two (ego).  This interpretation is able to stand on its own and retain full credibility, proving that interaction between lenses is not necessary in literary criticism, even when such interaction is possible.

Finally, The Veldt gives an example of a competing interpretations, as one possible method of interpretation partially rejects the others.  The protagonists repeatedly cite a disconnect from true nature in The Veldt as a significant problem, creating a window to use an ecocritical lens.  However, ecocriticism rejects a cornerstone of many other literary lenses in its focus on real world practicality.  In her book What is Nature?, Kate Soper writes, "It isn't language which has a hole in its ozone layer."  By rejecting constructionist ideology, ecocriticism enters into conflict with the other potential interpretations of the story.

Just by examining one short story, we are able to identify three possibilities of how lenses may interact.  The lenses may build off of each other and be constructive to examine together, a lens may function independently, or lenses may present competing and non compatible interpretations.  In physics, this would mean two lenses revealing a color that wasn't identifiable before, a single lens separating one color from the spectrum, or multiple lenses filtering out all color when used together (respectively).  In literary criticism, replace each "color" in the previous sentence with "interpretation," and you'll have the idea.

Aid vs. Development

When life gives you "Yemen"s, you don't need to make Yemen-aid.  This phrase, cleverly crafted by an opposing delegate at my most recent Model UN conference, brings up an interesting point that the Glenbrook Academy has been at least tangentially examining for the last few months.

A presentation by Dr. Dambisa Moyo at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs caused me to seriously question the value of humanitarian aid.  Her argument was compelling, and essentially boils down to the claim  that giving a man a fish makes him less likely to learn to get his own fish in the future.  But could humanitarian aid, which is so widely supported in the United States, really be detrimental to the receiving countries?

America's involvement with Sub-Saharan Africa presents us with the opportunity to measure the impact of humanitarian aid.  According to this report by the Congressional Research Service, almost 75% (over $5.8 billion) of the proposed budget for aid to Sub-Saharan Africa was humanitarian, while only 15% would go to economic development.  Policies that vastly favor humanitarian aid over any other form are not new to the United States, but despite this we see very little "developing" going on in many of the countries we give aid to.

The primary reason for this is that humanitarian aid does nothing to help the local economies, and in some cases can destroy them entirely.  How can local farmers hope to compete with millions of dollars worth of free food?  Dr. Moyo argued that humanitarian aid can cause political problems as well.  Receiving charity can easily be interpreted as weakness in the central government, eroding its legitimacy and the pride of the citizens.  Furthermore, humanitarian aid often doesn't get to its intended destination.  In Somalia, American care packages would be seized by militia groups and sold for large profits to allies throughout the near-failed-state.

But what is the alternative to giving humanitarian aid?  We cannot simply abandon the countries that struggle to feed their own people.  Instead of giving them free food and supplies, however, the United States should take the path that has made the Chinese very popular in Africa (according to Dr. Moyo): focus on economic development.  Create economic infrastructure, build roads, build schools, give the countries the tools they need to learn to fish with the support of the international community.  Then they will be able to break their reliance on international aid and begin the path towards "developed-nation" status.

So, when faced with a country like Yemen- wracked with conflict, a weak central government, and a practically non-existent economy- the solution is not to give Yemen (humanitarian) aid.  Instead, we must help Yemen aid itself.

Winning a Verbal Conflict

For developed countries in the modern world, conflict is most often embodied in vibrating air particles rushing by a larynx and crashing against an eardrum.  Verbal debates take place from the familial to the international levels, and play a large role in determining our daily lives.  Understanding the influence that a debate can have lead me to practice and hone my skills through the Model UN program.

This past weekend, the Model United Nations at the University of Chicago (MUNUC) tournament proved to be extraordinarily competitive.  Representing the United Kingdom on the UN Security Council, my partner and I worked tirelessly to try to solve the issue of stability in Yemen.  The thirty-page "background guide" gives an idea of how complicated the topic is.  Between a civil war in the north, a secessionist movement in the south, and the embedded presence of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the situation seems all but impossible to solve.  However, through researching my position as a British diplomat and researching the topic itself, I discovered a variety of tools that could be used to combat instability and prepared to articulate them in debate.

