International History 1900 - 1999

The Globalization of World Politics

An Introduction to International Relations

Chapter 3

International history 1900-99

By Len Scott

Introduction       

Modern total war        

End of empire    

Cold war    

Conclusion

Reader's Guide

This chapter examines some of the principal devel­opments in world politics from 1900 to 1999: the development of total war, the onset of cold war, the advent of nuclear weapons, and the end of European imperialism. The dominance of, and con­flict between, European states in the first half of the twentieth century was replaced as the key dynamic in world affairs by confrontation between the United States of America (USA) and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). The cold war encompassed ideological, political, and military interests of the two states (and their allies), and extended around the globe. How far, and in what ways, global con­flict was promoted or prevented by the cold war are central questions. Similarly, how decolonization became entangled with East-West conflicts is central to understanding many struggles in the 'Third World'. Finally, how dangerous was the nuclear confrontation between East and West? The chapter explores the role of nuclear weapons in specific phases of the cold war, notably in detente, and then with the deterioration of Soviet-American relations in the 1980s.

Introduction

The First World War (also known as the Great War) began between European states on European battle­fields, but extended across the globe. It was the first modern, industrialized total war, as the belligerents mobilized their populations and economies as well as their armies, and as they endured enormous casualties over many years. The Second World War was even more total in nature and global in scope, and helped bring fundamental changes in world politics. Before 1939, Europe was the arbiter of world affairs, when both the USSR and the USA remained, for different reasons, pre­occupied with internal development at the expense of a significant global role. The Second World War brought the Soviets and the Americans militarily and politically deep into Europe, and helped transform their relations with each other. This transformation was soon reflected in their relations outside Europe, where various con­frontations developed. Like the Second World War, the cold war had its origins in Europe, but quickly spread, with enormous global consequences.

The Great War brought the demise of four European empires: Russian, German, Austro-Hungarian, and Ottoman (in Turkey). After 1945, European power was in eclipse. The economic plight of the wartime bellig­erents, including the victors, was increasingly appar­ent, as was the growing realization of the military and economic potential of the USA and the USSR. Both emerged as ‘superpowers’, combining global political ambition with military capabilities that included weap­ons of mass destruction. European political, economic, and military weakness contrasted with the appearance of Soviet strength and growing Western perception of malign Soviet intent. The onset of the cold war in Europe marked the collapse of the wartime alliance between the UK, the USSR, and the USA: whether this was inevitable after 1945 remains contentious. The most tangible legacy of the war was the atomic bomb, built at enormous cost, and driven by fear that Nazi Germany might win this first nuclear arms race. After 1945, nuclear weapons posed unprecedented challenges to world politics and to leaders responsible for conduct­ing post-war diplomacy. The cold war provided both context and pretext for the growth of nuclear arsenals that threatened the very existence of humankind, and which have continued (and continue to spread) beyond the end of the East-West confrontation.

Since 1900, world politics has been transformed in various ways, reflecting political, technological, and ideological developments, of which three are exam­ined in this chapter: (1) the transition from European power politics crises to total war; (2) the end of empire and withdrawal of European states from their imperial acquisitions; and (3) the cold war: the political, mili­tary, and nuclear confrontation between the USA and the USSR. There have, of course, been other important changes, and indeed equally important continuities, which are explored in other chapters. Nevertheless, the three principal changes outlined above provide a frame­work for exploring events and trends that have shaped international politics and the world we now inhabit.

Modern total war

The origins of the Great War have long been debated. For the victorious allies, the question of how war began became a question of how far the Germans and their allies should be held responsible. At Versailles, the vic­tors imposed a statement of German war guilt in the final settlement, primarily to justify the reparations they demanded. Debates among historians about the war’s origins focused on political, military, and sys­temic factors. Some suggested that responsibility for the war was diffuse, as its origins lay in complex dynamics and military imperatives of the respective alliances. An influential post-war interpretation came from West German historian, Fritz Fischer, who in his 1967 book, Germany’s Aims in the First World War, argued that German aggression, motivated by the internal political needs of an autocratic elite, was responsible for the war.

However complex or contested the origins were, in retrospect, the motivations of those who fought were more explicable. The masses of the belligerent nations shared nationalist beliefs and patriotic values. As they marched off to fight, most thought war would be short, victorious, and, in many cases, glorious. However the reality of the European battlefield and the advent of trench warfare was otherwise. Defensive military technologies, symbolized by the machine gun, triumphed over the tactics and strategy of attrition, although by November 1918 the allied offensive finally achieved the rapid advances that helped bring an end to the fighting. War was total in that whole societies and economies were mobilized: men were conscripted into armies and women to work in factories. The western and eastern fronts remained the crucibles of combat, although conflict spread to other parts of the globe, for example when Japan went to war in 1914 as an ally of Britain. Most importantly, America entered the war in 1917 under President Woodrow Wilson, whose vision of international society, articulated in his Fourteen Points, was to drive the agenda of the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. The overthrow of the Tsar and sei­zure of power by Lenin’s Bolsheviks in November 1917 soon led Russia, now the USSR, to negotiate withdrawal from the war. Germany no longer fought on two fronts, but soon faced a new threat as the resources of the USA were mobilized. With the failure of its last great mili­tary offensive in the West in 1918, and with an increas­ingly effective British naval blockade, Germany agreed to an armistice.

The Versailles Peace Treaty promised both a new framework for European security and a new international order. Neither objective was achieved. There were crucial differences between the victorious powers over policies towards Germany and principles governing the international order. The treaty failed to tackle what was for some the central problem of European security after 1370 - a united and frustrated Germany—and precipi­tated German revanchism by creating new states and contested borders. Economic factors were also crucial. The effects of the Great Depression, triggered in part by the Wall Street Crash of 1929, weakened liberal democracy in many states and strengthened the appeal of communist, fascist, and Nazi parties. The effect on German society was particularly significant. All mod­ernized states suffered mass unemployment, but in Germany inflation was acute. Economic and political instability provided the ground in which support for the Nazis took root. By 1933, Adolf Hitler had achieved power, and transformation of the German state began. Three remain debates about how far Hitler’s ambitions were carefully thought through and how far he seized opportunities. A controversial analysis was provided by A. J. P. Taylor in his 1961 book, The Origins of the Second World War, in which he argued that Hitler was different from other German political leaders. What was different was the philosophy of Nazism and the alliance of racial supremacy with territorial expansion. British and French attempts to negotiate with Hitler culminated in the Munich Agreement of 1938. Hitler’s territorial claims on the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia were accepted as the price for peace, but within months Germany had seized the rest of Czechoslovakia and was preparing for war on Poland. Recent debates about appeasement have focused on whether there were real­istic alternatives to negotiation, given the lack of mili­tary preparedness.

