International Relations after World War II

Introduction

• End of World War II ($1945$) marked a decisive turning point in international relations.
• Two atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima & Nagasaki in August $1945$:
  • Supporters: “necessary to end war, save Allied lives.”
  • Critics: “Japan ready to surrender; real aim = showcase U.S. supremacy & warn USSR.”
• Collapse of Germany, devastation of Japan & Europe → only two powers left with global reach: USA & USSR.
• Great-Britain, France, other European powers lost pre-eminence; Germany partitioned, Japan shattered.
• Emergence of two mutually suspicious, ideologically opposed super-powers → division into rival blocs → creation of military alliances → persistent tension short of open war = “Cold War.”

Meaning of Cold War

• Term first coined by Bernard Baruch; popularised by journalist Walter Lippmann (“The Cold War”).
• Denotes a condition of ‘neither war nor peace’ ($1945-1990$) between USA-led West & USSR-led East.
• Evan Luard: “state of intensive competition—political, economic, ideological—below threshold of armed conflict.”
• Jawaharlal Nehru: “brain war, nerve war, propaganda war.”

Characteristic Features of Cold War

• $45$-year high-tension rivalry without direct USA-USSR combat.
• Dynamic, not static: $1950s$ = fear of World War III; $1960s$ saw easing.
• Ideological crusade: Liberalism vs. Socialism; propaganda & diplomatic wars.
• Both avoided hot war owing to risk of mutual nuclear destruction (logic of deterrence).
• Formation of competing alliances: NATO ($1949$), Warsaw Pact ($1955$); Marshal Plan vs. Molotov Plan.
• Intra-Communist “Red Cold War” (USSR–China rift).
• Rise of Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) helped moderate tensions → phase of détente ($1971$).

Origin / Causes of Cold War

• Long-standing Western hostility to $1917$ Russian Revolution; fear of Communism.
• Immediate post-war frictions: Iran troop withdrawal dispute ($1945-46$), Yalta & Potsdam disagreements, Soviet pressure on Turkey & Germany.
• Orthodox View: Soviet expansionism & totalitarian ideology provoked Western containment.
• Revisionist View: U.S. capitalist expansion, atomic-bomb diplomacy & secret deals alienated USSR.
• Structural factors: devastated Europe, colonial collapse creating power vacuums, nuclear weapons making total war unthinkable, bipolarity inevitable after defeat of Germany-Japan-Italy.

Phases of Cold War

• Phase I ($1947-1962$): Heightened confrontation
  • Truman Doctrine ($1947$): aid to Greece & Turkey; Marshall Plan ($5$ June $1947$).
  • Berlin Blockade & Airlift ($1948-49$); NATO formed $1949$.
  • Chinese Communist victory ($1949$); Korean War ($1950-53$).
  • SEATO ($1954$), Baghdad Pact/CENTO ($1955$), Warsaw Pact ($1955$).
  • Suez Crisis ($1956$); Hungarian Revolt crushed.
  • Sputnik & nuclear arms race; Taiwan Strait crises ($1954-55$, $1958$).
  • Berlin Wall erected ($1961$); Cuban Missile Crisis ($1962$) → brink of nuclear war.
• Phase II (Détente $1963-1978$):
  • Test-Ban Treaty ($1963$); Hotline; SALT-I ($1972$) & SALT-II talks ($1967-79$).
  • U.S.–China rapprochement (Nixon visits Beijing $1972$).
• Phase III (New Cold War $1979-1985$):
  • Soviet invasion of Afghanistan ($1979$); NATO Euromissile decision.
  • Reagan’s “Evil Empire” rhetoric; Strategic Defence Initiative ($1983$).
• Phase IV (Endgame $1985-1991$):
  • Gorbachev’s glasnost & perestroika ($1985$ onward).
  • Revolutions of $1989$; fall of Berlin Wall (November $1989$).
  • Dissolution of USSR (December $1991$) → Cold War ends.

End of the Cold War & Disintegration of USSR

• Gorbachev rejected Brezhnev Doctrine; allowed East-European liberalisation.
• Internally: economic stagnation, burden of arms race, rigid planning, administrative corruption.
• Glasnost opened flood-gates of criticism; perestroika undermined Party control.
• Rising nationalism in Baltic & European republics; failed hard-liner coup (August $1991$).
• Boris Yeltsin elected Russian president; CIS formed December $1991$.
• Consequences:
  • Bipolar conflict over; ideological East–West divide vanished.
  • Ethnic conflicts & terrorism surged (e.g., Balkans, Rwanda).
  • Debate over new order: Unipolar (U.S.), Multipolar (U.S., Europe, Russia, China, Japan) or revived Balance-of-Power.
  • Shock-therapy transitions in ex-Communist states; IMF-World-Bank influence.
  • Regional blocs (EU, ASEAN, NAFTA, SAARC, etc.) proliferated.

Bipolarity & Its Demise

• Cold-War world = two nuclear-armed camps, each with alliance networks (NATO vs. Warsaw Pact).
• U.S. containment doctrine shaped by Truman, then Eisenhower, Kennedy; mirrored by Soviet expansion & COMECON.
• Fragmentation of Communist bloc (Sino-Soviet split) and economic resurgence of Germany & Japan diluted strict bipolarity.
• Détente and SALT illustrated managed competition.

