Global Conflict, Global (Dis)Orders, Part II

COLD WARAn intense, prolonged political confrontation between countries, involving all spheres of relations (a war)But without a direct armed clash (cold) though it may escalate into a hot warThe Cold War1946-1991East-WestCommunism capitalismSoviet Union United States

Minor cold wars (examples):US-Cuba: 1959-US-Iran: 1979-US-Iraq: 1991-2003US-North Korea: 1953-India-Pakistan: 1960s-2000sSoviet Union-China: 1960s-1980s

The Cold War 1946-1991Europe and East Asia devastated by World War IIGlobal capitalism is shattered even more than by WWIThe stage is set for another round of global conflictThe three dimensions of the new war: ideological (global capitalism challenged by the Global Left) geopolitical (competition between states)military (wars and arms races)In the late 1940s, conflicts in the three areas converged to produce a rapid shift from the peace of 1945 to a 45-year-long period of confrontation

The ideological dimension: global conflict between the two political-economic systems, capitalism and communismThe Three Worlds of the Cold WarThe capitalist West, the communist East, and the Third World (now called the Global South)East-West conflict:Will capitalism survive or will be replaced by some forms of socialism or communism?In the Third World, massive struggles for national independence from Western colonial domination

The Global Left consisted of:Communist states (the Soviet Union, Peoples Republic of China, and others) Communist parties around the world, most of them supported by the USSR (Italy and France having the biggest) Moderate Left forces (social democrats, labour movements, movements for democracy, etc.)Anti-colonial forces in the 3d world

Red dictators: Soviet Unions Stalin and Chinas Mao, 1950

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

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

The US acted as the global force to save and rebuild capitalismTo defeat the Global LeftUse of forceCooptationRebuilding a global capitalist economy based on US dominance Ideological wars: liberal democracy vs. communist dictatorshipConstruct a world orderAlliancesInternational organizationsInternational law

The geopolitical dimensionThe end of WWII sawthe rise of the two superpowers: USA and USSRA bipolar world something unique in world historyChallenging each otherContaining each otherTrying to control other states to follow themBut also: cooperating with each other to keep their powerEach needed the other as The OtherBut both wanted to survive

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

The military dimensionThe 2 giants never had a significant direct armed conflict between themThey fought wars by proxy (Korea, Vietnam, Angola, etc.)But they prepared for total military confrontationNuclear armsConventional armies and naviesMilitary alliances NATO, the Warsaw PactSpy warsNew structures of militarismThe military-industrial complexThe national security state

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

Several moments when the world was within a few steps from nuclear war e.g. October 1962, the Cuban Missile CrisisNuclear weapons: can you use them to win a war?War-fighting vs. deterrenceThe balance of terrorThe nuclear stalemateFrom an uncontrolled arms race to arms control and disarmamentThe era of arms control began in 1963 with the US-Soviet-British treaty to ban all, except underground, tests of nuclear weaponsA system of treaties was developed in the 1960s-1990s to make nuclear war less likely

Losses in the Cold War (estimates):- Over 20 mln. died in local wars, mostly between the Global Left and the West- Victims of totalitarian regimes in the Soviet Union (1929-1953), Communist China (1950s-1970s), other communist states : 60 mln. people died as a result of policies of forced modernization and political repression Total: 80 mln. lives80% of the human losses were civilian Massive waste of resources Unprecedented growth of technologies of destructionThe degradation of natural environmentStymied democracy and economic development

Korea, 1950: US forces in battle with Communist troops

1960, the Cuban revolution: Fidel Castro challenges the US

1972, Vietnam: Communist soldiers

1972: Vietnamese villagers massacred by American GIs

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

Soviet helicopter gunships over Afghanistan, 1980

Afghan mujahid fighter against Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, 1980s

Why and how did the Cold War end?

Ideological factors

Capitalism survived and expanded due to a number of factors:Social reforms (the welfare state)The post-industrial revolutionExpansion of the market economyGlobalizationRise of multinational corporationsBy the 1980s, the Global Left was in retreatSoviet-type Communism stagnated and declinedChina launched successful market reforms after Maos death in 1976In the USSR, Mikhail Gorbachev launched democratic reforms in 1985Collapse of communist regimes in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union (1989-1991)Transition to capitalism

Communist states: 1917-2011Map of Communist History

Geopolitical factors1960s-1980s: from a bipolar to a multipolar worldThe rise of the integrated Europe, Japan, ChinaProliferation of independent states1945 50 statesToday 193The superpowers were losing control In 1991, the Soviet Union collapsed as a state and was replaced by 15 new independent statesThe US moved to assume a hegemonic position (a unipolar world?)