The UNSC was by far the most competitive committee I have ever debated on.  The delegations from Russia, Pakistan, the USA, Portugal, China, Azerbaijan, and Germany were all very skilled orators, writers, and debaters.  From the very beginning, I employed all of the tactics I knew: shake hands and smile at the new delegates, carefully analyze how high they hold their shoulders, look for signs of complacency or cunning in their eyes, and appear calm and confident.  Listen for the well-spoken, coerce those who aren't confident, and attack the aggressive.  During the twenty hours I spent in committee last weekend, I was constantly struggling to keep my head above the surface, trying not to get drowned out in the noise and motion of the conference.  Ultimately, I was able to successfully use my tools and training to establish my own voice in committee.  While not always the most popular, having that distinct voice allowed me to communicate my ideas and be awarded third place by the judge.

Dulce Et Decorum Est

Dulce Et Decorum Est

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs And towards our distant rest began to trudge. Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind; Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

Gas! Gas! Quick, boys!---An ecstasy of fumbling, Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time; But someone still was yelling out and stumbling, And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime... Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light, As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight, He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace Behind the wagon that we flung him in, And watch the white eyes writhing in his face, His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin; If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--- My friend, you would not tell with such high zest To children ardent for some desperate glory, The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori.

Wilfred Owen

8 October 1917 - March, 1918

This poem, written by Wilfred Owen in 1917, describes the horrors of conflict in the First World War.  The long marches, the mud, the gore, the fatigue, and, unique to WWI, the gas. The poem is dominated by darkness and death, but ends with the phrase "Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori." In its original context, the phrase embodies the glory of combat and dying for the country, as it literally translates to, "It is sweet and right to die for your country".  However, in the dark context of this poem, the Latin phrase takes on a sarcastic tone, forcing the audience, those who glorify war without having experienced it, to question the true implications of fighting and dying for a country.

The mix between enjambment and caesura in the first stanza hints at the unpredictable flow of war, a constant conflict between crippling difficulty (caesura) and long stretches of marching (enjambment).  The break at the end of the first stanza embodies the long nothingness that is said 99% of soldiering even today. The final 1%, the pure terror, comes into play suddenly and with extra syllables in the first line in the second stanza.  The poem's meter also reflects the reality of war.  The syllables march neatly in iambic pentameter for the majority of the poem, although the occasional gas attack can add chaos, or an extra syllable, into the mix as it did in line 14.

This poem, in 28 lines, gives the audience a taste of war and shatters the illusion of a glorious death for the nation. The speaker accuses the preachers of Horace of fallacy of tradition, using words such as obscene, cancer, corrupted, bitter, and incurable sores to describe the terrible detriment brought by Horace's ideas.  As his audience is Western Europeans and Americans, Owen is able to speak to Western culture's appeal to purity.  He accomplishes this in the last few lines, effectively saying that to teach that it is noble to die for one's country is corrupting children with terrible lies.

Every couple of decades there is a new war gone bad that reminds Americans of the harsh reality of conflict.  The gas in France during the Great War, the island combat in the Pacific Theater in WWII, the dense jungles of Vietnam, and the terrorist bombings and roadside bombs of Afghanistan.  I am not trying to say that war is pointless: the United States arguably had a legitimate reason to engage in almost all or all of these conflicts.  However, as nominee for Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel claims, the use of force is justified "only after a very careful decision-making process."

Free Will vs. Chaos Theory

Regardless of religious affiliations, many Americans feel that they have some form of free will.  Even those who don't believe in a deity will often claim that they have some ability to make choices that are based in their conscience.  The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy has a very interesting and in-depth analysis of what free will is generally considered to be by philosophers and great thinkers.  The surprising part of the concept is that, although it has been pondered for millennia, humans still do not know exactly how to define free will or understand where it comes from.  This leads me to question whether or not it even exists, but rather is an illusion created by the combination of a complex set of environmental variables and extensive genetic code.

An old school of thought called "determinism," can be interpreted to effectively deny the notion of free will.  This theory states that the world and everything that happens on it can be predicted through a series of mathematic calculations.  This idea is touched on extensively in the play Arcadia, by Tom Stoppard, in which the characters of the past and present ultimately reveal the uncertainty of the future.  At first, this play seems to contradict determinism, and in a way it does by embracing Chaos Theory.  Chaos Theory claims that, while the concept of determinism is feasible, there are so many complex variables affecting the outcome of events that they cannot be predicted by the mathematic or scientific procedures we use today.  A metaphor commonly associated with chaos theory is the butterfly effect, which states that it is theoretically possible for the flap of a butterfly's wings in one location to begin a chain reaction that creates a tornado somewhere else.  The principles identified in Chaos Theory sum up the reason why humans cannot accurately predict the weather:  there are simply too many variables.  But how do all of these philosophical theories relate to the question of free will?

