UNIT 5: AN OVERVIEW OF TWENTIETH CENTURY IR HISTORY II

COLD WAR, EMERGENCE OF THIRD WORLD, ITS COLLAPSE, POST COLD WAR & MULTIPOLARITY

COLD WAR
The Cold War was more than a rivalry between two superpowers. The period of this war, that is the years between
1945 and 1990, also contained a history of international politics of a different kind. The Cold War period saw the
evolution of a world order where diplomacy and negotiation in their various forms were established. It added a
very different dimension to military build-up – arms race, military blocs, proxy wars etc. The simultaneity of the
existence of the United Nations is perhaps a very important dimension to the evolution of the Cold War as the
world did not witness another world war. It is said that today’s contemporary world is poles apart and very
dynamic from what it was before 1945.
Isn’t it perplexing to say that a certain war was described as ‘Cold’? War is always ‘hot’ fought with weapons by
armies to gain some designated strategic goals. But it being ‘Cold’ is something that calls for some thinking and
explanation. What we know is that the Cold War continued for more than four decades between 1945 and 1990.
The War touched the entire world, actually divided several countries and also prompted them to join hands with
others to form political and military blocs. A feature of Cold War was thus bloc politics – two blocs, led by the two
super powers viz. United States of America and the erstwhile Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR, or Soviet
Union). In the process, tens of millions of people suffered in very different ways, including violent death,
persecution and disappearance. Economic development was disrupted and in cases denied resulting in the misery
and hunger for millions of poor people in different parts of the world. Millions suffered and hundreds of thousands
were killed in ‘communist’ and ‘anti-communist’ rebellions, uprisings, repression, civil wars and interventions
throughout Africa, Asia and Latin America and the Caribbean besides East Europe, Balkans and other parts of the
world.
Despite having these sufferings on record, interestingly, we continue to call this 45-year war as the Cold War! And
interestingly, not once American and Soviet armies fought face to face in a battlefield. All this definitely calls for
little thinking on the dimensions of its meaning. When one refers to this war as the Cold War, the aim is to convey
that it was fought under an ideological cover. The war saw intense competition between two mutually hostile
political ideologies and worldviews. These were ‘capitalism’ and ‘socialism’. Both these terms have wide ranging
expressions of two different variants of socio-economic, political and cultural organisations. In plain terms,
therefore, capitalism stood up for liberal democracy and free market economy whereas socialism sought to
champion state ownership, workers rights and egalitarian system. The United States provided leadership to the
capitalist world and the Soviet Union.
This intense ideological competitiveness gave rise to bloc rivalry. Bloc rivalry was a signpost of the 45-year Cold
War. When the Soviets, for example, initiated the Molotov Plan in 1947 for its Eastern European allies to aid them
and rebuild their ailing economies, the Americans responded with the multi-billion dollar Marshall Plan (or, the
European Recovery Programme) in 1948 for the post World War II sick economies of the Western Europe. The
Marshall Plan was in force only for four years, the Molotov Plan remained till the last breath of the USSR with a
new name since 1949 known as the Council for Mutual Economic Assistant (COMECON).
Similarly, when the American side of the war founded an intergovernmental military alliance, the North Atlantic
Treaty Organisation (NATO) in 1949, the Soviet side had rivaled them with signing the Treaty of Friendship,
Cooperation and Mutual Assistance (the Warsaw Pact) in 1955. These ideological underpinnings and bloc rivalry
impressed the observers of the war to qualify it as ‘Cold’ as it did not involve direct military confrontations
between the warring camps. This has led many to characterize the Cold War as ‘nonmilitary’ conflict.
PHASES OF THE COLD WAR

