the changing nature of world order in the period 1989–2001, with specific reference to the place of Europe and the European nation states within that world order

Question 1

‘World Order’

Answer 1

World order’ has been loosely used since the 20th century by politicians and other commentators attempting to explain the motivations behind globally based activities through which certain nations have tried to dominate world politics either on their own or in alliance with others
o ‘Polarity’ refers to how power is distributed within the international system
 E.g.
* Unipolarity – where one state exercises most of the military, cultural and political influence
* Bipolarity – a system of world order in which the majority of global economic, military and cultural influence is held between two states
* Multipolarity – a distribution of power where there are multiple centres of military, cultural, and economic influence

Question 2

Impact of World War Two on world order

Answer 2

WW2 altered the balance of power in Europe:
o The choice for most people was between communism and capitalism (after the defeat of Nazism and Fascism)
o Both Britain and France were exhausted and badly damaged
o The USA had surpassed Britain in the early 20th century as a world power
o The USA and the USSR were now the two superpowers
o The Red Army occupied Eastern Europe and the US/British occupied Western Europe
o USA abandoned its policy of ‘isolationism’ and became determined to intervene in world affairs E.g. Truman Doctrine to prevent spread of totalitarian regimes
o It allowed for the collapse of the European imperial system and the emergence of new states

Question 3

World order during the Cold War

Answer 3

• During the Cold War, the world order was dominated by the two superpowers, the Soviet Union and the USA (who also influenced the Third World Nations)
• The struggle between the Soviets and the Americans for domination and influence defined this period
• Although the world came to brinkmanship and close to nuclear war, there were no open conflicts between the superpowers in the 46 years since 1945 to 1991
• There were different motivations for various power players
  o E.g.
   The actions of the Soviet Union, have been repressive, and aimed to impose totalitarian political systems within and beyond their own borders
   The actions of the US, have been aimed to prevent the spread of communism (policy of containment) and in its efforts to do this exert its dominance over various spheres; or as some would argue to exert US hegemony
• The Cold War era safeguarded the interests of many smaller states by affording them an opportunity to align themselves with one or the other superpowers

Question 4

Post Cold War world order 1989-2001

Answer 4

• The end of the Cold War, with the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 seems to have recast the international order
  o The collapse of the USSR in 1991 led to a decade of chaos known as the ‘Roaring Nineties’ in Russia and a decade of rapid change in the former Soviet republics and for the USSR’s allies
  o The Russian Federation went from global power to regional power
• The withdrawal of Soviet troops from Eastern Europe allowed democratisation to proceed in many states
• The global world order was no longer dominated by one or two nations but is now marked by multipolarity
• However, immediately after the fall of the USSR, the USA enjoyed a ‘unipolar moment’, made clearer not only by the demise of the Soviet Union…and the fact that the United States was the only nation capable of projecting its military influence, if not always successfully, around the globe
• The decreasing ideological clashes between the United States and Russia manifested itself most clearly in the decline of the veto of the Security Council
  o E.g.
   Between 1945 and 1990 – US 69; Soviet Union 114
   Between 1990 and 1993 – US 0; Soviet Union 0
• Since the West had become the ‘victor’ of the East-West ideological rivalry, Western systems and Western influences, in general, started to dominate the whole world
  o The European Union expanded towards Eastern Europe, particularly with the 2004 expansion, symbolising Western dominance
• There were many shifts in the international system that accompanied the end of the Cold War
  o The Maastricht Treaty was formulated and created the structure of the subsequent European Union
  o Europe re-emerged from the Cold War as a massive, integrated economic power
• The post Cold War had two phases from Dec 1991 to September 2001 and from 2001 to present day
• The US emerged from the Cold War with the greatest military power (and even when economic power faltered the US seem to have combined power – economic, military and political – to maintain overall power)
  o The post Cold War era was greeted by the US as an opportunity to re-evaluate the use of force as a promise to never again repeat the mistakes of Vietnam
• The integration of former Warsaw Pact countries like Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic into NATO proved surprisingly painless, despite concerns by many that NATO enlargement would unduly alarm the Russians as an aggressive Western move
• NATO has been able to adapt to the post Cold War world and some may argue that they also ‘thrive’ in that world
• The Dayton Accords led to a peaceful solution to the conflict in Bosnia
• The fact that NATO was able to end this conflict was a strong legitimating factor of NATO expansion
• Incorporating the same countries into the European Union has proved to be a far more complex venture
• Despite enormous progress of some countries towards adopting a liberal economic and political system, the gap in living standards between East and West still remained wide ten years after the collapse of the Soviet bloc
• Hanhimaki, J., & Westad, O. (Eds.). (2004). The Cold War: A history in documents and eyewitness accounts. New York: Oxford University Press
  o “The apparent success of free market-capitalism and the failure of state-controlled socialism had yet to produce a system that would have eliminated economic hardship as a source of political instability”
• Hanhimaki, J., & Westad, O. argue that:
  o “The grouping of states are no longer the three blocs of the Cold War (USA led Western nations, USSR led communist nations and third world countries) but rather the world’s seven or eight major civilisations”
  o “Cultural commonalities and differences shape the interests, antagonisms, and associations of states…The key issues on the international agenda involve differences among civilizations”
• According to Henry Kissinger (US Secretary of State from 1973 to 1977) “the international system of the twenty-first century…will contain at least six major powers – the United States, Europe, China, Japan, Russia and probably India – as well as a multiplicity of medium sized and smaller countries”

