Theories of Power

The United States and Afghanistan's War:

 Since 1999 the United States and Afghanistan have been at war with one another. This was has been going on since 1999, which is about twenty years now. In 1999 the United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 1267. The point of this was to reaffirm its strong commitment to the sovereignty, independence, territorial integrity and national unity of Afghanistan, and its respect for Afghanistan’s cultural and historical heritage. This created the al-Qaeda and Taliban Sanctions Committee. This committee linked the two groups as terrorists and later imposed sanctions on their funding, travel, and arms shipments. According to the articles I read the United Nations followed al-Qaeda and its leader, Osama bin Laden.  The United States wanted to remove the Taliban from control as they were hosting al-Qaeda terrorists and camps, who were the main suspects of the September 11 attacks. On September 11th, 2001 Al-Qaeda terrorists striked the United States. They crashed into the World Trade Center (New York) and the Pentagon (Washington DC). Close to three thousand died in these attacks. On September 18th, 2001 president George W Bush signed a law that allowed for the use of force against those involved in the September 11th attacks. The United States used realist power in this case and definitely not liberalist. They had many forms of hard power such as military force and the use of sanctions. The United States is also continuing to send troops out to Afghanistan which too adds to their acts of hard power and realism. The main point I would like to focus on is George W Bush signing that we are allowed to act and use power towards those who invaded the United States in 2001. These two forms of hard power: military force and the use of sanctions are the definition of realist power. Realists explain power politics in terms of hard power abilities whereas liberalists believe more so in soft power and rules that follow international order. In the example I gave we see that each state wants to protect its national security against an action taken by other states, this falls under realism. Those with more liberalists points of view believe in leading by example but this is just not something that could have worked with the damage that was done in these acts.
https://undocs.org/en/S/RES/1267(1999)

https://www.cfr.org/timeline/us-war-afghanistan

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