Primary Reading 1945-1990 and 1990 to 2007

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The EvolvingInternational System

IIGaddis, John Lewis. We Now Know: Rethinking CaU l W ar Hiscory. Oxford, 1997. Zubok, Vladislav, and

Constantine Pleshakov.

In si de th e Kremlin s Coul War: Fr om Sta lin

co

Khrushchev.

Harvard, 1996. Garthoff,

Raymond. Detent e and Co nf ro ntation: Ameri ca n-Sovi et Relations fro m Nixo n co Rea gan . Brookings, 1985. Larson,

Deborah Welch.

Anacomy of M is CTUSt:U.S .-S ovi et Relations During th e CaU l W ar.

Cornell, 1997. Trachtenberg,

Marc.A Constructed Peace: The Making of th e EUTO/>ean ett lement 1945-1963. Princeton, 1999.

1 9 1 4

it was just such hard-line policies that apparently led Europe into a disastrous war,

whichmight have been avoided by appeasement. Evidently the best policy would be some-

timehar h and at other times conciliatory, but IR scholars have not discovered a simple

formulaor choosing (see Causes of War in Chapter 5).

TheC o l d W a r 1 94 5 1 9 9 0

TheUnited States and the Soviet Union became the two superpow.J;.rsof the post-~

War11era.

22

Each had its ideological mission (capitalist democracy versus comrnunjsm), its

n~ o~es and clients, and its deadly arsenal of nuclea~porihEuroE.e was di-

vided,with massive military Torces of t4~it __ tates and its North Atlantic Treaty

OrganizationNATO) allies on one side and massive forces of the Soviet Union and its

WarsawJ?,acfaIlieso~ther. Germany itself was split, with three-quarters of the coun-

ry-and dlree-quarters

0

t e capital-city of Ber in-occuple 5y the umtecfS tates, -

Britain,and France. The ~ainder, surrounding West Berlin, was occupied by the Soviet

Union.CriSes in Berlin in 1947-1948 and 1961 led to armed confrontations but not war.

In 1 . 9 6 1 . E~ Germ3.I y built the Berlin Wall sepa. 1'ing East from West Berlin. It symbol-

izedhe division of Europe by what Winston Churchill had called the iron curtain.

Despite the hostility of-East-West_relations during the Cold War, a relatively stable

frameworkof relations emerge ,and conflicts never escalated to all-out war between the

larget states. At a U.S.-Soviet-British meeting at Yalta in 1945, when the defeat of

Germany

was

jmminent, the Western powers ;Zkno~edged the fact of the Soviet army's

preence in East~ Europe, allowing that area to remain under Soviet influence. Although

the oviet bloc did not join Western economic institutions such as the IMF, all the world's

major tates joined the

UN.

The United Nations (unlike the ill-fated League of Nations)

managedto maintain almost -muversal membership and adherence to basic structures and

rulesthroughout the Cold War era.

The central concern of the West during the Cold War was that the Soviet Union

mightgain control of Western Europe-either through o.1ltright invasion or through com-

munists'taking p~r-weary and impoverished c n 'es ofWest~urope. This

couldhave put the entire industrial base of the£~rasian landmass from Europe to SilJen:

underone state. The Marshall Plan-U.S. financial aid to re ui C \ European economies-

responded to these fears, as did the creation of the NATO alhance. Half of tFie entire

world'smilitary spending was devoted to t e uropean stando. uch spending was also

devoted to a superpower nuclear arms race, rrr-w lC eac superpower produced tens of

thousandsof nuclear weapons (see pp. 215-216).

Through the policy of containment, adopted in the late 1940s, the United States

t

ought to halt the expansion of Soviet influence globally on several levels at once---= Ui-_

tary,political, ideological, economic. Ihe United States maintained an extensive network

ofmili~ses and alliances worldwide. Virtually all of U.S. foreign policy in subsequent

decades,from f , i n aid and technology transfer to military intervention and diplomacy,

cameto serve the goal of

contarnment,

The Chinese communist revolution in 1949 led to a Sino-Soviet alliance Sino means

Chinese ). But China became fiercely independent in the 1960s following the Sino-.

Soviet split, when China opposed Soviet moves toward peaceful coexistence with the

9



St a lin

I

Kh rushchev

I

Brezhnev

I ~I~I

Gorbache

Soviet

I

0

nuc le ar p arity with U .S .

-0

c: :

Unio n

A-bomb

Sputn ik

c: :

a ;

reforms

«

r : :

(perestroika ,

a

u

<>

W ars aw P ac t -- 'JI oo-

,

glasnost )

c: :

.