The notion that free will does not exist, and that human personality is based completely off of genetic layout, is very much a deterministic one.  Accepting that belief, it would be possible to completely predict a human's reactions to being introduced into a specific environment if one had knowledge and understanding of that person's entire genetic structure.  Even if that person did something that appeared to be a choice, such as going left instead of right, I could argue that something about the subject's genes made the left path appear more attractive (in fact, research suggests that even which side of an object you prefer may have correlation with your genetic layout).  A common argument made by advocates of free will deals with love, and Arcadia suggests that the spontaneity of human relationships causes determinism to fail.  However, it is possible that while relationships compound the number of variables (Chaos Theory), a computer with advanced processing power could theoretically still predict the actions of an individual.

If it is determined that free will is only an illusion created by complex systems, what would the social implications of this discovery be?  Could one be held accountable for his own actions?  If a murderer kills only because of his genes and environmental conditions, can he be blamed?  In pondering questions such as these, I realize how dependent our civilization is on the idea of free will.  What happens if the theory of free will eventually loses this conflict?

Red, White, and Blue Dawn

The 2012 remake of "Red Dawn," wasn't a great movie by any means, but it did stir some interesting ideas that I wasn't old enough to ponder when I saw the original.  For those of you who aren't familiar, "Red Dawn" describes the occupation of the United States by the USSR (original) or North Korea (remake) and a band of high-school age kids who start a guerrilla movement to fight the invaders.  It's a classic example of a "defend your home" type of movie, but it made me think:  how does the portrayed occupation of the United States relate to the actual US military presence in Afghanistan?

As Americans, we are constantly reminded that our troops are doing good, and our cause is just.  However, the film contests those notions, as it forces the audience to wonder how we would feel if a foreign nation invaded the United States.  If we would be so opposed to an occupying army, why shouldn't the Afghans feels the same way?  This comprehensive study, conducted by ABC in 2010, shows that while opinions of the United States are not particularly high in Afghanistan, there is a considerable amount of support for US forces.  According to the report, the overall opinion of the United States has fallen in the minds of Afghanistan, but areas with significant amount of American presence actually have a better outlook on the occupation.  To Americans, this may seem counter-intuitive.  Why is there a conflict between American and Afghan opinions of occupation?

It seems that there are two overarching reasons.  The first and probably more important is the nature of the occupying force and the country being occupied.  The United States is united by a single dominant culture that prides itself on democracy and liberty, while Afghanistan is a country with many different ethnic groups that have distinct cultural histories.  When Americans think of occupation, they often imagine the presence of an oppressive regime.  For many Afghans, that American nightmare was a reality under the Taliban prior to 2001.  While American soldiers weren't welcomed into Afghanistan as liberators, they certainly had the opportunity to win the "hearts and minds" of the local people.  The second explanation is that many Afghans live under constant threat from extremist groups, and they have the United States military for a police force.  That is supported by the fact that, in regions where violence is declining, American presence is significantly more popular, according to the study.

I think I am secure in concluding that, to some extent, the claim that our troops are doing good is true.  Yes, many Afghans reject the occupation of Afghanistan by American soldiers, but it is not a uniform rejection.  The relative stability imposed by American troops is appreciated by many Afghans, meaning that the situation hardly resembles the Soviet/North Korean invasion depicted in Red Dawn.

The Unconscious Mind

Carl Jung, a psychiatrist of the early twentieth century, proposed the idea of a "collective unconscious" that is commonly shared by all humans.  This idea has moderate and radical implications, ranging from the development of morals on a seemingly "instinctual" basis to large numbers of people subconsciously predicting a disaster.  The conflict here is over accepting Jung's hypothesis of the collective unconscious.

As a student who particularly likes science class, I am quick to dismiss "supernatural" phenomena such as premonition.  However, there is a possibility that people could unconsciously share a thought process and a set of morals, and evidence exists suggesting humans might have some ability to predict disaster.  This article from the International Association for Analytical Psychology argues an excellent point that I strongly agree with:  Jung's broader idea of archetypes was correct, but his mechanism was probably wrong.  Instead of some form of collective unconscious force uniting people to pursue moral causes, it has been determined that human genetics are very similar in expression of morality and intellectual potential.  Natural selection is not the supernatural force that Jung's work sometimes suggests, but it does connect humans on a basic level.  Now you may not have believed me when I said there is evidence for human premonition, but random number generators have been reported to follow certain trends just before major disasters, such as September 11.  A physics forum discussion analyzes the reliability and significance of this data.  Paging through the many comments and suggested readings from this forum, I've decided to agree with the writers of this article, who feel that the trends in the random number generator are little more than coincidence.  As Jung's suggestion of collective unconscious is unnecessary to describe the trends discussed in this paragraph, I find myself unable to subscribe to his theory.

