From the end of the cold war to a new global era?

Chapter 4

From The End of The Cold War To A New Global Era?

By Micheal Cox

Introduction: The rise and fall of the cold war 

The United States and the unipolar moment

After the Soviet Union

Europe: rise and decline?

A new Asian century?

A new global South

From 9/11 to the Arab Spring

Obama and the world

Conclusion

Reader's Guide

This chapter provides a broad overview of the two dec­ades following the revolution in world affairs known as the end of the cold war. The chapter is divided into three main sections. The first begins with the unexpected collapse of the communist project between 1989 and 1991. The second goes on to discuss some – through by no means all-of the main trends thereafter, with a special focus on the USA, Russia, Europe, East and Asia and what used to be called the Third World. The remainder of the chapter then looks in turn at two big developments: the transformation in US foreign policy since the beginning of the twenty-first century, largely brought about by 9/11; and the longer-term geopo­litical implications of the 2008 world financial crisis. In the conclusion I shall make some brief comments about the future. Here I will argue that even if the world is changing economically, the West still retains enormous power. The liberal order it constructed after the Second World War remains far more resilient than some are now claiming.

Introduction: the rise and fall of the cold war

The modern world system really begins with the cold war—a by-product in turn of the greatest war ever known in history. Fought on two continents and across three great oceans, the Second World War led to a major reordering of world politics, one that left Germany and Japan under Allied control, most of Europe and Asia in tatters, former colonies in a state of political turmoil, and two states—the USA and the USSR—in a position of enormous strength. Indeed, as early as 1944, analysts were beginning to talk of a new world order dominated by two superpowers, whose capabilities and reach would inevitably shape the international system for many years to come.

The causes of the cold war have been much debated. But several factors in the end can be identified, includ­ing a deeper incompatibility between the social and economic systems of East and West, mutual fears between the USSR and the USA concerning the other’s intentions, and insecurities generated by an on-going nuclear arms race. Beginning in Europe, the cold war soon spread to what became known as the Third World. Here, the conflict assumed a far more deadly form, with over 25 million people being killed as a result of real wars being fought from Korea to Vietnam, Latin America to southern Africa.

But in spite of this, the cold war still managed to develop its own set of unspoken rules. Indeed, both the United States and the Soviet Union tended to act with great caution towards one another. This did not preclude them from competing for influence. Nor did it prevent the two nearly going to war, as they did over Cuba in 1962. But overall there was an understand­ing that, whatever their differences, they shared some important common goals, including a desire to avoid nuclear war, to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons to other powers, and to manage a European continent that had been the site of two great wars in the past.

This in turn influenced the way certain scholars even theorized the cold war, notably those in the wider realist tradition. Indeed, as Kenneth Waltz pointed out in a famous 1964 article, by reducing the number of major international actors to only two, the cold war had created its own form of stability. Several years on, the influential historian John Lewis Gaddis was say­ing much the same thing. The cold war had deep roots, he agreed. But it also contained as much conflict as it generated (what he termed a ‘long peace’) by organiz­ing the world into two separate blocs, keeping Germany divided and nationalism in Europe under tight control.

This way of thinking about the cold war may in part explain the failure of IR academics to seriously contem­plate the possibility of it ever coming to an end. Nor was there much reason to think it would given the then prevalent view of the USSR. Once the cold war had come to an end, many assumed that it was bound to happen given Soviet economic problems. But that is not how things looked before 1989. The USSR, it was agreed, was economically uncompetitive. But its planned eco­nomic system was still capable of muddling along while guaranteeing full employment for ordinary Soviet citi­zens. The Soviet state also retained formidable powers. And there was little indication, either, that the USSR was about to decamp from Eastern Europe. The cold war would go on.

Though most experts failed to see the end of the cold war coming, one group above all others took the lion’s share of the blame: those in the realist camp. Indeed, as one world gave way to another, realism was to come under sustained attack from an emerg­ing band of critics, who accused it in turn of being too static in outlook, of failing to pay enough attention to what was going on inside the Soviet Union itself, and of taking little or no account of the important role played by ideas in bringing about the cold war’s end. But both realists and their many critics (many of whom went on to promote constructivism as a viable alternative to realist discourse) together faced a per­haps even bigger theoretical conundrum: that the end of the cold war might not have happened at all if it had not been for the actions of a single individual in the shape of Mikhail Gorbachev (see Box 4.1). Changes in material capabilities, the cost of maintaining an expensive empire, an unwinnable arms race with the United States and alteration in Soviet thinking may change likely in the 1980s. But it required the actions of a single man to finally bring it about.

Key Points

There was not one cause of the cold war, but several.

According to many scholars, the cold war bipolar system was stable

The cold war ended for many reasons, but few predicted it, and it may not have ended without Mikhail Gorbachev.

The United States and the unipolar moment

The role played by the United States during the cold war was often subject to attack by critics who frequently berated the greatest power on earth for being too inter­ventionist, too insensitive, too little interested in the deeper needs of the underdeveloped countries, and for upholding right-wing dictators when they should have been promoting freedom. Few, though, would dispute the vital role the US played in negotiating the end of the cold war by reassuring several very nervous European states that even if Germany was about to be united and NATO redefined, the US would remain fully committed to European security.

The critical part played by the United States in these transitional years points to at least one major feature of the post-cold war world: that, with or without a Soviet Union, the US would remain fully engaged in interna­tional affairs. There would be no retreat into isolation. An open door beckoned, and to many Americans this presented a massive opportunity to reshape the world in the United States’ own image. Yet in spite of this, some writers - including the influential John Mearsheimer - predicted that the US would soon be missing the cold war. However, as events began to unfold it was fast becoming obvious that a ‘new world order’ was coming into being, one in which the USA would hold an especially dominant position. Indeed, within ten years of 1989 the general consensus was that the USA had been transformed from a mere superpower—its designation during the cold war - into what the French foreign minister Hubert Vedrine in 1998 termed a ‘hyperpower’.

