Traditional Actors and Other Actors

Traditional Actors and Other Actors

Lsns 7, 8, and 9

Agenda

• Classical International System (1648-1789)

• Transitional International System (1789-1945)

• Post- World War II International System (1946-1991)

• Post- Cold War International System (1992-present)

Classical International System (1648-1789)

• Zealous efforts of the Catholic Church to stamp out Protestantism led to bitter religious wars in the late 16th and early 17th Centuries

• The growing tensions erupted in the Thirty Years War (1618-1648) which eventually involved every major European power and expanded from a religious to a political character Ferdinand II, emperor of

the Holy Roman Empire

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Ferdinand2.jpg


• The war was the most destructive European conflict prior to the 20th Century– Undisciplined soldiers committed acts of

violence and brutality– Economic and social life was disrupted– One-third of the German population was killed

• In an effort to avoid tearing their societies apart, the European powers ended the war with the Peace of Westphalia in 1648


• The Peace of Westphalia:– Laid the foundations for a system of

independent, competing states– European states would henceforth regard

each other as sovereign and equal– Each state had the right to organize its own

domestic and religious affairs– Political and diplomatic affairs would be

conducted by states acting in their own interests


• Sovereignty does not necessarily mean that the state is able to control all the actions of its members at all times

• It does mean the state internally can claim a monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force as a possible tool in seeking to compel obedience and externally can claim a monopoly right to act vis-à-vis other states

Max Weber famously defined the state as that organization that claims a monopoly over the legitimate use of violence


• With the Peace of Westphalia, nation-states emerged as the world’s primary political organizations

• Nation-states have a single central government exercising sovereignty over a relatively fixed population within a relatively defined territory– A “nation” refers to a a cultural or

social entity whose members have some sense of a shared historical experience as well as shared destiny

– “State” and “nation-state” have come to be used interchangeably

The former state of Yugoslavia has divided into several new states that reflect the national identities of their members


• During the classical era of international relations there were a relatively small number of actors involved in international politics– Royal families of the

European nation-states along with their aristocratic elites King Louis XIV is credited

with saying, “L'État, c'est moi” (“I am the State”).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Louis_XIV_of_France.jpg


• While other nation-states existed, international politics was essentially European politics– Power distributed among England, France, Austria,

Sweden, Spain, Turkey, and later Prussia and Russia– Aggressively minded states were deterred from

seeking hegemony by the “balance of power” represented by the prospect of coming up against a coalition of states having equal or superior power

– France was often perceived as the major threat to the system’s stability with England serving as the chief “balancer”


• The first half of the 17th Century ushered in the age of absolutism in which ultimate authority rested in the hands of a monarch who claimed to rule by divine right and was therefore responsible only to God

• The fact that decision-making rested in the hands of a few rulers who did not have any vast ideological cleavages (all were conservative and many were related by marriage) helped maintain stability– A “minimum number of minimally different nation-

states”


• The combination of multiple power systems and flexibility of alignments made for a multipolar environment

• The classical era was not an era of peace, but one in which the violent international conflicts that did occur were relatively small affairs between monarchs rather than the total wars between societies that would follow in subsequent eras

Case Study

Seven Years’ War

Seven Years’ War: Causes

• After the explorations of the 15th, 16th, and 17th Centuries, the European powers protected their interests by building a series of fortified trading posts throughout the maritime regions

• Boundaries in the new colonies were disputed• Commercial competition ultimately generated violence

– In 1746 French forces seized the English trading post at Madras, India

– In the Caribbean English pirates attacked Spanish vessels and French and English forces fought over the sugar islands

• The violence culminated in the Seven Years’ War (1756-1763)

Seven Years’ War: Causes

• A global war– In Europe, Britain and Prussia

fought against France, Austria, and Russia

– In India, British and French allied with local rulers and fought each other

– In the Caribbean, the Spanish and French fought the British

– In North America, the Seven Years’ War merged with the on-going French and Indian War (1754-1763) which pitted the British and French against each other

Seven Years’ War: Frederick the Great

• Became king of Prussia in 1740 when he was 28• Had spent much of his life training as a soldier, visiting

battlefields, and studying political history and politics• Believed every man had an obligation to serve his state

and that it was the king’s particular duty to develop policies that increased the power and standing of the state

• Strong lust for military glory• His success lay in his purposeful use of authority and

unwavering determination to make Prussia a European power


• Frederick used the period of peace after the War of Austrian Succession to prepare his country and army for another war

• In August 1756, Frederick launched a preemptive attack against Saxony and Austria, hoping to force them to sue for peace before another country could intervene

• Was unable to achieve a quick, decisive victory and was now faced with fighting a coalition of powerful states– French, Russian, and Austria forces began

converging on Prussia


• Frederick used his central position to defeat French, German, and Austrian armies in his Nov-Dec 1757 Rossbach-Leuthen campaign, secure Prussia’s boundaries of 1756, and gain a satisfactory negotiated peace

• In the process, he benefited greatly from Britain’s ability to support Prussia by defeating the French at sea and overseas

