Social Problems and Globlization – The United States Navy – Global Policing
From the Spanish Armada of 1589 that tried to conquer England, or the Battle Of Trafalgar that was fought in the Napoleonic wars. The navy of one’s country, if huge enough is always used to conquer lands, to expand territory not only on lands adjacent but overseas globally. The modernization of naval power, lead by the British gave rise to floating huge fortress of the Great War and subsequently the defeat of Japanese naval forces during World War 2 gave the importance of airpower in combination with sea power, which in turn gradually shape navies of today, and in particularly the United States Navy into Aircraft Carrier based navy of today.
Today the US Navy not only protects the interest of their own, for years they have been unchallenged as the peerless naval power, gives them the duty, or rather proclaimed duty to patrol the seven seas. From what I know, US navy carrier task groups together with marines within the carrier, are governed by US laws while on the craft itself, thus it’s a mini united states floating around the globe policing the world with its massive naval firepower.
For any countries, particularly small ones that are unable to fend for themselves, having Uncle Sam nearby becomes an incentive, sea becomes peaceful, and nobody would ever thought of trying to be funny. However this has changed since the attack on September 11, given the fact that terrorist are targeting US property and lives, having Uncle Sam nearby would mean that the country would very much likely to be implicated as seen to be friends of the US.
This implication was clearly shown when the Singapore Government released information that terrorist plans to bomb US army personals in Singapore. If it were to happen, collateral damage will be huge. With the data released, the general Singapore public although appeared to have faith in the government that such incident will not happen, but I believe it does affect everyone’s way of life in a certain way. People began to be suspicious of anything or anybody, I am sure anyone would take a second glance or even notice Arabic nationality on the streets like never before. Not only that, the government’s efforts in educating the public to take note of any suspicious character or baggage found discarded in public places also raised the alarm. Perhaps what’s worse is the prank calls that alerted the authorities for nothing except making the situation more tensed. Sure, the society would say that they are not afraid of terror, but when prank calls are made, it does show something, it’s either the person is really out of his mind, or he knows that the society actually fears and he knew he can create unrest with it.
Sad to say as we can see from it, the world already depended too much upon the US navy for peace and security. For every international conflict that we see, if there is any US intervention, the presence of its navy would be felt quickly by the aggressor. To most people, especially those nations that once was helped by the US in such a way, would trade it for constant fear of being implicated as after all, nobody would ever know when a terror strike will happen.
It has been seven years after the attack on US soil, the fuel of the war on terror has been reduced at the war front, and everything seemed to be slowly quieting down and US is told to make haste in their plans to systematically withdraw from Iraq. It seems that the fear has quietly died down over the years. However what I feel is that as long as the US Navy continues to police the world in this manner, there might be a future incident again. Although it is a trade off for ‘world security and peace’. The world might be more chaotic without the deployment of their naval forces all over the world. - Kevin Tan, HS103 Tutorial Group 05