This new global conjuncture raised a series of important questions. One, of course, was how long could this position of primacy actually endure? There was no easy answer. Some took it as read that other great powers would in time emerge to balance the USA. Others were less sure. With the USSR having finally collapsed in 1991, China only barely recovering from years of economic isolation, Europe still very firmly in the American camp, and the balance of military power tilting increasingly towards the US, many concluded that the unipolarity would last well into the twenty-first century.

This in turn fed into a second debate concerning the exercise of this great power. Most liberal Americans thought it crucial to embed US power into pre-existing international institutions, sending out the very clear message that America was not just powerful but could be trusted to exercise its power wisely and well. Others adopted a more unilateral outlook. Seeking agreement from others was all well and good; but who were these ‘others’? A flawed UN? The militarily inconsequential European Union? The Chinese and the Russians? Why reduce America’s freedom of action by listening to any of these? Anyway, the USA, they insisted, had the power; it had always used it wisely and well in the past, and there was no reason to suspect it would not use it wisely again in the future.

In the end this particular debate was not settled on the pages of foreign policy journals so much as by the election of President Clinton in 1992. Sensing that the American people were seeking a new foreign policy approach, he concentrated in the main on economic issues, linking prosperity at home with America’s abil­ity to compete abroad. This did not preclude the US having to address other more traditional threats, such as the proliferation of nuclear weapons and terror­ism. But having won the cold war, not only were the American people deeply reluctant to intervene abroad, there seemed to be no pressing reason for the US to get sucked into conflicts abroad either.

Yet, as Clinton conceded, the US could neither escape from the world nor retreat from it (see Box 4.2). There may have been little appetite for military interven­tion, especially following the 1993 debacle in Somalia. The US may have done nothing to prevent genocide in Rwanda in 1994. However, it was not inactive. It did after all impose its own military ‘solution’ on the Serbs in the unfolding war in former Yugoslavia. Clinton then pushed hard for the enlargement of NATO. And he was anything but hesitant when it came to trying to resolve some fairly intractable regional conflicts, from Northern Ireland (where the US was brilliantly success­ful) through to the Middle East (where it was not). It was very easy for more conservative critics at the time to argue that the US had no grand strategy or that it had lost the will to fight. But this was less than fair or accurate. It may have had no single mission—other than the most obvious one of maintaining its position of primacy—but it could hardly be accused of having no forward foreign policy at all.

Key Points

The end of the cold war, followed by the collapse of the USSR, dramatically increased the USA's weight in the international system.

By 2000, the popular view was that the USA was more .'hyperpower' than 'superpower'.

Under Clinton there was a great focus on economic issues and using America's economic power to reinforce its position in the international system.

The USA may have failed to intervene in Rwanda, but it continued to play an active role in international affairs during the 1990s.

After the Soviet Union

Scholars of International Relations have long been deeply interested in the interplay between the great powers and the reasons why even the most powerful have in the end disappeared from the stage of history— something that happened to the Ottoman and Austro- Hungarian empires after the First World War, then to the European colonial empires after the Second World War, and finally to the Soviet empire between 1989 and 1991. But when empires fall this is not always followed by stability and prosperity. So it was in the past; so it turned out to be following the collapse of Soviet com­munism. Many challenges faced the new Russia.

First there was the issue of what to do with the USSR’s nuclear arsenal, and how to either prevent weapons leaving the former USSR or ensure that control of them remained in Russian hands. Secondly, there was an equally serious problem posed by the USSR’s break-up. Not only did 25 million Russians now find themselves living outside of Russia proper, the other nations also had to work out some kind of relationship with a Russia which found it almost impossible to think of its rela­tionship with states like Ukraine and Georgia in any­thing other than imperial terms. Finally, there was the even more basic problem of making the transition from a centralized, planned economy designed to guarantee full employment, to a competitive market economy where many of the old industries that had been the bed­rock of the USSR (including its huge military-industrial complex) were clearly no longer fit for purpose. Clearly some very tough times lay ahead, made tougher still by the extraordinarily painful market reforms that Russia adopted from 1992 onwards. Indeed, as a result of its speedy adoption of Western-style privatization, Russia experienced something close to a 1930s-style depres­sion, with industrial production plummeting, living standards falling, and whole regions once devoted to cold war military production experiencing free fall. Nor did the economic situation show much sign of improvement as time went on. Indeed, in 1998 Russia experienced its own financial crisis, one that wiped out the savings of ordinary people and made the new post­communist regime under Boris Yeltsin even less popu­lar than it had been a few years earlier. Not surprisingly, a year later he decided to resign.

It was not at first clear that Yeltsin’s successor would behave any differently. Indeed, it was no less a person than Yeltsin himself who chose Putin as his anointed successor in 1999. Nor, it seems, did the new oligarchs voice any degree of opposition to his elevation. In fact, there is a great deal of evidence to suggest that they were perfectly happy with his accession to power. Already immensely wealthy himself, Putin only demanded one thing from the new Russian super-rich: acquiescence. Those who were prepared to go along with this did very well. Those who did not either found themselves in prison (such was the fate of the richest Russian of all, Khodorkhovsky) or in exile (which in the end is what happened to the hugely powerful Berezovsky).

A product of the KGB and a central figure in the creation of its successor organization in the shape of the FSB, Putin seemed to have few, if any, original ideas of his own. However, he did understand power in the purest sense. Ruthless even by Russian stan­dards, he brooked no opposition. But his wider task, as he saw it, was not just to impose his will on others but to restore Russian prestige after what he saw as its precipitous decline during the 1990s. Putin never hid his ambitions. Nor did he lack for a coherent narrative. The disintegration of the USSR, he repeated, had been a tragedy, and even though it would not be possible to put the old empire back together again there would be no further concessions. This might not take Russia back to anything like the Soviet era. But Russia, he insisted, had to assert itself more forcefully—most obviously against those in the West who thought they could take Russia for granted. Nor should the newly wealthy simply be serving their own needs. They should also be asking what they could do for Russia. This would not lead (and did not lead) to a restoration of the old-style commu­nist economic system. However, it did lead to the newly privatized Russian economy being placed under much greater control of the Russian state. Putin even rede­fined the notion of democracy and gave it what many saw as a distinctly Russian or ‘sovereign’ character, in which the outward form of democracy remained intact while its inner content, in terms of an independent par­liament and equal access to a free media, was gradually hollowed out.