- . . . . - ~

o

n uc le ar a rm s ra ce

=

hu man right s

Un ited

~

NATO -...

I

m ili ta ry b uildup

I

,

States

co nta in me nt p olic y -- 'JIo o- (nuc lear supe riority ove r U SS R)

(Iran

S tar Wars (SOl )

L . : . . . . . I crisis)

To. Roosevel tT --- ;:;:;;m ;;; . T-- - Eisenhower

I

Kennedy l

I I

Ford

I

Carter

I I

Bus

III

Johnson N ixon

Reagan

I

Sino -So v ie t al l iance

Si no-Sov ie t

U. S .-China rapprochement

civi l

So v iet .

wa r

sp lit

border

Ch ina

(Nat ional ists - P e op le s R e pu blic -- 'JIoo- .

A-bomb

clashes

joins

death

n e ut ra l t o

UN

C om m unis ts) (Ta iwan na tiona lis t) Ta iwa n

Cultu ra l Revo lu tion

of

pro-U .S .

s tuden

S tr a it s c r is e s

M ao p rotest

(v s . U .S .)

K U r I . ,

Be rlin W all V i et na m Wa r'

Afgill i l l is tat W ar

Wl i r

Be rlin cris is

I

Conf rnn -

USSR

rations

.

Sovie t

Cul lIJ

invades

U .S . invasion

Berl in

in vasion

U -2

M issile

Czec hos lovakia

o f G re n ad a

.

crisis

o f H un ga ry in cid en t

Cris is

Greek

Cuban

Somal ia

N icaragu a - ••.

c ivil

revo-

Ch ile

vs .

P r o x y

wa r

lut ion

coup

Ethiop ia

E I Sa l vado r ... :... .,.

W ars

I ndones ia

Cambod ia

--)110-

Suez

cr is is

A rab -I srae li wars

I

Ango la -- 'JIoo-

N on -

Paris

L im ite d

Prol i fera tion

su m m it

Co-

Ya lta G enev a Test Ba n

Treaty

detente

(C FE )

operat ion

sum m it sum m it. Tr eat y

IN F

SA LT I SA LT II

STAR T ta lks

trea ty

,

I I I

I

1940

1950

1960

197 0

198 0

__ The Cold War, 1945-1990



· T he E vo lv in g In te rn atio na l S ys te m

UnitedStates. Z3 In the late 1960s, young radicals, opposed to both superpowers, ran China

dur~ the chaotic and destructive

CulfU ra l-~volu ti o1l.

But feelmg threatened by Soviet

power,China's leaders developed a growing affiliation with the United States during the

1970s,starting with a dramatic visit to China by U.S. president Richard Nixon in 1972.

Thisvisit led to U.Sc-Chinese diplomatic relations in 1979. During the Cold War, China

generallytried to playa balancer role against whichever superpower seemed most threaten-

ingat the time.

In 1950, the

Korean W ar

broke out when communist North Korea-attacked and over-

ranmost of U.S.-allied South Korea. The United.States and its allies (under UN authority

obtainedafter the Soviets walked out of the Security Council in protest) counterattacked

andoverran most of North Korea. China sent masses of volunteers to help North Korea,

andthe war bogged down near the original border until a 1953 truce ended the fighting.

TheKorean War hardened U.S. attitudes toward communism and set a negative tone for

futureEast-West relations, especially for U.S.-Chinese relations in the 1950s.

fThe Cold War thawed temporarily after Stalin died in 1953. The first summit meeting

b~tweensuperpower leaders took place in Geneva in 1955. This thaw in relations led both

sidesto agree to r.>constitllte Austt:ia, which had been split into four pieces like Germany.

Butthe Soviet Union sent tanks to crush a popular uprising in Hungary in 1956 an action

itrepeatedin 1968 in Czechoslovakia), and the Soviet missile pro a~ orbited Sputnik

in1957alarmed the United St The shooting own of a U.S. spy plane (the over

e oviet Onion in 1960 scuttled a summit meeting between superpower leaders Nikita

, f _~ --

lChrushchevand Dwight D. Eisenhower. Meanwhile in Cuba, after Fidel Castro's commu-

nistrevolution in 1959, the United States attempted a counterrevolution in the botched

1 9 6 1 B a y o f P igs invasion.

