20th Century in the Light of International Relations - Research Paper Example

The arrival of new issues in international relations is of great importance. It can have a profound impact on the way foreign policies are developed.Whether it’s the issues that emerged during the cold war, or the issues that emerged in the Middle East or in the Indian subcontinent every crisis or issue is handled differently. After the end of Second World War, a new cold war started between the United States of America and Union of Socialist Soviet Republics. On one side was the capitalist ideology represented by United States and on the other side was the Socialist ideology also known as communist ideology represented by Union of Socialist Soviet Republics. Their Rivalry was a race of space, arms, economic advantage etc. After the end of the Second World War Europe was in ruins due to the six long years of war. America, before their involvement in the war, had a policy of non-intervention, and support among the Americans for an American Intervention during that war very low. But this changed when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor on 7th December 1941 (Hill, 2003). This attack was a major tactical victory for Imperial Japanese forces and America declared war on Japan. Nazi Germany under the leadership of Adolph Hitler and Kingdom Of Italy under the leadership of Benito Mussolini declared war on United States of America. America was diplomatically and politically supporting England and France over the Nazi Germany prior to the war and their involvement on the western front of the war. This marked the start of an interventionist American Foreign Policy from an Isolationist and non-interventionist Wilsonian policy that was adapted by Thomas Woodrow Wilson. There were multiple reasons for USA entering the war. The major ones were that USA had to establish its status as an established country post the Great Depression. She also had to establish that an attack on America does not go unanswered and as for the Soviet Union they had just signed the non-aggression Pact with the Russia in 1939 known as the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact (Neimanis, 1997). This was an unexpected treaty between Soviet Union and Nazi Germany because the two were at odds already. Hitler had always considered Russian as a much a threat to Germany as France or Great Britain. This treaty also caused the start of the World War in Europe because after the signing of this treaty Soviet Union and Nazi Germany carried out a combined attack on Poland. Churchill always thought Hitler was powerful but not powerful enough to attack any country because of the way World War I ended and the restrictions and the sanctions that were imposed on Germany. After that war under the “Treaty of Versailles” Germany would have a very limited Army, Navy and Air force. (Croft, 1996). This breach led Churchill to believe that it was their turn next so with France and other countries they declared war on Nazi Germany. Nazi’s and Soviet had minor frictions until Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union better known as “Operation Barbarossa” (Kirchubel, Gerrard, 2005). This marked the start of Eastern Theater of World War II where more than 75% of the fighting and most of the casualties of the War occurred. American established the way of running their foreign policy was under the principles of Isolation and Non-intervention. After Pearl Harcourt attack it changed from being Non-Interventionist to militaristic which became clear in future American conflicts such as Korean War, Vietnam War, And the more recently the War in Iraq. During the Cold War, United States of American and its allies like England, France, Israel, Pakistan, and Iran etc were in a virtual state of war against Union of Socialist Soviet Republics and its allies like Egypt, India, Syria and all its Eastern European allies like Hungary, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, and Poland etc. During that time United Stated of American and Soviet Union tried there best not to confront each other because of the eminent disastrous effects such a conflict would have. For the United Stated of America the, new issues were Soviet Blockade known as the Berlin Blockade, in which all the ways of communication, internal and external were blocked by the Soviet union. USA and its allies initiated an air lift known as the “Berlin Airlift of 1948” (Osmańczyk, Mango, 2003) in which billions of dollars worth of Food, Medicines, and everyday supplies were supplied from the west to the East German population. From the Russian point of view, the blockade was essential because of the growing American political influence on the German population of that area. Policies change as events take place. “In international Relations, there are no friends, there is only need” What a country needs to sustain its economy, the basic assurance to maintain its existence is what matters. During the Truman Administration, North Korea with Soviet blessing attacked South Korea, on 25 June 1950. (Cotton, Neary 1989). This was one of the major points of conflict between these two super powers. The Non-interventionist movement in America was still strong but because of the popularity of the Truman Administration he decided to intervene on South Korea’s behalf. America and USSR were trying to avoid direct confrontation with each other to avoid an actual war. That war still hasn’t technically ended as North Korea is supported by Union of Socialist Soviet Republics and South Korea is supported by United States of America are still under the state of war ,even though Cold War ended 21 years ago. After the Truman Administration, Dwight d. Eisenhower (Ike) came into power, a popular war hero who ended the war in Korea, but still kept an aggressive foreign policy. Soviet influence in the Middle East was increasing as after the democratically elected Prime Minister came into power American became increasingly concerned due to his socialist views. The American administration of Eisner howler was concerned that maybe Iran will join the Russian communist camp. This change of event caused a major shift from American Policy of Principled Foreign Policy to a policy based on its interest. America together with United Kingdom Orchestrated a plan to remove Mossadegh from power in the operation known as “Operation Ajax” (Hogan, 1995) The Republican party in America still had a conservative wing which was against the interventionist foreign policy, but support for it was very low. But Eisenhower despite being a republican sent military advisors to Vietnam for the containment of the mounting Communist influence. (Olson, 1999). After him came the Kennedy administration. The Russians viewed him as a militarist by nature. Russia despite being defensive during Eisenhower era became aggressive and placed IRBM (Intermediate Range Ballistic Missiles) in Cuba. Kennedy imposed a complete economic blockade of Cuba, and his brother Robert f. Kennedy