Tabi – LVI
Introduction
Since the emergence of international politics in the 19th century a country’s military, economic or political spheres of influence have determined its global relevance and in turn its power. With the rise of ‘super powers’ such as the United States of the Soviet Union after WWII the question of responsibility vs danger is becoming increasingly urgent. While power can give nations the tools to protect others – as seen in WWII with America’s supply of arms to the allied nations – it has also encouraged bolder, more dangerous moves notably by Nazi Germany and the use of piecemeal tactics. A famous saying claims that “with great power comes great responsibility” but how many countries can we actually say fully align with this belief? At what point does intervention become protection and when does it turn into the pursuit of dominance and resources?
What does power actually mean in global politics
Power has evolved in the 21st century to mean more than just brute military force and instead can be argued as a country’s ability to act without permission or as if they have a different set of rules. In some people’s opinion this all started in the League of Nations created in 1920 by Woodrow Wilson when he gave ‘powerful’ countries the right to veto. This meant a domination of diplomacy from the current most powerful countries like the United Kingdom and France. More recently diplomacy has had almost everything to do with economic power, especially with the role out of Trump’s tariffs which is seen by many as an extension of the United States’s global influence, but even during the industrial revolution we can see the boost it gave to British Empire allowing them to achieve as big an empire as they had. Finally, the most historic and obvious form of power has always been through military strength. From as early as the beginnings of the British Empire in the late 16th century military power has been established as a fast track to becoming an internationally recognised, respected or feared global force. With the height of the British Empire peaking territorially in 1921 (encompassing around 13.7 million square miles) it gave the British the ability to ‘intervene’ (colonise) in nearly 170 nations, something we are beginning to see in areas like Ukraine despite international law stating otherwise.We can see from this that history has been littered with power hierarchies created through a triumvirate of economic, military and diplomatic origins.
Heavy is the head that wears the crown – how does power make countries more responsible?
With greater resources comes a greater capacity to help, but is this capacity always exercised? There’s various examples throughout history that paint power in a much more favourable light than we often see in the media. For example, after the mass destruction of world war 2 to many areas of Europe the Marshall Plan was created and put into action by the United States which provided over 13 billion dollars in aid to help rebuild and stabilise economies. At this time America was significantly less wounded than any other nation (alongwith the Soviet Union) and was therefore in a position of power to offer such generous humanitarian support. However, some people question whether the United States intentions were purely to help out its former trading partners or rather to contain the spread of communism from the only other global superpower, the Soviet Union. On the other hand the united nations repeatedly act benevolently to provide relief to many people in tragic situations such as refugees of war under UNRRA or the WFP, but the UN can’t act without funding; this is why we can view powerful countries as playing a part in humanitarian aid due to the donations made to the UN and in 2025 the United States donated roughly 2 billion and 700 thousand US dollars to the united nations closely followed by Saudi Arabia with 2 billion US dollars in donations (according to FTS OCHA); proving humanitarian exploits to be a sufficient measure of a country’s power.
Pride breeds the tyrant – how does power make a country more dangerous?
The current political climate is worrying at the very least, partially due to the sheer violence of some ongoing conflicts but highlighted due to the clear lack of consequences for the responsible countries. We’ve seen similar things happen before, when a country is higher in this international hierarchy they exploit those under them with little concern for international guidelines or even morals; for example the emergence of the slave trade in the 1500s, the history of power has been underscored with vicious oppression. Powerful countries are facing fewer and fewer consequences as the normalisation of impunity continues to spread, an example of this is Russia’s invasion of Ukraine which is a fundamental breach of Article 2(4) of the UN charter. But has anything actually been done about it? Apart from widespread condemnation and the provision of aid to Ukraine; NATO along with other alliances are reluctant to directly intervene in the situation in Ukraine largely out of fear of escalation. However in 1990 when Iraq invaded and annexed Kuwait the UN Security Council suddenly intensified everything they were doing, a coalition of over 35 countries formed to completely expel Kuwait from Iraq, so why isn’t that happening now? The difference clearly isn’t in the morals, but rather in the obvious diplomatic veto power Russia possesses along with intense military strength. Power quite clearly doesn’t just have the ability to allow countries to act, but to act recklessly and without concern for intervention.
Conclusion
There is obvious tension between the branches of power; whether it offers protection and aid or dangerous and reckless exploits. While the UN does its best to treat all countries equally, it’s practically set up to favour the more historically powerful countries like Russia and the United States through veto powers, whilst steps are put in place they are usually ignored and consequences for stronger countries are few. However to assume all power is dangerous is to assume all politicians don’t have morals – which is for the most part untrue. Steps towards diplomacy have been made either through indirect intervention and public condemnation, but we rarely see a full blown dispute from anyone other than the big powers themselves. Leading some to believe that global politics is currently being dominated by squabbles between the powerful nations with smaller states being caught in the crossfire. So, if we cannot hold these nations accountable, how can we claim power to be responsible?