BEGINNING AND RISING HOSTILITIES

Germany was divided into four occupation zones each under control of Britain, France, the Soviet Union and the
United States. These four powers were main participants in the Yalta and Potsdam conferences. The United
States, on the other hand, had detonated a nuclear device without the knowledge of its war allies, particularly the
Soviet Union, and had dropped two of them on Japan in 1945. It was an unprecedented display of the American
power that led to its recognition as a “superpower” and decreased its trustworthiness in the eyes of the Soviets.
Meanwhile, the US economy was expanding very fast and had overtaken the combined economic strength of all
the war-affected European states. The rate of Industrialization of the post-1917 Soviet economy too was
impressive. The weight of the American and Soviet military and economic strengths were now being decisively felt
in the Western and East European countries respectively.
1. The American President Harry Truman enunciated the so-called “Truman Doctrine” in 1947. It was an
American strategy to ‘contain communism’. It denounced the communist system as oppressive and
warned against its possible subversive campaigns.
2. When the Soviet Union’s Molotov Plan came into light in 1947, the United States rivalled it with the
Marshall Plan in 1948. Marshall Plan was a product of the Truman Doctrine. As stated before, Soviet’s
Molotov Plan had aimed at its Eastern European allies. Their economies were ailing and thus required
reconstruction. America’s multi-billion Marshall Plan, on the other side, had a similar scheme for the post-
war sick economies of the West European states. But ultimately, both these plans were the superpower
strategies to contain each other and influence their own areas of ascendancy.
3. The birth of NATO invited similar military response from the other bloc. The Soviet response was signing
of the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance (the Warsaw Pact) in 1955 with its East
European allies. Chinese communist revolution was complete in 1949, and a violent civil war had started
in Korea around 1950. By this time, Korea was already divided into two separate zones (North and South)
because the Japanese soldiers had surrendered to the Soviets in the North and to the Americans in the
South during the Second World War. These developments had brought the bloc rivalry to Asia with high
intensity of conflict and human suffering.
4. The worst was yet to come with what is popularly known as the Cuban Missile Crisis. Fidel Castro
declaring the Cuban Revolution as socialist and Cuba as a Soviet ally to secure Soviet military support
against the United States. Thus USSR installed nuclear missiles in Cuba for the latter’s security. This
Caribbean island, Cuba, is located barely 90 miles from the United States. The then American President
Kennedy said that he would take whatever steps were necessary to protect American security. The two
superpowers and the world had moved close to a nuclear war.

DÉTENTE
Diplomatic conscience, however, prevailed over the Cuban Missile Crisis and the crisis had ended with removal of
Soviet missiles from Cuba and America promising not to invade the island nation. This peaceful end of the Cuban
Missile Crisis probably made the world to realize the potential cost of bipolar military hostilities, and thus began a
phase in the Cold War known as “détente”. According to the Oxford Dictionary of Politics, détente refers to the
periods of reduced tension in relations between the United States and the Soviet Union and was closely associated
with the process of arms control.
The main period of détente ran from the Partial Treat Ban Treaty (PTBT) in 1963 to the late 1970s. It was signed by
Britain, the United States and the Soviet Union and agreed to limit the nuclear armaments to a bare minimum.
PTBT had banned nuclear tests in the atmosphere, on the ground and under water. It, however, did not ban the
underground testing. Talks to ban the underground testing could succeed only in 1996 under the Comprehensive
Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). But these powers had agreed to ban nuclear testing in the space in 1967 and also the
entire Latin American region. Britain, the United States and the Soviet Union again signed a Nuclear Non-
Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in 1968 and promised not to transfer such weapons to others. the famous Helsinki
Summit was held in 1975; and it was regarded as having buried the Cold War and symbolized the culmination of
détente in Europe. The Helsinki declaration was an act to revive the sagging spirit of detente between the Soviet
Union and the United States and its allies. In 1975, the United States, Soviet Union, all members of NATO and the
Warsaw pact signed the Helsinki Final Act during the meeting of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in
Europe (CSCE), held in Helsinki, Finland. Détente, literally a lessening of tension between the two super powers,
was the policy fashioned out by US President Richard Nixon and his Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.