This shift in outlook produced some confusion in the West. At first the Americans and the Europeans turned something of a blind eye to these developments on the realist assumption that it was important to work closely with Russia: partly for economic reasons—Russia was a major supplier of oil and gas to Europe; partly because Putin appeared to be popular among ordinary Russians; and partly because Russia was a permanent member of the UN Security Council and remained a nuclear weapons state. However, the cumulative impact of Putin’s policies could not but complicate Russia’s relations with the West. This did not lead to anything like a ‘new cold war’. What it did mean, though, was that the West could no longer regard Russia as forever being what it had earlier hoped it would become: a ‘stra­tegic partner’ engaged in a more or less smooth transi­tion towards becoming a ‘normal’ liberal democracy.

But if Putin’s Russia could hardly be viewed as a close partner, it could hardly be seen as a serious threat either. It had no ideological mission worthy of the name, and its influence in the wider world had sunk to an all-time low by the beginning of the twenty-first century. Nor did Russia’s new super-rich see any reason not to get on with the West. On the contrary: many of them preferred liv­ing in the West. They raised capital in Western markets. They even sent their well-heeled children to the West’s most exclusive private schools. Finally, for all of his anti- American bluster and well-publicized opposition to US ‘interventions’ in various trouble spots in the world— Libya and Syria most obviously—Putin was pragmatic enough not to push Russia’s opposition to the West to anything like a breaking point. Limiting American power and preventing the West from interfering too much in Russia’s internal affairs was one thing. Pursuing policies that would undermine the relationship com­pletely was something else altogether (see Box 4.3).

Key Points

The problems facing post-communist Russia were enormous.

Economic reforms in the 1990s created a new class of super-rich Russians but exacerbated Russia's overall economic decline.

Vladimir Putin has attempted to reverse what he saw as Russia's decline in the 1990s.

It is misleading to talk of a 'new cold war' between the West and Russia.

Europe: rise and decline?

If many Americans continue to think that the US ‘won’ the cold war, perhaps an equal number of Europeans think they were the principal beneficiaries of what hap­pened in 1989. First, a continent and country that had once been divided were now united. Second, the states of Eastern Europe achieved one of the most impor­tant of international rights: that is, the right of self- determination. Finally, the threat of serious war with potentially devastating consequences for Europe as a whole was eliminated. Naturally, the transition from one order to another did not happen without certain economic costs being borne as planning gave way to the market. Nor was the collapse of communism an entirely bloodless affair, as events in former Yugoslavia (1990-9) revealed only too tragically. That said, the new united Europe, with its open borders and democratic institutions, clearly had much to look forward to.

But what kind of Europe would it be? Here there was much room for debate, with some, especially the French, believing Europe should now develop its own specific European security arrangements, independent of the United States—the old Gaullist dream. Others, meanwhile, believed it should remain closely tied to the USA—a view most forcefully expressed by both the new elites of Central Europe themselves, not to mention the other, more established members of the NATO alliance. Europeans could not agree either about what kind of Europe they preferred. There were those, of course, who sought an ever-deeper union that would fulfil their dream of building a United States of Europe, one that among other things would be able to play a major independent role in international politics. There were others who feared such a development. Europe, they asserted, should be a Europe composed of its very dif­ferent nation-states, a Europe that recognized national difference and did not try to undermine the principle of sovereignty. Finally, Europeans divided over econom­ics, with a clear line being drawn between dirigistes, who favoured greater state involvement in the manage­ment of a specifically European social model, and free marketers—led by the British—who argued that under conditions of global competition such a protected sys­tem was simply not sustainable and that thoroughgoing economic reform was essential.

While many in ‘old’ Europe debated Europe’s future, policy-makers themselves were confronted with the more concrete issue of how to bring the ‘East’ back into the ‘West’, a process that went under the general heading of ‘enlargement’. In terms of policy outcome, the strategy scored some notable successes. Indeed, by 2007 the European Union had grown to twenty-seven members (and NATO to twenty-six). In the process, the two bodies also changed their club-like character, much to the consternation of some older members, who found the new entrants to be as much trouble as asset. In fact, according to critics, enlargement had proceeded so rapidly that the essential core meaning of both organizations had been lost. The EU in particular, it was now argued by some, had been so keen to enlarge that it had lost the will to integrate. Still, it was difficult not to be impressed by the capacity of institutions that had helped shape part of Europe during the cold war being employed now in quite new roles to help manage the relatively successful (though never easy) transition from one kind of European order to another. For those realists who had earlier disparaged the part institutions might play in preventing anarchy in Europe, the impor­tant roles played by the EU and NATO seemed to prove that institutions were essential.

Institutions alone, though, did not provide a ready answer to what Europe ought, or ought not, to be doing in a world system. Here again there was more than one European view. Hence several analysts continued to feel that Europe was bound to remain a largely ‘civil­ian power’, spreading its own values and acting as an example but without becoming a serious military actor. Others took a more robust view. Europe’s growing weight in the world economy, its inability to act as a united organization during the break-up of Yugoslavia, not to mention the great capabilities gap that was rap­idly opening up between itself and the USA, all com­pelled Europeans to think much more seriously about hard power. The result was the birth of the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) in 1998, followed by a series of other moves that culminated with the pub­lication of the European Security Strategy (ESS) in 2003 (EC 2003). Viewing security in broadly globalist terms, where open borders and disturbing events in faraway places—especially poor ones—were bound to spew up their consequences on Europe’s shores, Europe, it argued, was compelled by the logic of interdependence to engage far more seriously with international affairs.