I don't believe that a collective unconscious is shared between all people.  One of the primary reasons for this is that establishing human connection is difficult.  Even when it is facilitated by the internet, meaningful interaction that spans cultures, races, economic class, and national backgrounds is extraordinarily challenging to maintain.  Basic ideals may be similar, but specific grievances are so individualistic and varied that they can be challenging to classify in a system of collective unconscious.  I feel that accepting a list of archetypes as the foundation for human thought and morality severely restricts individualism and originality.

South African struggle

Many nations find themselves in conflict with a variety of dangerous processes that have the potential of "trapping" the nation in poverty, should they take hold.  Maintaining an effective government, internal peace, sovereignty, and a path to the world market are not always simple tasks for a country to carry out, even though our nation often takes such things for granted.

Focusing specifically on the nation I was assigned, South Africa, we see that this nation defies the trend of most Africans and mostly avoids the four "traps" laid out by Paul Collier in his book, The Bottom Billion.  These traps are:  1.  Conflict (mostly internal) 2. Natural Resources (especially "Dutch Disease") 3. Landlocked with bad neighbors and 4. Bad governance.  In the eighteen years since Apartheid was lifted, South Africa has luckily avoided falling into any of these traps, but has flirted with all of them

I'll get the least threatening trap out of the way first:  landlocked with bad neighbors.  The majority of South Africa's border is coastline, so the landlocked part is far from true.  However, bad neighbors, especially Zimbabwe, put pressure on the South African government by forcing refugees into the country.  However, it is a bit of a stretch to imagine that an influx of refugees could severely damage and "trap" South Africa, so I'll go ahead and label this a nonexistent/very low risk.  This trap is effectively driven off by a strong economy and any kind of attention to the situation on the part of the South African government.

The bad governance trap is a significantly more legitimate threat, but still is not an immediate concern.  The African National Congress (ANC) has been reelected into power every election since the new government was created in 1994.  While the political situation is significantly better than it was under the system of Apartheid, South Africa is slowly falling into the problems created by a complacent government.  No political party has been able to genuinely challenge the vast support commanded by the ANC, which lifts some responsibility off of the current government's shoulders.  Left unchecked, the government may slide further into a state of inefficiency and allow the deterioration South Africa's infrastructure.  If this were to occur, South Africa would be at risk of being trapped by an infrastructure that does not allow for a sufficient number of people to contribute to the economy in a meaningful way, dragging the nation into poverty.  However, this trap is easily combated with an effective opposition party, which is beginning to form around Helen Zille's Democratic Alliance (DA).  As the DA garners more and more popularity, the ANC will be forced to improve or will be voted out of power, and either of these possibilities sidesteps the tiny pitfall that is the bad governance trap.

South Africa was fortunate to avoid the conflict trap in 1994, but is now at slight risk.  While internal conflict became prevalent in South Africa surrounding the end of the white regime, it was not sustained or repeated.  However, as made apparent by this 2010 BBC News report, racial tensions never completely dissolved in South Africa.  Especially noteworthy in the article linked above is the statistic, "South Africa is also among the most violent societies outside warzones with 18,000 murders a year".  If this violence became organized around a radical group, the South African government would have a legitimate problem.  As Collier effectively argued, internal conflict is devastating to economies.  Prolonged civil wars in African nations have often been driven by racial or tribal differences, and if South Africa were to join the ranks of these countries, it could easily become ensnared and quickly see the degradation of its economy and infrastructure.

Perhaps posing an equal risk as the conflict trap, the natural resource trap is threatening South Africa in a way slightly skewed from how Collier defined it.  South Africa boasts a powerful and influential mining industry that many European countries are heavily invested in.  While South Africa is not being clearly exploited by these foreign companies, the violent miner strike in mid-2012 shows that the South African workers may have been abused by the economic structure.  On a similar note, many South Africans do not see the profits raked in by the massive levels of foreign investment, and much of the nation still lives in poverty.  This reality is made clearer by South Africa's low average life expectancy (about 60 years).

