respond

response to :

student A:

Discussion question: Peters commented that "The prospect of smaller-scale conflicts also raises the question of whether the United States should be the global police officer or merely one more nation in the international community." State your opinion and support it with one citation.

Conflicts may be of a large scale or small-scale nature. The resolution of conflicts amongst nations depends on the capacity of the concerned nations, as well as the resolving party. The United States has often been considered superior to the other smaller nations, in which the conflicts often erupt. However, diverse parties treat the policing role of the United States over other countries differently (Modarressy, 2014). My opinion on the issue is that the United States is justified in offering guidance to the other countries in as far as the resolution of conflicts is concerned. Critics may oppose the role of the United States in resolving smaller scale conflicts but it is evident that its role cannot be wished away.

The management of conflicts requires some degree of order and establishment of a single unit of command attains such order. In this case the source of command should solely be the United States because of its relatively higher stature compared to the other nations (Modarressy, 2014). Moreover, it is very influential worldwide and thus it is in a better position in matters of conflict resolution among nations.

The United States hardly reports cases of conflicts and effectively and peacefully resolves them if any. This is as opposed to the other smaller nations, which are usually overwhelmed by their conflicts, find themselves in dire need of external help, and often resolve to subjugation as their way of resolving conflicts (Modarressy, 2014). It is evident that the United States has to play a supervisory role over the smaller states as it has proved to have experience and undisputed expertise in conflict resolution of its own conflict. The effects of such experience are the easy handling of smaller conflicts. 

Reference

Modarressy, C. (2014). Why Does the U.S. Keep Getting Involved in Conflict?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/caroline-tehrani/why-does-the-us-keep-getting-involved_b_5666898.html (Links to an external site.)

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student B:

  In my opinion, it seems that the United States government believes themselves to be the world’s police officers which may be partially because we are the last remaining superpower country or may also be due to others asking for assistance (occasionally); however I do not feel that we need to constantly out solving the world’s problems.  The United States has plenty of our own problems and considering the high cost of constantly addressing others problems; perhaps the U.S. should focus its efforts at home.  This is not a new debate though, in 2008, six experts argued the merits of both sides (Weiner 2008).  At the end of the debate, the audience was still quite split over the opinion on if the U.S. should police the world.  One argument against policing the world, as presented by Ellen Laipson, is that we do not know all languages and cultures which is valuable in diffusing conflict before violence erupts (Weiner 2008).  This cultural knowledge is an important point as well because different culture have different laws and unless the world agrees to live by the laws of the U.S., then there is no way for us to accurately enforce the laws. 

References

Weiner, Eric. “Should America Be the World’s Policeman?” NPR. February 20, 2008.  Accessed November 25, 2015. http://www.npr.org/2008/02/20/19180589/should-america-be-the-worlds-policeman (Links to an external site.)