Lesson video

Hi everyone, and welcome back to this unit, exploring the question how does the UK still play a meaningful role in the international community? Sadly, this is our final lesson of this unit today, but I very much hope that you've enjoyed your learning so far.

Today, we're going to look at global conflict resolution, and the UK plays in this really important aspect of international politics.

So please make sure that you're somewhere quiet and you're ready to learn.

So for today's lesson, you'll need an exercise book or some paper, and if you've joined us for the previous lessons, all your notes on those, and you will need a black or blue pen and preferably a different colour pen, so you can self-assess your work too.

And make sure that you are in a quiet place where you can concentrate on the lesson.

If you need to go and get those, please pause the video now and then come back once you are ready.

So in today's lesson we will be exploring three key questions.

Question number one is, what are the different ways conflict can be resolved? Question number two is, how has the UK used different methods of conflict resolution to resolve modern conflicts? And question number three is, what is UK's role in NATO, and how does NATO contribute to global conflict resolution? Okay, so our first question of today's lesson is, what are the different ways conflict can be resolved? Let's have a think about some different scenarios.

So, if you had fallen out with a group of friends, how could you resolve the conflict kind of between you? If you had gone against something your parent or carer had said, how could you resolve the conflict between you in this situation? What punishments might you receive? And if you were in the city, and a group of people started to fight, how might the police resolve the situation? What I would like you to do is pause the video and just have a little think of some ideas on how you would answer those questions.

Okay, so maybe you got some of the ideas I got too.

So if you'd fallen out with a friend, you know, you could talk to each other, you could maybe ask someone for some help and support to bring the group back together.

And it's quite common in schools, a teacher or member of staff will support you in discussing your problems. You may receive a reprimand if you've gone against your parent or carer.

So you might get a telling off, you might get a punishment, so you might get something taken away from you.

And the police might use force to split up the fighters, or they might put more police officers in the city to put people off.

And these ideas here are also replicated in the wider world, when they're used by countries and international organisations to help resolve global conflict.

And global conflict resolution is basically the removal of tensions between countries, and it's where they help overcome disagreement between countries and ensuring peace is maintained.

And it can be summed up in that sentence there at the bottom, maintaining stable and positive relationships between countries in the world.

Now, you may want to pause the video now and just make a note of what global conflict resolution is before we go on to the next part of the lesson.

Okay, so there are three different methods of conflict resolution which we're going to focus on in today's lesson.

Number one is the use of sanctions.

Number two is the use of mediation.

And number three is the use of force.

So before we go any further, we're going to have a look at what these three different terms mean.

And what I would like you to do, is have a look at the three sentences below and see which one matches to which method of conflict resolution.

So which defines sanction, which defines mediation and which defines force.

If you're not too sure of one, maybe use a process of elimination, do the ones you do know, and then leave the one you don't know until last.

So, make sure you add this task to your notes.

So, pause the video now and give that a go.

Okay, so well done for giving that a go, I'm sure that you got it all right.

If you've got your different coloured pen, now might be the time to get that out and use it to self-assess your work.

So, the sanction to resolve conflict, this is where a penalty is imposed on nations who have broken rules or agreements.

Okay, and there are lots of different types of sanctions used, so it might be stopping people from travelling, it might be stopping them trading certain goods, it might be imposing limits on the type of economic transactions, to do with money they can do.

The international community use lots of different sanctions.

Number two is mediation, okay, and this is where those involved in the conflict are brought together, and somebody acts as a neutral third party, so they're not there to take sides, and they help both sides come to their own agreement, okay, so the mediator works through the issues with the conflicting parties to help them, on their own, reach the best decision.

They don't really get involved in the decision-making.

And finally the use of force, okay, so this is where military action is used against a nation to either prevent conflict or to stop conflict getting worse.

So this is where the armed forces might be brought in, so the army, the RAF or the navy.

So make sure you've got those three definitions added to your notes.

Okay, so the second question for today's lesson is how has the UK used different methods of conflict resolution to resolve modern conflicts? So with this, we're going to look at case studies, and see how the UK has used these.

And for this, what I would like you to do, is exit the lesson video and access the worksheet attached to the lesson, and have a read through the three different conflict summaries and decide which conflict matches which method of mediation, sorry, which conflict matches which method of conflict resolution.

So is it a sanction, is a mediation or is it force? And you can just add those to your notes, and if you want to, you could also summarise the conflict but that is up to you.

So, pause the video now, and have a go at that task, and pop back once you have finished.

Okay, so well done again for giving that a go, and I'm sure that was okay for you to do.

Let's have a look, so a sanction was used in Belarus when it denied its people their access to democracy.

So the UK stopped members of the Belarusian government travelling, it put limits on the financial transactions it can make The UK supported the Yemen conflict with providing a mediator through the United Nations.

So a British diplomat worked with the two sides in Yemen and helped them come to a peace agreement, and the UK used force in Syria to help them overcome the terrorist organisation Daesh.

