Middle East Retaliation to the US: A Realist Perspective

Middle East Retaliation to the US: A Realist Perspective
By Sean Whalen

 For the past several days, there have been widespread protests against US embassies in Arab countries over the video “Innocence of Muslims” that satirizes the Muslim Prophet Mohammad. At the beginning of the demonstrations, protestors entered the US embassy in Libya and killed the US ambassador and three other Americans. The creator of the film, which was posted online about six months ago, is now in hiding, but a man who helped make the film stated that “We went into [making the film] knowing this was probably going to happen” (Quinones). The protests have been staged in part against the United States itself, an idea which has facilitated the spread of the protests to over 20 countries, including Egypt, Libya, Israel, Tunisia, Sudan and elsewhere. Anti-American sentiments led protestors in Lebanon to attack American fast food restaurants in the area, a symbol of how the violence is being misdirected in the demonstrations.

 Secretary of State Clinton has stated that the rage is “is prompted by an awful internet video that [the US government] had nothing to do with,” and even the UN Security Council has released a statement condemning "in the strongest terms" the violence, saying "the very nature of diplomatic premises is peaceful and ... diplomats have among their core functions the promotion of better understanding across countries and cultures” (Batrawy). Despite the US diplomats’ efforts to diffuse the issue, al-Qaeda has called for more attacks with the aim of “expelling the embassies of the United States from Muslim countries,” and the US has called for a return of many officials working in the Arab countries and has deployed advanced military teams to protect several different embassies (US Pulls Some Embassy Staff…). However, the violence has calmed down in the last few days, and several countries, such as Israel, have joined the protests in a peaceful manner, in solidarity with their fellow Arab people. The issue has brought a very strong focus on to American foreign policy, and the US response to the protests will signal to the rest of the world how America stands in today’s political scene.

 This brings us to how the US should respond from a realist’s perspective. The primary focuses of a realist are on a state’s survival and security, once those are met the state can work on its self-interest; seeing as these protests are not a viable threat to ending the sovereignty of the United States, we will focus on the security of the state as that is what is most threatened at the moment.

 One tenant of realism is the belief that there is only a certain amount of power in the world, ant that for one country to gain power requires another to lose it. It is important to note that power is merely the influence one entity has on another, and though weapons and soldiers are one part of that, they are not what is meant when power is mentioned. The demonstrations have clearly shown that US power in Arab countries is dwindling, as the protestors are proving that they will not listen to what the United States asks of them (e.g. leaving the embassies alone). This lessening of US power will be cemented if the United States does not do anything to regain that power, as Thucydides claims through Athens, a state would look weak if it does not maintain its record of action against non-allies (Thucydides). Though it may not be a direct retaliation to their current loss of power, the US announced on Saturday, September 15, that it has a plan to modernize its outdated stockpile of nuclear weapons, a $395 billion project (Priest). This is a trend of showing power that has been popular since the beginning of the cold war: the retaliation power of a country is a very strong deterrent for any attacks at all. Though it was obviously not drafted and decided only because of the problems in the Middle East, the unveiling of this plan is a strategic ploy to prove to the world that the United States still has a great deal of power.

 The other main threat against US security is the balancing of power that other countries are doing currently to offset the extreme powerhouse that is the USA. Though it could be claimed that the alliances of the Arab countries are made because of their shared religious identity, a stronger part that will play in with the states themselves is their worry about the balance of power. In Steven Walt’s article on the origins of alliances, he evaluates the causes of alliances from a strictly realist perspective, and comes to the conclusion that because states are only worried about their own survival and security, they are inherently more worried about siding in a way that ensures their safety in power struggles than they are about protecting a common ideology (Walt). With that in mind, once the governments of these countries begin publicly expressing their alliances on the issue, the will most likely try to band together to strike an alliance that offsets the US power. The other, less likely, occurrence would be that these countries bandwagon with the United States, in an effort to gain increased security if a conflict does emerge. Though this does have some advantages, it would create system where all of the allying countries would be avoiding upsetting the balance of power within their own area, as they would be more equal in power than relative the US, as well as causing strange changes to the proximal power of each country.

 With all that said several questions remain. What will the short term response the US power be within the protestors themselves, will they become peaceful or heed al-Qaeda’s call? Given the US deployment of troops in the area, how will their protection of their interests influence their perceived power in the area? Will the Arab countries chose to balance or bandwagon power, particularly since many of these countries have just instated new governments? How will the world see the US in response to these attacks on their embassies, considering the fact that forceful retaliation is not very likely and the US has to find some way to retain power? The most important aspect of US foreign policy now is making sure that their security is retained, so there will undoubtedly be interesting developments as the entire world reacts to the shifting of balance of power, which is currently moving from the United States into the Arab countries in the Middle East.

 Works Cited

 Batrawy, Aya and Keath, Lee. "Anti-Islam Film Protests Spread To Sudan, Tunisia, Across Middle East." Huffington Post World 14 September 2012. Web.

 Priest, Dana. "Aging U.S. Nuclear Arsenal Slated for Costly and Long-Delayed Modernization." The Washington Post 15 September 2012. Web.

 Quinones, Sam. "U.S. ambassador killed; California man behind anti-Islam film hides." Las Angeles Times 12 September 2012.

 Thucydides. The Melian Dialogue. n.d. "US Pulls Some Embassy Staff as al-Qaeda Calls for Fresh Attacks." The Hindu 16 September 2012. Web.

 Walt, Steven. "Alliance Formation and the Balance of World Power." International Security (1985): 3-43. Web.