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Originally Posted by orange dave
Really? Then which school of international relations would explain China's rise in the last couple of decades, as opposed to, say, India, a democracy? It certainly wouldn't be liberalism...though not necessarily Sun Zi's version of realism either. Actually, realism is a fairly nebulous term - even Kennan considered himself a realist. But bearing that in mind, I don't think realism is any less relevant than it ever was.
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During that time period, did China achieve economic growth through privatization of most sectors? Did it open it's border to private firms world wide? Did it gradually accept neo-liberal policies regarding its economics? Is India not close second or third in terms of economic growth? Why wouldn't it be liberalism? Because China due to liberal economic policies grows faster than India with its democratic political system? That doesn't make any sense at all.
Now, did China achieve economic growth through military force? Did it become richer by waging war on its neighbors? Do businesses flock to China because of it's state's hard power? There's absolutely no way you can credit a realist approach to China's economical development. How can China grow when economic revenue is supposedly a relative gain? That too doesn't make any sense.
Realism is a very well defined political platform. You can have Neo-realism in the field of international security, but then again, not only does it not differ that much, it's not very related to what we were talking about.
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We went to war in Iraq based on little more than the fact that they were Islamic. We can do just about anything short of banning the religion without any threat of a legal challenge. Just because it happens in a peacemeal fashion doesn't mean the effect doesn't exist.
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Oil? Ideal of political stability in the region? Bush is an idiot? 9/11 scare?
Those had nothing to do with it, the US looked at all the "Islamic" countries in the world, by-passed Indonesia (eventhough it is the biggest "Islamic" country), decided to overthrow a secular regime in Iraq and established a Shi'ite based religious government.
That does not make any sense either.
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Cultural relations, not security relations.
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Still completely irrelevant to bring it up in this thread.
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The point...this is a religious conflict.
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Again, not at all.