By 1939, the defensive military technologies of the Great War gave way to armoured warfare and air power, as the German blitzkrieg brought speedy vic­tories over Poland, and in the West. Hitler was also drawn into the Balkans in support of his Italian ally, Mussolini, and into North Africa. With the invasion of the USSR in June 1941, the scale of fighting and scope of Hitler’s aims were apparent. Massive early victo­ries gave way to winter stalemate, and mobilization of Soviet peoples and armies. German treatment of civil­ian populations and Soviet prisoners of war reflected Nazi ideas of racial supremacy, and caused the deaths of millions. German anti-Semitism and the development of concentration camps gained new momentum after a decision on the ‘Final Solution of the Jewish Question’ in 1942. The term holocaust entered the political lexi­con of the twentieth century, as the Nazis attempted the genocide of the Jewish people and other minorities, such as the Roma, in Europe.

The rise and fall of Japan

After 1919, international attempts to provide collective security were pursued through the League of Nations. The US Senate prevented American participation in the League, however, and Japanese aggression against Manchuria in 1931, the Italian invasion of Abyssinia in 1935, and German involvement in the Spanish Civil War of 1936-9 were met with ineffective international responses. In 1868, Japan had emerged from centu­ries of isolationism to pursue industrial and military modernization, and then imperial expansion. In 1937, China, already embroiled in civil war between commu­nists and nationalists, was invaded by Japan. Tokyo’s ambitions, however, could only be realized at the expense of European empires and American interests. President Roosevelt increasingly sought to engage the USA in the European war, against strong isolationist forces, and by 1941 German submarines and American warships were in an undeclared war. The imposition of American economic sanctions on Japan precipitated Japanese military preparations for a surprise attack on the US fleet at Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941. When Germany and Italy declared war on America in support of their Japanese ally, Roosevelt decided to prioritize the European over the Pacific theatre. After a combined strategic bombing offensive with the British against German cities, the allies launched a ‘second front’ in France, for which the Soviets had been pressing.

Defeat of Germany in May 1945 came before the atomic bomb was ready. The destruction of the Japanese cities, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, remains a controversy (see Table 3.1). Aside from moral objections to attack­ing civilian populations, there was fierce debate, par­ticularly among American historians, about why the bomb was dropped. Gar Alperovitz, in his 1965 book Atomic Diplomacy, argued that, as President Truman already knew Japan was defeated, his real motive was to coerce Moscow in pursuit of post-war American interests in Europe and Asia. Such claims generated

angry and dismissive responses from other historians. Ensuing scholarship has benefited from more historical evidence, though debate persists over how far Truman dropped the bomb simply to end the war, and how far other factors, including coercion of the Soviets in post­war affairs, entered his calculations.

Table 3.1 

Second World War estimated casualties

Hiroshima (6 August 1945): 70,000-80,000 'prompt'; 140,000 by end 1945; 200,000 by 1950 

Nagasaki: (9 August 1945): 30,000-40,000 'prompt'; 70,000 by end 1945; 140,000 by 1950 

Tokyo (9 March 1945): 100,000+

Dresden (13-15 February 1945): 24,000-35,000+

Coventry (14 November 1940): 568 
Leningrad (siege 1941-4): 1,000,000+

Key Points

Debates about the origins of the Great War focus on whether responsibility should rest with the German government or whether war came because of more complex factors.

The Paris peace settlement failed to address central problems of European security, and in restructuring the European state system created new sources of grievance and instability.

Principles of self-determination, espoused in particular by Woodrow Wilson, did not extend to empires of European colonial powers.

The rise of Hitler posed challenges that European political leaders lacked the ability and will to meet.

The German attack on the USSR extended the scope of the war from short and limited campaigns to extended, large-scale, and barbaric confrontation, fought for total victory.

The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor brought America into the war in Europe and eventually forced Germany into war on two fronts (again).

Debate persists about whether the atomic bomb should have been used in 1945, and about the effect this had on the cold war.

End of empire

The demise of imperialism in the twentieth century marked a fundamental change in world politics. It reflected, and contributed to, the decreasing importance of Europe as the arbiter of world affairs. The belief that national self-determination should be a guiding prin­ciple in international politics marked a transformation of attitudes and values. During the age of imperialism political status accrued to imperial powers. After 1945, imperialism became a term of opprobrium. Colonialism and the United Nations Charter were increasingly rec­ognized as incompatible, although achievement of inde­pendence was often slow and sometimes marked by prolonged and armed struggle. The cold war often com­plicated and hindered the transition to independence.

Various factors influenced the process of decoloniza­tion: the attitude of the colonial power; the ideology and strategy of the anti-imperialist forces; and the role of external powers. Political, economic, and military factors played various roles in shaping the transfer of power. Different imperial powers and newly emerging independent states had different experiences of with­drawal from empire (see Table 3.2).

Britain

In 1945, the British Empire extended across the globe. Between 1947 and 1980, forty-nine territories were granted independence. In 1947, the independence of India, the imperial ‘Jewel in the Crown’, created the world’s largest democracy, although division into India and Pakistan led to inter-communal ethnic cleansing and hundreds of thousands of deaths. Indian indepen­dence was largely an exception in the early post-war years, as successive British governments were reluc­tant to rush towards decolonization. End of empire m Africa came towards the end of the 1950s and the early 1960s, symbolized by Prime Minister Harold Macmillan’s speech in South Africa in February 1960 when he warned his hosts of the ‘wind of change’ blow­ing through their continent.