Military factors

The stalemate between the superpowers, the stabilizing effect of arms controlThe economic burdens of the arms raceThe futility of war as a means of policyThe rise of new pacifism - antiwar, antimilitarist movements - around the world (1960s-1980s)

Mikhail Gorbachev, the last leader of the Soviet Union

Negotiating an end to the Cold WarThe threat of nuclear war as the overriding issueThe Cold War was undermining the Soviet systemThe economic burdenA militarized state ensured bureaucratic paralysis: society lacked basic freedoms, the state was losing its capacity to governThe atmosphere of confrontation with the West was stifling impulses for necessary reforms, imposing ideological rigiditySoviet domination of Eastern Europe was now seen as an obsolete, counterproductive policy. Lessons of Czechoslovakia (1968) and Poland (1980-81). Reforms in Eastern Europe are necessary for Soviet reform.Solution: New Thinking, a plan to negotiate an end to the Cold War to assure security and free up Soviet and East European potential for reform. The Sinatra Doctrine

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

Gorbachev and Reagan exchange New Year messages to their nations, December 1987:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VqmTEsP7Aoc

November 1989: crowds of Germans breach the Berlin Wall

When did the Cold War end?1988: officially declared over by Reagan and Gorbachev (before the fall of European Communism)1989-91: the fall of European communist regimesGlobal capitalism and liberal democracy emerged victoriousExpectations of an era of peace, cooperation and progressIn realityThe misleading effects of Cold War triumphalism:http://www.bostonreview.net/BR30.1/crawford.html

Balkans, 1992-95: the Bosnia War

Africa, 1994: the Rwandan genocide

1994-96: Russias war in Chechnya

1999: NATO-Yugoslavia war over Kosovo

New York City, September 11, 2001

Afghan Taliban

US forces in Afghanistan

US-British invasion of Iraq, 2003

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

Taliban soldiers leaving Buner, Pakistan, April 2009

Subway station, Mexico City, April 2009

US military powerhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDfJjvice3w&feature=relatedRussian military powerhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMm-sxhho_g&feature=relatedChinas military powerhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-rgPI5iGBgBrazils military powerhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CyScyV9hku4&feature=related

The US under the Clinton and Bush Administrations acted as the worlds hegemonic power. Key features of the Bush foreign policy:Proclamation of GWOTRadical Islam and rogue states cast in the role of the enemyDemocracy promotion, including by means of forceThe unipolar momentUnilateralism vs. multilateralismDetermination to preserve US hegemonyPotential challengers: rising centres of global powerEUChina, IndiaRussiaBrazil and others

Use of force has been becoming more frequent and larger in scale: invasions, terrorist attacksThe new concept of preventive warMilitarization of outer spaceDismantling of arms control, proliferation of nukesThe danger that nuclear weapons may be used is considered higher than in the Cold WarNew hi-tech weaponsThe war in peoples minds: ideas and beliefs, religionA new culture of war?

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

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

THE WORLDS MILITARY FORCES

20,000 nuclear weapons120,000 battle tanks35,000 combat aircraft1,500 major warshipsOver 23 million under arms (regular and irregular armies)including 0.5 million women and 0.2 million children under 15

The Worlds Nuclear Weapons (data from Bulletin of Atomic Scientists: http://gsn.nti.org/gsn/nw_20091118_4824.php )*** Estimates

Russia***13,000USA8,400France300China240UK180Israel***80-100Pakistan***70-90India***60-80North Korea***?Total***23,360

Patterns of war, early 21st century:

Mostly in the Global South -even though most military preparations are in the NorthMostly within states, not between statesCasualties overwhelmingly civilianTerrorism a widely used weaponThe threat of WMD useThe potential for escalation and spread

The dialectics of integration and conflict in world politicsConflict and integration are inseparable from each other Integration has generated new conflictsThey are undermining integrationWill conflicts converge to produce large-scale warfare on global scale?At what level of conflict will the world achieve more viable and humane forms of integration?

Do we have alternatives to escalation?See Kofi Annans report In Larger Freedom:Report - Table of ContentsAnd UN Secretary-Generals High-level Panels report A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility :Report of the Secretary-General's High-level Panel

A new global security consensus is neededThe UN was created in 1945 as a collective security organization To prevent states from waging aggressive wars on other states It was understood that peace and security would require: facilitating socioeconomic development andprotection of human rights

SECURITYDEVELOPMENTHUMAN RIGHTSare inseparable

DEVELOPMENTHUMAN RIGHTSSECURITY

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

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

From A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility

Examples of mutual insecurityNorthern troubles southern consequencesWorld Bank estimates: the attacks of 9/11 increased the number of world poor by 10 milliontotal cost to the world economy $80 bln.Southern troubles northern consequences9/11Global epidemicsTerrorism

The front line actors to assure security Individual sovereign statesBut they must act collectively individually, they cannot do the jobThe threats are transnationalNo state is invulnerableAnd an individual state may not be able, or willing, to meet its responsibility to protect its own peoples and not to harm its neighbours

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

The primary challenge -PREVENTIONHow to prevent security threats from rising:DEVELOPMENTIf successful -Improves living conditionsBuilds state capacitiesCreates an environment which makes war less likely

But what if prevention fails?Conditions for legitimate use of forceArticle 51 and Chapter VII of the UN CharterThey need no changes, but they must be used more effectivelyBuild a consensus on guidelines 5 guidelines:Seriousness of threatProper purposeLast resortProportional meansBalance of consequences

Other major issues arising during and after violent conflict:Needed capacities for peace enforcement: all countries must contribute resourcesPeace-keepingPeace-buildingProtection of civilians

A more effective United Nations OrganizationRevitalize the General AssemblyReform and make more effective the Security Council (decision-making and contributions)Give attention, policy guidance and resources to countries under stress, in conflict, and emerging from conflictSecurity Council must work more closely with regional organizationsInstitutions to address social and economic threats to international securityCreate a more potent international body for the protection of human rights

*******************************************************************