These osti ities cul mated in the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, when the Soviet

Unioninstalled medium-range nuclear missiles in Cuba. The Soviet aims were to reduce

the~e Union's strategic nuclear inferiority, to counter the deployment of U.S. missiles

onSoviet borders in Tur ey, an 0 eter another U.S. invasion 0 u a. .. eader-s,

however,considered the missiles threatenin and rovocative. As historical document; re-

vealedyears later, nuclear war ·wasquite possible. Some U .. policy makers favored military

strikesbefore the missiles became operational, when in fact some nuclear weapons in

Cubawerealready operational and commanders were authorized to use them in the event

ofaU.S.attack. 24)Inste~d, Pres.ident John F. Kennedy imp~sed a naval blocka?e to force

theirremoval. The SOVIet Union backed down on the missiles, and' the United States

promisedot to invade Cuba in the future. Leaders on both sides were shaken, however, by

thepossibilityof nuclear war. They signed the

L im ite d T es t B an T re aty

in 1963, prohibiting

atmosphericnuclear tests, and began to cooperate in cultural exchanges, space explo-

ration,aviation, and other areas.

The ~uperpowers often jockeyed for position in the glob~th, supporting

proxywan; in which they typ~pplied and advised opposing factions in civil wars.

Thealignmentswere oftenarbitrary. For instance, the Unite tates ac e the Ethiopian

governmentand the SOVIets backed next-door rival Somalia in the 1970s' when an

Ethiopianrevolution caused the new government to seek Soviet help, the U~ed States

switchedo support Somalia instead.

---------------

2JMay e rs, D avid A ll an .

Cracking the M ono lit h: U .S. Poli cy against th e S ino- Soviet A lli ance

1949-1955.

Loui sianaSt ate ,

1986.

Kim , Il pyo ng [., ed .

Beyond th e Stra tegic Triangle.

P arago n,

1992.

1 4 Nath an, Jam e s A ., e d.

The Cuban Missil e Crisis R ev isite d .

St . Martin 's,

1992.

M ay, Ernes t, and P hilip

Ze lik ow ,e ds.

The Kenn edy Tapes: In side the

W hite

House du ring the Cuban M iss il e C risi s.

Harv ard ,

1997.

3 1

C u b a n

M is s i l e C r i s i s



V ie tn am W a r

~ --- ~ -~~~~-------

Ch.pt• , T h,G IOb , I; tio:l: ' t~ ,1 ~O ' ~

One flaw of U.S. olicy in the Cold War period was to see all regional conflicts

throug ast-West lenses. Its preoccupation WI communism ledtile DnitectsrnRS to sup

por t unpopular pro-Western ~n ~ number of poor countries, nowhere more

disast~y than during the Vietnam W ar in the 1960s. The war in Vietnam divided U.S

citizens and u1tirillUelyfailed to prevent a communist takeover. The a of South Vietnam

illT9'7'5 appearedto signal U.3. weakness, especially combined with U.S. setbacks in the

Middle East-the 1973 Arab oil embargo against the United States and the 1979 over

throw of the U.S.-backed shah of Iran by Islamic fundamentalists. -

- In this period of apparent U.S. weakness, the Soviet Uni;;nrnvaded Afghanistan i

2 1 2 . : ~ut, like the United St;i:es in Vietnam, the Soviet Union could. not suppress rebe

armiehupplied by the opposing superpower The S..Q.~ietsltimately withdrew after os

a decade of war that considerably weak ed the Soviet Union. Meanwhile, Presiden

.Zonad Reagan built up U.S. military forces to record..s~an supported rebel armies i

the Soviet-allied states of Nicaragua and Angola (and one faction in

e a r n

0 ia as well a

AfghaillStan:Superpower relations slow y Improvea- afte~Mikhail Gorbache;'-; reformer

took power in the Soviet Union in 1985. But some of the battlegrounds of the ~lobal Sout

(notably Afghanistan and An ola continued to suffer from brutal civil wars (foug t wit

leftove ar arms) into the new century.

In retrospect, it seems that both superpowers exaggerated Soviet strength. In the earl

years of the nuclear arms race, U.S. military superiority was absolute, especially in nuclea

weapons. The Soviets managed to match the United States over time, from A-bombs to H

bombs to multiple-warhead m~. By the 1970s the S O V 1 :e ts - h : a c l ac teved strategic par

itY,

~ng

i~er side co0.d p[eE.~~~ own destruction in a I}lli:learwar. But be

llind this military parity lay a Soviet Union lagging far behind the West in everything

else-e-sheer

wealth, technology, infrastructure, and citizen/worker motivation.