Seven Years’ War: British Navy

• The British had the most powerful fleet and expeditionary forces of any of the combatants

• Furthermore, the British could rely on the Prussian army to do most of the fighting on the continent

• This allowed the British to bring overwhelming pressure against the French at sea

Seven Years’ War: British Navy

• The British Navy blockaded the French ports to contain commerce raiders, intercept forces bound for the colonies, and forestall an invasion of England

• They raided the French Atlantic coast to destroy shipping and stores and to divert French forces from Germany

• They defeated the French Navy at Quiberon Bay which freed the British Navy to turn its attention to the French colonies

The Battle of Quiberon Bay by Nicholas Pocock

Seven Years’ War: French and Indian War

• The British, French, and Spanish all had colonial interests in North America and this competition led to war in 1754

• The French and Indian War merged with the Seven Years’ War

Seven Years’ War: French and Indian War

• The French came to place greater emphasis on the war in Europe than in the colonies and the British developed a numerical advantage– The British Navy played an important role in

blockading New France which was never a self-sufficient colony and could not survive without a steady stream of support from France

• In September 1760, the British finally conquered all of Canada when the combined Anglo-American force overwhelmed the French at Montreal

Seven Years’ War: Results

• The victory in Canada allowed the British to divert thousands of troops elsewhere and ultimately win the Seven Years’ War

• Britain was now in a position to dominate world trade for the foreseeable future

• The Seven Years’ War paved the way for the establishment of the British Empire of the 19th Century

Seven Years’ War

• How does the Seven Years’ War represent the era of the classical international system in terms of:– States acting according to self-interest– European dominance– Absolute authority– Limited war– Balance of power– Multipolar

Transitional International System (1789-1945)

• The American and French Revolutions ushered in a period of nationalism that gave the masses a greater voice in the political life of their country

• Mass democracy meant that the government had to be more sensitive to public opinion in formulating foreign policy, but also that the government could count on the total military and economic capabilities of their societies in pursuing that policy

During the French Revolution, the levee en masse was used to mobilize the French population and resources


• Nationalism led to the appearance of new states– Freedom gained from colonial

masters– Political unification of culturally

similar groups• At the same time,

nationalistic impulses touched off a new wave of European imperialism that subjugated people in Africa and elsewhere

Simon Bolivar was one of the chief heroes in Latin America’s struggle for independence from Spain

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/31/Sim%C3%B3n_Bol%C3%ADvar_-_Mart%C3%ADn_Tovar_y_Tovar.jpg


• Imperialism was effected not just through the force of arms, but also through trade, investment, and business activities that enabled the imperial powers to profit from subject societies and influence their affairs without going to the trouble of exercising direct political control

• Conflict could be avoided only as long as there was enough colonial territory to go around Colonial disputes in Africa

was one of the causes of World War I


• After World War I there were additional pressures for national “self-determination” and by the end of the transitional period there were over 50 nation-states

• In addition to increased nation-states, there were increasing numbers of people during this period– In 1830 the world population reached 1 billion – Just 100 years later it reached 2 billion


• The increased industrialization that occurred in Europe and America during the 19th and early 20th Centuries contributed to a growing disparity in wealth between societies in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres

• The transitional era marked increasing interdependence, especially in the economic sphere– The Global Depression of the

1920s and 1930s showed the dangers of this interdependence

By the end of the 19th Century, the factory had become the predominant site of industrial production in Europe and America


• The Industrial Revolution largely bypassed the Southern Hemisphere, creating an unprecedented “rich-poor gap”

• The Industrial Revolution skewed not just the distribution of wealth in favor of certain states, but also the distribution of power– Economic advantage was easily converted to military

advantage

• Several states dominated the rest of the system, but Britain was considered “first among equals”


• Two non-European states rose to power during this transitional era– The United States with its

victory in the Spanish-American War (1898)

– Japan with its victory in the Russo-Japanese War (1905)

• The transitional era marked both the peak of the European-centered world and the beginning of its decline

Retreat of Russian soldiers during the

Russo-Japanese War

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/49/Retreat_of_the_Russian_Army_after_the_Battle_of_Mukden.jpg


• On Oct 24-25, 1917, the Bolsheviks stormed the Winter Palace, seized control of Russia, and transitioned the country to a socialist government

• After that Russia took on special significance in the international system as a communist power

Vladimir Lenin headed the Bolsheviks, the radical wing of the Russian Social Democratic

Party


• Additional components of growing ideological conflict emerged during the transitional era with the rise of national socialism and fascism

• The transitional era marked the first time competition between rival political philosophies would be injected into international relations and would foreshadow the extreme polarization of the post-World War II era

In May 1939, Mussolini and Hitler signed a ten-

year Pact of Steel between Italy and

Germany


• Still the international system of the transitional era was flexible enough to remain multipolar in that countries reached across ideological philosophies to form alliances– The British and American

democracies joined forces with the communist Soviets against the fascist Germans and Italians in World War II

Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin


• The transitional era was marked by increases in total war

• Total war describes a war in which nations use all of their resources to destroy another nation’s ability to engage in war.– French Revolution’s levee en masse– US Civil War and Sherman’s March to the Sea– World War I and the increased lethality that resulted

from diverting advances in industrialization to military applications

– World War II and the atomic bomb


• Traditional nation-states have difficulties handling problems of a global magnitude

• Nonstate actors began to appear– The first intergovernmental

international organization, The Central Committee for the Navigation of the Rhine, was created in 1815

– The International Committee of the Red Cross was founded in 1863

– The League of Nations was formed in 1919

1919 British cartoon criticizing the failure of the United States to join the

League of Nations


• Intergovernmental organizations (IGOs)– Established on a regional or global basis by

member governments in response to problems that transcend national boundaries and seem to call for institutional responses

• Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs)– Formed among private groups of individuals

sharing specialized interests across national borders

Case Study

Global Depression

Global Depression

• In the 1920s, the world economy was beginning to return to normal after World War I

• Beneath the surface however there were some serious flaws– Tangled financial system– Second order effects of technological

advances– Weakened agricultural base

Tangled Financial System

• The Treaty of Versailles imposed heavy reparation payments on Germany and Austria to France and Britain

• Germany and Austria relied on US loans and investment capital to finance these reparations

• The French and British, in turn, relied on these reparations to repay loans to the US taken out during World War I

• By the summer of 1928, US lenders and investors started to withdraw capital from Europe which placed an intolerable strain on the system

Germany Austria

Loans

Reparations required by Versailles

Repayment of war loans

Britain and France

US

Second Order Effects of Technological Advances

• Improvements in industrial processes reduced demand for some raw resources, causing an increase in supplies and a drop in demand– Tires could now be made with reclaimed rubber which

crippled the economies of the Dutch East Indies, Ceylon, and Malaysia which relied on exports of rubber

– Increased use of oil reduced demand for coal– Synthetics reduced demand for cotton– Artificial nitrogen reduced demand for nitrates from

Chile

Weakened Agricultural Base

• Agricultural production in Europe declined significantly during World War I, so farmers in the US, Canada, Argentina, and Australia increased their production

• After World War I, European farmers restored their production which created worldwide surpluses

• The situation was exacerbated by above average global harvests between 1925 and 1929

• By 1929 the price of a bushel of wheat was its lowest in 400 years

Crash of 1929

• The US had enjoyed an economic boom after World War I

• Many people began buying stock on margin (paying as little as 3% of the stock’s price in cash and borrowing the remainder)

• By October 1929, indications of a worldwide economic slowdown and overvalued stock prices prompted investors to pull out of the market

Black Thursday (October 24)

• Panic selling on the New York Stock Exchange caused stock prices to plummet

• Thousands lost their lifesavings

• By the end of the day, eleven financiers had committed suicide

• When lenders called in their loans, investors were forced to sell their securities at any price

Economic Contraction Spreads

• There was no longer consumer demand for all the goods businesses produced

• Businesses cut back on production and laid off workers

• A vicious downward spiral of business failures and unemployment followed

• By 1932, industrial production was half of its 1929 level– National income was down approximately 50%– 44% of US banks had closed

Global Effects

• Much of the world depended on the export of US capital and the strength of US imports, so the US economic contraction had worldwide impact– Germany and

Japan were especially hard hit

Toronto Stock Market after the day after the New York Stock

Market crashes

Economic Nationalism

• The Great Depression destroyed international economic cooperation and governments began practicing economic nationalism– Trade barriers, import

quotas, import prohibitions– US passed the Smoot-

Hawley Tariff in 1930 raising duties on most manufactured products to prohibitive levels

– Governments of other nations retaliated with their own tariffs on US products

Congressman Willis Hawley

http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=H000379

Economic Nationalism

• The world economy was too interdependent for protectionism to work– Between 1929 and

1932, world production went down 38% and trade dropped over 66%

– By 1933, unemployment in industrialized nations was five times higher than in 1929

Unemployed men vying for jobs at the American Legion Employment Bureau in Los Angeles during the Great

Depression.

Global Depression

• How does the Global Depression represent the era of the transitional international system in terms of:– Impact of industrialization– Increased interdependence– Shifting away from European dominance– Growth of nonstate actors

Post- World War II International System (1946-1991)

• Following World War II, the international system became bipolar as the United States and the Soviet Union matched competing ideologies in the Cold War

• The Cold War was a state of political tension and military rivalry that stopped short of full-scale war, but involved everything from the Olympics to the space race to indirect fighting through surrogates

• The US and the USSR led two collective security organizations, NATO and the Warsaw Pact, that reflected the bipolar world

• Because a direct superpower confrontation was potentially catastrophic, the superpowers fought through surrogates in places like Korea, Vietnam, and Afghanistan


• Still there were several tense moments of brinkmanship where the US and the USSR came close to confrontation such as the construction of the Berlin Wall and the Cuban Missile Crisis