British withdrawal from Empire was relatively peace­ful, save for conflicts in Kenya (1952-6) and Malaya 1948-60). In Rhodesia/Zimbabwe, however, the transi­tion to ‘one person one vote’ and black majority rule was opposed by a white minority willing to disregard the British government and world opinion. This minority was aided and abetted by the South African government. Under apartheid, after 1948, South Africans engaged in what many saw as the internal equivalent of impe­rialism, and South Africa conducted more traditional imperialist practices in its occupation of Namibia. It also exercised an important influence in postcolonial/cold war struggles in Angola and Mozambique after the last European empire in Africa - that of Portugal - col­lapsed when the military dictatorship was overthrown in Lisbon.

Table 3.2

Principal acts of European decolonization, 1945—80

Country	Colonial state	Year of independence
"dia	Britain	1947
Pakistan	Britain	1947
Surma	Britain	1948
Sri Lanka	Britain	1948
ndonesia	Holland	1949
Ghana	Britain	1957
Malaya	Britain	1957
French African colonies*	France	1960
Zaire	Britain	1960
Nigeria	Britain	1960
Sierra Leone	Britain	1961
Tanganyika	Britain	1961
Uganda	Britain	1962
Algeria	Britain	1962
Rwanda	Belgium	1962
Kenya	Britain	1963
Guinea-Bissau	Portugal	1974
Mozambique	Portugal	1975
Cape Verde	Portugal	1975
Sao Tome	Portugal	1975
Angola	Portugal	1975
Zimbabwe	Britain	1980

(*including Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Gabon,

Ivory Coast, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritania, Niger,

Senegal, and Upper Volta).

France

The British experience of decolonization stood in con­trast to that of the French. France had been occupied during the Second World War, and successive govern­ments sought to preserve French international prestige by maintaining its imperial status. In Indo-China after 1945, Paris attempted to preserve colonial rule, with­drawing only after prolonged guerrilla war and mili­tary defeat at the hands of Vietnamese revolutionary forces, the Viet Minh, led by Ho Chi Minh. In Africa, the picture was different. The wind of change also blew through French Africa, and under President Charles de Gaulle France withdrew from empire, while attempt­ing to preserve its influence. In Algeria, however, the French refused to leave. Algeria was regarded by many French people as part of France itself. The resulting war, from 1954 to 1962, led to hundreds of thousands of deaths, and France itself was brought to the edge of civil war.

Legacies and consequences: nationalism or communism?

From the perspective of former colonies, the principles of self-determination that underpinned the new global order were slow to be implemented, and required political, ideological, and in some cases military mobi­lization. The pattern of decolonization in Africa was thus diverse, reflecting attitudes of colonial powers, the nature of local nationalist or revolutionary move­ments, and in some cases involvement of external states, including cold war protagonists. Tribal factors were also an ingredient in many cases. How far tribal divisions were created or exacerbated by the imperial powers is an important question in examining the political stability of newly independent states. Equally important is how capable the new political leader­ships in these societies were in tackling their political and formidable economic problems of poverty and underdevelopment.

In Asia, the relationship between nationalism and revolutionary Marxism was a potent force. In Malaya, the British defeated an insurgent communist move­ment (1948-60). In Indo-China (1946-54) the French failed to do likewise. For the Vietnamese, centu­ries of foreign oppression - Chinese, Japanese, and French - soon focused on a new adversary - America. For Washington, early reluctance to support European imperialism gave way to incremental and covert com­mitments, and, from 1965, open involvement with the newly created state of South Vietnam. American lead­ers spoke of a domino theory, in which if one state fell to communism, the next would be at risk. Chinese and Soviet support provided additional cold war contexts. Washington failed, however, to coordinate limited war objectives with an effective political strategy, and once victory was no longer possible, sought to disen­gage through ‘peace with honor. The Tet (Vietnamese New Year) offensive of the ‘Viet Cong’ guerrillas in 1968 marked a decisive moment, convincing many Americans that the war would not be won, although it was not until 1973 that American forces finally with­drew, two years before South Vietnam was defeated.

The global trend towards decolonization was a key development in the twentieth century, though one frequently offset by local circumstances. Yet, while imperialism withered, other forms of domination or hegemony took shape. The notion of hegemony has been used as criticism of the behaviour of the super­powers, notably with Soviet hegemony in Eastern Europe, and US hegemony in Central America.

Key Points

The Great War precipitated the collapse of four European empires (Russian, German, Austro-Hungarian, and the Ottoman Empire in Turkey).

Different European powers had different attitudes to decolonization after 1945: some sought to preserve their empires, in part (the French) or whole (the Portuguese).

The process of decolonization was relatively peaceful in many cases; however, it led to revolutionary wars in others (Algeria, Malaya, and Angola), whose scale and ferocity reflected the attitudes of the colonial power and the nationalist movements.

Independence/national liberation became embroiled in cold war conflicts when the superpowers and/or their allies became involved, for example in Vietnam. Whether decolonization was judged successful depends, in part, on whose perspective you adopt-that of the European power, the independence movement, or the people themselves.

Cold war

The rise of the USA as a world power after 1945 was of paramount importance in international politics. Its conflict with the Soviet Union provided one of the cru­cial dynamics in world affairs, and one that affected— directly or indirectly—every part of the globe. In the West, historians have debated with vigour and acri­mony who was responsible for the collapse of the war­time relationship between Moscow and Washington. The rise of the USSR as a global power after 1945 is equally crucial in this period. Moscow’s relations with its Eastern European ‘allies’, with the People’s Republic of China (PRC), and with revolutionary forces in the Third World have been vital issues in world politics, as well as key factors in Soviet-American affairs.

Some historians date the origins of the cold war to the ‘Russian Revolution’ of 1917, while most focus on events between 1945 and 1950. Whether the cold war was inevitable, whether it was the consequence of mis­takes and misperceptions, or whether it reflected the response of courageous Western leaders to malign and aggressive Soviet intent, are central questions in debates about the origins and dynamics of the cold war. Hitherto, these debates have drawn from Western archives and sources, and reflect Western assump­tions and perceptions. With the end of the cold war, greater evidence has emerged of Soviet motivations and perceptions.