Defining a new international role for the EU, how­ever, did not by itself create the instruments or the capabilities for fulfilling this role. Europeans may have wished for a stronger Europe; however, there was -marked reluctance to hand over serious security pow­er? to Brussels. Nor did Europeans seem especially keen on boosting their collective strength by investing more in hard power. Indeed, only the UK and France maintained anything like a serious military capability, meaning that when ‘Europe’ did feel compelled to act militarily—as it did in Libya in 2011 and then a year later in Mali in Africa—it was not ‘Europe’ as a collective actor that intervened, but one or both of these two countries with US support.

Nonetheless, Europe still retained what American political scientist Joseph Nye has defined as significant soft power’ assets. By the turn of the century it had also become a formidable economic actor too, with a market capacity larger even than that of the United States. Not only that: it continued to be America’s most favoured economic partner. Still, not all the economic news was positive. On the contrary, with the onset of the so-called ‘euro crisis’ after 2008 many began to won­der about the European project altogether. Hitherto Europe could at least tell a positive story about its achievements. Now it looked as if it was no longer able to do so. Rising debt, increasing unemployment, and declining competitiveness in many countries (though by no means all) were hardly signs of rude economic health. Yet in spite of almost daily predictions of its imminent demise the EU continued to hold together. The costs of doing so may have been high as one large bailout followed another. However, the longer-term dangers of not underwriting the European Union looked to most rational analysts a good deal higher than doing so. Warts and all, a Europe that managed to work together to solve its problems in a collective way was likely to be a more stable and more effective Europe than a Europe that did not (see Box 4.4).

Key Points

In spite of the break-up of former Yugoslavia, Europe benefited as much from the end of the cold war as the USA.

Europeans after the cold war were divided over a series of key issues, most notably the degree of European integration, economic strategy, and the foreign policy aspirations of the European Union.

Europe may not possess much collective military power, but it does retain important soft power, while remaining a major economic actor in the world.

The costs of the economic crisis have been significant but the consensus remains that a functioning EU is more likely to deliver peace and prosperity than any alternative arrangement.

A new Asian century?

Perhaps nowhere in the modern world does history, with its memories and myths, exercise a greater influ­ence than in Asia. First subjected to European power during the nineteenth century, and then to the even worse depredations of Japan between 1936 and 1945. Asia’s current outlook is very much a product of a very disturbed past. Indeed, even while Europe was acquiring some degree of stability after 1945, Asia experienced at least two devastating wars, several insurgencies, and one genocidal revolution. Along the way, Asia was also subject to several US interventions, a short and bloody war between Vietnam and Cambodia, and a Chinese invasion of Vietnam a year later.

The contrast between postcolonial Asia and cold war Europe could not have been more pronounced. In fact, scholars of International Relations have been much taken with the comparison, pointing out that whereas Western Europe at least managed to form a new liberal security community in which nationalism and ‘ancient hatreds’ came to play much less of a role over time, Asia remained a complex tapestry of often warring and suspicious states, whose hatreds ran deep and where nationalism played a central part in defining identity. Nor did the end of the cold war lead to the same results in Asia. In Europe, 1989 concluded with free elections, the resolution of territorial issues, a move to the market, the unification of one country, and the disintegration of another. In Asia it concluded with powerful communist parties remaining in power in at least three countries (North Korea, Vietnam, and China), several territorial disputes remaining unresolved, and Korea remaining divided. This is not to say that Asia was not impacted by the end of the cold war at all: clearly it was. However, the consequences were not always liberal. Indeed, in China they were anything but; for, having witnessed what was unfolding in the former USSR under the reformist leadership of Gorbachev, the Chinese com­munist leadership decided to do the opposite, namely, abandon political reform and impose even tighter con­trol from the centre. North Korea, too, drew its own lessons. Indeed, seeing what had happened to another communist state that had once looked so stable—East Germany—it now did everything to ensure that it did not suffer the same fate.

Because of the very different ways the end of the cold war played itself out in Asia, many writers (including one very influential American scholar, Aaron Friedberg) argued that far from being primed for a liberal peace, Asia in general, and East Asia in particular, was ripe for new rivalries. Indeed, according to Friedberg, Europe’s very bloody past between 1914 and 1945 could eas­ily turn into Asia’s future. This was not a view shared by every commentator, however. In fact, as events unfolded, this uncompromisingly tough-minded real­ist perspective came under sustained criticism. This did not deny the possibility of future disturbances. Indeed, how could one argue otherwise given the bitter legacy of history, Japan’s ambiguous relationship with its own bloody past, North Korea’s nuclear programme, and China’s claim to Taiwan? But in spite of all this there were still several reasons to think that the future might not be quite so bleak as Friedberg predicted.

The first and most important were the very great material advances achieved in the region since the late 1990s. The sources of this have been much debated, with some suggesting that the underlying reasons for economic success was a strong entrepreneurial spirit wedded to a powerful set of cultural (Asian) values, and others that it was the by-product of the applica­tion of a non-liberal model of development employ­ing the strong state to drive through rapid economic development from above. The USA also played its part. Indeed, by helping to manage Japan’s re-entry into the international community during the post-war years, opening up its huge market to Asian exports, and pro­viding many countries in the region with security on

the cheap, it became an indispensable player. Even the former colonial countries, now organized through the European Union, were not insignificant actors in the Asian economic success story by buying Asian goods and investing heavily into the region.

