Fighting for whatever it can get, America made serious concessions in its recent deal on carbon emissions with China. The United States of America is no longer the hegemony of the world, instead it is fighting for its right to even be considered one of the two leaders in a global bipolar system.

On November 11th, Presidents Xi Jinping and Barack Obama announced a new deal for both China and USA to reduce their carbon emissions. China has agreed its emissions will peak by 2030 (a higher year than hoped, but nonetheless an actual date as one has never previously been announced) and will also increase the non-fossil fuel percentage of its energy consumption by 20%. The USA, on the other hand, surrendered considerably more. As it has contributed a significantly greater share of the gases already in the atmosphere, and as such the USA accepted harsher cuts. Obama agreed to cut carbon emissions by 26 to 28% by 2025 – such reductions will require a doubling in the pace of cuts after 2020.

China appears to have conceded little. They agreed to targets that were already expected to be achieved with little to no effort. The USA on the other hand forfeited considerable amounts to gain the smallest of returns. The USA is considered by many to have hegemonic power; it is the most powerful state at the international level. Yet it seems to have completely surrendered to China. These were negotiations between the two largest producers of green house gases in the world. Yet only one side left having agreed to serious reductions.  If the USA is has true hegemony, it will dictate international relations, it will be the deciding factor everyone bows down to. As such you would expect the USA to have forced China to surrender more, or, at worst, for the USA and China to make equal commitments. However this did not occur.

The USA committed considerably more than China. Though no one knows exactly what went down in the negotiations, the results imply that it was China who held the power. The USA is not a country who easily commits to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, especially not significant reductions. For them to agree to such reductions is to imply that China held the upper hand, forcing the USA into reductions in order for them to agree to the most basic of reductions on their own part. The relationship between China and the USA has become one where China has the power, the USA must bend its own back to gain anything from China. That said, given the USA did force China to agree to some reductions it cannot be said that China is a hegemony.

Essentially China agreed only to a date, one that is far enough into the future that scientists predicted their emissions would peak at this time no matter the governments position. Therefore they gave up very little, while the USA succumbed to the rise and caved in order to survive, to retain some power.

On the other hand, congress will do its best to prevent the USA from achieving what it has agreed to. As such the agreements can been seen as empty promises made by the USA in an attempt to get China to commit to reductions. Therefore the USA was not giving in, it was merely playing a specific part in a greater play to get China to succumb. However, such assumptions are to imply that China is weak and is not a player, that it cannot think of the motives behind American behaviour. This is too simplistic a thought, the Chinese government is smart and will only have given up some power (by agreeing to reductions) if it expects returns.

The United States of America can no longer be seen to be the sole hegemony. Instead China is rising, becoming more and more powerful, to the point were the USA must fall in order to try and retain the power that it does have. By surrendering concessions to China, the USA is able to retain its position as at least one half of a bipolar system.

PMCs are immoral. The individuals they employ have no commitment to maintain moral standards in war zones, so don’t.

Private military companies (PMCs) provide security services in war zones around the world. Hired as contractors, they provide governments and private organisations with services to train personnel in combat as well as man power for the protection of nouns (people, places, things). They work constantly on the boundary between right and wrong. 

Employees of PMCs are referred to as mercenary, individuals motivated to take part due to desire for significant private gain and instigated by the promise or payment of material composition. Principals of right and wrong motivate companies that are moral. Incentives of profit do not align with the stimuli of right and wrong. Therefore companies that are driven by profit cannot be moral.  This point was highlighted in the film The Shadow Company when one former mercenary said had worked for a PMC because it was “all about excitement, war is the ultimate game”. This mentality sees fighting as fun, as a form of entertainment, not as the most drastic way to solve disagreements. Furthering this was Mr Bell’s belief that many PMCs employ anyone who will join them, as they merely want to fulfil their contracts. They their employ individuals motivated by violence, who want to be in a war zone, rather than those believe in the causal factors initiation the war. Companies who are motivated by profit, and who’s employees are also motivated by profit and incentivised by aggressive urges, are not companies fighting for the principles of right and wrong. PMCs violate the principles of just intentions. Therefore PMCs are  clearly not moral in their rationale. 