I;JUne1989, iilliSsTvepro-democracy dem~ati.ons~~Shina'~capital of Beijin

(Tiananmen square) were put down violently by the communist government. Hundred

were shot dead in the streets. Around 1990, as the Soviet Union ?t.ood

y . ,

one after an

other Eastern European country· replaced its cO Jlmunisi:-government under pressure o

mass demonstrations. The toppling of the Berlin Wall in late 1989 symbolized the end o

the Cold War division~rope. Germany formally reunilied in 1990. T heSoviet leade

Gorbachev llowed these losses of externa -power and more)ln hopes of concentrating

on Soviet domestic res ructunng un er IS 0 icies of perest ru ik a (economic reform) an

glasnost ~ss in politica iscussioDJ In 1991, however, the Soviet Uniol'l..illelJOrok

apart. Russia and many of the other former republics struggled throughout the 1990

against economic and financial collapse, infl . rCOtIDption,war,...an military weaknes

although they rem .ne po emocracies. China remained a communistvauthoritarian

government but liberalized its econom avoided military conflicts. In contrast to th

Cold War era, China developed close ties with both the Unit;d ?t,tes and Russia an

joined-the ) Qrid's lil3~ra.ltradin8 egime.:....- c J O u P Y U r;t)-l/

Scholars do not agree on the important question of why the Cold War ended.P On

view is that U.S. military strength under President Reagan forced the Soviet Union int

bankruptcy as it tried to keep up in the arms race. A different position is that the Sovie

Union suffered from internal stagnation over decades and ultimately imploded because

weaknesses that had little to do with external pressure. Indeed, some scholars think th

25

Koslowski.Rev, and Friedrich Kratochwil. Understanding Change in International Politics: The Soviet

Empire's Demise and the Intemational System. Intern ationa l Organ izat ion 48 (2), 1994: 215-48. Brooks,

Stephen G., and William C. Wohlforth. Power, Globalization, and the End of the Cold War: Reevaluating a

Landmark Case for Ideas.

In ternational Security

25 (3), 2000/2001: 5-53. Herrmann, Richard K., and R. Ned



T he E vo lv in g In te rn atio na l S ys tem

Soviet Union might have fallen apart earlier without the United States as a foreign enemy

to bolster the Soviet government's legitimacy with its own people.

T h e P o s t C o ld W a r E r a 1 9 9 0 2 0 0 7

@

7 J « 0

The post-Cold War era began with a bang, while the Soviet Union was still disintegrating.

In 1990, perhaps believing that the end of the Cold War had left a power vacuum in its re-

gion, Iraq occupied its neighbor Kuwait in an aggressive rab for control of Middle East oil.

-western powers we a arme - ot a out the example at un unished a ression

set in a new era and about the direct threat to energy supplies for the world economy. The

United States mobilized a coalition of the W orld'smajor countries (with almost no opposi-

tion) to counter Iraq. Working through the UN, the U.S.-led coalition applied escalating

sanctions against Iraq.

When Iraq did not withdraw from Kuwait by the UN's deadline, the United States and

its allies easily smashed Iraq's military and evicted its army from Kuwait in the

Gulf War.

Butthe coalition did not occupy Iraq or overthrow its government. The costs o T the Gulf

ar were s are amo e partlClpan s coa I lon, Wit ntain and France making

militarycommitments while Japan an ermany ma e substantial financial contributions ..

Ihe pass-the-hat £mancing for this war was an mnovatton, one that worked fairly weft26

The final collapse of the Soviet Union followed only months after the Gulf WarY

The 15 republics of the Soviet Union--of which Russia was just one-had begun taking

powerfrom a weakened central government, declaring themselves sovereign states. This

processraised complex problems rangmg from issues of national self-determination to the

reallocation of property. A failed military coup attempt 'in 1991-and the prominent role

OtRusslan pres:dent BQ; isYeltsin in opposing it-<tccelerated the collapse of the Soviet

Union.

28

Soon both capitalism and democracy were adopted as the basis of the

economies and political systems of the former Soviet states. The republics became inde-

pendent states and formed a loose coordinating structure-the

Co mmonwealth of

Independent States CIS).

Of the former Soviet .republics, only the three small Baltic

Stlrtesale nOilmembers. .

