by Carly Persell

Created on: August 02, 2007

As the world moves forward through time, increasingly focused on global development, more wars are inevitably going to arise. First, I isolate the prevailing ideology and the world transition to it as one cause. Second, I identify the lens through which international relations operates as an enabler.

Progression of time from the Greek society to the U.S. saw little emergence of democracy globally. Since that time, democracy has become an ideology on the forefront of the global society. Pushing for democracy has undeniable consequences, regardless of individual support or lack thereof for it. Transitional democracies have numerous pressures placed upon them as success requires tedious balance. Stressors on a new democracy are most effectively demonstrated by power struggles. Previous parties within the governmental system will inevitability hesitate to relinquish control. Acting as a pulling force backwards, a new democracy must constantly struggle to move forward. However, going forward is generally coaxed by a third party. Whether the third party be the US, UN, UK, or any other abbreviated organization, it creates an antithesis. The third party empirically has little patience for transitional periods, demanding impeccable democracy immediately. Inevitably becoming clear that the transition will take time, third parties act more proactively.

The pull forward and backward creates a strain upon a newborn government that requires time to balance. With a democratic flame burning up the world, an increase of the number of countries attempting to strike this balance will follow. During that transitional period, the power struggles have been shown to become violent. Likening itself to the burning of a forest, violent and hot, but fertile and plentiful afterwords, the fire of democracy is one reason war and violence will increase over the upcoming ten years.

Also, the framing of international relations in general provides enables violence. A difference exists between growing globally as nations and growing globally as a community. The latter has yet to happen because of the lens through which nations act in the global sphere. Realism is the dominant lens of international relations in society right now, meaning that nations act in their own interest. The security and hegemony of a nation outweighs the ethical draw to end violence. Look to Darfur where hundreds of thousands of people have died in an ongoing conflict. Conflict within the region has little effect on U.S. hegemony or security, thus minimal action has been taken to assist the region. Assisting in the region, however, would require loss of lives and unknown amounts of money. Because of the realist lens through which nations view their relations with each other, the perceived negative effects of intervening outweighing the ethical obligation to cease violence.

Without all nations taking action to halt violence globally, there is a guarantee that violence will not go down in the near future. Pairing that with the push for new democracies means that while the world may not be at rest right now, that doesn't mean that this isn't the calm before the storm

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