At the moment we are at a time when Brown and Obama are promising a ‘light at the end of the tunnel’ in Afghanistan, yet the American and British public are still highly critical of intervention in the Middle East. The Iraq war in particular has surely been one of the most unpopular wars Britain has fought. Were they in it for the oil? Most likely, after all it is a resource growing more scarce that brings with it great power economically. Maybe the western powers also wanted to spread democracy in a country dominated by tyranny. However, if this were the case then why allow North Korea’s dictatorship, or Putin’s elongated rule over Russia, or the brutal ‘one child’ system in China?

The simple answer is because it’s too risky and I’m guessing the governments of Britain and the US are afraid they will ultimately be defeated. Nonetheless, this is not something that is new to the west’s foreign policy. The World wars are studied rigorously across the curriculum, and many writers have argued that Britain are obsessed with Germany and the subsequent conflict. Personally, I think this is due to the war being the last one that Britain (arguably) and the allies (definitely) claimed victory over an evil enemy. The difficulty with this view is, many believe Hitler to be the epitome of evil, when in fact if you look at death count alone, Stalin and Mao are the more callous. Yet Stalin was, for the majority of the war, an ally. Sure enough, the Cold War was a battle of sorts, but the west seemed to disregard the Communist influence over Eastern Europe after the war and claim victory for democracy.

So why in this instance did the allies allow one evil (the Nazis) to be replaced by another (the Soviets) in Eastern Europe? Perhaps a similar fear of being defeated, but most probably a desire to halt militaristic fighting. Linking back to the modern day, the desire to maintain peace is paralleled…until you remember we are at war. Consequently, the west are still in a stalemate with the east in terms of militarisation and economic competition. The Berlin wall and subsequently communism may have fallen, but the remnants of this ideology still remain in Eastern Europe and Asia. Whilst willingly going to war in the middle east against non-global superpowers, the west are more than happy to uphold peace with the major players on the global scene.

I’m not suggesting for a minute opening fire on North Korea or China would be in any way a sensible idea, that would be a ridiculous form of suicide. It just seems that western leaders are contradictory in wanting peace, yet enforcing democracy on countries that clearly don’t want it through fighting, similar to the British Empire promoting the idea of a collective British race in the colonies. It seems the British public now have an apathetic attitude to going to war in general. Another reason why the World Wars are so thoroughly studied is the motive; a clear antagonist in the form of the Nazis. One of the reasons behind this apathy have been the motivations for wars since then: pressure from the US to assist Kuwait against Iraq (mainly because they were a potential threat with the extra territory), the Falklands war was more about pride than anything else with Thatcher needing a popularity boost and Britain’s prestige on the line as a global superpower, pressure from the US to join the Iraq war with potential motivations for oil (ok, maybe to eradicate a dictator as well) and some small wars that no one really remembers due to a lack of media coverage and the apparent insignificance of the conflicts. All in all, the British people have been quick to criticise motivations for wars.

In a hugely generalised sense, as a modern society we British are very sceptical. Newspaper headlines are always doom and gloom in order to attract readers and make for a more dramatic story, social problems are heightened thanks to sensationalist headlines seen in the Daily Mail ("1 in 3 Olympic jobs is going to a foreign worker" and “bombers on benefits” being the focus of the headline rather than the damage they did after the 7/7 attacks in London.) I know people who avoid newspapers altogether now purely because of such negativity. With the west it’s the same old story, the leaders want a resource from another country or fear another nation’s power, they use opportunism to capitalise on an event, they declare war and then the opposing nation gets bombed. For example, the west fears Iraq and Afghanistan after they defend their country against Russia, Al Qaeda attacks on American soil on September 11th, Bush declares a war on terror, troops are deployed to the middle-east. Try this formula for yourself, could be a fun way to pass the time…or not, it’s up to you.