Question 5

Economic forces shaping world order

Answer 5

• Europe, as a region, is the world’s biggest trading area
• Despite being the most politically integrated region in the world, the European economy is actually very diverse, experiencing uneven rates of economic growth over the past two decades
• The term BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India, China) was invented in 2001 by the chief economist of the US investment bank with the claim that these would become the major players in a future world economy (to what extent was this prediction accurate?)
• Table: Gross domestic product from 1960 to 2013
• Germany is by far the biggest European economy in global terms
  o It is the fourth largest manufacturing producer and the largest manufacturing exporter
• The fall of the Berlin Wall (9 Nov 1989) made the reunification of West and East possible, but also represented both a concrete and a symbolic indicator of enormous geopolitical (and geoeconomic change)
• The political collapse of the Soviet-led group of countries (and the Soviet Union itself) produced a group of so-called ‘transitional economies’
  o These were the former command economies that transformed themselves into capitalist market economies
  o The process of transition to a capitalist market system was painful in many cases
  o E.g. in 1985 the Soviet Union accounted for almost 10 per cent of the world manufacturing output, by the mid 1990s the share of the Russian Federation was around 1 per cent
• However, Russia has become (hence BRICs) an increasingly significant presence in the global economy, especially in terms of its wealth of extractive resources, including oil and gas
• The four most significant economies are the Russian Federation, Poland, The Czech Republic and Hungary
• These economies achieved impressive export performances during the 1990s
• Poland, Hungary and Czech Republic each had double-digit export growth