PMCs are not likely to limit their behaviour. Soldiers are strictly limited in what they are allowed to do when in a war zone, both legally and morally. Their behaviours reflect not only themselves but also the nation they are serving. A soldier wearing a Canadian flag stitched upon their soldier embodies the morals of Canada as well as their own. Soldiers must behave inscrutably and are given incentives and impediments to do so. PMCs conversely have no such loyalties or confines. They represent themselves; very rarely do they carry the responsibility of representing an organisation. They are ununiformed, they bare no government affiliations. Thus, they are much less likely to limit their actions. There is a less clear line between right and wrong. They have no guiding state, no moral compass they must represent. 

Additionally, the blurred lines of command in battle for PMCs further the lack of moral guidance. There is strict hierarchical structure and protocol in the military, guiding each individual. Given PMCs are accountable to a firm not a government, in the heat of the moment the collapse of protocol creates chaos, that is often ultimately unpunishable.  Given the individual mercenary have no enforced guiding principle; there is no requirement for their actions to follow a moral compas. Leading to unmoral actions becoming more probable.

On the other hand, moral norms are highly subjective. The norms that are generally considered as moral in the West (where is currently no violent conflict) are often quite different to those of other states and cultures. Therefore when entering a state with no functioning government, it is often hard to determine what is considered to be the code of behaviour in that nation and situation. If rebels or locals behave in a certain way, is it wrong for mercenaries to retaliate in the same way? Additionally when in intense situations that question right and wrong, what gives individuals at home in the west, who’s governments won’t join the war effort for fear of losing soldiers, the right to judge whether an action is moral or not.

PMCs are driven purely by profit. They have no specific ties limiting their behaviour. Therefore no matter the conditions within the state they are working are, they cannot be considered moral organisations, as they are not concerned with principles of right and wrong. It is debatable as to whether government’s military efforts are moral or selfish, but it is unquestionable that PMCs are not moral.

There are many reasons States should help refugees, the most dominating of which is the moral obligation. Refugees are not individuals with have decided they ‘feel like moving to another country’. These are people whose lives are in such danger they can no longer safely reside in their own country. They need physical or legal protection, or have no foreseeable alternative long-term solution, or are the survivors or violence or torture.  However many states do not have the capacity to deal with the increasing numbers of refugees. Therefore states should not be forced to accept refugees by international agreements.

Refugee resettlement programs are a necessity. The number of conflicts occurring yearly has been steadily increasing over the last decade, as have the number of refugees. These are individuals in desperate need, the by are being persecuted or fear persecution. Nations should feel a responsibility to aid these individuals, who’s governments cannot or will not help them. Everyone should have the right to live in the conditions free from persecution, something many take for granted. However national governments should be able to decide the scale of such programs for themselves

Each resident of a nation is a cost to the government and society, a burden if you will. As current citizens and the government pick up this cost, they must be able to determine how much they are willing to sacrifice to enable others to immigrate. This is a decision that must be made by the individual state, not controlled by an international body. Some countries, such as Lebanon, are able to host large numbers of refugees in relation to its national population. In Lebanon 1 in 5 people are refugees. But this is a decision the national government has made given the domestic conditions, the number of applications by refugees, the conflicts in neighbouring counties and the domestic opinion on immigration, amongst other things. However this is not the case in every country. Therefore states must not be force to accept refugees; they must be free to determine their own situation.

Furthermore, the number of refugees a country must accept cannot be a fixed number. Given the globalised nature of the economy, domestic markets are often unstable and volatile. As such governments must be able to decide immigration allowances on there own terms. National priorities, fortunately or unfortunately, must be ranked above the needs of non-nationals. For example, during the recent economic crisis, governments had to put their efforts into aiding citizens’ recovery, ensuring they had job opportunities and were financially viable. If the domestic situation is such that there are few opportunities for residents, states must be able to lower the number of refugees they accept. States therefore must be able to decide whether the economic situation is such that an immigrant would be able to thrive rather than be forced into poverty. Governments must be free to adjust regulations on all types of immigrants and should not be forced into a corner by international regulations.

Forcing states is not effective. Current international legal obligations are not successful. Of the 196 countries in the world only 21 of them currently participate in resettling refugees. Of these, the United States of America, Australia and Canada accept 90% of resettled refugees. If states are required to accept refugees, all countries must be made to accept refugees. Current regulations are also not toughly enforced, making the regulation in itself ineffective and useless. As such it could be more effective to encourage governments to create their own policies than attempting to enforce an unenforceable policy.

States have sovereignty over their territory and borders, they control of who and how many people are able to cross their border. They have a commitment to their own residents above and beyond their commitment to foreign nationals. Therefore they must be free to determine their own policy and regulations towards the immigration of refugees based on the domestic circumstances they are experiencing. They should not be forced into decisions by international regulations.

