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   East-West  Communism – capitalism  Soviet Union – United States

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

The Cold War – 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 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

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 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

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 ( ), 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 ( ) Transition to capitalism

Communist states: 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 ( ). 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) : 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:

Balkans, : the Bosnia War

Africa, 1994: the Rwandan genocide

: 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 elated elated Russian military power sxhho_g&feature=related sxhho_g&feature=related China’s military power Brazil’s military power e=related e=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 *

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 USA8,400 France300 China240 UK180 Israel*** Pakistan***70-90 India***60-80 North Korea***? Total***23,360 The World’s Nuclear Weapons (data from Bulletin of Atomic Scientists: ) *** Estimates

Patterns of war, early 21 st 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