Western relations with Russia and the other republics have been mixed since the

1990s.Because of their own economic problems, and because of a sense that Russia needed

internal reform more than external aid, Western countries provided only limited aid for the

region'sharsh economic transition, which had drastically reduced living standards. Russia's

. brutal suppression of its secessionist province of Chechnya in 1995 and 1999 provbke~:l

Western fears of an expansionist, ag ressive Russian nationalism. Russian leaders feared

NATO expansion into Eastern Europe that pace t reatenmg estern military forces on

Russia'sborders. Meanwhile, Japan and Russia could not resolve a lingering, mostly sym-

bolic, territorial dispure. .

Despite these problems, the world's great powers overall increased their cooperation

after the Cold War. Russia was accepted as the successor state to the Soviet Union and

took its seat on the Security Council. Russia and the United States agreed to major reduc-

tions in their nuclear weapons, and carried them out in the 1990s.

Just after the Gulf War in 1991, the former Yugoslavia broke apart, with several of its

republicsdeclaring independence. Ethnic Serbs, who were minorities in Croatia and Bosnia,

seized territory to form a Greater Serbia. With help from Serbia, which controlled the

2 6

Freedman, Lawrence, and Efraim Karsh.

The Gulf

Conflict: 1990-1991. Princeton, 1993.

21 Fukuyama, Francis. The End of History and the Last Man. Free Press, 1992.

2 8 McFaul, Michael. Russia s Unfinished Revolution: Political Change from Gorbachev to Putin. Cornell, 200l.

2 9

Ikenberry, G. John. After Victory. Princeton, 2000.

33



Yugoslav army, they killed hundreds of thousands of non-Serb Bosnians and Croatians a

expelled millions more, to create an ethnically pure state.

The international community recognized the independence of Croatia and Bosnia, a

mitting·them to the UN and passing dozens of Security Council resolutions to protect the

territorial integrity and their civilian populations. But in contrast to the Gulf War, t

great powers showed bear ma'or costs to ro ·a. nstead they tri

to contain the conflict by assuming a neutr r e as eacekee er and intermediary.3o

e -f ,i [( W ces

overran two UN-designated safe areas in eastern osnia, ~pe i

the w~en and slaughtering thousands of the men. Finally, two weeks of NATO

strikes (the alliance's first-ever military engagement), along with losses to Croatia on t

ground, induced Serb forces to co~e to terms. ~ treaty to end the war (auth~ed byU

negotiators) tormally held Bosnia to etherbu~ed s e r b forces autonomy on half of

rritory, w I e placing a out 60,000 heavily armed (mostly NATO) troops on the grou

to maintain a cease-~ire.

- In contrast to t : t l e f r ' i ; decision early ~nthe ~~snia crisis, the ~ estef pow~rs acte~-

cisively in 1999 whe erbian forces carried out ethnic cleansm,.g in the Serbian provm

~ of Kosovo, predo minantly populated by ethnic Albanians. NATO launched an air war th

Y

\ ~ over ten weeks. NATO came under criticism from Russia and China for acti

without explicit UN authorizati . . (The intern

I a community and the UN considered Kosovo, unlike Bosnia, to be a part of Serbi

~

K os ov o W a r In the end, Serbian forces withdrew from Kosovo and the UN has controlled the provin

since, with the question of independence to be decided by the UN Security Council

\ , . . l Y 1 2007.

31

Meanwhile, Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic was indicted for war crimes

...., ~ the UN tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, was delivered to the tribunal in 2001 after l

._~ )/.\ JJ~

ing power, and died in 2006 near the end of a lengthy trial.

).. I.JV Other Western military intervention decisions since 1990 were less effective.

if

1 .,

Somalia, a U.S~-led coalition sent tens oft1io~sands of troops to suppres(iact~ £ighti

, - , . . t J P • )

fJ .T ~

delIver reltef suppltes to a larg~opulatLon that was starving. However, when tho

~'f - cYt ..J' vforces were drawn into the fighting and sustained casualties, the United States abrupt

.• T) • y vJ pulled out.

32

In Rwan?a in 1994, the genOCi?e of more than half a mi lion civilians in

Y

l.

U

j) matter c l weeks was Ignored b nter communit . The great power

~

~ vA burned by failures i Soma' an sni, ecided that their vital rests we~t

(9AV q . \ sta e. n 1 7, the wanda con 'ct . ed into neighboring Zai~now Democrati

I \ /IvY

-congo), where rebels overthrew a corrupt dictator. Neighboring countries were drawn int

c J Y . . the fig.h~ing,but the international commu~ity steered tlear.evenas conditions worsepe

. and millions of civilians died. The U.S. military mtervened m Haiti to restore the electe

~

president, ~ut today Haiti remai~nured in poverty and political instability.