Finally, though Asia is not institutionally rich and lacks bodies such as NATO or the European Union, it has over time been able to build an important array of bodies that do provide some form of collective voice and identity. Potentially the most important of these has been ASEAN. Formed during the midst of a very unstable part of the cold war in 1967 to enable dia­logue to take place between five South East Asian coun­tries (Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand), it has over time evolved to include five more states including communist Vietnam, war- torn Cambodia, oil-rich Brunei, the once military-led Myanmar, and the tiny republic of Laos. ASEAN is, of course, a much looser institution than the EU, and its underlying principle remains the very traditional one of sovereignty and non-interference in the internal affairs of other sovereign states. Yet over time its fields of interest have widened considerably, making it today much less than a union but more than just the talking shop it used to be.

In the end, though, the key to Asia’s current pros­perity and future stability rests on what happens to its new economic powerhouse, China. Much has now been written about China’s rise and the impact this has had on the world in general, and Asia more particularly. But until recently China’s rise did not seem to be a cause of much concern. In fact, a number of Chinese writ­ers even fashioned their own very particular theory, known as the ‘peaceful rise’. This made it abundantly clear that China was not like Germany or Japan in the inter-war period, and that it was more than happy to rise within the system rather than outside it. Nor did China seek confrontation with the United States. Indeed, according to the same analysts, the US should be seen as being more partner than enemy. And even if some had their doubts about US intentions, China, they advised, should always keep its head down and not arouse American anger.

Recent events in the South China Seas and China’s sometimes more belligerent tone since 2008 have cast serious doubts on all this (see Box 4.5). This in turn has only confirmed what some IR scholars have always maintained: that when new powers rise and emerge onto the  international stage they are bound to act in a more assertive fashion. This prediction now appears to have been borne out by recent events; certainly many Asian countries have responded accordingly by doing what they have always done in the past: calling on the United States to balance the power of the local hegemon. The United States in turn has done what it has always done when called upon to secure Asia: tilted towards it, Still, there is no inevitability that the region is once again primed for conflict. It may be fashionable among Western pundits to talk of a new ‘1914’ moment rushing towards us, accompanied by an increased arms race and military stand-offs. But Asia (and indeed China itself) have a number of good reasons to act with great care. However, nothing is guaranteed, and if the regional powers—including China—fail to negotiate a settlement of their differences, the costs to them all could be huge.

Key Points

Compared to Europe after 1945, the international relations of East Asia during the cold war were highly volatile, marked by revolutions, wars, and insurgencies.

The end of the cold war was experienced very differently in Asia.

Economic growth, the USA's presence, and the role played by ASEAN continue to make the region more stable than some predicted.

China's economic rise has brought prosperity to the region but increased tensions too, confirming-at least according to some realists-that when the balance of power changes instability follows.

A new global South

The economic success of Asia poses a much larger ques­tion about the fate of the less-developed countries in general during the post-cold war era. As we noted ear­lier, the cold war had a massive impact on the Third World in the same way as political struggles in the Third World had an enormous impact on the cold war. Liberation movements were of course animated by dif­ferent ideas and employed quite different strategies to achieve their many goals. But they were all united by some common aims: emancipation from their former colonial masters, rapid economic development, and the speedy creation of societies where poverty, hunger, and illiteracy would become but distant memories.

These high ideals expressed by new elites, buoyed up by the enthusiasm of the poor and the dispossessed— the ‘wretched of the earth’ as Frantz Fanon was to call them—very quickly foundered. First, many of the new rulers fast discovered the lure of power and frequently succumbed to a debilitating corruption. Quite a few were then overthrown by various rivals—only too keen to share in the spoils of office—rendering many coun­tries in the Third World both highly unstable and con­stantly vulnerable to military coups. Nor did the new economies prove to be especially productive: on the contrary, the majority turned out to be extraordinarily inefficient. Meanwhile, many less-developed countries ran up enormous debts that rendered them vulnerable to renewed Western economic pressure. Then, finally, came the end of the cold war and with it the collapse of the idea that some form of state-led development offered a better way forward than the market.

The collapse of the ‘Third World’ as a political proj­ect left behind a complex legacy, from on-going civil wars on some continents (most notably in sub-Saha­ran Africa) to the opportunity in others of rejoining the world economic order. Certainly, with the USSR no longer playing an active political role the way now seemed open for major change. However, the consequences often proved to be deeply problematic. Indeed, some states that had been propped up by one or other of the two superpowers during the cold war simply collapsed into complete chaos, a fate that awaited Somalia and the Congo. Nor did economic reform always deliver on its promise. In fact, in many countries the implementation of Western-style struc­tural reform often led to greater inequality, a decline in public services, and the exponential growth of ever more rampant forms of corruption as more and more money began to flood into the newly emerging economies.

Economic reform and the rapid reintegration of the ‘Third World’ back into the world economy thus had profound consequences, both on the countries themselves and on the wider international system. To many, of course, the adoption of market reforms in places as far apart as Brazil and India could only have positive results. But wealth-creating reforms did not always lead to the alleviation of economic distress. A new middle class may have been in the making, but there was no hiding where the greatest concentration of disease, the highest level of malnutrition, and the most deaths of young children continued to be con­centrated. A new world economic order may have been in the making, but that did not mean that the basic needs of millions of people were being met. Nor did it lead to a reduction in debt. Indeed, one of the more staggering facts about relations between the economically developed North and the developing South was that, in spite of the former providing aid to the latter, the latter was still having to pay a massive amount of interest to Western economic institutions. Indeed, in 2007, the developing world was having to pay $13 in debt repayments for every $1 received in aid. Moreover, in spite of various campaigns to cancel this debt, little was achieved and five years on the total debt owed by the developing countries to the West stood at around $5 trillion.

Significantly, continuing inequality and extensive poverty did not always lead to conflict or overt politi­cal resistance to the West. Indeed, one of the ways in which ordinary people in the South expressed their frustration was not by taking up arms (though some still did), but rather by doing what poor peoples have always done throughout the ages: migrate. The costs of this to the host societies was often enormous, deplet­ing countries of their professional classes and their more active young. Still, no amount of border wire or dangerous seas could stop the desperate and the needy looking for some kind of life—and hopefully a better one—in North America, Europe and Australia; and having arrived they then did what migrants have also done over the centuries: send a good proportion of what they earned (often in the most menial and underpaid of jobs) back to their families in their home countries. Nor were these remittances insignificant; indeed, in 2012 alone they amounted to well over $400 billion, a crucial lifeline for those continuing to survive in the most straitened of circumstances.

