GPHC 2018-2019

George Larach 11/9/18 Global Politics Tensions in the East China Sea Currently, there is a conflict reaching critical condition between China and Japan over who the Senkaku islands, a small group of islands around 330 km off the coast of China, belong to. Originally, the islands were formally claimed by Japan in 1895 and have been privately owned by Japanese citizens since then (except for a brief period in World War II, when the United States controlled the islands). The conflict began when potential undersea oil reserves were discovered in 1968, and since then the territory has been disputed. In April of 2014, Barack Obama stated that the islands are covered by the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty (also known as the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security Treaty), but the U.S. does not take a position on who ultimately takes sovereignty. If the U.S. or Japan were to accidentally make a military or political mistake, the U.S. could be forced into armed hostilities with China. The...

Kayley Nguyen Mr. Roddy GPHC November 4, 2018 Civil War in Syria The Syrian Civil War is a complex conflict that involves several nations, rebel groups, and terrorist organizations, and has devastated the entire country and its surrounding countries. In 2011 a nonviolent protest was started and quickly escalated into a intense warfare. What had originally begun as a protest against President Assad’s regime in 2011 had escalated into a war between the Syrian government; which was backed by Russia, Iran, and anti government rebel groups which was backed by the United States, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and others. Since the fighting had begun more than 1,470,000 people were killed or had been injured, forcing millions of more people having to leave their homes and live as refugees. Some things that have influenced this conflict is the coalition efforts to defeat the Islamic State, violence between the Syrian government and opposition forces, and military operations against Syr...

     The Russia versus Ukraine "the ultimate battle royale for Crimea" conflict. Everyone knows the conflict or at least they should, The whole conflict started in 2014 with Russia annexing Crimea. Immediately Russia backed separatists equipped with Russian weapons and armament attempted to split Ukraine for those in favor of Russia and those that are not. The entire conflict is Russian separatists against the Ukrainian Government Forces. Russia and Ukraine have been duking it out ever since.      In 2018 the fighting has ramped up in the Spring of 2018 and Russia has shown no signs of stopping for peace by putting sanctions on Ukrainian public figures. These sanctions have affected 300+ Ukrainians and 50+ companies owned and or linked to high profile people. Hoping the sanctions will affect the Ukrainian presidential elections. There have been many attempts to establish a peaceful resolution. A few countries including Uk...

Cole Barger Mr. Roddy GPHC 31 October 2018 War in Yemen The civil war in Yemen began because Houthi rebels, who are members of the Shiite side of Islam, which is a subset of Shia, started demanding a new government and lower fuel costs. The government was Sunni based, which is the other side of Islam, the Shia’s and Sunni’s are not always on the same page and have had disputes like this before. The Sunni based government has many allies including: Saudi Arabia’s coalition and the US, the Shia rebels main ally is Iran. The rebels have started bombing Saudi Arabian territories like it’s oil tankers for example. This is a very big deal to both Saudi Arabia and the US, because they can’t risk losing that much in Saudi Arabia. Recently, the Saudi coalition has increased its efforts in the fight against the Houthi rebels. This has resulted in many civilian deaths, in fact since the conflict started there have been around 16,000 civilian deaths. There is also around 2 milli...

One of the biggest ongoing conflicts in the world right now is the Syrian Civil War. How did this start? In 2011, due to the arrest and torture of some teenagers who painted revolutionary slogans on a school wall in the Syrian city of Deraa, pro democracy protests sprung up all over the city. This nonviolent conflict was met with violence, which escalated the situation further. This lead to nationwide unrest, protests, and demands for President Assad's resignation, which were also met with force. Eventually, protesters took up arms, and the country descended into civil war. Eventually, more sides got involved in the conflict, such as ISIS, who took advantage of the chaos to try to gain control. Currently, there are multiple rebel groups, who are fighting among themselves. Attempts at deescalation have failed and the war has raged on, causing large amounts of Syria's population to flee the country. Many different foreign actors are also involved in the war, and in a way it has a...