~w nfts opened In 2001 between the United States and both China and Europe-

~ossibly si aling a realignment against U.S. pre~ominan.ce in world affairs. The United

v

t: ;J '

'l?

States st od near y alone against the rest of the International community on a range o

~v

\lQ

issues-missile defenses, the~aty on global warming, a treaty to enforce the prohi

x

/:r

3 4

Chapter 1 The Globalization of International Relations

30

Gow, James. Triumph of th e Lac k of W ill: In ternational D iplom ac y aM the Yu gos lav War. Columbia, 1997.

Rieff, David. Slaught erh ouse : Bosn ia

aM

th e Failure of th e W es t. Simon

Schuster, 1995. Malcolm, Noel.

Bosnia: A Short H istory . New York University, 1994. Gutman, Roy. A W itnes s to Genocide . Macmillan, 1993.

31 Bacevich, Andrew 1 · and Eliot A. Cohen. War ove r Kosovo . Columbia,

2002.

Mertus, Julie A. Kosooo. How

Myth s aM Truths St arted a W ar. California, 1999. Vickers, Miranda. Be tw ee n S er b aM Albanian: A H is to ry o f

Kosovo . Columbia, 1998.

32

Clarke, Walter S., and Jeffrey l. Herbst, eds. Learn ing f rom Somalia: The Lessons of A rm e d Human ita ri an

In tervention. Westview, 1997. Fogarassy, Helen. Mission Im probable: Th e W orld Communi ty on a

UN

Compound

in

Somalia.

University Press of America, 1999.



2itionon biological weapons, .a~/

po~internationa[ smal[: alJllS-

sales, the proposed International

CiTtnfnal Court, ana a proposal to

curbtobacco marketing in poor coun-

tries. Russia and China signed a

treaty of friendship in 2001, and

European countries helped vote the

United

States off two important UN

commissions.

These divisive issues receded

when the United States was attacked

b y

terrorists on September 11, 2001.

The attack destroyed the World

Trade Center in New York and a

wingof the Pentagon in Washington,

D.C., killing thousands of Americans

and citizens of about.60 other coun-

tries. The attacks mobilized support

forthe United States by a very broad

coalition of states, out of a realization

that terrorism threatens the interstate

sy.stemitself Eresident Bush declared

a war on terrorism that was ex-

pected to last years and span conti-

nents, employing both conventional

and unconventional means. In late

2001, , J.S :~d ~ritish forces and

their Afghan r l l j e ; ; - ousted the

Taliban regime in Afghanistan,

which had harbored and supported the al Qaeda network (led by Osama bin Laden) re-

sponsible for attacks on the United States.

The great-power divisions reappeared, however, as the United States and Britain

tried to assemble a coalition to oust Iraq's Saddam Hussein by force in early 2003. France

and Germany (along with Russia and China) bitterly opposed the war, as did millions of

protesters around the world. As the U,S..0ecretary of defense called France and Germany

old Euro~e -in contrast to the more pro-American new Europe states of Eastern

&oQe jus joining NA TQ---;-thedispute brought the Atlantic alliance to a low point and

wrecked France's dream of leadin - . . 0 an forei n olic . The war on Iraq also

weakened the UN's post old War security role, because the U.S.-led coalition went for-

warddespite its failure to win Security Council authorization for war.

The invasion itself was brief and decisive. Iraq was overpowered in thre~ weeks by

a regional U.S. military force of 25J)

000

troops with advanced technology. Many Iraqis

welcomed the end of a dictatorialregime, as had most Afghans in late 2001, but the war

inflamed anti-American sentiment especially in Muslim countries such as Egypt and

Pakistan. Insurgent forces in Iraq gained strength as the U.S. occupation stretched on

~nd by 2006 U.S. public opinion had turned against the war as violence con-

tinued with seemingly no end in sight. Sectarian violence between Shi'ite and Sunni

communities (rival wings of Islam) pushed the country to the brink of all-out civil

war, despite several successful elections for a new government. Estimates of Iraqi deaths

caused by the war ranged from tens of thousands to more than 600,000. With scenes of

f X f ] J f l

p i > ~

Evolving International System

P

5

C HA N G E IN T H E A IR

Peaceful trends mark the post-Cold War era, but war and terrorism continue. One

source of conflict in the current period is competing views on women s roles in

Islamic and Western countries-with many on each side accusing the other side

of treating women disrespectfully. Here,women begin to remove the burqa cover-

ing in Kabul, Afghanistan, December 2001.