1945-53: onset of the cold war

The onset of the cold war in Europe reflected failure to implement the principles agreed at the wartime con­ferences of Yalta and Potsdam. The future of Germany and various Central and Eastern European countries, notably Poland, were issues of growing tension between the former wartime allies. Reconciling principles of national self-determination with national security was a formidable task. In the West, there was growing feeling Soviet policy towards Eastern Europe was guided not by concern with security but by ideological. In March 1947, the Truman administration justified limited aid to Turkey and Greece with rhetoric designed to arouse awareness of Soviet ambitions, and a declaration that America would support threatened by Soviet subversion or expansion. The Truman doctrine and the associated policy of constainment expressed the self-image of the USA as inherently defensive, and were underpinned by the Marshall Plan for European economic recovery, proclaimed in cue 1947, which was essential to the economic rebuilding of Western Europe. In Eastern Europe, democratic socialist and other anti-communist forces were under­used and eliminated as Marxist-Leninist regimes, loyal to Moscow, were installed. The exception was in Yugoslavia, where the Marxist leader, Marshal Tito, consolidated his position while maintaining indepen­dence from Moscow. Tito’s Yugoslavia subsequently played an important role in the Third World Non-Aligned Movement.

The first major confrontation of the cold war took place over Berlin in 1948. The former German capital was left deep in the heart of the Soviet zone of occupa­tion, and in June 1948 Stalin sought to resolve its status by severing road and rail communications. West Berlin’s population and political autonomy were kept alive by a massive airlift. Stalin ended the blockade in May 1949. The crisis saw the deployment of American long-range bombers in Britain, officially described as atomic-capable’, although none were actually armed with nuclear weapons. US military deployment was followed by political commitment enshrined in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) treaty signed in April 1949. The key article of the treaty—that an attack on one member would be treated as an attack on all— accorded with the principle of collective self-defence enshrined in Article 51 of the UN Charter. In practice, the cornerstone of the alliance was the commitment of the USA to defend Western Europe. In reality, this soon meant the willingness of the USA to use nuclear weap­ons to deter Soviet ‘aggression’. For the USSR, ‘political encirclement’ soon encompassed a growing military, md specifically nuclear, threat.

While the origins of the cold war were in Europe, events and conflicts in Asia and elsewhere were also crucial. In 1949, the thirty-year-long Chinese civil war ended in victory for the communists under Mao Zedong. This had a major impact on Asian affairs and on perceptions in both Moscow and Washington (see Case Study 1). In June 1950, the North Korean attack on South Korea was interpreted as part of a general communist strategy, a test case for American resolve and the will of the United Nations to withstand aggres­sion. The resulting American and UN commitment, followed in October 1950 by Chinese involvement, led to a war lasting three years in which over 3 mil­lion people died before pre-war borders were restored. North and South Korea themselves remained locked in seemingly perpetual hostility, even after the end of the cold war.

Assessing the impact of the cold war on the Middle East is more difficult. The founding of the state of Israel in 1948 reflected the legacy of the Nazi genocide and the failure of British colonial policy. The complexities of politics, diplomacy, and armed conflict in the years immediately after 1945 cannot be readily understood through the prism of Soviet-American ideological or geo-strategic conflict. Both Moscow and Washington helped the creation of a Jewish state in previously Arab lands, although in the 1950s Soviet foreign pol­icy supported Arab nationalism. The pan-Arabism of the charismatic Egyptian leader, Gamal Abdel Nasser, embraced a form of socialism, but was far removed from Marxism-Leninism. The state of Israel was cre­ated by force, and owed its survival to a continuing capacity to defend itself against adversaries who did not recognize the legitimacy of its existence. Israel developed relations with the British and the French, culminating in their secret agreement to attack Egypt in 1956. Over time, a more crucial relationship devel­oped with the USA, with whom a de facto strategic alliance emerged. Yet Britain, France, and America also developed a complex of relationships with Arab states, reflecting historical, strategic, and economic interests.

1953-69: conflict, confrontation, and compromise

One consequence of the Korean War was the build-up of American forces in Western Europe, lest communist aggression in Asia distract from the potential threat to Europe. The idea that communism was a monolithic political entity controlled from Moscow became an enduring American fixation, not shared in London or elsewhere. Western Europeans nevertheless depended on Washington for military security, and this depen­dence deepened as cold war confrontation in Europe was consolidated. The rearmament of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1954 precipitated the creation of the Warsaw Pact in 1955. The military build-up continued apace, with unprecedented concentrations of conventional and, moreover, nuclear forces. As the Soviets developed their ability to strike the USA with nuclear weapons, the credibility of ‘extended deter­rence’ was questioned as American willingness to risk ‘Chicago for Hamburg’ was called into doubt. The problem was exacerbated as NATO strategy contin­ued to depend on the willingness of the USA not just to fight, but to initiate, nuclear war on Europe’s behalf. By the 1960s, there were some 7,000 nuclear weapons in Western Europe alone. NATO deployed nuclear weap­ons to offset Soviet conventional superiority, while Soviet ‘theatre nuclear’ forces in Europe compensated for overall American nuclear superiority.

The death of Stalin in 1953 portended significant consequences for the USSR at home and abroad. Stalin’s eventual successor, Nikita Khrushchev, strove to mod­ernize Soviet society, but helped unleash reformist forces in Eastern Europe. While Poland was controlled, the situation in Hungary threatened Soviet hegemony, and in 1956 the intervention of the Red Army brought bloodshed to the streets of Budapest and international condemnation of Moscow. Soviet intervention coincided with the attack on Egypt by Britain, France, and Israel, precipitated by Nasser’s seizure of the Suez Canal. The British government’s actions provoked fierce domestic and international criticism, and the most serious rift in the ‘special relationship’ between London and Washington. President Eisenhower was strongly opposed to his allies’ action, and in the face of what were effectively American economic sanctions the British aban­doned the operation (and their support for the French and Israelis). International opprobrium at the Soviet action in Budapest was lessened and deflected by what many saw as the final spasms of European imperialism.