** The above is an argument I feel is rarely considered and one that, whether correct or not, should be brought into discussion. It does not necessarily reflect my own opinions.

Students and other Hong Kong residents have been protesting in front of the Central Government Complex, over the Chinese Governments announcement it will pre-approve up to three candidates to run in the elections for the Chief Executive of Hong Kong. The protests in Hong Kong have raised questions sovereignty and China’s role in Hong Kong.  I do not think the current crisis is a security or democratic issue, it is a crisis of identity.

Hong Kong is a state of China, it is not independent. Upon independence from Britain it was agreed Hong Kong would be ruled under the principle of “one country, two systems”. If this were a state within America, or even a province in Canada, and the government decided to nominate candidates to then be publicly elected (in effect what currently happens with nominations for MPs), few could disagree. The national government holds ultimate executive and legislative control over the senators and therefore has the choice of who will be nominated or even that of the final representative.

In some countries, yes this position is democratically elected, but in others, such as Canada or the United Kingdom, they are not. They are appointed by the government. Perhaps, it can be argued this is mainly because the government of Canada is a democracy and that the leader is democratically elected, therefore deeming that his choice of candidates will be representative of the voice of the majority of people within the country. The key point here is that, it is also within his right to elect these individuals.

The government of China isn’t selecting the chief executive, but rather it is veting the candidates. As Mr Hoo was quoted saying: “The people on the streets are asking for the right to nominate. Universal suffrage, under the international covenant, means that there are express rights to elect or be elected. There is no express right to nominate.” This is a crucial argument, though some dispute it. Democracy ensures the rights of citizens to elect their representative, and it generally understood that all individuals should have the right to put themselves forward for nomination if they choose to. But it does not specify that all citizens will have the right to nominate. If they did have the right to do that it would create an inefficient political system as there would have to be one election to nominate candidates and then another to select the ultimate winner. Though a party system simplifies this, Hong Kong does not currently follow this for its Chief Executive.

As such, I do not believe the there is a democratic crisis in Hong Kong. A democratic process will be one where the selection of the chief executive is upon the nomination by a broadly representative nominating committee. The new rules will require this, the candidates for chief executive must gain the support of a majority of a nominating committee.

The really issue is here, is that of identity! Hong Kong has a “high degree of autonomy” from China but it is “not full autonomy”. Many of the citizens of Hong Kong seem to be questioning this. There is a growing sense of dislocation among a section of Hong Kong’s population. In recent history Hong Kong has been the beneficiary of China’s growth, attracting multinational corporations and banks that wanted access to the Chinese market. This generated a great sense of arrogance. Hong Kong Chinese have come to enjoy much higher standards of living that the mainlanders, creating a sense of inferiority. However since 1997 the Chinese economy has grown at incredible rates, as has the standard of living. Leading to Hong Kong losing its role as the gateway to China, it is no longer the financial centre for the nation, nor is it the shipping hub it once was.

Therefore I believe Hong Kong is going through an identity crisis as its citizens come to realise their future is inextricably bound up with that of China.

The first step to recovery is acceptance, and right now Hong Kong is in denial, denial denial! In light of realising that they are inextricably bound up with that of China, Hong Kongers are going to panic – as can currently be seen. This being said, realising and accepting are two very different things. Hong Kong is going to have to come to terms with the fact that China is its future, despite much of the populations resistance. As such, at its core, this protest is one of identity not democracy. It is a protest trying to sustain Hong Kong’s identity as one of the strongest areas of China and as one that the Chinese government cannot just dictate to. Only after Hong Kong recognises the evident problem, will it be able to work out its new role as one system within a growing country.

Security issues are generally thought of as conflict. They are associated with armed fighting, military intervention and civilian deaths. The Ebola crisis definitely does not fit into this category. Yet the UN security council on Thursday declared the Ebola outbreak “a threat to international peace and security”.

According to the World Health Organisation’s latest figures, this is the deadliest Ebola epidemic on record having infected more than 6,200 people in West Africa, killing nearly half of them. The US Centres for Disease Control has estimated that the number of cases in Liberia and Sierra Leone, in a worst-case scenario, could rise to 1.4 million by January. The virus is spread through bodily fluids and once symptoms become apparent can kill within four to five days. Symptoms include rampant fever, severe muscle pain, vomiting, diarrhoea and, in some cases, internal and external bleeding through the eyes and mouth.