The new global South, as it became popularly known, thus had at least one obvious thing in common with the old Third World: millions of people without much to look forward to, whose only hope of bettering themselves was to move somewhere else (see Box 4.6). Moreover, while the ideological map of the world may have changed since the end of the cold war—hardly anybody talked any longer of building socialism or overthrowing imperialism—political attitudes in the South did not change as much as some might have hoped. Indeed, many of the old resentments remained, fuelled in large part by the simple fact that the West still retained enormous power at nearly every level of the international system. This not only generated suspicion, it also had a very direct impact on the way countries in the South tended to view Western policies, whether it was the West’s new propensity to intervene in complex conflicts (something the South opposed on the good Westphalian grounds that states should not intervene in the internal affairs of other states), or right through to the sticky issue of who should and who should not be able to have nuclear weapons. In a more equal world, things might have been different. But for a number of countries, most notably India and Iran, it was the height of hypocrisy for the more pow­erful nuclear states, including the three Western ones, to claim a right for themselves which they then denied to others.

Key Points

The end of the Third World was marked by major economic reform in many countries, accompanied by their rejoining the world market.

The less-developed countries continue to be burdened by debt and debt repayments to the more advanced economies of the world.

Though socialist anti-imperialism is no longer a powerful political ideology in the South, resentments against the more powerful West remain.

From 9/11 to the Arab Spring

Whether or not there was, or is, a connection between the unequal distribution of wealth and power in the world and terrorism remains an open question. What is less in doubt is the impact that the 2001 attack on the United States had on international politics in general, and the behaviour of the last remaining superpower in particular. Indeed, if the end of the cold war marked one of the great turning points in modern international relations, then 9/11 marked another. Bin Laden and Al Qaeda were no doubt motivated by far more than a desire for social justice and a distaste for globalization. As bin Laden’s many would-be analysts have pointed out, his vision was one that pointed back to a golden age of Islam rather than forward to something mod­ern. That said, his chosen method of attacking the USA using four planes, his use of video to communicate with followers, his employment of the global financial system to fund operations, and his primary goal of driving the USA out of the Middle East (whose control by the West was essential to the continued working of the modern international economy) could hardly be described as medieval. US policy-makers certainly did not regard him as some odd throwback to earlier times. Indeed, the fact that he threatened to use the most modern and dangerous weapons -weapons of mass destruction - to achieve his objectives made him a very modern threat, but one that could not be dealt with by the kind of traditional means developed during the cold war. As the Bush administration constantly reiterated, this new danger meant that old methods, such as containment and deterrence, were no longer relevant. If this was the beginning of a ‘new cold war’, as some argued at the time, then it was one unlikely to be fought using poli­cies and methods learned between 1947 and 1989.

The way in which the Bush administration responded to international terrorism proved to be highly contro­versial, and in the end extraordinarily costly too (see Box 4.7). But even the most stinging critic could not deny one thing: the huge impact 9/11 was to have on the United States and its relations with the wider world. In the short term, of course, it led to the US interven­ing in Afghanistan. More generally, it made its foreign policy more militarized. US military spending doubled between 2001 and 2009. It also caused a temporary but significant split with many of its European allies. And it made many US policy-makers rethink their views on the Middle East. Not everything changed: Israel still remained its very special ally there. But there was a shift. Hitherto the US had been perfectly happy, it seemed, to coexist with traditional elites, on the assumption that stability was better than instability. Now, many on the American side (Bush in particular) took the view that the status quo was not sacrosanct and that something radical would have to be done to try and change a region that had spawned the kind of totalitarian ideas that had ultimately led to the destruction of the Twin Towers.

In this way, the intellectual ground was prepared for the war against Iraq in 2003. Initially supported by an enthusiastic American public, the war that many hoped would be over in weeks turned into a long and brutal encounter. Moreover, as time passed, it soon became clear that the US intervention was delivering neither stable democracy to Iraq nor inspiring others in the region to undertake serious political reform. On the contrary, as many predicted it might, the war only disturbed the whole of the Middle East while making it possible for Iran to gain even greater influence. Even worse, perhaps, far from weakening the appeal of the Islamists globally, it only managed to provide them with a rallying point, which they then went on to exploit with great skill. The war against terror announced with such gusto by Bush back in 2002 was now turning into a war against the West.

But once more the unexpected happened. Indeed, as the US began preparing to disengage from unwinnable wars in both Afghanistan and Iraq, the seem­ingly impossible took place: the peoples in the Middle East began to throw off their autocratic rulers with­out very much urging from the West. More surprising still, perhaps, instead of opting for Western-style lib­eral governments to lead them after 2011, most peoples in the region (though by no means all) seemed to opt for some form of  Islamically-inspired governments whose ideas appeared to owe more to political Islam than they did to Western liberal thought. To make matters problematic, as the revolt moved from Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt to Syria, it assumed an ever more bloody and dangerous form, drawing in regional actors like Iran and Saudi Arabia—not to mention Russia, who continued to support the old secular regime in Damascus. Dangerous times thus lay ahead in what still remained the most volatile region in the international system.

Key Points

9/11 effectively brought the post-cold war era to an end, and in the process transformed US foreign policy.

The reasons for going to war in Iraq have been much disputed, although most people now believe it was a strategic error.

The Arab Spring since 2011 has seen the emergence of powerful political parties and organizations favouring constitutions inspired by Islam.

