International Relations Essay. ONLY PROTOJE

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The Globalization of World Politics (6e)

3. International history 1900-99

Baylis, Smith & Owens

Baylis, Smith & Owens: The Globalization of World Politics 6e

The Great War (WW1)

• The nature of this war (length, geographic reach, associated costs and casualties) changed the very perception of what war was

• In the Versailles Peace Treaty were lodged the seeds of a more serious conflict still to come, as victor unity was lacking, and new borders were contested

• A “side effect” was the creation of the USSR

Baylis, Smith & Owens: The Globalization of World Politics 6e

The Great War (WW1)

• German revanchism and the Great Depression destabilized the already weak post WW1 world order

• Liberal democracy was in many places pushed back by communism, Nazism and fascism (and attendant ideological preferences)

• Arms development rendered many existing defensive military strategies obsolete

Baylis, Smith & Owens: The Globalization of World Politics 6e

Rise and fall of Japan

• Japanese aggression against Manchuria in 1931 was met by ineffective international responses (an example of League of Nations ineffectiveness)

• Japan invades China in 1937 • US sanctions against Japan precipitated the

surprise Pearl Harbor attack in 1941 • Japan was defeated in 1945, and the world

entered the nuclear age

Baylis, Smith & Owens: The Globalization of World Politics 6e

End of Empire

• Decolonization after WW2 was influenced by many factors including attitude of the colonial power; the ideology and strategy of anti-imperialist forces; and the role of external powers

• Between 1947 and 1980, 49 British territories were granted independence (mostly peacefully)

• France tried harder to hold on to colonial (or “national” in the case of Algeria) territories

Baylis, Smith & Owens: The Globalization of World Politics 6e

European decolonization 1945-80

Baylis, Smith & Owens: The Globalization of World Politics 6e

Cold War

• The end of WW2 was swiftly followed by a “cold war” between the Western allies and the Soviet Union and its allies

• The Marshall plan, though notionally open to all European countries, aided economic recovery in Western Europe, and strengthened ties with the US

• The Truman Doctrine aimed to contain Soviet expansion

Baylis, Smith & Owens: The Globalization of World Politics 6e

Cold War

• NATO was established in 1949 • A founding principle was that an

attack on one NATO member was to be considered an attack on all

• The rearmament of West Germany in 1954 precipitated the creation of the Warsaw Pact, and further military build-ups

• The world was not as neatly divided between the super-powers as is sometimes thought: a case in point is the Middle East

Baylis, Smith & Owens: The Globalization of World Politics 6e

Cold War

• A slight thawing of relations occurred in the late 1950s

• Crises in (particularly) Berlin and Cuba led to the possibility of direct military confrontation

• Relations between East and West then varied until Gorbachev’s mid 1980s rise, marking the end of the hardline Brezhnev doctrine (keeping a stern Soviet eye on allied countries), and the eventual fall of the Soviet Union itself

Baylis, Smith & Owens: The Globalization of World Politics 6e

Case Study 1: China’s cold wars

• After a long struggle, the Communist Party under Mao Zedong came to power in 1949

• The Great Leap Forward launched in 1958 resulted in widespread famine

• Relations with the Soviet Union gradually went sour (in 1969 a minor war broke out)

• China’s regional interests clashed with those of the US until a rapprochment in the 1970s

• Reforms in the 1980s stabilized the situation