36

C h ap te r 1

T he G lo ba liz a tio n o f In te rn a ti o n a l R e la t ions

H a m a s W i n s

P a l e s t in i a n

E le c t io n

the destruction in Iraq broadcast regionally and worldwide, anti-Americanism exploded

in Muslim countries. Spain, Italy, and several other coalition partners withdrew their

- ---..

troops from

~3

~me time, the United States faced new crises involving nuclear weapons pro-

grams. North Korea restarted its program, producing possibly a half-dozen nuclear bombs in

2003

and~i :lg one in

2Q Q 6 .

Iran,Jn an agreement with Europ~spendecf enriching ura-

niI:Iiilthat could be used to build nuclear weapons, but then in

2 006

began enrichment

ag USl g t e ecurity CouncilTclcleiU'and, backed by minor sanctions and the

threat of more, that Iran stop its enrichment program.

The post-Cold War era may seem a conflict-prone period in which savage wars flare

up with unexpected intensity around the world, in places such as Bpsnia and Rwanda-

ew or ity. n act, €ver. t h e

post -Co/d

War era

has

been more peace fU GlUin

th e

Cold

War . World military spending decreased by about one-third from its peak in the

1-98P.§,although it has risen partway back since

2001 .

Old wars have ended faster than new

ones have begun.l Latin America and Russia/Eastern Europe have nearly extinguished

wars in their regions, joining a zone of peace already encompassing North America,

Western Europe, Japan/Pacific, and China.

Warfare is diminishi g even in the arc of conflict from Africa through the Middle East

to South Asia. Since 19 0, long, blood ' ende . ·ca, Mozambique,

Angola, Democratic Congo, southern Sudan and Et . as did t e old War

con iCts entra America. Morerecent wars in Sri Lanka, Ivory Coast, Rwanda,

In onesia, and the P i ippines have also lar el . After the Cold War, W;dd

or er did not spira out 0contro with rampant aggression and war. However, the Israeli-

Palestinian conflict, which saw risin ions of eace in the 1 , worsened in

2000

after a propose ea e rough. With the

2006

Palestinian election victory of the mili-

tant Islamist party Hamas, responsible for many terrorist bombings in Israel, hopes for a

durable peace faded. In

2006

Israel fought a brief but inten h.guerrillas

in southern Lebanon. An the continuing war in Iraq threatened the broader stability of

t~ns between Muslim and Western countries heightened in

2 006

af-

ter the publication of anti-Muslim cartoons in a Danish newspaper sparked riots from

Africa to South Asia.

35

'-.. ---

In international economic relations, the post-Cold War era is one of globalization. ~

New hubs of economic growth are emerging, notably in parts of Asia with remarkable eco-

nomic growth. At the same time, disparities between the rich and poor are growing, both

globally and within individual countries. Globalization has created backlashes among peo-

ple who are ad'(ersely affected or who believe their identities are threatened by foreign in-

fluences. The resurgence ot nationalism and ethnic-religious conflict-o--ccasronally in

--- c::

brutal form-results partly from that backlash. So does the growing protest movement

against capitalist-led globalization.

With increasing globalization, transnational concerns such as environmental degrada-

tion and disease have become more prominent as well. Global warming looms ~ver

mare present danger, underscored in

2 005

by the toll of Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans

and the accelerating melting. of arctic ice. In 2006 , a virulent bird flu spread worldwide,

- - - -

...

33 Woodward, Bob. Sta te o f D eni a l: Bush at War Part Ill. Simon Schuster, 2006. Gordon, Michael R., and

Gen. Bernard E. Trainor.

Cobra

II:

The In sid e S tory o f th e In vasion

and

Occ upation o f Ir aq.

Pantheon, 2006.

Ricks, Thomas E. Fiasco: The Am er ic an M i lit ar y A d ve nt ur e in Iraq. Penguin, 2006. Packer, George. The

A ss assi ns Gate: Ameri ca in Iraq. Farrar, Straus Giroux, 2005.

34

Human Security Centre. Human

Sec urity Report

2005:

War

and

Pea ce in

the

21st C entur y.

Oxford, 2006.

35

Booth, Ken, and Tim Dunne, eds. Worl ds in Colli sion: Terr or and the Future o f G lobal O rder . Palgrave, 2002.



Chapte r R eview

ster than expected, and triggered panicky efforts to prepare for a possible human pan-

mic if the flu virus mutated and spread person-to-person.

