Global Conflict, Global (Dis)Orders, Part II

1. Global Conflict, Global (Dis)Orders, Part II

2. COLD WAR An intense, prolonged political confrontation between countries, involving all spheres of relations (a war) But without a direct armed clash (cold) – though it may escalate into a “hot” war The Cold War 1946-1991 East-West Communism – capitalism Soviet Union – United States

3. Minor cold wars (examples): US-Cuba: 1959-… US-Iran: 1979-… US-Iraq: 1991-2003 US-North Korea: 1953-… India-Pakistan: 1960s-2000s Soviet Union-China: 1960s-1980s

4. The Cold War – 1946-1991 Europe and East Asia devastated by World War II Global capitalism is shattered even more than by WWI The stage is set for another round of global conflict The three dimensions of the new war: ideological (global capitalism challenged by the Global Left) geopolitical (competition between states) military (wars and arms races) In the late 1940s, conflicts in the three areas converged to produce a rapid shift from the peace of 1945 to a 45-year-long period of confrontation

5. The ideological dimension: global conflict between the two political-economic systems, capitalism and communism The Three Worlds of the Cold War The capitalist West, the communist East, and the Third World (now called the Global South) East-West conflict: Will capitalism survive – or will be replaced by some forms of socialism or communism? In the Third World, massive struggles for national independence from Western colonial domination

6. The Global Left consisted of: Communist states (the Soviet Union, People’s Republic of China, and others) Communist parties around the world, most of them supported by the USSR (Italy and France having the biggest) Moderate Left forces (social democrats, labour movements, movements for democracy, etc.) Anti-colonial forces in the 3d world

7. Red dictators: Soviet Union’s Stalin and China’s Mao, 1950

8. First American Cold War President: Harry S. Truman (in office from 1945 to1952)

9. George Kennan, American diplomat, architect of the policy of Containment of Communism

10. The US acted as the global force to save and rebuild capitalism To defeat the Global Left Use of force Cooptation Rebuilding a global capitalist economy based on US dominance Ideological wars: liberal democracy vs. communist dictatorship Construct a world order Alliances International organizations International law

11. The geopolitical dimension The end of WWII saw the rise of the two superpowers: USA and USSR A bipolar world – something unique in world history Challenging each other Containing each other Trying to control other states to follow them But also: cooperating with each other to keep their power Each needed the other as “The Other” But both wanted to survive

12. The Berlin Wall, symbol of the Cold War division of Europe

13. The military dimension The 2 giants never had a significant direct armed conflict between them They fought wars by proxy (Korea, Vietnam, Angola, etc.) But they prepared for total military confrontation Nuclear arms Conventional armies and navies Military alliances – NATO, the Warsaw Pact Spy wars New structures of militarism The military-industrial complex The national security state

14. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VG2aJyIFrA&feature=related

15. Several moments when the world was within a few steps from nuclear war – e.g. October 1962, the Cuban Missile Crisis Nuclear weapons: can you use them to win a war? War-fighting vs. deterrence The balance of terror The nuclear stalemate From an uncontrolled arms race to arms control and disarmament The era of arms control began in 1963 with the US-Soviet-British treaty to ban all, except underground, tests of nuclear weapons A system of treaties was developed in the 1960s-1990s to make nuclear war less likely

16. Losses in the Cold War (estimates): - Over 20 mln. died in local wars, mostly between the Global Left and the West - Victims of totalitarian regimes in the Soviet Union (1929-1953), Communist China (1950s-1970s), other communist states : 60 mln. people died as a result of policies offorced modernization and political repression Total: 80 mln. lives 80% of the human losses were civilian Massive waste of resources Unprecedented growth of technologies of destruction The degradation of natural environment Stymied democracy and economic development

17. Korea, 1950: US forces in battle with Communist troops

18. 1960, the Cuban revolution: Fidel Castro challenges the US

19. 1972, Vietnam: Communist soldiers

20. 1972: Vietnamese villagers massacred by American GIs

21. Sept.1973: General Augusto Pinochet overthrows a socialist government in Chile and establishes a military dictatorship

