2: Two World Wars, Total Violence and The Production of A New World Order Flashcards
main causes of WWI - structural factors
rigid balance of power and system of alliances: impossible to limit/circumscribe war
- fairly rigid bipolar system of alliances
- all alliances had automatic mechanisms where if one was attacked, the other would have to protect so power very rigid
security dilemma (arms race)
- naval arms race between Britain and Germany
- post 1900s, Germany launched a program to build up its military navy to challenge the unquestionable primacy and supremacy of the British navy
- prisoner’s dilemma applied to international politics
- one side takes measures considered to be defensive but are perceived as threatening/offensive by the other side which counteracts or reacts
unresolved issues and tensions between imperial structure of Europe and principles of national self-determination
- tension between these principles and imperial organisation of states in Europe
- example of the Hapsburg empire where there was a multiplicity of nationalities and religions in what was a multinational empire
- nationalities wanted rights recognised and their own political structure
ideological clash: pan-germanismes vs. panslavism
- Germany’s national projects exploited to increase/expand influence which clashed with pan-slavic projects by Serbia and Russia
emotions, masculinity and the concept of honour
- political culture of military elites at the time
- people voluntarily dying because of their patriarchic duty and a call of honour strongly felt among certain elites
main causes of WWI - contingency and agency
- not driven only by structural factors - sometimes history as continental or even accidental
role of Germany: responsibilities, emphasis or downplaying the agency of Germany
mistakes: belief in rapid victory
- assumption that war could be horrible or glorious but more importantly, would be rapid/quick
- technological innovations made defence stronger
domestic factors and internal political driver: public opinion and war enthusiasm
- enthusiasm may not have been as widespread as historians believe and vanished quickly
- initial limited domestic opposition to war
contingency and individual choices
- domestic driver/incentive and individual choices that cannot be overlooked/overestimated
- history is made by individuals who have a role to play and often driven by them
main causes of WWI - the triple stalemate
stalemate from military to diplomatic to domestic
strong advantage to the defensive side which created an inevitable and brutal stalemate
WWI in the trenches was a horrible conflict
civilian populations also suffered because of economic blockades and embargoes
WWI as a total war?
globally and totality of WWI pales with regards to WWII
- spiritual and material mobilisation of the population (allegedly above social, political, cultural and geographical cleavages)
- populations mobilised materially, ideologically, emotionally as never before
- unprecedented national unity which cut through social and economic cleavages - enthusiasm, recruitment and conscription
- scale of slaughter and destruction
- does not compare to WWII but have to look at it what preceded WWI
- civilian population involves as never before even if it was not the target of mass attacks
- air bombing first tested in WWI but limited technology
- civilian populations mobilised and punished (embargoes made life impossible in many places with children dying of malnutrition and various illnesses in the last months of the conflict)
- people were starving in towns on the front where food would be immediately given to the army - mobilisation of the economy - state intervention, borrowing and taxes
- first significant although almost fairly inefficient attempt to mobilise the domestic economy
- high level of borrowing to finance for key resources
- needs and costs of the war led and drove adoption of new fiscal policies - technology
- involvement of civilians as never before
- mobilisation accompanied with new tools of propaganda
main elements of the Wilsonian internationalist project
the US, which opted for neutrality initially in 1914, tried to act as a mediator and tried to foster compromises among the belligerent powers
US in the end decided to intervene not as an associate but as an ally, driven by a variety of factors and hard economic interests
US financial institutions/banks lent significantly to the UK and other countries so they could not afford a defeat
military side/dimension of the conflict matched alongside and aligned with an ideological vision and competition on how the post-WWI order should be organised
idea that a new security and political architecture had to be set up to discipline, regulate IR and avoid other conflicts like WWI and end all wars
Wilsonian solutions
interdependence = collective security
- international system was highly integrated and interdependent
- no unilateral path to security (something for all or was not)
- however, interdependence also means war cannot be limited: it goes global and total almost inevitably
rules = international law and equality of nations
- need for an international solution that enforces collective security and sets up an ever expanding body of norms, rules and law to help govern and discipline relationships between nations (eventually the League of Nations)
- paradoxically not equal/universal since it excluded countries, regions, peoples and cultures that didn’t fall into the sphere of civilisation for how it was understood at the time (race)
self-determination = democracy = world opinion
- equality and principles of national self-determination
disarmament = end of the war
- arms race as the security dilemma contributed to the escalation and so a need to reduce this
US global leadership
- some more equal than others amongst this community of equals
Lenin’s (anti-Wilsonian) internationalism
self-determination/global workers’ revolution
- process of emancipation that could only be fulfilled by a global revolution of the masses by the global workers
anti-colonialism
exploits contradictions of Wilsonianism: civilisational double standards
- anti-colonial and anti-imperial dimension became centre
why did the entente prevail in WWI?
contingency
structural superiority?