Non-Aligned Movement (NAM)

• Foundational principles: Panchsheel Agreement between India & China ($1954$):
  1. Mutual respect for sovereignty & territorial integrity
  2. Mutual non-aggression
  3. Mutual non-interference
  4. Equality & mutual benefit
  5. Peaceful co-existence
• Bandung Asian-African Conference ($April 1955$) → solidarity vs. colonialism & racism.
• First NAM Summit: Belgrade ($1-6$ Sept $1961$) – $25$ members.
• Subsequent Summits (selection):
  • Cairo $1964$, Lusaka $1970$, Algiers $1973$, Colombo $1976$, Havana $1979$, New Delhi $1983$, Harare $1986$, Belgrade $1989$, Jakarta $1992$, Cartagena $1995$, Durban $1998$, Kuala Lumpur $2003$, Havana $2006$, Sharm el-Sheikh $2009$, Tehran $2012$.
• Objectives: anti-colonialism, anti-imperialism, disarmament, support for self-determination, economic justice, South-South cooperation (NIEO, NWICO).
• Achievements: role in decolonisation (e.g., Angola, Namibia), campaign against apartheid, voice for Global South in UN.
• Limitations: post-Cold-War fragmentation, dependency on donor states, internal conflicts among members, leadership vacuum.
• Relevance today: widening North–South gap, WTO inequities, climate change, terrorism, debt—require collective Southern voice.

Unipolar World & U.S. Unilateralism

• Post-$1991$: USA possessed $\approx 25\%$ of world GDP & $\approx 50\%$ of great-power defense outlays; unmatched power-projection (blue-water navy, global basing, R&D >80\% China’s defence spend).
• Features of Unipolarity (Nuno Monteiro): single super-power, anarchical system, not imperial governance.
• Emerging challengers: China (rapid GDP & defence growth, UNSC P-5, nuclear); Russia (vast resources, retained $85\%$ USSR nukes); European Union (economic giant); Re-unified Germany.
• U.S. Unilateralism examples:
  • Operation Desert Storm (Gulf War $1991$) – reliance on UNSC $678$ but U.S. command.
  • Withdrawal from ABM Treaty ($2002$); refusal to ratify Kyoto Protocol; dismissal of ICC.
  • Operation Iraqi Freedom ($2003-2011$) – launched without new UNSC mandate; goals claimed: WMD removal, regime change, anti-terror.
  • Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan ($2001$) – pursuit of Al-Qaeda & Taliban.

Key Treaties, Doctrines & Organisations (chronological snapshots)

• $1917$: Bolshevik Revolution.
• $1945$: Yalta & Potsdam agreements; UN founded.
• $1947$: Truman Doctrine; Marshall Plan; Cominform (Soviet response).
• $1948-49$: Berlin Blockade & Airlift.
• $1949$: NATO; Chinese People’s Republic.
• $1954$: Panchsheel; SEATO; First Taiwan Strait crisis.
• $1955$: Warsaw Pact; Bandung Conference.
• $1956$: Suez Crisis; Hungarian Uprising.
• $1961$: Berlin Wall; Belgrade NAM Summit.
• $1962$: Cuban Missile Crisis.
• $1963$: Hotline; Partial Test-Ban Treaty.
• $1971$: Formal onset of Détente.
• $1972$: SALT-I; Nixon visits Beijing.
• $1979$: SALT-II (unratified); Soviet Afghanistan invasion.
• $1985$: Gorbachev in power.
• $1989$: Fall of Berlin Wall.
• $1991$: Dissolution of USSR; Security Council Resolution $687$ (Iraq cease-fire).
• $2001$: 9/11; U.S.-led Afghanistan war.
• $2003$: Invasion of Iraq.

Concept Check – Key Personalities & Terms

• Harry S. Truman – U.S. containment architect.
• Joseph Stalin – Soviet leader $1924-1953$.
• Nikita Khrushchev – Soviet premier during Cuban Crisis.
• Dwight Eisenhower & John F. Kennedy – U.S. Presidents steering early détente.
• Richard Nixon – détente & China opening.
• Leonid Brezhnev – Soviet détente counterpart; Brezhnev Doctrine (intervention right in socialist bloc).
• Mikhail Gorbachev – glasnost & perestroika.
• Boris Yeltsin – led Russia post-USSR.
• Fidel Castro – Cuban revolution & missile crisis actor.
• Mao Zedong – Chinese Communist leader; Sino-Soviet split.
• Jawaharlal Nehru, Josip Tito, Gamal Abdel Nasser, Kwame Nkrumah, Sukarno – founding NAM leaders.
• Saddam Hussein – Iraqi Ba’athist president; Gulf Wars.
• Osama bin Laden – Al-Qaeda chief.

Quick-Recall Bullet Bank

• Cold War duration: $1945-1990$.
• Most critical Cold-War years: $1947-1962$.
• NATO formed: $4$ April $1949$; Warsaw Pact: $14$ May $1955$.
• Cuban Missile Crisis peak: $16-28$ Oct $1962$.
• Berlin Wall fell: $9$ Nov $1989$.
• USSR dissolved: $26$ Dec $1991$.
• NAM membership: $25$ in $1961$ → $120$ by $2012$.
• U.S. GDP share $\approx 25\%$ world total (mid-$2000s$); defence spending $\approx 50\%$ great-power sum.