1962 British cartoon showing Kennedy and Khrushchev arm

wrestling on top of nuclear weapons


• After the US-USSR arms race reached the point of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD), the superpowers resigned themselves to maintain a “peaceful coexistence”

• A gradual loosening of bloc unity ensued with France exercising increased independence in the West and Romania and China in the East

French President Charles de Gaulle declared, “France has no

permanent friends, only permanent interests.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:DeGaulle_cropped.jpg


• One organization that offered an alternative to the post-World War II global reconstruction independent of the Cold War was the United Nations– Charter finalized by delegates from 50 nations in 1945

• Dedicated to maintaining international peace and security and promoting friendly relations among the world’s nations

• Still the ideological differences of the Cold War dominated the post-World War II international system and largely marginalized UN effectiveness


• Because of widespread aversion to foreign rule, the two superpowers sought to gain influence over Third World nations rather than physically occupy them– “Third World” countries

were the newly independent nation-states, usually in the Southern Hemisphere, that were often underdeveloped or just developing


• After World War II, many colonial powers granted independence to their former colonies

• The decolonization process doubled the number of nation-states from roughly 60 in 1945 to over 130 in 1973


• In 1945 almost a quarter of the world’s people and its land were under colonial rule

• By 1973 less than 1% of the world’s population and territory still lacked self-governments

• However many of the newly independent states lacked the experience and institutions necessary to smoothly transition to self-government and in many cases civil war, corruption, and dictatorships followed independence

• During the1980s, Cold War tensions increased as Ronald Reagan pursued a vigorous anti-Soviet policy

• While the US was spending at levels the USSR was finding difficult to match, the Soviets were having their own problems with their economy and the war in Afghanistan

• Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev tried to correct the situation with a series of reforms, but by the summer of 1990 the reforms had spent themselves

Reagan delivering his “Mr. Gorbachev, Tear

Down This Wall!” speech in 1987


• Revolutions broke out throughout eastern Europe as people overthrow communist dictators in places like Poland, Bulgaria, and Romania and countries such as Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia broke apart

• The Berlin Wall came down on November 9, 1989 and East and West Germany united in 1990

The 1989 Romanian Revolution was a violent overthrow of the communist regime of Nicolae

Ceauşescu


• In August 1991, Soviet republics began declaring their independence from the USSR

• By the end of 1991, the USSR had ceased to exist

• The demise of the Soviet Union left the US as the world’s sole superpower


Division of the former USSR into 15 independent states

• On Aug 2, 1990, Iraq invaded Kuwait• The United Nations adopted resolutions

condemning Iraq and authorizing the use of force

• Thirty-six countries (as well as Kuwait) contributed forces

• The end of the Cold War and Russia’s willingness to join the US in opposing Iraq created an unprecedented level of international cooperation and hopes for a more favorable “new world order”


Case Study

The Truman Doctrine and the Greek Civil War

George Kennan and Containment

• Kennan was a Soviet expert and director of the State Department’s Policy Planning Staff

• In the July 1947 issue of Foreign Affairs he wrote an article under the pen name “Mr. X” titled “The Sources of Soviet Conduct.”

• He described the USSR as being driven by an aggressive and uncompromising ideology that would stop “only when it meets some unanswerable force.”

George Kennan and Containment

• Kennan wrote that the US must adopt a “policy of firm containment designed to confront the Russians with unalterable counterforce at every point where they show signs of encroaching upon the interests of a peaceful and stable world.”

http://www.npg.si.edu/img1/img1a/lkennan.jpg

Greek Civil War• During the German

occupation of Greece during WWII, the Communists and other parts of the Greek Left formed a resistance army called the National People's Liberation Army (ELAS)

• By 1944, ELAS controlled large areas of the country and continued to have success against the British liberation force after the war.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Ac.elas.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Kkesticker.jpg

Truman Doctrine

• On Feb 21, 1947, the British informed the US that they were pulling out of Greece.

• On March 3, the Greek government requested US aid.

• On March 12, President Truman announced the Truman Doctrine:– “I believe that it must be the policy

of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures.” Harry Truman

http://teachpol.tcnj.edu/amer_pol_hist/thumbnail396.html

JUSMAPG

• On 22 May, Truman signed a bill authorizing $400 million in aid to Greece and Turkey.

• By 1952, Greek forces would receive $500 million in US aid.

• Even more important was LTG James Van Fleet and his 350-man Joint US Military Advisory and Planning Group.