Khrushchev’s policy towards the West mixed a search for political coexistence with the pursuit of ideo­logical confrontation. Soviet support for movements of national liberation aroused fears in the West of a global communist challenge. American commitment to lib­eral democracy and national self-determination was often subordinated to cold war perspectives, as well as American economic and political interests. The cold war saw the growth of large permanent intelligence organizations, whose roles ranged from estimating the intentions and capabilities of adversaries to covert inter­vention in the affairs of other states. Crises over Berlin in 1961 and Cuba in 1962 marked the most dangerous moments of the cold war. In both, there was a risk of direct military confrontation and, certainly in October 1962, the possibility of nuclear war. How close the world came to Armageddon during the Cuban missile crisis and exactly why peace was preserved remain matters of debate among historians and surviving officials.

The events of 1962 were followed by a more stable period of coexistence and competition. Nuclear arsenals, nevertheless, continued to grow. Whether best charac­terized as an arms race, or whether internal political and bureaucratic pressures drove the growth of nuclear arsenals, is open to interpretation. For Washington, commitments to NATO allies also provided pressures and opportunities to develop and deploy shorter-range (‘tactical’ and ‘theatre’) nuclear weapons. The global nuclear dimension increased with the emergence of other nuclear weapons states: Britain (1952), France (1960), China (1964), India (1974), and Pakistan (1998). Israel and South Africa also developed nuclear weap­ons, though the post-apartheid South African govern­ment had these dismantled. Growing concern at the proliferation of nuclear weapons led to negotiation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in 1968, wherein states that had nuclear weapons committed themselves to halting the arms race, while those who did not promised not to develop them (see Table 3.3).

Table 3.3

Cold war crises

1948-9	Berlin	USSR/USA/UK
1954-5	Taiwan straits	USA/PRC
1961	Berlin	USSR/USA/NATO
1962	Cuba	USSR/USA/Cuba
1973	Arab-Israeli war	Egypt/lsrael/Syria/
		Jordan/USA/USSR
1983	Exercise Able Archer’	USSR/USA/NATO

1969-79: the rise and fall of detente

As America’s commitment in Vietnam was deepening, Soviet-Chinese relations were deteriorating. Indeed, by 1969 the PRC and the USSR fought a minor bor­der war over a territorial dispute. Despite (or per­haps because of) these tensions, the foundations for what became known as detente were laid between Washington and Moscow, and for what became known as rapprochement between Beijing and Washington. Detente in Europe had its origins in the Ostpolitik of the German Socialist Chancellor, Willy Brandt, and resulted in agreements that recognized the peculiar status of Berlin and the sovereignty of East Germany. Soviet-American detente had its roots in mutual rec­ognition of the need to avoid nuclear crises, and in the economic and military incentives in avoiding an unconstrained arms race. Both Washington and Moscow also looked towards Beijing when making their bilateral calculations.

In the West, detente was associated with the political leadership of President Richard Nixon and his adviser Henry Kissinger (who were also instrumental in Sino- American rapprochement). This new phase in Soviet-American relations did not mark an end to political conflict, as each side pursued political goals, some of which were increasingly incompatible with the aspi­rations of the other superpower. Both sides supported friendly regimes and movements, and subverted adver­saries. All this came as political upheavals were taking place in the Third World (see Table 3.4). The question of how far the superpowers could control their friends, and how far they were entangled by their commitments, was underlined in 1973 when the Arab-Israeli war embroiled both the USA and the USSR in what became a potentially dangerous confrontation. Getting the superpowers involved in the war—whether by design or serendipity—helped create the political conditions for Egyptian-Israeli rapprochement. Diplomatic and stra­tegic relations were transformed as Egypt switched alle­giance from Moscow to Washington. In the short term, Egypt was isolated in the Arab world. For Israel, fear of a war of annihilation fought on two fronts was lifted. Yet continuing political violence and terrorism, and endur­ing enmity between Israel and other Arab states, proved insurmountable obstacles to a regional settlement.

Table 3.4

Revolutionary upheavals in the Third World, 1974-80

Ethiopia	Overthrow of Haile Selassie	Sept. 1974
Cambodia	Khmer Rouge takes Phnom	April 1975
	Penh
Vietnam	North Vietnam/'Viet Cong'	April 1975
	take Saigon
Laos	Pathet Lao takes over state	May 1975
Guinea-Bissau	Independence from Portugal	Sept. 1974
Mozambique	Independence from Portugal	June 1975
Cape Verde	Independence from Portugal	June 1975
Sao Tome	Independence from Portugal	June 1975
Angola	Independence from Portugal	Nov. 1975
Afghanistan	Military coup in Afghanistan	April 1978
Iran	Ayatollah Khomeini installed	Feb. 1979
	in power
Grenada	New Jewel Movement takes	March 1979
	power
Nicaragua	Sandinistas take Managua	July 1979
Zimbabwe	Independence from Britain	April 1980
Source: F. Halliday (1986), The Making of the Second Cold War (London: Verso): 92.

Soviet support for revolutionary movements in the Third World reflected Moscow’s self-confidence as a ‘superpower’ and its analysis that the Third World was turning towards socialism (see Table 3.4). Ideological competition ensued with the West and with China. In America this was viewed as evidence of duplicity. Some claimed that Moscow’s support for revolutionary forces in Ethiopia in 1975 killed detente. Others cited the Soviet role in Angola in 1978. Furthermore, the percep­tion that Moscow was using arms control agreements to gain military advantage was linked to Soviet behaviour in the Third World. Growing Soviet military superiority was reflected in growing Soviet influence, it was argued. Critics claimed the SALT (Strategic Arms Limitation Talks) process enabled the Soviets to deploy multiple independently targetable warheads on their large inter­continental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), threatening key American forces. The USA faced a ‘window of vulner­ability’, it was claimed. The view from Moscow was dif­ferent, reflecting various assumptions about the scope and purpose of detente, and the nature of nuclear deter­rence. Other events were also seen to weaken American influence. The overthrow of the Shah of Iran in 1979 resulted in the loss of an important Western ally in the region, although the ensuing militant Islamic govern­ment was hostile to both superpowers.