REBIRTH / NEW COLD WAR

Détente was in effect for around one and a half decades. Many had thus believed that the Cold War had ceased to
exist. But that belief was defied when a communist regime came to power in Afghanistan and the country soon
plunged into civil war with deep involvement of the United States and the Soviet Union rivaling each other in the
land of this South Asian nation. Pakistan was continuously receiving military assistance from the United States, and
therefore Afghanistan sought weapons from the Soviet Union to balance Pakistan. The situation soon went out of
control when Daud (Mohammed Daud Khan, President of the newly republic of Afghanistan) was ousted in 1978
and his supporters were sent in exile. Riots broke out in Afghanistan with worsening economic condition.
Meanwhile, the American ambassador was killed in a riot-like situation. The following year, Hafizullah Amin
became President of Afghanistan who, though a veteran Communist, was not liked by the Soviets. Thus, over
90,000 Soviets troops entered Afghanistan in 1979 as they had thought that this country may swing to the
American side under Amin. Normally, American weapon exports had been much greater than those of the Soviet
Union. This trend changed and the two Powers openly competed in arms sale. By early 1980s, the Soviet Union
was responsible for a little over 30 per cent of the world's arm exports, whereas US share was slightly less than 30
per cent. By 1977, in the Horn of Africa, Ethiopia had changed to a more pre-Soviet policy; Somalia was drifting
towards the United States. In Indo-China, Soviet Union backed Vietnam whereas the latter's relation with China
was strained. Pol Pot regime of Canlbodia was being backed by China. But, it was perhaps the most brutal regime
that the world had seen since 1945. in January 1979 Vietnam, with Soviet backing, attacked Cambodia and
deposed the Pol Pot regime. But, Vietnamese action was certainly a violation of sovereignty of a neighbour. Once
again many people in the West spoke of Soviet-backed Vietnamese invasion of Canlbodia (Kamyuchia). In February
1979 China marched its troops into Vietnam. The war went badly for China and it withdrew its troops after some
time. But, it showed serious tension between China, USSR and the West.
During the 1960s, the space race became a much more peaceful, and beneficial, battlefield- this time for
technological and ideological superiority. The Soviets took the lead on October 4, 1957, when they launched
Sputnik 1, the world’s first artificial satellite. They followed up by shooting the first human, Yuri Gagarin, into space
in 1961 and the first woman, Valentina Tereshkova, in 1963. Soviet cosmonaut Aleksei Leonov was the first to
leave his spacecraft and go for a spacewalk, almost getting stuck out there in the process. The culmination of the
space race occurred on July 20, 1969, when the US responded to the Soviet achievements with the Apollo 11
landing on the moon and Neil Armstrong’s “giant leap for mankind”.
These developments in Afghanistan was termed by the United States as deliberate acts of the Soviet Union to
promote communist ideology, and that let to reemergence or revival of the Cold War in a significant way. The
United States responded to these developments with its proxies in Afghanistan - the mujahedeen groups who
launched a war on the communist regime of Babrak Karmal and the Soviet troops there. Soviet Union suffered
heavy military losses at the hands of the US-armed mujahideen groups. Besides, by late 1980s, Soviet Union had
begun unraveling under the pressure of prestroika and glasnost reforms of Mikhail Gorbachev. The essence of
those policies pursued by the Soviet Union was understood by the two highlighted terms of perestroika and
glasnost. The meaning of perestroika was understood as economic “restructuring” in the sense of removing
economic bottlenecks, inefficiency and raising production and productivity. Glasnost (opening) called for some
minimal political liberalization in the Soviet political system. It called for openness in public policy-making and
scrutiny. But the fact of the matter was that both the policies of perestroika and glasnost could not help the
Soviets much, and the Soviet Union had ceased to exist in 1991.

