Global Conflict, Global (Dis)Orders, Part II

THE 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

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 US and Israel vs. Iran

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

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

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

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

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

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

The US acted as the global force to save and rebuild capitalism

To defeat the Global LeftUse of forceCooptationRebuilding a global capitalist economy based on US dominance Ideological wars: liberal democracy vs. communist dictatorship

Construct a world orderAlliancesInternational organizationsInternational law

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

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

The military dimensionThe 2 giants never had a significant direct armed conflict

between themThey fought wars by proxy (Korea, Vietnam, Angola, etc.)But they prepared for total military confrontation

Nuclear armsConventional armies and naviesMilitary alliances – NATO, the Warsaw PactSpy wars

New structures of militarismThe military-industrial complexThe national security state

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

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

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 of forced

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

Korea, 1950: US forces in battle with Communist troops

1960, the Cuban revolution: Fidel Castro challenges the US

1972, Vietnam: Communist soldiers

1972: Vietnamese villagers massacred by American GIs

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

Soviet helicopter gunships over Afghanistan, 1980

Afghan mujahid fighter against Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, 1980s

Why and how did the Cold War end?

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

Communist states: 1917-2011

Map of Communist History

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?)

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)

Mikhail Gorbachev, the last leader of the Soviet Union

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”

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

November 1989: crowds of Germans breach the Berlin Wall

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

Balkans, 1992-95: the Bosnia War

Africa, 1994: the Rwandan genocide

1994-96: Russia’s war in Chechnya

1999: NATO-Yugoslavia war over Kosovo

New York City, September 11, 2001

Afghan Taliban

US forces in Afghanistan

US-British invasion of Iraq, 2003

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

Taliban soldiers leaving Buner, Pakistan, April 2009

Subway station, Mexico City, April 2009

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

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

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?

"This fourth world war, I think, will last considerably longer than either World Wars I or II did for us. Hopefully not the full four-plus decades of the Cold War.“ – James Woolsey, former Director of CIA*

“The Long War” Guardian | America's Long War

*http://edition.cnn.com/2003/US/04/03/sprj.irq.woolsey.world.war

THE WORLD’S MILITARY FORCES

20,000 nuclear weapons

120,000 battle tanks

35,000 combat aircraft

1,500 major warships

Over 23 million under arms (regular and irregular armies)

including 0.5 million women

and 0.2 million children under 15

Russia*** 13,000

USA 8,400

France 300

China 240

UK 180

Israel*** 80-100

Pakistan*** 70-90

India*** 60-80

North Korea*** ?

Total*** 23,360

The World’s Nuclear Weapons (data from Bulletin of Atomic Scientists: http://gsn.nti.org/gsn/nw_20091118_4824.php )

*** Estimates

Patterns of war, early 21st century:

Mostly in the Global South -

even though most military preparations are in the North

Mostly within states, not between states

Casualties overwhelmingly civilian

Terrorism a widely used weapon

The threat of WMD use

The potential for escalation and spread

The dialectics of integration and conflict in world politics Conflict and integration are inseparable from each other Integration has generated new conflicts They are undermining integration Will conflicts converge to produce large-scale warfare on

global scale? At what level of conflict will the world achieve more viable

and humane forms of integration?

Do we have alternatives to escalation?

See Kofi Annan’s report “In Larger Freedom”:

Report - Table of Contents

And UN Secretary-General’s High-level Panel’s report “A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility” :

Report of the Secretary-General's High-level Panel

A new global security consensus is needed The UN was created in 1945 as a collective security

organization – To prevent states from waging aggressive wars on other

states It was understood that peace and security would require:

facilitating socioeconomic development and protection of human rights

• SECURITY

• DEVELOPMENT

• HUMAN RIGHTS

–are inseparable

DEVELOPMENT

HUMAN RIGHTS

SECURITY

“Sixty years later, we know all too well that the biggest security threats we face now, and in the decades ahead, go far beyond States waging aggressive war…

…The threats are from non-state actors as well as States, and to human security as well as State security”.

From “A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility”

Examples of mutual insecurity Northern troubles – southern consequences

World Bank estimates: the attacks of 9/11 increased the number of world

poor by 10 million total cost to the world economy – $80 bln.

Southern troubles – northern consequences 9/11 Global epidemics Terrorism

The “front line actors” to assure security – Individual sovereign states But they must act collectively – individually, they cannot do

the job The threats are transnational No state is invulnerable And an individual state may not be “able, or willing, to

meet its responsibility to protect its own peoples and not to harm its neighbours”

“What is needed today is nothing less than a new consensus between alliances that are frayed, between wealthy nations and poor, and among people mired in mistrust across an apparently widening cultural abyss. The essence of that consensus is simple: we all share responsibility for each other’s security. And the test of that consensus will be action.”

The primary challenge - PREVENTION How to prevent security threats from rising: DEVELOPMENT If successful -

Improves living conditions Builds state capacities Creates an environment which makes war less likely

But what if prevention fails? Conditions for legitimate use of force Article 51 and Chapter VII of the UN Charter They need no changes, but they must be used more

effectively Build a consensus on guidelines 5 guidelines:

Seriousness of threat Proper purpose Last resort Proportional means Balance of consequences

Other major issues arising during and after violent conflict: Needed capacities for peace enforcement: all countries

must contribute resources Peace-keeping Peace-building Protection of civilians

A more effective United Nations Organization Revitalize the General Assembly Reform and make more effective the Security Council

(decision-making and contributions) Give attention, policy guidance and resources to countries

under stress, in conflict, and emerging from conflict Security Council must work more closely with regional

organizations Institutions to address social and economic threats to

international security Create a more potent international body for the protection of

human rights