December 1979 marked a point of transition in East-West affairs. NATO agreed to deploy land-based Cruise and Pershing II missiles in Europe if negotiations with the Soviets did not reduce what NATO saw as a seri­ous imbalance. Later in the month, Soviet armed forces intervened in Afghanistan to support their revolution­ary allies. Moscow was bitterly condemned in the West and in the Third World, and soon became committed to a protracted and bloody struggle that many compared to America’s war in Vietnam. In Washington, President Carter’s image of the Soviet Union fundamentally changed. Nevertheless, Republicans increasingly used foreign and defence policy to attack the Carter presi­dency. Perceptions of American weakness abroad per­meated domestic politics, and in 1980 Ronald Reagan was elected President, committed to a more confron­tational approach with Moscow on arms control, Third World conflicts, and East-West relations in general.

1979-86: 'the second cold war'

In the West, critics of detente and arms control argued that the Soviets were acquiring nuclear superiority. Some suggested that America should pursue strate­gies based on the idea that victory in nuclear war was possible. The election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 was a watershed in Soviet-American relations. One issue Reagan inherited that loomed large in the breakdown of relations between East and West, was nuclear mis­siles in Europe. Changes in the strategic and European nuclear ‘balances’ had generated new anxieties in the West about the credibility of extended deterrence. NATO’s resulting decision to deploy land-based mis­siles capable of striking Soviet territory precipitated great tension in relations between NATO and the USSR, and political friction within NATO. Reagan’s own incautious public remarks reinforced perceptions that he was as ill-informed as he was dangerous in mat­ters nuclear, although key arms policies were consis­tent with those of his predecessor, Jimmy Carter. On arms control, Reagan was uninterested in agreements that would freeze the status quo for the sake of get­ting agreement, and Soviet and American negotiators proved unable to make progress in talks on long-range and intermediate-range weapons. One particular idea had significant consequences for arms control and for Washingtons relations with its allies and its adversaries. The Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), quickly dubbed ‘Star Wars’, was a research programme designed to explore the feasibility of space-based defences against ballistic missiles. The Soviets appeared to take SDI very seriously, and claimed that Reagan’s real purpose was to regain the nuclear monopoly of the 1940s. Reagan himself retained an idiosyncratic attachment to SDI, which he believed could make nuclear weapons impotent and obsolete. However, the technological advances claimed by SDI proponents did not materialize and the programme was eventually reduced and marginalized.

The resulting period of tension and confrontation between the superpowers has been described as the second cold war and compared to the early period of confrontation and tension between 1946 and 1953 (see Table 3.5). In both Western Europe and the Soviet Union there was real fear of nuclear war. Much of this was a reaction to the rhetoric and policies of the Reagan administration. American statements on nuclear weap­ons and military intervention in Grenada in 1983 and against Libya in 1986 were seen as evidence of a new belligerence. Reagan’s policy towards Central America, and support for the rebel Contras in Nicaragua, were sources of controversy within the USA and internation­ally. In 1986, the International Court of Justice found the USA guilty of violating international law for the Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA’s) covert attacks on Nicaraguan harbours.

Table: 3.5

Principal nuclear weapons states: nuclear arsenals, 1945-90

	1945	1950	1955	1960	1965	1970	1975	1980	1985	1990
USA	6	369	3,057	20,434	31,982	26,662	27,826	24,304	24,327	21,004
USSR	-	5	200	1,605	6,129	11,643	19,055	30,062	39,197	37,000
UK	-	-	10	30	310	280	350	350	300	300
France	-	-	-	-	32	36	188	250	360	505
PRC	-	-	-	-	5	75	185	280	425	430
Total	6	374	3,267	22,069	38,458	38,696	47,604	55,246	64,609	59,239

Source: R. S. Norris, and H. Kristensen (2006), 'Nuclear notebook' Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 62(4) (July/Aug.): 66

The Reagan administration’s use of military power was nonetheless limited: rhetoric and perception were at variance with reality. Some operations ended in humiliating failure, notably in Lebanon in 1983. Nevertheless, there is evidence that some in the Soviet leadership took very seriously the words (and deeds) of the Reagan administration and were anxious that Washington might be planning a nuclear first strike. In 1983, Soviet were air defences shot down a South Korean civilian airliner in Soviet airspace. The American reaction, and the imminent deployment of American nuclear missiles in Europe, created a climate of great tension in East-West relations. And in November 1983 Soviet intelligence misinterpreted a NATO training exercise (codenamed Able Archer’) and may have believed that NATO was preparing to attack them. How close the world came to a serious nuclear confrontation in 1983 is not yet clear.

Throughout the early 1980s, the Soviets were handicapped by a succession of ageing political lead­ers (Brezhnev, Andropov, and Chernenko), whose ill-health further inhibited Soviet responses to the American challenge and the American threat. This changed dramatically after Mikhail Gorbachev became President in 1985. Gorbachev’s ‘new thinking’ in foreign policy, and his domestic reforms, created a revolution, both in the USSR’s foreign relations and within Soviet society. At home, glasnost (or openness) and perestroika (or restructuring) unleashed nation­alist and other forces that, to Gorbachev’s dismay, were to destroy the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

Gorbachev’s aim in foreign policy was to transform international relations, most importantly with the USA. His domestic agenda was also a catalyst for change in Eastern Europe, although, unlike Khrushchev, he was not prepared to react with force or coercion. When confronted with revolt in Eastern Europe, Gorbachev’s foreign ministry invoked Frank Sinatra’s song ‘I did it my way’ to mark the end of the Brezhnev doctrine that had limited Eastern European sovereignty and political development. The Sinatra doctrine meant that Eastern Europeans were now allowed to ‘do it their way’. Throughout Eastern Europe, Moscow-aligned regimes gave way to democracies, in what was for the most part a peaceful as well as speedy transition (see Ch. 4). Most dramatically, Germany was united and East Germany (the German Democratic Republic) disappeared.