Grumman Avengers and Curtis Helldivers aboard the USS

Leyte preparing for operations over Greece in 1948

Success

• Van Fleet set out to retrain and reorganize the Greek Army and cut off the flow of supplies reaching guerrillas from Yugoslavia, Albania, and Bulgaria

• On Oct 16, 1949, Greece’s Communist leaders announced a cease-fire

“As in Greece, the enemy strikes from sanctuary”

UN Special Committee on the Balkans

• In addition to the US effort, Greek Civil War involved the United Nations Special Committee on the Balkans (UNSCOB) – First attempt by the UN to deploy an observation

mission in the midst of an armed conflict• In Aug 1946 the USSR vetoed a proposal to establish an

investigative commission to look into the violence along the Greek-Albania border

• In December, Greece brought the complaint before the Security Council and the US repeated the earlier proposal

• This time the USSR acquiesced to the commission but proceeded to repeatedly veto resolutions based on its findings of Albanian, Yugoslav, and Bulgarian support to the Greek guerrillas


• The US was able to move the matter from the Security Council to the General Assembly to avoid a Soviet veto and on October 21, 1947, the UN created the eleven member Special Committee on the Balkans (UNSCOB)– Two of the nations appointed to UNSCOB, Poland and the

USSR, refused to participate

• UNSCOB functioned until December 7, 1951, when it was dissolved by the General Assembly and replaced on January 23, 1952 by a Balkan Sub-Commission of the standing Peace Observation Commission

• In each of its annual reports, UNSCOB had found continuing aid to the guerilla forces in Greece


• The UNSCOB was the first UN mission created directly as a result of Cold War competition

• It was plagued by a lack of cooperation from the communist governments who refused to allow it to operate in their territories

• While UNSCOB had no great impact on the Greek Civil War, it did teach the UN valuable lessons about the importance of obtaining consent from all local parties before deploying on a peacekeeping mission and the necessity of political impartiality once deployed

The Truman Doctrine and the Greek Civil War

• How does the Truman Doctrine and the Greek Civil War represent the Post- World War II international system in terms of:– Competing ideologies– The bipolar world– Superpowers militarily confronting each other

through surrogates – The role of the UN

Post- Cold War International System (1992-present)

• The collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War abruptly opened up possibilities for trans-global connections that had previously been limited

• “Globalization” is the increasing interconnectedness of all parts of the world in all areas, most notably communication, commerce, culture, and politics

• It is welcomed by some and vilified by others


• “We stand today at a unique and extraordinary moment. The crisis in the Persian Gulf, as grave as it is, also offers a rare opportunity to move toward an historic period of cooperation. Out of these troubled times, …. a new world order can emerge: a new era -- freer from the threat of terror, stronger in the pursuit of justice, and more secure in the quest for peace. An era in which the nations of the world, East and West, North and South, can prosper and live in harmony.…

• ….A hundred generations have searched for this elusive path to peace, while a thousand wars raged across the span of human endeavor. Today that new world is struggling to be born, a world quite different from the one we’ve known. A world where the rule of law supplants the rule of the jungle. A world in which nations recognize the shared responsibility for freedom and justice. A world where the strong respect the rights of the weak.” – President George H. W. Bush Sept 11, 1990



• Cold War threats were potentially catastrophic but they were also measurable and somewhat predictable

• The bipolar structure and the desire to avoid superpower confrontation had provided a certain degree of order and stability

• The post Cold War period was much more ambiguous and uncertain and many new threats emerged

CIA Director James Woolsey described the post-Cold War

environment by saying, “We have slain a large dragon (the U.S.S.R.) — but we now live in a jungle filled with a

bewildering variety of poisonous snakes. In many ways, the dragon

was easier to keep track of.”


• The Cold War structure had kept in check ethnic divisions in many countries and limited military interventions

• The end of the Cold War changed all that– UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali

advocated the “legitimate involvement” of the UN in “peace enforcement” and “peacemaking” operations

• After the Cold War, the United Nations went from an average of three or four peacekeeping operations a year to 13 in December 1992


• Bosnia

• Somalia

• Rwanda

• East Timor

• Kosovo

• Liberia

• SudanRwandan children in the refugee camp at Ndosha, Zaire


• “In a globalized war, bad things that happen in other countries spread more quickly to our shores. Genocides spawn refugees, who destabilize their neighbors. Corruption sparks financial meltdowns, which rock the world economy. Pandemics hopscotch across the globe.”– Peter Beinart in explaining why the US intervened in

Kosovo where there was “no direct threat to the US” (Time, 23 Apr 2007, 28)


• The United Nations Charter proclaims one of the UN’s principle purposes as being “to maintain international peace and security”

• Sometimes the UN effectively intervened in these crises, sometimes it didn’t– Same for the United States

• The US found that its status as world economic and military superpower would not necessarily equate to unchallenged world leadership– The US would meet a host of challenges within the

UN and from non-governmental organizations as well as from new enemies


• UN Charter Chapter VI– “Pacific Settlement of Disputes”– Security Council can investigate any dispute, or any situation

which might lead to international friction or give rise to a dispute– Council can recommend action but the recommendations are not

binding on its members

• UN Charter Chapter VII– Council is not limited to recommendations– Can take action, including the use of armed force, to maintain or

restore international peace and security

• Peacekeeping operations often are called “Chapter VI and a half”


• Limitations of the UN – No army of its own

• Reliant on ad hoc contributions from its members

– Can never divorce itself from the political agendas of its members

– Inadequately trained staff of military professionals and managers


• The post-Cold War era included an ever-widening gap between rich industrialized nations (mostly in the Northern Hemisphere) and poor agricultural ones (mostly in the Southern Hemisphere)