Germany’s lack of supplies and US material/financial aid
division within Germany and collapse of public support
WWI’s most important legacies
quasi-suicide of Europe and transformation of the global balance of power: implosion of 4 empires, complete transformation in the map of Europe and a new system of mandates
- transformation produced by WWI produced a major, radical geo-political change
- implosion and disappearance of Germany, Russia, Austria-Hungary, Ottoman Empires
- colonies of territories of defeated powers now controld via the League of Nations via a system of mandates
- shift in the global distribution of power and basic territorial reconfiguration of Europe
clash of internationalisms (Leninism vs. Wilsonianism): power begins to match with visions/ideologies
- emergence of internationalist visions/projects proposed by powers which become superior and dominant as the future superpowers
- competition that ensued was unique because of this
global war
- millions of soldiers from all over the globe dying in places far away from home
rise of the US
- came out much more powerful and influential than before
mobilisation and involvement of civilians: precedent for WWII
violence, radicalisation of the enemy and politics, political legacy
- war as waged into national society and politics of those countries
- applied to national society but transnational since it was common to different national realities
historiographical issues with WWI
causes and responsibilities
nexus and interdependence
what kept soldiers fighting?
war experiences and memories: intimacy of individual stories
political effects: long-term shadow of the war
why did major powers choose to appease Hitler? (lesson of Munich)
Munich as a symbol of appeasement: moral and strategic failure to attempt to appease someone with an unlimited, expansionist plan
Germany pulled out of the League of Nations, remilitarised part of the Western border, eventually intervened in the Spanish Civil War, etc. - signs of what Hitler was and was aiming for in the second half of the 1930s
underestimation of Hitler as a German nationalist and legitimate grievances
- issues with national minorities legitimised Hitler
legacy of WWI: pacifism and necessity to avoid war at any cost
- pacifism and internationalism as very important in the inter-war period
- no one wanted a replica of WWI
fear of USSR/communism
- promoted a global revolutionist ideology that everyone else feared
lack of preparation + influence of an economic crisis
- 1930s marked by a dramatic economic crash where counties reduced public spending which included defence spending
isolationism of the US
fascination with Germany’s political and social project
- strong fascination with authoritarianism as a response to the economic and political crisis (crisis of democracy and capitalism)
- authoritarianism as a way of reuniting fragmented/divided politics and society
different attitudes of the US vis-à-vis Japan’s expansionism
- much firmer appeasement adopted by the Roosevelt administration on Japan rather than Hitler
main features of Hitler’s new European order
Nazi new European order produced a sort of unification of Europe and a major geopolitical simplification
- further expansion of Germany (invasion of France in May 1940) and satellite regimes
- Nazi order with race as an organising principle: racial dogmatism vs. economic interest (non-hegemonic order)
- race often trumped economic interest
- non-hegemonic order with no consensus and built on domination determined by racial hierarchies - end of European balance of power
- possible German overexpansion
why did the war become really total and global in 1941?
war was already racially driven during the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June, which was a war of annihilation and extermination - Slavs were meant to be a quasi-slave workforce for the future
Japanese attack to the US in December meant a full globalisation of the conflict
- war became global with2 major fronts on the Atlantic, Pacific, East/West Europe and Asia
post-1941 saw the full mobilisation of societies
removal of inhibitions with regards to air bombing
- now become central in strategies of most technologically advanced actors so it was used as never before
why was WWII the first (and only) real global war?
in military terms: multiple fronts, millions in arms
- never had countries mobilised such a mass force
ideological
- for some, a war for survival (Nazis), for some, a war to shape the future (US) and for others, a war of racial domination and control
- ideological dimension made it more total and absolute
geographical extensions
- only Latin America managed to escape from involvement
wars within the war: civil, class, ethnic warfare
visions of the future and of the world order
- all major actors had a specific idea for the future and how world affairs had to be organised
