Realist
philosophers operate on the idea that it’s a dog eat dog world. That everyone
is always building up their power to take you down and the only way you have to
protect yourself is to compete in the race. This leads to the inevitable arms
race. Because there is no cooperation between states there is no communication,
and without communication there is no knowledge of what the pursuit of technology
is for. Popular scenarios include the sake of science, better quality of life,
or for war.
While
I generally do not find realism the most enticing philosophy to explain
international relation and international policy formation, I do feel it is very
relevant to countries which have opposing philosophies and, to put it concisely,
are in a bit of a power struggle. I feel both of these are true with the United
States and the United Arab Emirates. While there is no physical military struggle,
Abu Dhabi and Dubai remain to be bases in the Middle East where some of most
technological advances happen and is also a major oil and natural gas exporter,
ranking in the top 10 consistently. The US is a power, yes, but a major
consumer and player in the Middle Eastern oil companies, regulations, and
politics. The UAE is investing quite obviously in renewable energy and
experimenting with fuel efficient cities as well as using solar and wind energy
to replace large consumers rather that the single-family-house approach that US
citizens are taking. This being said, I think the realist belief that an arms
race is a natural course, I do not think it is blind or out of fear, but perhaps
more of a power play.
The
most recent invention which is gearing up for major publicity is Abu Dhabi’s
all-solar plane which is set to fly around the world in stretches as long as
120 hours. The plane made major news last year when the single-seater flew for
a full day straight. The second edition will be the next global step toward
reducing, and possibly relieve, all airplane exhaust which currently plagues
the atmosphere. The UAE-based company Masdar is the backing for the Swiss
company Solar Impulse which are coming together to engineer this potentially
world-altering invention.
The
pilots of Solar Impulse did their first test fly across the contiguous United
States, harnessing interest then and keeping engineers here and abroad aware of
the invention that may well prompt rails and cargo ships to utilize the same
technology and reduce emissions. In my eyes, that would be a global
achievement. So I’m going to go ahead and label this arms race to be the most
fuel conscious and efficient to be a good thing.
I enjoyed the different lens that you looked through for discussing realism. Most people would have focused on the military consequences of realism but you decided on this "fuel efficient arms race" which I thought was a very clever. While you did focus on realism you did not follow it blindly and showed where realism works and where it does not. Overall I thought this post was very good the only thing I would improve on is to add the American aspect of the competition. You mainly focused on the UAE in the arms race you only touched upon how America fits in to the power struggle.
ReplyDeleteThanks Evan! It was really interesting to write about. You are correct about the American involvement though, as I did more research, I realized that the US was more of an onlooker than anything else, despite our efforts to help in this technology (and by help I mean for our scientists to gain access and possibly duplicate it) it had been a strict relationship between the pilots and engineers who are operating it and the research funders. Next time, I will either not make promises about the US involvement or dig a little deeper.
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