• The goal of all poor nations is economic growth, but most lack the requirements for industrial development– Trapped in a cycle of poverty: lack of capital resulting

from low production leads to low savings which in turn means little or no available capital for future development projects


• The collapse of communism in the USSR and Eastern Europe opened up huge economic markets– On the other hand West

Germany’s previously booming economy struggled as it tried to integrate the much poorer former East Germany

• In 2004, the EU swelled to 25 members including the former Soviet republics of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia

As Germany moved its capital from Bonn to Berlin, construction projects were rampant


• Failed states became fertile ground for terrorist safe havens, black market activities, humanitarian crises, and general chaos

• “Lack of state capacity in poor countries has come to haunt the developed world much more directly….. Suddenly the ability to shore up or to create from whole cloth missing state capabilities and institutions has risen to the top of the global agenda and seems likely to be a major condition for security in important parts of the world. Thus state weakness is both a national and an international issue of the first order.”– Francis Fukuyama, State-Building, x-xi

Case Study

September 11

Islamism

• As globalization spread, many Muslims became skeptical about European and American models of economic development and political and cultural norms

• Blamed the Western models for their own economic and political problems as well as for secularization and its attendant breakdown of traditional social and religious values

• Saw the Muslim world as slipping into a state of decline brought about by the abandonment of Islamic traditions and many blamed the US

The Saudi Arabian Mutaween, or religious police, enforce the Islamic dress code

Islamist Reaction• Many saw the solution to the

problems faced by Muslim societies as being a revival of Islamic identity, values, and power

• Most sought to bring about change through peaceful means, but an extremist minority has claimed a mandate from God that calls for violent transformations

Supporters of Hizbut Tahrir, a hardline Muslim group, protesting in front of the US Embassy in Jakarta, Indonesia

Jihad

• Convinced that the Muslim world is under siege, extremists used the concept of the jihad to rationalize and legitimize terrorism and revolution– Jihad is sometimes called the

Sixth Pillar of Islam and is an exertion or struggle in achieving the ways of Allah

– It invokes the right and duty to defend Islam and the Islamic community from unjust attack

Members of the Islamic Jihad’s military wing, the Al-Quds Brigade, in Gaza

Extremist Rhetoric

• “God has blessed a group of vanguard Muslims, the forefront of Islam, to destroy America." – Osama bin Laden in a videotaped statement broadcast by Al

Jazeera, October 7, 2001 • “We issue the following fatwa to all Muslims: The ruling

to kill the Americans and their allies -- civilians and military -- is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it....We -- with God's help -- call on every Muslim who believes in God and wishes to be rewarded to comply with God's order to kill the Americans and plunder their money wherever and whenever they find it.”– World Islamic Front Statement, February 23, 1998

Clash of Civilizations

• “On both sides the interaction between Islam and the West is seen as a clash of civilizations.” – Samuel Huntington

Huntington’s CivilizationsWestern

Latin American Islamic

Slavic- Orthodox Sinic

HinduAfrican

Japanese

Osama bin Laden

• Osama bin Laden began his militancy in response to the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan

• He helped found the Maktab al-Khadamāt (MAK) which recruited and funded mujahideen to fight the Soviets– Ironically, the US also

supported the mujahideen based on the Cold War philosophy that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”

al-Qaeda

• In 1988, bin Laden split from the MAK and formed a new group comprised of some of the most militant mujahideen that would become the al-Qaeda terrorist group

• With the US involvement in Desert Storm and its subsequent continued presence in Saudi Arabia, home of the Muslim holy sites of Mecca and Medina, bin Laden became irreconcilably infuriated by the Western influence

Part of the post-Desert Storm US military presence at Prince Sultan Air Base, 80 km south of Riyadh

September 11, 2001

• On Sept 11, 2001, 19 men affiliated with al-Qaeda hijacked four planes and crashed two into the World Trade Towers in New York City and one into the Pentagon

• The fourth plane crashed in Pennsylvania after passengers attacked the terrorists

Terrorism

• The deliberate and systematic use of violence against civilians with the aim of advancing political, religious, or ideological cause

• Terrorism is not a new phenomenon, but its impact has been magnified in a globalized world distinguished by rapid technological advances in transportation, communications, and weapons development– Worldwide television coverage has transformed

terrorism by expanding its visibility and impact

al-Qaeda’s International Presence at the Time of the Sept 11 Attack

Global War on Terrorism

• On Sept 20, President Bush addressed the nation and declared “Our war on terror begins with al Qaeda, but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated… Our response involves far more than instant retaliation and isolated strikes. Americans should not expect one battle, but a lengthy campaign, unlike any other we have ever seen. It may include dramatic strikes, visible on TV, and covert operations, secret even in success….

Global War on Terrorism

• … We will starve terrorists of funding, turn them one against another, drive them from place to place, until there is no refuge or no rest. And we will pursue nations that provide aid or safe haven to terrorism. Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists. From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime.”