EMERGENCE OF THE THIRD WORLD

During the Cold War, the term "Third World" was used to describe countries that did not align with either NATO or
the Warsaw Pact. It also referred to countries that played a small role in international trade and business. The term
was coined in 1952 by French historian Alfred Sauvy in an article published in the French magazine
L'Observateur. The term refers to one-third of the world that was not aligned with the Cold War superpowers, the
United States and the Soviet Union. There has been a debate on the question of the nature of the State in the
Third World; sometimes referred to as the post-colonial societies in political theory and comparative politics. It is
important to understand the nature of state in the Third World as it enables us to locate the role of the Third
World in international relations. The term 'Third World' refers to a group of countries with certain common
features. According to some writers the developed capitalist countries constitute the first world. The socialist
countries are called the second world. The underdeveloped countries in Africa, Asia and Latin American that were
subjected to colonial domination are called the third world. Some writers categorize the superpowers as the first
world. The other developed countries like UK, Germany, Australia and Can& are clubbed together as the second
world. The third world consists of underdeveloped countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America. Both definitions
have a few things in common. In both classifications the attributes of the third world are one and the same. The
third world is defined in both the classifications in relation to the developed countries. The Third World Countries
are economically poor and they have a colonial past. In the course of identifying the common features of the Third
World one should not ignore variations among them. Some third world countries like the Arab countries are very
rich while the others like Bangladesh are very poor. There are countries with democratic institutions. On the other
hand some thud world countries are ruled by military regimes. There are also differences amount the third world
countries in terms of social formations ranging from tribal societies to capitalist societies.
There are several theoretical frameworks for studying the states of the third world. Among them most significant
and popular frameworks are the liberal and Marxist frameworks.
1. The liberals argue that the state is a neutral agency and acts as an arbiter between the contending groups
in the society. In other words no group has a privileged access to state. Different groups in the society
make their demands on the political system. The state agencies consider all these demands and take
decisions in the general interest-of the society. Within the fold of liberalism some writers-prop& that
state agencies are dominated by the elite groups. In the third world the westernized elite controls the
state and use it as an instrument to transform the traditional agrarian society into a modem industrial
society.
2. The Marxists argued that state is neither an impartial agency nor a common trustee. It expresses the
interests of the dominant classes to protect their interests. In other words it is an instrument in the hands
of the dominant classes. The state follows society but does not precede it. Hence the nature of the state
depends upon the character of the division of labour in the society. Unfortunately, Marx has not written
elaborately on the state. He made sketchy remarks. The followers of Man have written extensively about
the state. However most of these writings deal with the developed capitalist countries. These
explanations are not valid for the third world, which are different from the capitalist countries. The third
world countries have a colonial past. Even after securing political independence they are subjected to
 economic exploitation by the western developed countries. Yet mother important attribute of the third
world countries is that they are dominated not by one single class but multiple classes.
The State as an institution came into existence as part of a historical process. In the third world, decolonisation
shaped the state, giving it specific characteristics. The boundaries existing at the time of colonisation were
modified in some cases; in other cases entirely new states were carved out. The temporary boundaries of the state
did not always coincide with the Nation; that is, often people belonging to different ethnic groups, nationalities
were brought together and the boundaries of the colonies were traced, delimited according to the needs of the
colonial powers. African states are the best examples to indicate the artificiality of the state. Nigeria for example
was entirely a British creation. In the Western capitalist countries the modem nation-state has emerged due to
internal dynamics of society. It came into being in the course of a historical transition to capitalism.
The rising capitalist class took the initiative to establish a nation-state. The term Third World has long served to
describe countries of Africa, Asia, and Latin America that have been seen to share relatively low per-capita
incomes, high rates of illiteracy, limited development of industry, agriculture-based economies, short life
expectancies, low degrees of social mobility, and unstable political structures. The 120 countries of the Third World
also share a history of unequal encounters with the West, mostly through colonialism and globalization.
During the Cold War (1945–1991), Third World referred to countries that were relatively minor players on the
international stage, strategic though they sometimes were to the United States and the Soviet Union as these
superpowers sought to maintain their balance of terror. The tendency was to essentialize, oversimplify, and
homogenize complex identities and diversities in the political systems of the Third World by focusing too narrowly
on the politics of bipolarity. Yet the so-called Third World countries always had many more divergences than
similarities in their histories, cultures, demography, climates, and geographies, and a great variation in capacities,
attitudes, customs, living standards, and levels of underdevelopment or modernization. The concept of first,
second and third world is outdated and a relic of the cold war. The first world was US & its allies, second world was
USSR & its communist allies and third world was neutral, non-aligned nations. India is a third world country, and so
is Sweden, Switzerland, Ireland, etc. In the 1950s, five newly independent Asian countries (India, Pakistan, Ceylon,
Burma and Indonesia) took the initiative to rally the Third-World countries to form a united front against
colonisation. On 17 April 1955, the first Afro–Asian Conference was held in Bandung in a bid by Third-World
countries to consolidate their position on the international stage. Tiers monde means third world in French. The
term gained widespread popularity during the Cold War when many poorer nations adopted the category to
describe themselves as neither being aligned (Non Aligned Movement) with NATO or the USSR, but instead
composing a non-aligned “third world” (in this context, the term “First World” was generally understood to mean
the United States and its allies in the Cold War, which would have made the East bloc the “Second World” by
default; however, the latter term was seldom actually used). Leading members of this original “third world”
movement were Yugoslavia, India, and Egypt. Many third world countries believed they could successfully court
both the communist and capitalist nations of the world, and develop key economic partnerships without
necessarily falling under their direct influence.

END OF COLD WAR

The Cold War had begun at a time when the Allies, including the United States and USSR, had successfully defeated
the Nazi Germany and her Axis partners. The world had expected lasting friendship among the victors when they
split and formed two hostile camps. The Cold War ended (1990) at a time when they had come to live with it and it
was expected that (despite ups and downs and detente) the East-West conflict would become permanent. The end
of the Cold War came under 'the aegis of two rather improbable collaborators"-Ronald Reagan and Mikhail
Gorbachev. The end of Cold War resulted in several changes in the International Relations. The concept of bipolar
system, which brought the world to fall under the influence of two powerful blocs, was the first victim. It also
followed by weakening of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM). The fall of Berlin Wall in 1989 marked the beginning
of the end of Cold War. Soon after that USSR was dismantled in 1991, marking a new era in the history of
international relations. The collapse of the USSR led to the death of Warsaw Pact. Many countries took birth in the
Baltic, Eastern Europe and Central Asian regions either through civil war or peaceful means. All these events
resulted in emergence of the US as the sole super power; and the world became a unipolar system for a while in
the 1990s. The international relations in the post-Cold War period have taken a new shape, order and spirit. New
actors have emerged, new priorities are identified and new world order has begun. Multiple changes have
happened at economic and political fronts at multiple levels – from global to local. Trade and economic issues
gained prominence in international relations. The post-Cold War period witnessed the birth of a new economic
order and international relations were revitalized into international economic relations. In 1995 World Trade
Organisation (WTO) was formed to provide institutional support to these economic relations.