China is becomin more central to world politics as the 21st centu be ins. Its size

nd

1

row ma Ch' a nsm ower- e scholars liken to

many's rise a century earlier. Historically, such shifts in power relations have cause in-

tability in the international system. China is the onl reat ower t ot a democracy.

spoor r~ord on human rights makes it a frequent target of Western criticism from at

rnrngnts and NGOs.

China holds (but seldom uses) veto power in the UN Security Council, and it has a

ible nuclear arsenal. China adjoins several regional conflict areas and affects the global

roliferation of missiles and nuclear weapons. It claims disputed territory in the resource-

ich South China Sea, but has not fought a military battle in 25 years. With the transfer of

ong Kong from Britain jn 1997, China acquired y valuable asset and turned to hopes of

meday reintegrating Taiwan as well. under th ~ ong Kong formula of one country, two

tems. China is the only great power from the'gtobal South. Its ~opulation size and r m l l i l

srrialization from a low level make China a big factor in the future of global environ-

ntal trends such as lob

1

warming. All these elements make China an important actor

n the coming ecades. 7VII /l .

It remains to be seen whet1ter, in the coming years, the international system can

ovide China with appropriate status and respect to reflect its rising power and histor-

cal importance, and whether China in turn can come to conform with international

ules and norms. The 2008 Olympic games in Beijing will focus attention on these

rocesses. So will the Chinese leadership's decisions about whether to encourage or dis-

urage the rising tide of nationalism among China's young people as communist ideol-

loses its hold.

The transition into the post-Cold War era has been a turbulent time, full of changes

nd new possibilities both good and bad. It is likely, however, that basic rules and princi-

lesof IR-those that scholars have long struggled to understand-will continue to apply,

ough their contexts and outcomes may chan e. Most central to those rules and principles

e concept of power, to which we now turn.

U M M R Y

• IR affects daily life profoundly; we all participate in IR.

• IR is a field of political science concerned mainly with explaining political out-

comes in international security affairs and international political economy.

• Theories complement descriptive narratives in explaining international events and

outcomes, and although scholars do not agree on a single set of theories or methods,

three core principles shape various solutions to collective goods problems in IR.

• States are the most important actors in IR; the international system is based on the

sovereignty of about 200 independent territorial states of varying size.

• Nonstate actors such as intergovernmental organizations (IGOs), nongovernmental

organizations (NGOs), and multinational corporations (MNCs) exert a growing in-

fluence on international relations.

7

\ ~

~f/

~~

t

~A A

~~



3 8

C h ap te r 1

T he G lo baliz atio n o f In te rn atio nal R elatio ns

North-South gap

21

League of Nations

28

Munich Agreement

28

Cold War 29

containment 29

Sino, Soviet split

29

summit meeting 31

Cuban Missile Crisis

31

proxy wars 31

• Four levels of analysis-individual, domestic, interstate, and global-suggest mu

ple explanations (operattng sirrnr eous y) for outcomes in

- iR .

• Globalization is conceived differently by various scholars, but generally refers to

growing scope, speed, and intensity of connectedness worldwide. The process may

weakening, strengthening, or transforming the power of states. Antiglobalizatio

activists oppose growing corporate power but disagree on goals and tactics.

• World Wars I and IIdominated the 20th century, yet they seem to offer contradi

tory lessons about the utility of hard-line or conciliatory foreign policies.

• For nearly 50 years after World War II,world politics revolved around the East-W

rivalry of the Cold War. This bipolar standoff created stability and avoided gre

power wars, including nuclear war, but turned states in the global South into pr

battlegrounds.

• The post-Cold War era holds hope of general great-power cooperation despite

appearance of new ethnic and regional conflicts.

• A war on terrorism of uncertain scope and duration began in 2001 after terrorist

tacks on the United States.

• The U.S. military campaign in Iraq overthrew a dictator, but divided the great p

ers, heightened anti-Americanism worldwide, and led to years of insurgency and

tarian violence.

KEY TERMS

international relations

(lR) 3

collective goods

problem

5

dominance 5

reciprocity 6

identity 7

issue areas 10

conflict and cooperation

10

international security

10

international political

economy (IPE) 11

state 12

international system

13

nation-states 13

Gross Domestic Product

(GDP) 14

nonstate actors 15

intergovernmental

organization (IGO)

15

nongovernmental

organization (NGO)

15

globalization 19

Primary Reading 1945-1990 and 1990 to 2007

Documents

Transcript of Primary Reading 1945-1990 and 1990 to 2007