Obama and the world

If 9/11 marked one turning point in the international relations of the early twenty-first century, then so too in its own very different way did the election of Barack Obama, coming as it did in the midst of two great cri­ses: one associated with a decline of US prestige fol­lowing its policy response to 9/11, and the other the greatest economic crisis facing the US since the 1930s. Both were very closely connected. But it was the eco­nomic crisis above all that propelled Obama to power. Indeed, when faced with an economic meltdown that could easily have led to the collapse of the US economy, and possibly a worldwide depression too, Americans in their large majority transferred their support away from one party, who had hitherto seen ‘government’ as being the problem, to another who accepted that if the USA were to avoid another great depression it would have to adopt a set of radical policies that did not shy away from using the state to save the market from itself.

If Obama’s first challenge was to put the US back on the road to recovery, his second was to restore US standing abroad, while shifting the focus of American foreign policy away from the Middle East (a forlorn hope given the problems it posed) towards Asia. But, in more general terms, Obama turned out to be a decid­edly cautious foreign policy leader, eschewing the dem­ocratic rhetoric that had come to characterize the Bush years. This, however, did not mean that Obama was not prepared to use US military power. It was, after all, on his ‘watch’ that bin Laden was finally hunted down and killed. Obama also ordered the use of more drones over Pakistan to kill Taliban leaders. And he made it abundantly clear to Iran that if ever Iran came close to acquiring nuclear weapons the United States would not hesitate in using force.

But perhaps Obama’s main contribution to foreign policy was less in terms of specific actions under­taken (or not) and more in relation to rethinking America’s position in the wider world (see Box 4.8). If Bush had a theory of the world, it was based on the then uncontested view that the world was unipolar and would likely remain so for many years to come. Obama’s analysis was altogether more restrained. Drawing heavily from a series of influential new stud­ies (the most significant being Fareed Zakaria’s 2008 The Post-American World), Obama rejected the notion that America was in decline or that it would soon be overtaken by China or any other of the rising econo­mies that went under the broad heading of the BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India, and China). The US could still muster formidable assets, enough at least to keep it at the head of the table for many decades to come. But the fact remained that the world was changing, even if power in the wider sense was not shifting; and if the US wished to retain its leadership in this fast-changing environment it had to devise more flexible policies (see Case Study 1).

Key Points

Barack Obama was elected in 2008 in the midst of the deepest financial crisis since the 1930s.

His foreign policy aimed among other things to restore US standing in the world while finally bringing US troops home from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Obama's re-election in 2012 was in part due to his economic policies at home and in part due to his perceived success in foreign policy.

Obama rejects the idea that the United States is in decline, but accepts that the US has to adjust its policies to take account of new economic realities-most notably in Asia.

Conclusion

In this chapter we have examined the broad trends in world politics since the end of the cold war. The approach adopted here has been a quite traditional one, dealing in the main with the role played by states and regions, though never forgetting that other, less for­mally constituted actors and ideologies have shaped our world as well. Our discussion has, among other things, shown how significant the end of the cold war was (and remains) in shaping the modern world. But it has also demonstrated something else as well: that very often the things we least expect to happen can have the greatest impact. Indeed, looking back over the past twenty years or so, it is remarkable to see the impact that four quite unexpected events—the end of the cold war itself, the terrorist attacks of 9/11, the 2008 economic crisis, and the Arab Spring—have all had (and are still having) on the international system. Of course, this is not to ignore deeper developments and trends, the most important by far being the forward march of that most dynamic of eco­nomic systems known as global capitalism. When our story began, at the beginning of the cold war, the world was sharply divided between two competing economic orders—one broadly speaking capitalist and the other loosely defined as communist. That world no longer exists. The market now rules nearly everywhere, creat­ing vast wealth, great inequalities, and enormous oppor­tunities for some economies that many once assumed would remain underdeveloped forever. More surpris­ing still has been the fact that a good deal of this new growth has not been driven by the traditional engine of the world economy known as the West, but rather by that rising superstar in the East called China. Indeed, by the beginning of the second decade of the twenty-first cen­tury, analysts were starting to talk in the most optimistic terms of a massive shift of economic power that would, over time, see the rise of an entirely new world order in which the once underdeveloped South—from Brazil to India—would be playing an increasingly vital role.

Whether or not a new world order is in the making remains an open question. Many economists certainly seem to think so. But we should take care coming to any definitive conclusions. There has been much specula­tion of late about power shifting away from the West, about the twenty-first century becoming less Western than Asian, even of a China on the brink of ruling the world. Yet the jury is still out. That new economies are emerging is self-evident: that countries like India, China, and Brazil are becoming richer is obvious. However, we should not forget how far these countries still have to go. Furthermore, if this chapter has taught us anything it is that even if many things have changed, quite a lot remains the same. Thus the world today still remains a deeply unequal place. America still retains enormous power. And the West more generally (even including cri­sis-ridden Europe) has an enormous capacity to attract, integrate, and transform others—including many of the new rising powers. Indeed, many of these powers are now rising not outside or even against the West but rather within an order largely shaped by Western economic and political ideas. In this very special sense, therefore, it is not at all clear that the world is undergoing a major revolution leading to what some now believe will become a ‘post-Western’ world. If anything, we could easily be heading in quite the opposite direction. The twenty-first century could turn out to be the West’s most successful to date. We can only wait and see.

Case Study 1

Obama, the rise of China and the 'pivot' to Asia

International Relations as a field has always been concerned to understand why great powers rise and fall. There is indeed a whole literature inspired by a branch of realist theory which argues that when such transitions happen, the most likely con­sequence is increased tension and insecurity-possibly even war. The rise of modern China faces the United States with the same kind of challenge that has been faced by other great pow­ers in the past. It would seem to have three choices: accede to China's rise and risk a loss of power itself; resist China's rise

by allying itself ever more closely with those states in the Asia region who  are as worried about China as the US itself; or try to incorporate China into the existing international order. When he became President in 2008, Obama-like Bush before him-was faced with various options. A simple confrontational approach would, it was feared, yield unsatisfactory results. At the same time, a policy of accommodation that ignored China's increasing belligerence could embolden China and undermine US alliances in the region. The Obama team thus opted for a multilayered approach: firstly seek to get the United States more actively involved in Asian regional organizations such as ASEAN and APEC, and in this way-hopefully-reassure other states in Asia about the US's longer-term commitment to the region; secondly, press hard for a larger role to be given to all Asian countries in international economic bodies like the G20; thirdly, reassure China that its rise in the international order was something the United States would actively welcome; and finally, give a much higher priority to Asia in US foreign policy discourse. This in essence represented the broader strategy that was initially referred to in 2011 as the United States 'pivoting', then as 'refocusing', and finally by some US officials today as the US 'rebalancing' towards Asia.