FACTORS LEADING TO THE END OF COLD WAR

1. Soviet economic decline is often seen as a key reason why the Cold War ended. The Soviet Union’s foreign
policy was oriented toward Defence during the Cold War which made the economy to decline badly in
1970s because the power of Soviet’s economy was determine by its extend of overpowering those of
Western Countries with huge budget on Defence which enabled the Soviet Union lost her credibility of the
economic ability to sustained Cold with the West leading to the economic sluggishness from 1970s and
1980s. By 1985, when Mikhail Gorbachev came to power, the Soviet Union was embroiled in disastrous
economic problems. In addition, the Soviet satellite states in Eastern Europe were abandoning
communism one after the other. This was followed by reformation from Eastern countries such as
Hungary, Poland and Soviet Union toward a free market oriented policies Gorbachev knew very well that
his country cannot compete with United States in term of Defence budget spending which enabled him to
come up with reform agenda of Perestroika [the restructuring of political and economic systems) and
Glasnost (greater openness and individual freedom].
2. Economic globalization created turmoil in the world economy at the end of the twentieth century, but the
Western economies using market systems were able to transfer labour to services, to reorganize their
heavy industries and to switch to computers. The Soviet Union could not keep up. For instance, when
Gorbachev came to power in 1985, there were 50,000 personal computers in the Soviet Union; in the
United States there were 30 million.
3. The third factor to explore is the liquidation of Communist ideology; this factor has a greatest rationale for
the cessation of Cold War because the communist blocs lost their prestige, the philosophy of Communism
and its tenets making her supporters reluctant to support this dysfunctional ideology. The Soviet
leadership led by Gorbachev came to realization that the entire system of Communism is defunct and
could not compete with the Western ideology of capitalism making the west to win ideologically, thus, the
west gave more pressure on the Soviet Union making them to win the Cold War through strong economy
and acceptable ideology. The dysfunction of Communist ideology made the United States strategy to be
successful in putting an end to communism by referring the ideology of communism as a nature of beast
established within itself that create internal weakness, thus become vulnerable to external compressions.
4. In 1988/9, the Soviet Union abandoned its nine-year war in Afghanistan. Next, Gorbachev refused to send
military support to defend the previous satellite states of the USSR, greatly weakening their Communist
regimes. This was the backdrop for Gorbachev’s visit to East Berlin in the fall of 1989, where his speech
advocating freedom of communication with the West spurred popular agitation in East Germany.
Demanding reunion with their families, East Berliners pulled down parts of the Wall and climbed across
into West Berlin. The destruction of the Berlin Wall, of great symbolic importance, finished off the Iron
 Curtain, and the following year saw the reunification of Germany. Like dominoes, Eastern European
communist dictatorships fell one by one. By the fall of 1989, East and West Germans were tearing down
the Berlin Wall with pickaxes. Communist regimes were ousted in Hungary and Czechoslovakia. Yugoslavia
threw off the yoke of communism only to dissolve quickly into a violent civil war.
It has been observed that the Cold War has not really ended with reference to some current international crisis
happening in places like Syria, Israel and Palestine, Ukraine among others. Using the Ukraine crisis as a topic to be
expatiated, it is clearly indicative that the Cold War is on though according to Petersen, Bush declared: By the grace
of God, America won the cold war." In emphasizing this point, he went on to say that the "cold war did not 'end' -
it was won How true is the statement of President Bush? Per the concept of Cold War, there is no way that
ideological conflicts between and among states can cease or be won, though it could be contained for a while, but
not forever. The Cold War just decreased at the time but not forever won. The conflict in Ukraine and the alleged
role of Russia in it greatly escalated tensions in the relationship between Russia and major Western powers,
especially relations between Russia and the USA, which caused observers to characterize those in 2014 as
assuming an adversarial nature, or the advent of Cold War II.