While the risk of falling into either of the conflict or natural resource trap is somewhat low, it is a possibility that must be addressed by the South African government.  By improving infrastructure and education, the racial violence and economic inequality can be stemmed before the traps are sprung.

The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

Israel has been at the center of American media the last few days, as it has been retaliating to attacks from Hamas in the Gaza Strip.  Earlier this week, Hamas fired a barrage of about 200 rockets into Israel, prompting the Israel Defense Force (IDF) to launch air strikes into the Gaza Strip.  A top-ranking Palestinian military leader was killed in one attack, pushing the Egyptian government to withdraw its ambassador from Israel.  The rising tensions surrounding this conflict beg the question, "who's the aggressor?"  Is it right for Israel to respond to the rocket strikes with air power, even if civilians are killed in the attacks?  Although this may be the influence of the Western, generally pro-Israeli media, it seems to me that the Israeli counter attack is justified.  The Palestinians launched a large number of missiles into their nation- if any country attacked the United States in this manner, war would be declared immediately.  While the collateral damage is regrettable, Hamas intentionally places its rocket launchers nearby residencies, hospitals, and schools, which takes some of the blame off of the Israelis.  The blood of the Palestinian civilians is on the hands of Hamas, not the IDF.

Fears of a full scale ground war have begun stirring, and the last hopes for the "two state solution" (creating a sovereign Palestinian state) to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are fading.  This conflict, which has been raging since the creation of Israel, is ideological in nature.  Therefore, diplomatic solutions are unlikely to begin with.  Add the recent exchange of rockets and bombs, and war seems inevitable.  But what would be the consequences of such a conflict?  The world has seen the efficiency and power of the IDF before, and given the continued support of the United States, it will be as strong as ever.  However, an invasion of the Gaza Strip would ignite tensions in the Middle East, isolating Israel and, by association, the United States.  This would be a disaster for the future of American foreign policy.  Now is the time to be building alliances with post-revolutionary governments, but instead the United States is at odds with new governments like that of Egypt because of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  If war breaks out, those relationships will sour entirely.  War benefits no nation in this scenario:  Israel would easily win but would face fresh hostility from an enraged and already unstable Middle East (with a possibly soon-to-be nuclear Iran), Hamas would be seriously weakened if not destroyed by the conflict, and the United States would suffer massive diplomatic losses.  This is an example of a conflict without a possibility for a positive outcome, and thus it must be avoided at all costs.  This will likely require serious effort and cooperation by Israel and Hamas, with the United States, Egypt, and the United Nations working between the two governments to try and achieve a ceasefire.

Looking in or out

Watching what was supposed to be the foreign policy debate on Friday, I was struck by how quickly the candidates flipped to speaking on economic or domestic issues.  Foreign and domestic issues are competing for center stage in this election, and it is fairly clear that the economic side is winning out.  What does the conflict between foreign and domestic issues in the public eye say about the state of the nation?  About the candidates' views and strategies?  How is the focus of the debate telling of the decisions to be made by the next president in the four years to come?

The simplest conclusion from the trumping of economic issues over foreign policy is that in times of economic hardship, domestic matters become more significant.  Fewer people are concerned about what is happening in Syria when they are living from paycheck to paycheck.  It is also simple to paint failures in foreign policy as reflective of a weak economic base at home, which Romney did multiple times throughout the night.

Obama has been hailed as a successful foreign policy president, despite his perceived ineffectiveness at managing the economy.  This gave him an inherent advantage entering the debate, and allowed Romney very little ground to fight him on.  Thus, when asked directly about foreign policy plans and actions, former Governor Romney often found himself agreeing with the President.  Instead of disagreeing with Obama on foreign policy issues, the core of Romney's arguments rested on economic points and the idea that America needs to be strong at home in order to lead abroad.  Skewing the debate to this focus was a smart move by Romney, as it brought the battle from Obama's home field to a place where Romney had more control.

The conflict in framing of this debate clearly reflects where we can expect each candidate to be most effective in the next four years, if he is elected president.  Obama believes that working with the international community is crucial to America's growth, stating that we must continue to engage our allies to "start rebuilding America".  However, while Obama may improve America's standing in the world of international relations, he may continue to be less effective at reviving the economy.  Romney, on the other hand, seems more likely to focus on the economy, at the risk of putting foreign policy on the back burner.  "For [America to lead]," he stated, "we have to strengthen our economy here at home".  It will be up to America to decide the winner of this conflict for media attention.