Questions

What was the cold war and why did it end so unexpectedly?

What do you understand by the 'unipolar moment'?

Should Putin's Russia be seen as a threat to the West?

Can 'Europe' ever become a serious international actor?

What was the Third World and why does it no longer exist?

Can Asia remain peaceful?

Did George W. Bush respond to terrorism in a strategically intelligent fashion?

Has Barack Obama been a successful foreign policy president?

What impact have unexpected events had on world politics over the last twenty-five years?

Is the West in decline?

  

Box 4.1

The end of an era

'Gorbachev may have earlier vowed that he would redefine the East-West relationship. In reality he did much more, and whether as a result of Soviet economic decline, a shift in ideas, imperial overstretch, or a simple failure to understand the con­sequences of his own actions, set off a series of chain reactions that did not just place the relationship on a new footing but brought it to an end for ever.' (Cox 2007: 7 66)

Box 4.2

The paradox of power

'There is a paradox between the magnitude of American power and Washington's inability to use that power to always get what it wants in international politics... hegemony is not omnipotence.' (Layne 2006:41-2)

Box 4.3

A new cold war?

'The West needs to calm down and take Russia for what it is: a major outside player that is neither an eternal foe nor an automatic friend.'

(Trenin 2006: 95)

Box 4.4

Europe's mid-life crisis?

'The future of the EU is hard to predict. Over the next decade it could undergo a bout of further integration; it could fall apart into opposing camps of those who would go forward or those who would go back; or perhaps most likely, it could just mud­dle through.'

(Cited in The Economist, 77-23 March 2007, 'Special Report on

the European Union': 20)

Box 4.5

A new Asian Century?

It has become the new truth of our age that the Western world we have known is fast losing its pre-eminence to be replaced by a new international system shaped by China and increasingly determined by the economic rise of Asia . . . However, we need to question the idea that there is a power shift in the making and that the West and the United States are in steep decline. The world has a long way to go before we can talk of = post-Western world.' (M. Cox (2011), 'Power Shift and the Death of the West? Not Yet!', European Political Science, 10(3): 416)

Box 4.6

The Third World-then and now

'We must not forget that the overwhelming majority of poor people live in the Third World states. They did yesterday, they do today, and in the absence of remedial action, they will tomorrow.'

(C. Thomas (1999), 'Where is the Third World Now?', in M. Cox, K. Booth, and T. Dunne (eds), The Interregnum: Controversies in World Politics, 1989-1999: 244)

Box 4.7

Terrorism or anti-imperialism?

'In the period since the Second World War, much terrorist violence has been directed against the perceivedly illegiti­mate imperial power of Britain and the United States and their allies. What the latter call terrorism has often been historically important because it has involved anti-imperialist nationalism as well.' (R. English (2009), Terrorism: How to Respond (Oxford: Oxford University Press): 51)

Box 4.8

Obama's world

'He is not interested in grand strategies. Bereft of any grand vision, his ambition is to preserve America's great power sta­tus and make it acceptable to the rest of the world. Obama no longer wants his country to serve as the world's policeman. However, he has no intention of letting another displace the United States.' (Z. Lai'di (2012), Limited Achievements: Obama's Foreign Policy (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan): xii)

Further Reading 

Cox, M. (2012), 'Power Shifts, Economic Change and the Decline of the West?', International Relations, 26(4): 369-83. A critique of the 'power shift' thesis.

Cox, M., Booth, K., and Dunne, T. (eds) (1999), The Interregnum: Controversies in World Politics, 1989-1999 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). A wide-ranging survey of most of the key issues facing the world after 1989.

Cox, M„ and Buzan, B. (2013), 'China and the US: Comparable Cases of "Peaceful Rise'", Chinese Journal of International Politics, (forthcoming). Argues for serious comparison between the 'rise' of two potential rivals.

Cox, M., Lynch, T., and Bouchet, N. (eds) (2013), US Foreign Policy and Democracy Promotion (London: Routledge). A broad historical survey that examines a critically important and, until recently, much neglected facet of US foreign policy.

Cox, M., and Stokes, D. (2012), US Foreign Policy, 2nd edn (Oxford: Oxford University Press). A comprehensive and up-to-date survey.

English, R. (2009), Terrorism: How To Respond (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Wise discussion by a scholar with a Northern Ireland background.

Fenby, J. (2012), Tiger Head, Snake Tails: China Today, How it got There and Where it is Heading (New York: Simon & Schuster). Best single volume on the new China.

Gardner, D. (2011), Future Babble: How to Stop Worrying and Love the Unpredictable (London: Virgin Books). Popular account of why social science more often than not fails to predict major events.

Hill, F. (2013), Mr Putin: Operative in the Kremlin (Washington, DC: Brookings).

Singh, R. (2012), Barack Obama's Post-American Foreign Policy (London: Bloomsbury Academic).

Sorkin, A. R. (2009) Too Big to'Fail: Inside the Battle to Save Wall Street (London: Penguin Books).

Zakaria, F. (2008), The Post-American World (New York: W. W. Norton). Influential study of the emerging new world order after Bush.

Online Resource Centre

Visit the Online Resource Centre that accompanies this book to access more learning resources on this chapter topic at www.oxfordtextbooks.co.uk/orc/baylis6exe/