So hopefully you've added those examples to your notes, and again, if you're doing GCSE Citizenship these examples are really useful to use in either an extended answer, or if you get a short answer what asks you to name a method of conflict resolution or give a example of when conflict resolution has been used, you've got some really good points here to support your answer.

And the final question we're going to explore today is what is the UK's role in NATO? And NATO is an international organisation that the UK is a member of.

So the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, or NATO, is a political and military organisation founded in 1949, and they promote democracy and cooperation as a means of conflict resolution.

So they will try and get people together to cooperate through diplomacy rather than military force.

However, they also have a military alliance, and they will use military force if they need to resolve conflict.

And this organisation is a collective so it will call upon allies and other nations to help them resolve conflict should they need to.

There are 30 members, and the members include the UK, USA, Germany and France.

And obviously 26 more, but you do not need to remember all 26.

Okay, so one of the conditions of being a NATO member is that they agree to spend at least 2% of its GDP on defence.

This means that members will then have the means to support one another if conflict arises, so it means that they'll have a well trained army it means they'll have a well-stocked fleet of perhaps ships and planes, should they need to support one another.

And NATO members also agree to Article 5 if they become a member, and Article 5 is a form of what is known as collective defence, and this means that if one member is attacked and invokes this article, all members consider it an attack and taking that same reaction to assist its ally.

So if one country says, "I've been attacked, and I invoke Article 5," all other members must support that country in its action.

And this has only been invoked once so far and that was when the attack on 9/11 happened in the USA.

And just in case you're not too sure what GDP is, GDP is basically the total monetary market value of all the finished goods and services within a country.

So it's basically all of their money.

And NATO undertake lots of different projects.

We don't have time to go into all of them but I've just selected two, okay, and these are two projects that the UK support because of their membership to NATO.

So one project is the air policing mission and an air policing mission are missions that enable NATO to detect, track and identify violations and infringements of its members' airspace.

So if someone's breaking the rules around entering a country's skies, NATO can take action.

And these missions often take place when a member state doesn't have its own fighter jets to carry out this work.

So for example, the UK is currently supporting the Baltic air policing mission, which patrols the skies over Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

And the mission promises to have fighter jets on standby 24/7 in case of an unauthorised event of access to airspace.

And in 2019, the NATO's Baltic air policing mission were called upon around 200 times to safeguard airspace.

So the UK takes its turn to support this mission.

And there's a picture of a UK fighter jet.

And another mission that the UK helps with, is an anti-piracy mission, okay, and an anti-piracy mission is to stop pirates.

And pirates are really a cause of disruption in the modern world because they disrupt the world's shipping routes, making trade, tourism and humanitarian relief missions really difficult, because the pirates basically try and board the vessels and perhaps sometimes take what's not theirs, or perhaps sometimes endanger life.

And in 2019, the UK supported Operation Allied Protector, which use UK naval ships to patrol the Gulf of Arden off the Horn of Africa, and basically this mission aimed to deter and capture pirates operating in the area, and the UK naval ship the HMS Cumberland, successfully stopped pilots boarding a commercial ship in the November of 2019.

So the UK does take its role in NATO very seriously.

Okay, what I would like you to do, is just reflecting on what I have just been talking about, is there is a grid with six boxes on, I would like you to copy out the grid or if you'd rather just write sentences, you can do but there is some errors in each of the squares, okay, and what I would like you to do is, as you're copying them out, have a think back to what I've said and correct each sentence as you are copying it.

So pause the video now and give that task a go.

Okay, so well done for giving that task go, and here are the answers.

So again, that different coloured pen will be really useful right now, if you have it.

So NATO, so the first one had the wrong letter in it.

It's a political and military organisation.

It has 30 members, and the UK does support NATO missions to patrol airspace and stop piracy.

But the UK must spend at least 2% of its GDP on defence.

NATO encourages collectivism of its members.

This means that members make decisions and act together.

So it's a support environment where members come together to help each other out.

And NATO's Article 5 means that if a member is attacked and they invoke the article, others do have to help them, okay, so they sign up to say that if a member invokes Article 5, they will help them if this is called upon.

So well done once again for giving that task a go.

So that brings us to the end of today's lesson, and hopefully you can name and give the different methods of conflict resolution, you can link the different methods of conflict resolution to contemporary conflict and explain what the UK did in these conflicts, and you can explain the work of NATO and the UK's involvement in the organisation.

So well done on all your hard work today and indeed, well done for all your hard work in the entire unit because this is our last lesson in the unit exploring the issue and question of the UK's meaningful role in the international community today.

So I hope you've enjoyed the unit, I very much have.

Please make sure that you do complete the exit quiz before you leave the lesson today to assess your learning, and thank you very much for joining me and good luck in your Citizenship studies, bye.

A final point, if you are able, and you would like to, please do ask a parent or carer to share your learning from this unit with us at Oak National, and they can do this via Twitter by tweeting @OakNational and using the hashtag #LearnwithOak and then I will be able to pick this up and have a look at all your hard work on Twitter.