Transformation of international systems

1. Transformation of international systems

2. Post WWI, post Cold-War global order

3. What is going on in the prevailing international system? • Easy to sense that contemporary international system is in process of transformation. • Yet, since we are in the middle of the process, although it is easy enough to identify changes that are important, difficult to discern what will come out of it?

4. Postwar World War II global order • U.S. emerged after World War II as dominant superpower. • Counterbalanced by Soviet Union—the other superpower. • Europe integrated. Patterns of economic cooperation established. • NATO integrated security policies of member states, and established patterns of cooperation • Soviet bloc or satellite states integrated to some extent under Soviet tutelage—shared common bond of hostility towards Soviet Union and Soviet system.

5. Global order after Soviet collapse • Western institutions established during Cold War continue to operate and develop. • Warsaw Pact and Comecon disappear. Soviet republics split off from Russia. Most regard Russia with more or less hostility. • Russia weak and isolated. Throughout 1990s, strives to become part of “Western Solar System” “even in role of Pluto (Trenin) • Former Soviet Bloc admitted, one after another into NATO and EU • Russia associated to wide range of European institutions, but clear that it would never be admitted to full partnership in any of them.

6. Example of transformation of global order: Chou Dynasty: 1122 B.C. - 221 B.C. Let’s take it as an example of the ways in which global systems change, and factors that drive these changes. Try to identify similar patterns in today’s changing global order

7. Western Chou period (feudal epoch) 1122-771 BC • Central monarchy with title over all of China • Small feudal units not allowed to expand without royal sanction • Held together by obligations of vassals and members of royal family

8. Spring and Autumn period 771-483 BC • System of independent states sometimes arranged into two antagonistic blocs • Strength of feudal lords grows at expense of central authority • Vassals create government organizations, functions expand, enables resistance to central authorities • Growth of rudimentary forms of nationalism: recognition and emphasis of differences in dialects, customs, religion, and cults • Ambitious nobles no longer turned conquered neighbors into subvassals, but incorporated them • Erosion of position of Chou monarch--symbol of unity

9. Period of the "Warring States" (403 to 221 BC) • Conflict and competition among the larger states • Decline of stable alliances and polar power structure • Eventual destruction of system

10. GENERALIZATION FROM HISTORICAL SYSTEMS The most interesting questions are about the sources of change in the systems.

11. What were the sources of change? • Frequently technological and administrative. • States that were previously subordinate created their own administrative systems and effectively challenged universal powers such as Chou dynasty or Holy Roman Emperor. • Think also about the impact of the aircraft carrier, gunpowder, atomic bomb

12. Breakdown of universal solidarity under Feudal System • Ideologies of universal solidarity sustained by Church or universal monarch challenged by various forms of sectarianism, leading to political fragmentation. • Notion of medieval Christian solidarity, organized under the Pope and the Holy Roman Empire successfully challenged by Protestant heresy. • Doctrine of sovereignty became practical legal instrument for justifying political fragmentation, and for creting and sustaining autonomy of domestic rulers. • Striking Parallels between decline of Chou monarchy and decline of European imperial and religious units

13. Important role of technology in causing some critical types of change. • Inability of Greek city-states to survive as independent political entities partly caused by development of torsion catapult and siege tower. • Both allowed the Macedonians, and later the Hellenistic kings and Roman attackers, to bypass or override the walls of the Greek cities.

14. Population distributions also mattered • Most Greek city-states had small populations, hence small armies, while Alexander the Great and the Romans fielded armies of tens of thousands. • Greek system of city-states were succeeded by competing empires.

15. Diffusion of power among the units of the system • Structure of power diffuse in Spring and Autumn periods in China, during the period from 600 to 431 B.C. in Ancient Greece, and throughout the period from 1648 to 1814 in Europe. • Why did system change, and what were the consequences? • We see cyclical patterns: Empires tend to disintegrate into systems of political fragmentation, of diffuse power among several or more great powers, only to be followed again by empire.

16. Polarized power structures • In some of the periods, there was a polarized power structure, where two blocs of states vied against each other. • Such a structure of power emerged during the Warring States period in China, and in Greece during the fourth century B.C. with the two great alliances led by Athens and Sparta. • Easy to see parallels with the distribution of power between Soviet and Western blocs following World War II.

17. 3 fundamentally different types of international systems as defined by structure of power • Empire or feudal system: power concentrated at center or core, subservient political units, enjoying only limited autonomy, exchange services (provision of manpower and taxes for the emperor's court and armies) for security. • Forces of fragmentation build in strength and imperial unity is threatened. • Ultimately, the units attain independence (sustained by legal doctrines like sovereignty).

18. Configuration of power diffused among a fairly large number of "great powers." But the drive to establish hegemony motivates some of them, and a polarized or bloc system may emerge. • In such a system, the lesser states--as in NATO and the Warsaw Pact--are willing to exchange their freedom of action for security provided by "superpowers."

19. No mention of individual events • Typical structures and processes that spanned many years were characterized. • Provides basis of comparison to our own age. • 1989 brought about fundamental changes in the structure of international power. • Polarized system was certainly decaying already in the 1960s and 1970s, but its actual demise came about only at the end of the 80s. • We appear to be moving toward a system of more diffused power, something that also occurred in ancient China, in fifth-century B.C. Greece, and in Europe after the Treaty of Westphalia.

20. Features of post-Cold War global order • Order established after World War II persists with modifications • USSR, the other superpower disappears • Western institutions (EU and NATO) take in new members, but are not re-thought or re-designed. • NATO: General Wald: “We never thought about Article 5. Our attitude was ‘the more the merrier.’ Alliance not real alliance. No enemy, no casus belli. Three sets of members with very different interests. • Former Soviet Bloc states taken in as “trainees.” • Russia not built into economic or security structures

21. Extra-European features of post-Cold War global order • Rise of China as Great Power. • Rise of BRICs—new economic power houses (America and Europe declining) • Russia appears to have been expelled from G-8 “gentlemen’s club.” However, G-8 has been largely displaced by G-20, of which Russia is full-fledged member.