Operation Enduring Freedom

• The Sept 11 attack was quickly traced to Osama bin Laden who had been operating from Afghanistan since his 1996 expulsion from Saudi Arabia

• On Oct 7, 2001, the US led a coalition attack into Afghanistan to destroy terrorist training camps and infrastructure, capture al-Qaeda leaders, and eliminate terrorist activities in Afghanistan

• By mid-March 2002, the Taliban government had been removed from power and the al-Qaeda network in Afghanistan had been severely crippled

CENTCOM Commander General Tommy Franks

explains Operation Enduring Freedom

September 11

• How does the terrorist attack of September 11 and the Global War on Terrorism represent Post- Cold War International System international system in terms of:– Globalization– Changing threats– The “New World Order”– Clashes of civilizations– The role of the UN– The role of the US

Nontraditional Actors

• Global media

• Nongovernmental organizations

• Global corporations

Media Coverage: The Old Way• 1938: the first regular

broadcast of daily news began on radio, with the World Today program on CBS for 15 minutes every evening,

• 1948: the “CBS TV News” began

• 1963: CBS Evening News expanded from 15 to 30 minutes, followed shortly by NBC, and then by ABC in 1967

• 1968: CBS began the 60 Minutes news magazine/documentary weekly show

CBS News correspondent Eric

Sevareid, 1955

24/7 News

• 1980: Cable News Network (CNN) became the world's first 24-hour cable television news channel

• 1996: MSNBC and Fox News Channel began 24-hour news

• Collectively, expanded television news coverage creates “the CNN effect” which affects political, diplomatic, and military decision making on a global level

http://www.foxnews.com/index.html

al Jazeera

• Founded in 1996 and based in Qatar• Fastest growing network among Arab communities

and Arabic speaking people around the world • Focuses primarily on news coverage and analysis

with a markedly anti-Western slant

bin Laden and al Jazeera

• “For someone who scorned modernity and globalization, and who took refuge in an Islamic state that banned television, bin Laden proved remarkably adept at public diplomacy. In the wake of the September 11 attacks, bin Laden turned to al Jazeera to reach the two audiences that were essential to his plans– the Western news media and the Arab masses.”– David Hoffman, Beyond

Public Diplomacy

Influence of the Media

• Agenda setting• Shaping public

opinion• Policy-makers

Tiananmen Square,

June 4, 1989

Agenda Setting

• “The mass media may not be successful in telling people what to think, but the media are stunningly successful in telling their audience what to think about.”

• “If a tree falls in the woods and CNN doesn’t cover it, did it really fall?”– Bruce W. Jentleson, American Foreign

Policy: The Dynamics of Choice in the 21st Century

Shaping Public Opinion

• “Framing”– How the media casts an

issue affects the sustentative judgments people make about the issue.

• “Priming”– The priority the media

gives to an issue affects the priority people give to the issue.

Donald Rumsfeld on the Media Coverage of OIF

• “And interestingly… we have seen mood swings in the media from highs to lows to highs and back again, sometimes in a single 24-hour period.”

• “For some, the massive volume of television - and it is massive - and the breathless reports can seem to be somewhat disorienting. Fortunately, my sense is that the American people have a very good center of gravity and can absorb and balance what they see and hear.”

Policy-makers

• Policy-makers often ask themselves “What will the media think?” as they formulate a course of action

• Political “spin” becomes extremely important

Case Study

Somalia

Somalia• Drought, famine, clan violence, corruption, and inefficient

government had created a humanitarian crisis in Somalia in the 1990s.

• One of the main sources of power had been the control of food supplies. – Hijacked food was used to secure the loyalty of clan

leaders, and food was routinely exchanged with other countries for weapons.

– In the early 1990’s up to 80% of internationally provided food was stolen.

• Between 1991 and 1992 over 300,000 Somalis were estimated to have died of starvation. – UN relief efforts were unsuccessful, largely due to looting.

• The U.N. asked its member nations for assistance.

Somalia

• In December 1992, President George Bush proposed to the U.N. that United States combat troops lead the intervention force. – The U.N.

accepted this offer and 25,000 U.S. troops were deployed to Somalia.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/images/restore-hope-map.gif

Somalia: Entry

• Stark images from Somalia, transmitted to the world via satellite, helped shape public opinion and pressured the United Nations to take action

• One famous picture was this one of Aabiba Nuur, who weighed only 46 pounds

Somalia: Entry

• President Bush said that as he and his wife, Barbara, watched television and saw “those starving kids … in quest of a little pitiful cup of rice,” he called Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Colin Powell and told them “Please come over to the White House…. I – we – can’t watch this anymore. You’ve got to do something.” – Craig Hines in a Houston

Chronicle article titled “Pity, not U. S. Security, Motivated Use of GIs in Somalia”

http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/photocredit/achievers/pow0-073

Somalia: Exit

• Two Black Hawk helicopters were shot down in the battle of Mogadishu in Oct 1993

