Feed or Teach
‘Countries experiencing conflict should be left to sort their own problems.’ How far do you agree?
Dissecting the Question
This is a relatively doable question. Clearly, because the question is asking you ‘how far do you agree’, this is an Extent type of question. Your job is to draw the line in the sand and share with the reader when should intervention be justified.
If you haven’t caught it already, there is a trapdoor here. When writing this essay, you should only be considering the interests of the country affected, not the country offering assistance. Some students fall into that trap and assume that the question is asking them if we should be allowed to solve conflicts for other nations. The question is actually asking you when is intervention justified. This means you have to explain the benefits and drawbacks of intervention, weigh the pros and cons of intervention, before deciding if intervening is in the best interest of the host country.
Definitions
Experiencing conflict: Conflict can be inter-nation or intra-nation. It can range from civil uprisings to political turmoil. In this essay, we will examine both intra-nation and inter-nation conflicts.
Sort their own problems: This means that there will be absolutely no attempt to influence the actions of other nations.
Context
Clearly, this question is not localized to a specific distance or time frame. However, as the breadth of the topic is extremely large, we will be only be picking several examples in different geographical locations and from different epochs to support our substantives. In this essay, we will examine the Egyptian revolution of 2011, the 2003 Iraq war, and Sri Lanka’s 1987 civil war and the Cuban Sugar Intervention of 1917.
Keeping in line with the spirit of the question, we will assume that any and all kinds of foreign intervention are meant to benefit the common peoples in the host nation. We are also assuming that countries intervening have limited self-interest and are intervening solely out of altruism.