Post Cold War Cooperation and Conflict

What changed after 1989?

• Triumph of neoliberal capitalism / liberal capitalist democracy

  • Fukuyama: ’the end of history.’

• Further European integration

• Economic boom in Japan

• China gives up the command economy for capitalism

• Nuclear threat diminshes

• Unipolarity

• Globalization

• Breakdown of the clear boundary between the core and periphery

And what stayed the same

• NATO survived the end of the Cold War

• Alliance between the US and Japan

• Rise of intra-state conflicts (rather than inter-state)

• Rise of regional institutions in the periphery (e.g. African Union, ASEAN etc.)

Neo-realists:

the international system is in a state of anarchy (international
organizations are the instruments of (powerful) member states)

Neo-liberalists:

the international system is in a state of anarchy but its effects can be mitigated by international institutions.

Constructivists:

anarchy is socially constructed; can be mediated by international norms and other social constraints

International Organizations

• Not the same as Domestic governments’

• Strong focus on national sovereignty (UN Charter: ‘Nothing in the Charter shall authorize the United Nations to intervene in matters within national jurisdiction’).

• There is no ‘world court’.

• One member state, one vote.

• UN Secretary-General has mostly soft power.

• Inter-Governmental Organizations

International law

• Not the same as domestic law

• Who enforces international law? Who adjudicates?’

• International law is often (intentionally) ambiguous.

• Much of international law is soft law (in principle non-binding).

• Often, states need to ratify international agreements and transpose them into national legislation to take effect.

• The International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice

Why do states comply with international law?

• Nye and Welch: predictability and legitimacy.

• International norms: Pacta sunt servanda

  • Monitoring (and sanctions?)

  • Socialization processes & peer pressure.

  • Identity.

• Domestic pressure to comply.

The United Nations and Collective Security

• The United Nations as the primary, all-encompassing intergovernmental organization, which (arguably) plays a role in all areas of international/global policy.

• First steps already taken during WWII: Atlantic Charter in 1941.

• San Francisco Conference (April-June 1945).

• United Nations: Founded on 24th of October 1945 (China, France, the Soviet Union, the UK, the US + majority of other signatories ratified the UN charter).

• From 51 states in 1945 → 151 in 1987 –> 193 today

UN charter

The Principles and Objectives of the United Nations

Article 1: ‘To maintain international peace and security (...) and to bring about by peaceful means, and in conformity with the principles of justice and international law, adjustment or settlement of international disputes....’

Article 2: Sovereign Equality / principle of non- intervention

Creation of the UN Security Council (UNSC):

Five permanent members (with veto power).

Rotating pool of non-permanent members

UN Charter Article 2 (4) Prohibition of the use of force

All members shall refrain ....from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state.’

Two exceptions:
1) Article 51: Self-defense
2) Authorization of the use of force by the UNSC (Collective response to violation of ban on use of force (war of aggression) under Chapter VII (punishing aggressor))

The United Nations and Peacekeeping

• Impasse over collective security → focus on peace-keeping.

• UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld co-authored the concept of peacekeeping.

• First UN peace-keeping force, the UN Emergency Force (UNEF), deployed into the Sinai (between Egyptian and Israeli forces).

Peacekeeping - Three basic principles:

1) Consent of the parties
2) Impartiality
3) Non-use of force (except in self-defense and defense of the mandate)

Intra-State Conflicts

• Decline of inter-state war since the end of the Cold War, but increase in intra-
  state wars.

• Governments often incapable of mediating conflicts, e.g. in the aftermath of collapsed empires.

• When is intervention justified?

  • Sovereignty and nonintervention are two principles that provide order in an anarchic world system. At the same time, nonintervention affects justice

• Norm of non-intervention vs. cosmopolitan moral duty to intervene.

• Compare the realist, state moralist, and cosmopolitan perspective

Responsibility to Protect (R2P)

• Report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS):

  • ‘State sovereignty implies responsibility, and the primary responsibility for the protection of its people lies with the state itself.’

  • ‘The principle of non-intervention yields to the international responsibility to protect.’

• Humanitarian interventions or cloak for Western imperialism?

• First implemented in Libya (2011) but then... R2P→ RIP

Arab-Israeli Conflict

• 1897 First Zionist Congress

• 1917 The Balfour Declaration

• 1930s Jewish migration (after rise of Hitler + intensifying antisemitism in Europe).
  Holocaust

• 1948 Foundation of the State of Israel; the Nakba (Palestinian exodus); start of the first Arab-Israeli war

• Subsequent wars of 1956, 1967, 1973, 1982

Arab-Israeli Conflict

• 1964 Creation of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) with major presence in Lebanon.

• 1967 UN Resolution 242 (Israel should withdraw from occupied lands in exchange for peace and recognition).

• 1987 First Intifada (2000 Second Intifada)

• 1993 Oslo Accords

• 2009 Gaza War (also in 2014)

• 2000s-2010s Continued Israeli expansionism and illegal settlement.

• 2021 Israel-Palestine crisis

• Today: Gaza war; regional escalation (Lebanon, Iran?)

• Annually, the US spends $3 billion on military aid.

Background to Flashpoints in Asia

• 1979 – present Enormous economic growth (GDP has doubled every 5-10 years; today: 2nd largest economy and 2nd largest military).

• Challenging US hegemony.

• US ‘pivot to Asia’

• China’s increasingly assertive foreign policy?

  • Realist take: US and China are heading towards a Cold War

  • Liberalist take: military conflict is irrational because of complex interdependence.

  • But risk of misperceptions and miscalculations

China-US Tensions

• Trump: China as the new enemy? Focus mostly on trade (less on overall geopolitical
  competition)

• Biden: ‘We're in a competition with China and other countries to win the 21st century.’

• A new ‘Thucydides Trap’? (or is that a self-fulfilling prophecy?)

South China Sea

• Of large geopolitical (strategic) and economic importance.

• Territorial disputes.

• US Freedom of Navigation Patrols.

Taiwan Strait Conflict

• 1927-1949: Chinese civil war

• 1949: Chiang Kai-shek’s Kuomintang flees to Taiwan.

• 1950-1990s: Three Taiwan Strait Crises Taiwan is de facto independent, but its independence is only recognized by 14 states.

• ‘One country, two systems’ (One China policy).

• Since October 2021: rapidly growing tensions.

• Biden: strategic ambivalence → strategic clarity.