• Pictures included a US soldier being dragged through the streets of Mogadishu

Somalia: Perception

• Nineteen US soldiers were killed and over 70 were wounded

• Conservative estimates say more than 500 Somalians were killed and over 1,000 injured

• "The perception of an operation can be as important to success as the execution of that operation." – MG Charles McClain

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/0,9263,7601931018,00.html

Somalia• “We went into Somalia

because of horrible television images; we will leave Somalia because of horrible television images.”– Marianne Means

• “We had been drawn to this place by television images; now we were being repelled by them. The President immediately conducted a policy review that resulted in a plan for withdrawal over the next six months.”– Colin Powell

Sudan and Somalia

• “As the contrasting responses to the seemingly similar Somalia and Sudan cases suggest, media coverage can have a significant impact.”– Arnold Kanter,

Intervention Decisionmaking in the Bush Administration

Refugees in Sudan

Why?…

• “Why should international institutions exist at all in a world dominated by sovereign states?”– Rhetorical question posed by Robert Keohane

Because….

• “Global problems require global solutions. We fall together or we succeed together.”– Joseph Deiss, Minister of Economic Affairs of

Switzerland

Air pollution obscures the ground in this aerial photo of China

Diseases such as bird flu threaten to become pandemics

Tension of Globalization

• Traditional nation-states have difficulties handling problems of a global magnitude

• A plethora of nongovernmental international organizations that do not respect territorial boundaries and are beyond the reach of national governments have sprung up to try to tackle the problem– Usually focus on a largely singular agenda

Some NGOs and their Agendas

• Red Cross– Relieve suffering to

wounded soldiers and prisoners of war

• Greenpeace– Preserve the

earth’s natural resources and animal and plant life

• Amnesty International– Ensure human

rights

Some IGOs and their Agendas

• An organization of sovereign nations devoted to a agenda of international scope or character

• United Nations– Maintain

international peace and security

• World Trade Organization– Foster free trade

The Reduction of Sovereignty

• “Under the WTO, member countries cannot tax or limit imports made under unfair or unsafe labor conditions. The same can be said for those imports that significantly harm the global environment during production. National sovereignty is what is at stake, since countries do not retain the ability to choose for themselves.”– David Carstens, “Bringing

Environmental and Economic Internationalism into US Strategy”

Pro-democracy protests in China in 1989 resulted in the massive government crackdown at Tiananmen Square

Corporations

• International corporations sought to extend business activities across borders in pursuit of specific activities such as importation, exportation, and the extraction of raw materials

• Multinational corporations conducted business in several countries but had to operate within the confines of specific laws and customs of a given society

Corporations

• Global corporations rely on a small headquarters staff while dispersing all other corporate functions across the globe in search of the lowest possible operating costs– Treat the world as a single market and act as

if the nation-state no longer exists– Some 50,000 global corporations exist,

including General Motors, Siemens AG, and Nestle

Case Study

United Fruit Company

Latin American Dependence

• Latin America in the 19th Century was plagued by division, rebellion, caudillo rule, civil war, instability, and conflict

• Add that to colonial legacies that lacked economic development and local industry in Latin America and the pattern was set for foreign dependence

• Because its economy required foreign investment to survive, Latin America became subject to decisions made in the interests of foreign investors

• Latin American governments were controlled by the elites who profited from foreign involvement at the expense of the citizenry, so the governments actually encouraged Latin America’s economic dependence

Case Study: United Fruit Company

• From 1899 to 1970, UFCO was prominent in the trade of bananas and other fruit from Latin America to Europe and the US

• An archetypal example of multinational influence extending deeply into the internal politics – “Banana republics”

and neocolonialism

The Peten, one of many ships in UFCO’s “Great

White Fleet”


• In addition to owning vast tracts of land, the UFCO dominated regional transportation networks and owned a major railroad corporation

• In 1913, UFCO extended its reach by creating the Tropical Radio and Telegraph Company

• By the end of the decade there would be virtually no aspect of the economic infrastructure of Latin American banana production untouched by the UFCO


• One of the company’s primary tactics for maintaining market dominance was to control the distribution of banana lands. – UFCO claimed that hurricanes, blight and other

natural threats required them to hold extra land or reserve land.

– In practice that meant UFCO was able to prevent the government from distributing banana lands to peasants who wanted a share of the banana trade.

• For UFCO to maintain its unequal land holdings, it had to have government concessions.

• This in turn meant that UFCO had to be politically involved in the region even though it was an American company.


• When Guatemalan President Jacobo Arbenz Guzman tried to seize thousands of acres of uncultivated land owned by the UFCO in 1953, President Eisenhower empowered the CIA to engineer the overthrow of Arbenz’s government

• A US-supported coup toppled Arbenz’s government in 1954 and returned the land to the UFCO

Castillo Armas established a military government after the ouster of the democratically elected Arbenz, who the US

feared had communist leanings

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Traditional Actors and Other Actors

Documents

Transcript of Traditional Actors and Other Actors