started preparing a response for Russia. This series of events is known as “Cuban Missile Crisis” or “October Crisis” (Stern, 2005). During the crisis the “Bay of Pigs” also took place in which Kennedy authorized an invasion of Cuba to remove Fidel Castro. After the death of Kennedy on November 22, 1969, (Knight, 2007). Lyndon B. Johnson came into power, and continued most of Kennedy’s policies. During this time America lost the “Vietnam War”. Lyndon B. Johnson got involved in the war on the Soviet Influence in that Region would have effectively under mined the US foreign policy. After the Johnson administration, Richard Nixon came into power, Vice president under Eisenhower Administration, Republican Presidential Nominee during the elections of 1960. He was a realist when it came to dealing with the Soviet Union, and it was during this time that under the foreign policy supervision of Henry Kissinger, Realpolitik was introduced in the White House from a foreign policy perspective. Meaning the poetics of principles was not prioritizing over politics of interests. During Nixon’s Administration, major world events occurred like the Soviet-Sino Split, the Indo-Pak War of 1971, in which Bangladesh got independence (Deresky, 2008), and the Six day war of 1967. So Nixon’s Foreign Policy was very different as compared to that of previous administrations. He visited Communist China in 1972 which was one of the greatest political triumphs of the American Foreign Policy during his time. Before that the United States had even considered dropping a nuclear bomb on China during the Korean War under Truman administration. Nixon didn’t give much importance to principles as in the greater contact the cold war was not about ideologies, it was about imperialism. This did not have much impact as the number of allies during the cold war remained the same for America when Nixon came into power. Nixon as a republican was against foreign intervention and ended the war in Vietnam. After the Watergate scandal he resigned and his post was taken over by Gerald Ford (Crain, 2009). Ford’s foreign policy was not different from that of Nixon. He too continued a policy of detente with the Soviet Union. After him came the Jimmy Carter under whose administration United States of America returned back to a foreign policy of principles. Under the Carter Administration many events took place like Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan in which Soviet Union in pretext to save the communist government of Afghanistan invaded it, Hostage Crisis in Iran, when 52 Americans were taken hostage in Iran for 444 days after the Iranian Revolution of 1979. Both these issues were handled very differently by Carter. As for the Iranian Crises, Carter ordered a proportional military response to try to release the capture of those 52 American in Iranian Hostage, but that plan was cancelled after American military planes collided accidently After that America tried to obtain their release by negotiations and on 19 January 1981 the hostages were released. With the conditions which were as announced by Khomeini " The demands were listed at the end of a speech by Khomeini considered "a major shift on Irans side of the impasse" by journalists.(Baktiari, 1996). The arrival of “new issues” effects the decisions of how foreign policies are formulated. For example, America has now been dealing with Iran with sanctions to stop their controversial nuclear program. According to western estimates Iran will be capable of producing a nuclear bomb by 2013. In November 2007 another US National Intelligence Estimate was published according to which Iran halted all the work on its weapons program on 2003. It also said Iran will not be able to produce bombs by 2009. There was little belief that Iran will be capable of producing HEU as a weapon in the next five year period. It was widely noted that there is no evidence that Iran was producing nuclear weapons. While NIE didn’t provide an answer to that query, it termed the nuclear weapons program as Iran’s weapon design and “Irans nuclear weapon design and weaponization work and covert uranium conversion-related and uranium enrichment-related work. Halting this process could also have meant that Iran had finished this work and was capable, after 2003, of construction nuclear weapons, simply lacking the nuclear material (HEU) to do so” (Duncan, Jancar-Webster, Switky, 2009). The dealings of America and Iran are dependent on the fact whether Iran has nuclear weapons or not. America will avoid any direct confrontation with Iran because this will result in Iran bombing Israel with all its might So America established principles under the Bush doctrine that they will unilaterally revise. The Indo-Us Nuclear Deal (Thorpe, Thorpe, 2009) has created rifts among American and China and America and Pakistan. China is the biggest trading partner of America. Pakistan is the most important ally in its War on Terror. China can influence the United States by selling some of its bonds and has threatened to do so recently after the Us-Taiwan Arms Deal. Pakistan can pull out its support from the war in Afghanistan. America needs a multilateral policy to deal with these issues. References Richard F. Hill, 2003, Hitler attacks Pearl Harbor: why the United States declared war on Germany Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc USA George J. Neimanis, 1997, the collapse of the Soviet Empire: a view from Riga, Praeger Publishers Stuart Croft, 1996, Strategies of arms control: a history and typology, Manchester University Press, UK Robert Kirchubel, Howard Gerrard, 2005, Operation Barbarossa 1941: Army Group North, Osprey Publishing, UK Edmund Jan Osmańczyk, Anthony Mango, 2003, Encyclopedia of the United Nations and International Agreements: A to F, Taylor and Francis Book, Inc. (Routledge) UK James Cotton, Ian Neary, 1989, The Korean war in history, Manchester University Press, UK Micheal J. Hogan, 1995, America in the world: the historiography of American foreign relations since 1941, Cambridge University Press, UK James Stuart Olson, 1999, Historical dictionary of the 1960s, Greenwood Press, USA Sheldon M. Stern, 2005, the week the world stood still: inside the secret Cuban Missile Crisis, Stanford University Press, and USA Peter Knight, 2007, the Kennedy Assassination, Edinburgh University Press Ltd. UK Helen Deresky, 2008, International Management: Managing Across Borders and Cultures, 5/e, Pearson Education Inc. UK Andrew Downer Crain, 2009, The Ford presidency: a history, McFarland & Company Inc. Publishers, USA Edgar Thorpe, Cowlick Thorpe, 2009, the Pearson General Knowledge Manual 2009, 1/e, Dorling Kindersley Pvt. Ltd, India W. Raymond Duncan, Barbara Jancar-Webster, Bob Switky, 2009, World Politics in the 21st Century, Houghtton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, USA Bahman Baktiari, 1996, Parliamentary politics in revolutionary Iran: the institutionalization of Factional Politics, University Press of Florida, and USA Read More