Gorbachev paved the way for agreements on nuclear and conventional forces that helped ease the tensions that had characterized the early 1980s. In 1987, he travelled to Washington to sign the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, banning intermediate-range nuclear mis­siles, including Cruise and Pershing II. This agreement was heralded as a triumph for the Soviet President, but NATO leaders, including Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, argued that it was a vindication of the policies pursued by NATO since 1979. The INF Treaty was con­cluded more quickly than a new agreement on cutting strategic nuclear weapons, in part because of continuing Soviet opposition to the SDI. And it was Reagan’s suc­cessor, George Bush, who concluded a Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) agreement that reduced long-range nuclear weapons (though only back to the level they had been in the early 1980s). Gorbachev used agree­ments on nuclear weapons to build trust and demonstrate the serious and radical nature of his purpose. However, despite similar radical agreements on conventional forces in Europe (culminating in the Paris Agreement of 1990), the end of the cold war marked success in nuclear arms control rather than nuclear disarmament (see Table 3.6). The histories of the cold war and of the bomb are very closely connected, but while the cold war is now over, nuclear weapons are still very much in existence.

Table 3.6

Principal arms control and disarmament agreements

Treaty	Purpose of agreement	Signed	Parties
Geneva protocol	Chemical weapons: bans use	1925	100+
Partial Test Ban Treaty	Bans atmospheric, underwater, outer-space nuclear tests	1963	100+
Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty	Limits spread of nuclear weapons	1968	100+
Biological Weapons Convention	Bans production/use	1972	80+
SALT 1 Treaty	Limits strategic arms*	1972	USA/USSR
ABM Treaty	Limits anti-ballistic missiles	1972	USA/USSR
SALT II Treaty	Limits strategic arms*	1979	USA/USSR
INF Treaty	Bans two categories of land-based missiles	1987	USA/USSR
START 1 Treaty	Reduces strategic arms*	1990	USA/USSR
START 2 Treaty	Bans multiple independent re-entry vehicles (MIRVs)	1993	USA/USSR
Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty	Bans all nuclear test explosions in all environments	1996	71 +

‘Strategic arms are long-range weapons.

Source: adapted from Harvard Nuclear Study Group (1985), 'Arms Control and Disarmament: What Can and Can't be Done'

in F. Holroyd (ed.), Thinking About Nuclear Weapons (Buckingham: Open University): 96.

Key Points

There are disagreements about when and why the cold war began, and who was responsible. Distinct phases can be seen in East-West relations, during which tension and the risk of direct confrontation grew and receded.

Some civil and regional wars were intensified and prolonged by superpower involvement; others may have been prevented or shortened.

Nuclear weapons were an important factor in the cold war. How far the arms race had a momentum of its own is a matter of debate. Agreements on limiting and controlling the growth of nuclear arsenals played an important role in Soviet-American (and East-West) relations.

The end of the cold war has not resulted in the abolition of nuclear weapons.

Various international crises occurred in which there was the risk of nuclear war. How close we came to nuclear war at these times remains open to speculation and debate.

Conclusion

The changes that took place in twentieth-century poli­tics were enormous. Assessing their significance raises many complex issues about the nature of international history and international relations. How did war come in 1914? What accounts for the rise of Hitler? Who won the cold war, how, and with what consequences? These are questions that have generated robust debate and fierce controversy. Several points are emphasized in this of empire, and cold war). However war came in 1914, the transformation of warfare into industrialized total war reflected a combination of technological, political, and social forces. Political leaders proved incapable of restoring peace and stability, and attempts to recon­struct the European state system after 1919 failed to address enduring problems and created new obstacles to a stable order. The rise of Nazi Germany brought a new conflagration and new methods of fighting and killing. The scale of carnage and suffering was unprecedented. Nazi ideas of racial supremacy brought brutality and mass murder across Europe and culminated in genocide against the Jews. One consequence was the creation of Israel in 1948, which helped set in motion conflicts and events that continue to have global repercussions. The rise of an aggressive military regime in Tokyo likewise portended protracted and brutal war across the Pacific.

The period since 1945 witnessed the end of European empires constructed before, and in the early part of, the twentieth century, and saw the rise and fall of the cold war. The relationship between end of empire and cold war conflict in the Third World is a close, though complex, one. In some cases, involvement of the super­powers helped bring about change. In others, direct superpower involvement resulted in escalation and prolongation of the conflict. Marxist ideology in vari­ous forms provided inspiration to many Third World liberation movements, but provocation to the USA (and others). The example of Vietnam is most obvious in these respects, but in a range of anti-colonial struggles the cold war played a major part. Precisely how the cold war influenced decolonization is best assessed on a case-by-case basis. One key issue is how far the val­ues and objectives of revolutionary leaders and their movements were nationalist rather than Marxist. It is claimed that both Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam and Fidel Castro in Cuba were primarily nationalists, who turned to Moscow and to communism only in the face of Western hostility. Divisions between the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China also demonstrated diverging trends within the practice of Marxism. In several instances, conflict between communists became as bitter as between communists and capitalists. In other areas, notably the Middle East, Marxism faced the challenge of radical political ideas (pan-Arabism, revolutionary Islam) that held greater attraction for the peoples involved. The role of the superpowers was still apparent, even if their involvement was more complex and diffuse, though in moments of crisis was neverthe­less significant.

Similarly, the relationship between cold war and nuclear history is close, though problematic. Some historians contend that the use of atomic weapons by the USA played a decisive part in the origins of the cold war. Others would see the paranoia gener­ated by the threat of total annihilation as central to understanding Soviet defence and foreign policy, and the unprecedented threat of devastation as crucial to understanding the mutual hostility and fear of lead­ers in the nuclear age. Yet it is also argued that with­out nuclear weapons direct Soviet-American conflict would have been much more likely, and had nuclear weapons not acted as a deterrent, then war in Europe would have been much more likely. There are also those who contend that nuclear weapons played a lim­ited role in East-West relations, and that their impor­tance is exaggerated.

Nuclear weapons have been a focus for political agreement, and during detente nuclear arms agreements acted as the currency of international politics. Yet how close we came to nuclear war in 1961 (Berlin), or 1962 (Cuba), or 1973 (Arab-Israeli war), or 1983 (Exercise Able Archer’), and what lessons might be learned from these events, are crucial questions for historians and policy-makers alike. One central issue is how far cold war perspectives and the involvement of nuclear-armed superpowers imposed stability in regions where previ­ous instability had led to war and conflict. The cold war may have led to unprecedented concentrations of mili­tary and nuclear forces in Europe, but this was a period characterized by stability and great economic prosper­ity, certainly in the West.

