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IHC test, some reference

First, special thanks to TYM, Chee, Kiayee and myself for providing these bits and pieces of info

Format of test questions, to attain the highest level, pls look carefully...

Write generally, describe a bit abt wad u are told (the given factor or the issue u r tending with, e.g. UN questions, then talk a bit abt UN)
Agree/disagree with the issue and identify other factors without support
Explains the given factor with supports of further details (elaborate, show example and link to ur stand)
Agrees and Disagrees with supports
must haf L4, and at the same time discuss relative importance of all the reasons based on degree of impact (full marks)

With the question answering skills here, now stock up ur content knowledge... continue looking =D

There are three topics tested in IHC (for those hu dun even noe this, beware)

Terrorism
Diplomacy and Deterrence
International Organisations/regional organisations

Terrorism
The possible question (which two people think) to come out is: "To what extent is military intervention the most effective mean to counter terrorism? Explain ur answer"

(note: for the abv question can gif u any method as a given factor)

Three factors to resolve terrorism are:

Military
Negotiation
Economic aid

Taking the abv question as an example, military intervention is the given factor and u haf to elaborate on it, bring in examples and link to the reason why it is a effective mean to counter terrorism.

Miltary

Elaboration: Military attack on the terrorists is effective/efficient because in the short run, terrorists cannot reorganise because they are defending their base of influence under attack. It also deters people who are potential future terrorists from turning into a terrorist. Doing so will also result in an end to the influence of a leader among the terrorist by killing him/her.

Examples: USA's military invasion on Afghanistan, killing potential terrorists by bombing possible hideouts.

Explaination: This is an effective method as there was an absence of terrorist attack since 2001 in USA mainland. Decrease in number of major bombing around the world after the 911 incident.
Negotiation

Elaboration: Negotiation involves a bit of diplomatic tactics, this involves meeting with terrorists and agreeing on certain terms to release hostages or put a stop to terror attacks. This is considered effective as there is no involvement of human lives lost and will help more people understand the terrorists' thinking/motivation.

Example: Northern Ireland terrorist attacks involving the catholics and protestants, negotiations carried out and that resulted in the IRA signing the good friday agreement whereby IRA has declared an end to its campaign and has since decommissioned what is thought to be all of its arsenal.

Explaination: This shows that negotiation is effective as terrorists also has an aim when terrorising, negotiation will help both sides to see their conflicting interests and look for a compromise on these conflicts.

Economic aid

Elaboration: It involves the sending of aid or helping relative countries develop through improve infrastructure or training its citizens to improve its economy.

Examples: XXX, i carn find any at all...

Explaination: Economic aid will help people in those countries live better and thus people will not be forced to join terrorist grps. People usually join terrorist grps because of oppression due to religious discrimination/hatred or economic strains or disapproval with government policies. Thus this method is effective.

Ranking

Negotiation, terrorists dun negotiate with us, their demands are extremely demanding (aka stupid) such as a demand for big criminals to be released which sometimes can never be done. Moreover, the Chinese saying of 得寸进尺, terrorists' wishes will also never be accepted as the government will fear that this will encourage more terrorist activities if their wishes were appeased.
Military intervention, this method is onli effective on the short run, for a short while terrorism will be stopped but after all, they can still re-grp when the guard is let down. Homegrown terrorists' surfacing cannot be stopped by preventive deterrence as these terrorists are in the country itself. Too much focus will results in weaking of forces protecting the mother land (own country).
Economic Aid, this is the best as it does not involve bloodshed and serves as a prevention instead of a cure for the problem on terrorism. Even so, this might not lead to reduction in terrorism as the money given to aid a country may land in corrupted government's hands.

Diplomacy and Deterrence

High chance of coming out as a 12 mark question (may be combined with International Organisations so i haf decided to combine these two)

Diplomacy is basically anything that has to do with relationships between countries.
Most commonly seen diplomatic means used between countries to improve relations is through negotiations.

Uses: Resolves conflicts, Reach agreements between countries, Improves trade

Types of diplomatic means:

Joining international/regional organisations

Examples:

UN helping Kuwait fight off Iraq in 1950
UN general assembly voting
ASEAN aiding its members by forming trade union, act as one when dealing with bigger countries (China, USA ...)

However, membership in such organisations may not help countries if the problem submitted is irrelevant to the organisation (Piracy problems in Singapore, both UN and ASEAN did not bother to resolve it)

2. Bilateral relationsExample: Singapore and Malaysia's:

free trade agreement (no tax)
Selling water to Singapore

Works onli with friendly nations, as nations hostile towards u will never work as they are not friendly with u.

3. Multilateral relations

Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia "Growth Triangle" ---> economic hub

If Singapore is affected, these countries will also be affected. However, this is affected by personal interestes as seen thr the following example:
E.g. Singapore wants to keep the money that Indonesians criminals have put in Singapore and refused to sign the Extradition Treaty.
This advantages Singapore and is disadvantageous to the the latter.
Thus, Indonesians have refused to sell sand and granite to Singapore and refused to sign the Defense Treaty with Singapore so Singapore's military airplanes cannot enter Indonesian waters This results in the weakening of Singapore's deterrence policies.

4. Deterrence (good and bad points)

Lack of deterrence will result in bullying by other nations
May trigger arms race, when saturation point is reached, war might break out
Deterrence can be used as a threat to weaker nations

To solve the problem and not get to war, an example would be to join Military Organisations such as the Five Power Defense Arrangement - involving UK, Australia, NZ, Malaysia & Singapore.

International Organisations

UN
ASEAN

these two are the onli ones tested but when answering related questions, can apply other IO, such as European Union.

First thing to noe abt, UN's security council's purpose is not to stop war, UN prevents global conflicts (which is true as there has been no major war since 1945, the world war 2)

To what extent is UN's peacekeeping effective?

Effective

Diplomatic pressure placed in countries due to presence of peacekeepers
Taking pressure off conflict parties in order to make way for negotiation for peace to take place

Ineffective

Peacekeepers are withdrawn when faced with prospect of being involved in the conflict UN is trying to resolve
Complicated conflicts (middle eastern ones) involving religion might be intractable that even UN peacekeeping might not be able to resolve
Use of force is not allowed as this destroys the characteristic of UN and the cooperation of one of the parties of conflict
Cares onli abt major global issues (minors ones uncared: piracy in Straits of Malacca)

Must understand that the ineffectiveness of UN may be caused by each country that have pledged to aid in UN's peacekeeping are only interested in their own needs and gains, every country is selfish and self centered.

ASEAN

It aims to prevent the domination of Southeast Asia by external powers (China, USA, Japan, India...)

Successes: Taking advantage of fears and ambitions of major external powers to counter-balance each of them, while extracting concessions along the way. China as an example, diplomatic ties are drawn with China, on one hand giving "face" to her yet avoided involving ourselves in potential disputed with China such as the Taiwan independence and Japanese Textbook issues.
ASEAN negotiates with China as 1 and negotiated a free trade agreement with China because of fear that China's entry into the WTO may draw away trade and investments.

Failures: Piracy Issues in Straits of Malacca, Myanmar and Thailand did not care as the piracy issue did not affect them, thus resulting in the forming of the Five power defense Arrangement* to protect the trading in this area.

*look at the top for what is FPDA

Thats about all... gd luck guys

A sorrow no one can understand nor share..