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-2012-presidential-debate-20121022,0,7479154.story

The Reality of Dreams

Most heroes die around the age of 14.  It is exceptionally rare for a hero to live past 25.  But in those glorious early years of life, most children envision their future selves making major differences in the world by curing disease or rallying a broken nation.  What is killing these heroes?  They are casualties of the war between dreams and realism.  The strategies and tactics of the belligerents can be complex and subtle, but the forces of reality are usually victorious.

In American culture, children are applauded for displays of imagination.  When asked, "what do you want to be when you grow up?", children find that "doctor" or "president" are better received by adults than "accountant" or "mechanic".  Their idea of success is created through the careers they see in the media, which naturally consist of only the careers that generate fame.  

As toddlers grow into kids and kids grow into preteens, the importance of "success" is hammered into their minds by parents, schools, books, movies, and a multitude of other mediums.  A preteen's definition of success, however, is often still confined to "fame".  My time as a preteen was when I developed the desire to make a difference that would be "worthy of the history books", to quote my thoughts at the time.  And just like that, I had formed a logical conclusion:  fame = success, and success = important, therefore fame = important.  A hero is born.

It is not until a few years later that children learn just how competitive the real world is.  Just work hard, get good grades, get into a good college, and get a fame-generating career, right?  Wrong.  If you receive perfect grades, you have a chance to get into the best schools, but their 7% admittance rate means that a lot of people with perfect scores won't make the cut.  After training to become an actor, you are likely to spend more time waiting tables than in front of the camera.  A hero dies.

The conflict facing individuals in American society often lies between pursuing your dreams or making money.  Dreaming big or living big.  Albert Einstein claims, "Logic will get you from A to B.  Imagination will take you everywhere."  A strict course from A to B can be dull and boring, but the benefits of being "everywhere" are exaggerated.  My high school Sophomore English teacher presented an analogy that argues for restricted imagination.  The analogy was created for writing papers, but I try to apply to my life:  creative writing [living] is like playing a football game.  It's fun and exciting and there are all kinds of possibilities, but there are rules.  There must be rules, because without them progress in the game is undefined.

The preferable outcome of the war is not easy to see.  If realism wins, a shadow world of accountants and mechanics is created.  If dreaming wins, everyone can be special, thereby making no one special.  Fighting for your dreams while playing by the rules of the real world is the desired equilibrium.  The best solution is accepting the conflict between the two.  

The Nature of Conflict

Positive change arises from competing destructive forces.  This phenomenon is what I think about late at night on the pillow and early in the morning under the shower-head.  Does it apply to biology?  Natural selection: those strong enough to survive challenges reproduce and ultimately "improve" the species in a given environment.  Check.  International relations?  Nations and cultures that are influential enough to survive conflict will grow and flourish.  Those that do not improve are lost to oblivion.  Check.  


These subject areas may seem at odds, but in my mind they are very similar.  In the world, governments exist as individuals, and an infinite number of variables determines whether those institutions live to pass influence or die out. Biological systems are reliant on cooperation and organization, but are imperfect and are subject to failure.  The common theme?  Conflict breeds competition, and competition allows for improvement.  In writing this blog, I intend to explore the paradox of improvement via conflict by examining the macro and micro ends of the spectrum: conflicts between great nations and cultures, and conflicts confined to an individual's mind.
So.... what is conflict?
History is riddled with great wars, from the legendary Battle of Troy to the present fighting in the Middle East and southwest Asia.  We call this, "conflict".
Across the world, cultures impose ideas and traditions upon one another, challenging the others around them.  We call this, "conflict".
At a party, a high school student faces the choice of abandoning his principles or his friends.  We call this, "conflict".
Conflict is embedded in all life, human and otherwise.  As lifeforms increase in complexity, so too do the battles they fight.  Plants fight for nutrients; animals fight for nutrients and mates; humans fight for life, liberty, and the rest.  The natural world evolved off of a foundation of competition, making conflict present at every level of organization.  
The conclusion, "conflict is inevitable," may sound gloomy, but it really is anything but.  While wars are tragic, conflict between individuals is the driving force behind science, technology, and the entire Capitalist system.    Understanding the conflicts that plague people and our organizations will further our understanding of human behavior, and hopefully will help us answer some of the deeper questions we hold about our lives.
"I exhort you also to take part in the great combat, which is the combat of life, and greater than every other earthly conflict" - Plato