Both the cold war and the age of empire are over, although across the globe their legacies, good and bad, seen and unseen, persist. The age of ‘the bomb’, and of other weapons of mass destruction (chemical and biological), continues. How far the clash of commu­nist and liberal/capitalist ideologies helped facilitate or retard globalization is a matter for reflection. Despite the limitations of the human imagination, the global consequences of nuclear war remain all too real. The accident at the Soviet nuclear reactor at Chernobyl in 1986 showed that radioactivity knows no boundaries. In the 1980s, scientists suggested that if only a fraction of the world’s nuclear weapons exploded over a fraction of the world’s cities, it could bring an end to life itself in the northern hemisphere. While the threat of strategic nuclear war has receded, the global problem of nuclear weapons remains a common and urgent concern for humanity in the twenty-first century.

Case Study 1

China's cold wars

www.istockphoto.com/Keith Molloy

The Communist Party of China under Mao Zedong came to power in 1949 after thirty years of civil war (interrupted only by the Japanese invasion of 1937). Mao's theories of socialism and of guerrilla warfare helped to inspire revolutionary struggle across the Third World. Ideology framed China's internal devel­opment and informed its external relations. Mao's attempts to modernize agriculture and industry brought great change, though often at huge cost to the lives of his people. The Great

was consolidated. The rearmament of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1954 precipitated the creation of the Warsaw Pact in 1955. The military build-up continued apace, with unprecedented concentrations of conventional and, moreover, nuclear forces. As the Soviets developed their ability to strike the USA with nuclear weapons, the credibility of ‘extended deter­rence’ was questioned as American willingness to risk ‘Chicago for Hamburg’ was called into doubt. The problem was exacerbated as NATO strategy contin­ued to depend on the willingness of the USA not just to fight, but to initiate, nuclear war on Europe’s behalf.

Leap Forward, launched in 1958, resulted in famine (and repres­sion) on an enormous scale. Estimates suggest that over 30 mil­lion people died as a consequence. Mao's subsequent attempts at radical reform in the Cultural Revolution of 1968 brought political instability and further alienated China from the West.

Ideological fraternity initially underpinned relations between Mao and Stalin, but under Khrushchev ideological differences became more apparent. Mao was critical of Khrushchev's aim of coexistence with the West. The Soviets ended support for Beijing's atomic programme, but failed to stop China exploding an atom bomb in 1964. There was ideological and political com­petition for leadership of the international socialist movement, particularly in the Third World. By 1969 Sino-Soviet relations deteriorated into a minor border war.

Beijing's earlier involvement in the Korean War brought large- scale fighting between Chinese and American troops. China's regional and ideological interests clashed with those of the US in Korea, Formosa (Taiwan), and South East Asia in the 1960s. East-West detente, and America's search for negotiated with­drawal from Vietnam, helped facilitate rapprochement between Washington and Beijing.

Western perceptions of a communist monolith were fur­ther weakened in 1978 when newly unified Vietnam invaded Kampuchea (Cambodia) and overthrew the genocidal Khmer Rouge under Pol Pot, who was backed by Beijing. In 1979, commu­nist China launched a punitive attack on communist Vietnam and moved conventional forces to the Sino-Soviet border in prepara­tion for conflict with the communist Soviet Union, Vietnam's ally.

In the 1980s, economic reform under Deng Xiaoping embraced market principles. Economic reform wrought economic trans­formation, though political structures-and the power of the communist party and the People's Liberation Army-remained. Western-style democratic institutions and human rights likewise failed to follow economic change.

Whereas reform precipitated the collapse of the USSR, the PRC survived and prospered. By 1999, China was becoming a global economic power, with the military accoutrements of a 'superpower' and was increasingly influential in the UN Security Council and the global politics of the post-cold war world.

Questions        

Was Germany responsible for the outbreak of war in 1914?

How did the Versailles Treaty contribute to European political instability from 1919 to 1939?

Were there feasible alternatives to the appeasement of Hitler?

Why were atomic bombs dropped on Japan?

Why did America become involved in either the Korean or Vietnam wars?

Compare and contrast American and Soviet objectives during detente.

Were the British successful at decolonization after 1945?

Compare and contrast the end of empire in Africa with that in Asia after 1945.

Did nuclear weapons keep the peace in Europe after 1945?

How close did we come to nuclear war during either the Berlin crisis (1961) or the Cuban missile crisis (1962)?

Further Reading 

Best, A., HanhimakiJ. M., Maiolo, J. A., and Schulze, K. E. (2008), International History of the Twentieth Century (London: Routledge). A comprehensive and authoritative account of twentieth-century history.

Betts, R. (2004), Decolonization (London: Routledge). This book provides an introductory theoretical overview that examines the forces that drove decolonization, and explores interpretations of postcolonial legacies.

Chamberlain, M. E. (1999), Decolonization: The Fall of the European Empires (Oxford: Blackwell). An analysis of the end of British, French, and smaller European empires on a region-by- region basis.

Keylor, W. R. (2011), The Twentieth-Century World and Beyond: An International History since 1900 (Oxford: Oxford University Press). A comprehensive and balanced assessment of twentieth-century international history.

Mueller, J. (1990), Retreat From Doomsday: The Obsolescence of Major War (New York: Basic Books). A distinctive perspective on twentieth-century warfare and the importance (or otherwise) of nuclear weapons in international politics.

Reynolds, D. (2001), One World Divisible: A Global History since 1945 (New York: W. W. Norton). A highly authoritative, comprehensive, and nuanced analysis of world politics since 1945.

Young, J., and Kent.J. (2003), International Relations since 1945 (Oxford: Oxford University Press). A comprehensive survey of the impact of the cold war on world politics since 1945, providing an analysis of war in the Middle East, the development of European integration, and the demise of the European empires in Africa and Asia.

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/