Sealing the Peace: Economic Trade between Egypt and Israel
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Authors
Bleed, Jacob D.
Issue Date
1996
Type
Thesis
Language
en_US
Keywords
Alternative Title
Abstract
When considering the road of peace, a nation faces many
obstacles. It must reckon with forces both internationally
and internally.
Ours is a world of conflict. Ingrained in every nation
is a latent recognition of war as an option. The willingness
that each nation shows to exercise this option is relative to
their perceptions of national interest and the defense of
that interest. This distinction, actual threat versus
perceived threat, is a tough one to make is based largely on
how much of an option war is to a particular nation.
War or the violent oppression of one's will over another
is never justified. The violent defense of one's will in
the face of such oppression although unjustifiable, is at
least, more easily understood and supportable. Although
proven means of non-violent resistance exist and are
justified in the face of violence, our perceptions of states
and sovereignty deny them as options and see violence as the
only answer to violence. But this distinction between
offense and defense, between actual and perceived threat is
blurred by differing opinions as to national interest.
Every nation has a differing view of where their national
interests lie and to what extent those interests should be
defended. A wide disparity exists among nations as to this
extent. The Vietnam War for example was contained to south
east Asia, literally across the world from United States
sovereign territory, yet military and political leaders in
the US perceived that communist power in the area constituted
a threat to national interest and therefore, war was
justified. On the other side of coin, North Vietnamese
leaders saw violence justified in the face of years of
colonial oppression of the Vietnamese people of which US
intervention was simply the latest edition. In this case,
neither side is justified in their use of violence but have
widely differing views as to where and how national interest
should be defended.
The ability to recognize actual versus real threat is of
great importance to the discussion of peacemaking. Before
peace can be effectively established, nations must first
recognize clearly where conflict exists and between whom and
under what circumstances the conflict can be resolved. They
must recognize where national interests are in conflict.
If peace between two nations can be considered a state
of relations where outright hostilities do not exist, then it
can be obtained in one of two forms. Specifically, these
forms are the balance of terror relationship and the balance
of prosperity relationship.
A balance of terror can be said to exist between two
nations when peace is attained through mutually applied
threat of war. Both sides of the peace have prepared for and
are willing to go to war to such an extant that great
devastation is mutually implied, indeed, inevitable. Under
this condition, the involved nations must also be willing to
go to war regardless of the implied costs for it is on the
idea of threat that the balance exists. A balance of
prosperity is a distinct opposite of this relationship.
Under this state of relations, two states are engaged in
profitable interactions to such an extent that their profits
from this trade are great enough to encourage continued
peaceful interaction. These profits are conditional to
their continued peaceful interaction and, ideally, are great
enough to deter war. This, the balance of prosperity, is
obviously the preferable of the two. A third state of
relations exists as well, that one being a state of mutually
recognized friendship and fraternity such that a
particularly close and relatively unique relationship
exists. But since our focus is on trade between two past
belligerents, this state of relations is hardly applicable
and will therefore be ignored here.
Description
45 p.
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