Arjhong Mardani Mr.Roddy Global Politics   November 5, 2018 The War In Afghanistan The War in Afghanistan commenced with the United States Invasion on Afghanistan in October of 2001. Prior to, the United States was supported by many, such as the UK, Canada, and later on, with many more countries and all members of NATO. The reason for this invasion was in order to abolish the Taliban and take out their positioning as a powerful political movement. The War in Afghanistan would be viewed as violent conflict which initially causes direct violence. Violent conflict usually consists of direct violence, which in this case is measured by the damage to infrastructure and death toll on both sides. It also means that people are being killed off as a cause of physical- direct action: which in short means, people are willingly killing people. (Below you can see an image of a few Taliban members, obviously armed and capable of causing tremendous acts of terror) ...

Truth and reconciliation commissions are commissions that are tasked with with discovering and revealing past wrongdoing by a government (or sometimes non-state groups), in the hope of resolving conflict leftover from the past. Following a grueling five decades of war —Latin America’s longest running war— Colombia has begun its Truth and Reconciliation commissions. The conflict occurred between the Colombian state and various anti-government rebel groups, such as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia and the National Liberation Army (ELN). The commission composed of eleven members was founded in 2016 as part of a peace deal between the Colombian government and the FARC. The commission is just one of a trio of organizations started to repair the damages brought on by the war there. During the 50+ years of war, more than 220,000 people were killed, along with an estimated 8 million war victims. The country saw a mass migration, as 10 million of the country’s inhabitants fled to nei...

The country of Switzerland has been famously officially neutral for the past 200 years, with its last battle being fought against the French over 500 years ago, in 1516. When the Treaty of Paris was signed in 1815, the European powers officially recognized Switzerland as a neutral country, one that wished to avoid all military engagements. Since then, the Swiss have maintained their neutrality through both world wars and throughout the 20th century, when everyone was already picking sides during the Cold War. But don't mistake neutrality for pacifism, however, as the Swiss have a well trained and equipped military. Although only 5% 200,000 of the Swiss military is comprised of professional soldiers, with the rest being a sort of reservist militia, they can be activated and ready to fight in about 30 minutes. Combined with the difficult mountainous landscape, hidden artillery, booby trapped infrastructure, it would be trouble than it's worth to attempt to invade the Swiss. But b...

Japan has had a complicated history with peace and conflict. The people there have been committed to creating peace since the end of WWI but lost track of that goal during WWII. This started over a hundred years ago when Western civilizations were spreading all over the world. When the Western civilizations began coming through Asia, Japan decided to not let these people take over. To prevent this, Japan created a constitutional government sooner than other countries in Asia and this helped them keep their independence. Then WWI happened and colonization slowed down greatly. At the end of WWI, 15 major countries agreed to General Treaty for the Renunciation of War. This treaty was created so that countries would not use war to solve conflicts. Japan kept with the other countries and continued the peace for a while but then when the Great Depression started impacting western countries, Japan’s economy suffered greatly. In an effort to get out of these issues they began using violence. S...

Connor Morley Mr. Roddy IB  Global Politics in Historical Context  5 November 2018  GPHC Blog - Peace and Conflict: Germany         Today, Germany is a thriving democratic nation with the highest population of any nation located wholly within Europe. It has a HDI (Human Development Index) rating of 0.936, the 5th highest in the world, as well as one of the largest economies in the world with the country’s current GDP measured at 3.877 trillion USD, currently measured as the world’s sixth largest specifically. The country’s government is a federal parliamentary republic, somewhat similar to the United Kingdom except without a ruling monarchy. Germany also maintains favorable public relations with many countries both within the Western world and outside of it, similar to most highly-developed European nations. However, throughout much of the 20th century, Germany (and the various puppet states that it controlled and the states that emerged out...

Currently, Nicaragua is their most significant time of conflict since their civil war, which ended in the 1980's. This conflict is based on structural changes which were implemented following the civil war. In fact, the conflict which in now occurring is because of protests directly countering President Daniel Ortega and his policies. The two main stakeholders in this case are President Daniel Ortega/The Nicaraguan government and the student lead, counter-government group, which has not been officially named.  Historically, Ortega has been known to give land titles and other welfare benefits to poor, at the same time be criticized by others for using Venezuelan oil and money to win over the poor. This historic "generosity" with government funds was shocking and opposed when the President changed social security benefits.  When these protests began about the change in social security, the students were met by police forces. Protesters died at the scene, which according...