The UN Security Council declared the Ebola outbreak a “threat to international peace and security“. To provide context, this declaration was made in the same meeting of the UN Security Council as that which discussed ISIS and unanimously passed a resolution compelling member states to ban their citizens from supporting the Islamic State group. This is only the second ever public health emergence to be addressed by the Security Council. Ebola, like ISIS, has bypassed attempts by governments to control it.

This highlights the broad nature of a security crisis and the wide ranging methods that can be used to deal with one. Though the most common form of crisis may be armed conflict, there a broader range of characteristics that should be considered. A crisis is merely an event that does, or is expected to, cause unstable and dangerous conditions. The Ebola crisis does such. The number of cases is currently doubling every three weeks making it highly unstable. Given how easily it is currently spreading and the unpredictable nature at which it is doing so, it is also highly dangerous. The government of Sierra Leone has implemented travel bans across the country and has ordered more than one million people into quarantine, yet the disease is still spreading and many of those not affected are starving given the hast with which many of the movement bans were implemented.

It could be classed as a humanitarian crisis given it is threatening the health of a large group of people. However it can also be classed a security crisis as given rate at which the disease has spread and the induced vulnerability of surrounding countries, as well as the threat countries on a global scale, that this creates. This is highlighted in Obama’s speak to the UN general assembly, where he grouped Ebola with the crisis in Ukraine and the threat posed by Islamic State in Iraq and Syria as new dangers to global security.

Ultimately it does not matter what kind of crisis the Ebola outbreak is classes as, as long as it is called a crisis. The UN using that one word is enough to mobilise countries around the world, broadening their efforts to stop the crisis. European nations have pledged millions of dollar to the effort as well as health aid workers, similarly the USA has also pledged troops to help the effort.

Will this be enough to curb the rate of spread and save the lives of thousands of people? Only time will tell. But the UN’s efforts are a big step towards achieving such a goal.

Declarations of war are marketing strategies produced to emphasis one set of reasoning and understate another. They are announcements of securitisation that dramatise and emotionalise an issue to make it seem morally and ethically necessary. They try to pull at the heart strings of the population in order to ensure the population approves of the governments strategy. In doing so the declaration brushes over certain details of reasoning, to ensure the most likely to receive public support are most highlighted.

As such humanitarian intervention is the “best” a reason a government can cite for declaring war on another states. As the Human Rights Watch said “what could be more virtuous than to risk life and limb to save distant people from slaughter?” Some wars genuinely are to save the lives of others. Interventions, such as that of the French in the Democratic Republic of Congo or the Belgian mission during the Rwandan genocide, were clearly motivated by a desire to stop the ongoing breaches of human rights and were supported by the United Nations.

When American President George W. Bush announced the start of military action in Iraq, the suspected presence of weapons of mass destruction was cited. The high-risk nature of these weapons requied military action, securitizing the legitimate force, or the threat of such force – as with the Cold War. However, this factor was only one of many media focused upon when the war commenced.

For many Americas, the threat of nuclear weapons would not have been enough of a reason to start a war pre-9/11. And even after the dramatic events of that day, this reasoning wouldn’t have been enough for many people, so Bush pulled out the humanitarian card. This played on the heart strings of citizens. The West values human rights above all else, if a government is willing to violate those of their own population what else wouldn’t they be willing to do? Playing into the hands of the media, enabling them to use almost propaganda like journalism to help ignite the flames against terrorism and hatred for Saddam’s Iraq.

The majority of Bush’s speech focused on the people of Iraq and the inhabitants of the United States of America. He used phrases such as “free the people” and “defending the world from grave danger”; he said “people must trust” him and the military; he talked of honour and morality. He spoke of Saddam Hussein “attempting to use innocent men, women and children as shields for his own military”, which he spoke of as “a final atrocity against his people”. Before closing with his declaration asserting that the “dangers to our country will be overcome”. Bush securitized this as a societal problem, Saddam’s regime were violating human rights.

Yet no one was fooled by the idea that America went to war to ‘save the children of Iraq’. They attacked for purely their own benefit. Someone had managed to attack them from inside, they needed to show the rest of the world they were still strong and could fight back, that they could punish those that had threatened them. The humanitarian focus was purely a marketing strategy intended to influence the opinions of America’s.

Declarations of war are ploys to gain citizen support and acceptance even if in doing so it is necessary to bypass the governments actual or key reasoning. The war is going to happen, why the population agree with it is merely detail.