Question 6

Conflict and Military intervention in the post Cold War world

Answer 6

• This new world order would see the United Nations act as the institution through which peace was established, protected and when necessary enforced
  o E.g. The Gulf War (2 August 1990 – 28 February 1991), was a war waged by coalition forces from 34 nations led by the United States against Iraq in response to Iraq’s invasion and annexation of Kuwait
• The invasion of Kuwait by Iraq in August 1990 and the following Gulf Crisis, created an opportunity for the United States to exercise its hegemonic power in the Middle East
• With the military operation to Afghanistan and invasion of Iraq after 9/11, the US continued its dominance in the region
• The ending of the Cold War increased the willingness of governments to work through the United Nations and other international channels to resolve conflicts
• US President George Bush (1989-1993) used the term a ‘new world order’ in two key speeches:
  o In his address on 1 October 1990 to the United Nations General Assembly by President George H.W. Bush
  o In his address on 29 January 1991 before a Joint Session of the Congress on the State of the Union:
• The end of the Cold War brought both stability and instability to international relations
• The collapse of the Soviet Union was followed by the emergence of many serious conflicts and threats to international peace through ethnic conflicts (former Yugoslavia) and religious militancy
• International reaction and intervention in the crisis in Bosnia and Herzegovina was criticised:
  o The world powers, including the US, had tried for four years to avoid getting involved in the Bosnian crisis
  o Instead of defending the victims and championing a multiethnic society in Bosnia, the United States chose repeatedly to pressure the Bosnian government to give in to Serb aggression
   Some had charged the major powers with ‘appeasement’
   The US chose not to get involved because it did not believe that there were significant national interests at stake
• This also stemmed from not wanting to get involved in another ‘Vietnam’
  o In the end, the powers were shamed into doing something about Bosnia, for their reputation and honour had been seriously damaged by their glaring lack of principle
  o Clinton was pressured by the US Congress to lift the arms embargo against Bosnia, however, the Europeans opposed lifting of the embargo as they had troops on the ground who might be endangered
  o According to Carole Rogle “Clinton’s decision to press for the Dayton Accords package was thus a political compromise, not a noble gesture”
• One of the ‘failed states’ of the Cold War (a legacy of the Cold War) was Afghanistan which later became the focus of much of the world’s attention
• The September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York and the Pentagon in Washington were quickly traced back to the Al Qaida organisation
• Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban movement (had established control by 1996) had provided Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaida sanctuary for years and become the target of an American-led military campaign
• One of the countries that the United States was keen on cooperating with in the war on terrorism was Russia
• Facing the problem of Islamic militants within his own borders, Russia’s president Vladimir Putin was a willing participant in an anti-terrorist coalition
• Even with terrorism emerging as the new global threat and source of insecurity, some of the key security concerns of the Cold War still existed
• In the US, the Bush administration chose December 2001 as the moment to withdraw from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with the Soviet Union, promising to build a new missile defence system capable of protecting the US from threats arising from limited nuclear strikes by ‘rogue states’ such as Iran, Iraq and North Korea
• By cancelling this agreement, the Bush administration did this in order to focus on the development of this new defence system
  o George Bush, December 2001
  “I appreciate so much President Putin’s important advice and cooperation as we fight to dismantle the al Qaeda network in Afghanistan. I appreciate his commitment to reduce Russia’s offensive nuclear weapons. I reiterate our pledge to reduce our own nuclear arsenal between 1,700 and 2,200 operationally deployed strategic nuclear weapons. President Putin and I have also agreed that my decision to withdraw from the Treaty will not, in any way, undermine our new relationship or Russian security. As President Putin said in Crawford, we are on the path to a fundamentally different relationship. The Cold War is long gone”

Question 7

US-Russian Relations in the post Cold War world

Answer 7

• The end of the Cold War and the fall of the Soviet Union ushered in a new era where a cooperate partnership between USA and Russia was possible
• US foreign policy goals in the early 1990s included both integrating Central and Eastern Europe into Western institutions and reaching out to Russia
• The Clinton administration’s dual post-Cold War foreign policy goals of promoting an enhanced democratic stability in Europe as well as continued stability and reform in Russia competed with one another throughout the process
• Selvaggio, 2012:
  o “From Russia’s perspective, NATO was a military alliance created among the United States and Western European states during the Cold War to balance against Soviet power. Since Russia expected to be no longer treated as a threat, but as a cooperative partner, Russians saw no reason for NATO to grow. The fact that the organization was expanded into Central Europe was thus a slap in the face to Russia”
• Yeltsin said in 1994:
  o “Europe, even before it has managed to shrug off the legacy of the Cold War, is risking encumbering itself with a cold peace”
• The US began in the spring of 1995 to closely follow a ‘two track’ foreign policy involving keeping Russia happy while still moving forward on enlargement
• In 1997 the US Secretary of State called for a ‘formal chapter’ between NATO and Russia
  o Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Cooperation and Security was signed in Paris on 27 May 1999
• NATO formally offered membership to Poland, Hungary and Czech Republic in July 1997
• Vladimir Lukin, Chairman of the Russian Duma’s Committee on International Affairs (24 February 1998) on NATO’s enlargement:
  o “NATO enlargement is isolating Russia. What is the choice for us? Only to be an outsider. Not a hostile outsider, but still an outsider. It is a danger. We will become stronger, and we are still a nuclear power. It is a danger to us and a danger to you. A few years ago there was the idea of partnership, now there is a strong hesitation in the United States”
  o “Of course we are offended…We have reasons to be unhappy. It is not the best way to be partners. Being partners means consulting with each other”
• Kotkin, Stephen. Sunday Times [London (UK)] 18 Nov 2001. Stephen Kotkin is the author of Armageddon Averted: The Soviet Collapse, 1970-2000 (Oxford) and professor of history at Princeton University