   The Ugandan Bush War, also known as the Ugandan civil war, began in 1981 just after the reelection of the unpopular president, Milton Obote. Obote was first elected to become the president of Uganda in 1966 and was overthrown in 1971 in a coup d'état. When he was reelected in 1980, many groups that were against Obote claimed that the election was rigged. These groups came together to become the National Resistance Army (NRA). The NRA fought against Obote’s government, Uganda National Liberation Army (UNLA).    The reason people were upset with Obote being reelected has to do with what happened in Uganda during his first term. Obote was the first president Uganda had after they became an independent country in 1962. After Obote took leadership, the country began to decline in general living standards and corruption took root. Obote’s government also created a large disparity between northern and southern Uganda. The way infrastructure and education s...

For my GPHC conflict blog, I chose to study the conflict, sometimes considered a civil war, in Ukraine. This conflict first started in 2014 although unrest in the country dates further back. Ukraine was an idealistically split country in which the western half was pro-european, and the eastern half, including their president, Viktor Yanukovych, was russian influenced. The country was given a chance for a deal to integrate more into the European Union, and was split by people who wanted this, and many, including the president who ended up not taking the deal, didn’t. Many protests against this decision started in late 2013. Later, some of these began to get violent between the protestors and the police before the president fled the country in February 2014. In March 2014, Russian troops took control of Crimea, the part of the country with the most russian speakers and the most pro-russians. President Vladimir Putin claimed he was protecting the rights citizens who opposed...

The War in Donbass started in 2014, as a result of the Euromaidan protests and the Ukrainian Revolution. The Euromaidan movement began after the Ukrainian government decided to pursue closer ties with the Eurasian Economic Union, instead of following through on their promise of signing an association agreement with the European Union. The increasingly pro-Russian actions of the government led to a period of civil unrest and mass protests, which culminated with the 2014 Ukrainian Revolution. The government was overthrown, and the president at the time, Victor Yanukovych, fled to Russia. Ultimately, the revolution resulted in the creation of a new pro-European government, as well as in the rise of separatist forces in the eastern region of the country and the annexation of Crimea by Russia through military intervention. The increasingly powerful separatist forces count on the support of the Russian government, and are located mainly in the regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, both of which en...

Although Korea was founded around the time of Christ, it remained fractured into two or three regions until the early 900's. Korea then enjoyed a long period of unification which lasted almost 1000 years (the Koryo and Choson dynasties and the short-lived Korean empire). On August 22, 1910, Korea was colonized by Japan with the acquiescence of the British and other western powers, who at the time were busy colonizing other parts of the world.  When Japan surrendered in 1945, at the end of World War II, the allies divided Korea into a northern region, protected by the Soviets and a southern region protected by the Americans. For three years these two regions tried and failed to form a unified government, and conflicts developed along the border.  After a further two years of tension and fragile relations, the Korean civil war broke out on June 25, 1950. On July 27, 1953, the Korean Armistice Agreement was signed to "insure a complete cessation of hostilities and of all...

In the northern Rakhine province of Myanmar, violence and conflict over religious, identity, and territorial grounds has been ongoing since August of 2017. The conflict, between Rohingya Muslims, an ethnic minority, and the Buddhist majority, traces back to the late 1970s when Rohingyas were considered illegal citizens, beginning a “cycle of forced displacement”. Between 1989 and 1992, around 250,000 Rohingya fleed to Bangladesh after being subjected to forced labor, relocation, rape, executions, and torture. In 1992, Bangladesh and Myanmar agreed to repatriate refugees to their own country, despite backlash from the international community. To this day, the government of Myanmar continues to deny Rohingya citizenship, refusing to recognize their existence as legitimate citizens and human beings. On August 25, 2017, the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), attacked more than 30 police posts and militant posts. In response, Myanmar troops, backed by local Buddhist mobs, bu...

The War in Ukraine is taking place in eastern Ukraine’s Donbass region and it has been active for five years. 10,000 people have been killed (2,800 of which were civilians) and about 2,000,000 people have been displaced from their homes. This is one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world with attacks from both sides across provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk. The war started in 2014 when Ukraine was divided between people who wanted to be affiliated with Russia and people who wanted to affiliate more with Europe and NATO (North atlantic treaty organization). In the capital of Ukraine the people who affiliated with Europe overthrew the people who affiliated with Russia. Donbass (A region in Ukraine which borders Russia with Russian and Ukrainian ethnicity) had reactions to the overthrowing of their people. Religious forces started to fight Ukrainian military and made forces stronger with the help of Russian army units. Donbass was once a urbanized and industrialized region and he...