22. Soviet helicopter gunships over Afghanistan, 1980

23. Afghan mujahid fighter against Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, 1980s

24. Why and how did the Cold War end?

25. Ideological factors Capitalism survived and expanded due to a number of factors: Social reforms (the welfare state) The post-industrial revolution Expansion of the market economy Globalization Rise of multinational corporations By the 1980s, the Global Left was in retreat Soviet-type Communism stagnated and declined China launched successful market reforms after Mao’s death in 1976 In the USSR, Mikhail Gorbachev launched democratic reforms in 1985 Collapse of communist regimes in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union (1989-1991) Transition to capitalism

26. Communist states: 1917-2011 Map of Communist History

27. Geopolitical factors 1960s-1980s: from a bipolar to a multipolar world The rise of the integrated Europe, Japan, China Proliferation of independent states 1945 – 50 states Today – 193 The superpowers were losing control In 1991, the Soviet Union collapsed as a state and was replaced by 15 new independent states The US moved to assume a hegemonic position (a unipolar world?)

28. Military factors The stalemate between the superpowers, the stabilizing effect of arms control The economic burdens of the arms race The futility of war as a means of policy The rise of new pacifism - antiwar, antimilitarist movements - around the world (1960s-1980s)

29. Mikhail Gorbachev, the last leader of the Soviet Union

30. Negotiating an end to the Cold War The threat of nuclear war as the overriding issue The Cold War was undermining the Soviet system The economic burden A militarized state ensured bureaucratic paralysis: society lacked basic freedoms, the state was losing its capacity to govern The atmosphere of confrontation with the West was stifling impulses for necessary reforms, imposing ideological rigidity Soviet domination of Eastern Europe was now seen as an obsolete, counterproductive policy. Lessons of Czechoslovakia (1968) and Poland (1980-81). Reforms in Eastern Europe are necessary for Soviet reform. Solution: New Thinking, a plan to negotiate an end to the Cold War to assure security and free up Soviet and East European potential for reform. “The Sinatra Doctrine”

31. Gorbachev and Reagan as partners: Time to end the Cold War!

32. Gorbachev and Reagan exchange New Year messages to their nations, December 1987: • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VqmTEsP7Aoc

33. November 1989: crowds of Germans breach the Berlin Wall

34. When did the Cold War end? 1988: officially declared over by Reagan and Gorbachev (before the fall of European Communism) 1989-91: the fall of European communist regimes Global capitalism and liberal democracy emerged victorious Expectations of an era of peace, cooperation and progress In reality… The misleading effects of Cold War triumphalism: http://www.bostonreview.net/BR30.1/crawford.html

35. Balkans, 1992-95: the Bosnia War

36. Africa, 1994: the Rwandan genocide

37. 1994-96: Russia’s war in Chechnya

38. 1999: NATO-Yugoslavia war over Kosovo

39. New York City, September 11, 2001

40. Afghan Taliban

41. US forces in Afghanistan

42. US-British invasion of Iraq, 2003

43. MQ-9 Reaper, pilotless bomber (“drone”), used by US forces in Pakistan

44. Taliban soldiers leaving Buner, Pakistan, April 2009

46. Subway station, Mexico City, April 2009

47. US military power • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDfJjvice3w&feature=related • Russian military power • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMm-sxhho_g&feature=related • China’s military power • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-rgPI5iGBg • Brazil’s military power • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CyScyV9hku4&feature=related

49. The US under the Clinton and Bush Administrations acted as the world’s hegemonic power. Key features of the Bush foreign policy: Proclamation of GWOT Radical Islam and “rogue states” cast in the role of “the enemy” “Democracy promotion”, including by means of force “The unipolar moment” Unilateralism vs. multilateralism Determination to preserve US hegemony Potential challengers: rising centres of global power EU China, India Russia Brazil and others

50. Use of force has been becoming more frequent and larger in scale: invasions, terrorist attacks The new concept of “preventive war” Militarization of outer space Dismantling of arms control, proliferation of nukes The danger that nuclear weapons may be used is considered higher than in the Cold War New hi-tech weapons The war in people’s minds: ideas and beliefs, religion A new culture of war?