Cold War

Name : Saw Hsar Lwe

Program : OUHK – Cetana (Myanmar)

Course : SS201

Student No : 10399429

Assignment : TMA 05

Date : 15th, 9, 2010

When it comes to observing political history, the Cold War and post-Cold War seem to be worthwhile to give a try. Cold War is not a war. It is an ideological conflict between Communist and non-Communist countries. It means that one side uses every means, to defame or to weaken the other side but without directly fighting a war. Thus, in terms of this essay, I will firstly approach the passing of the Cold War, and move on to nine models that seem to be constructive in explaining the functioning of the post-Cold War. Finally, by dint of my own model I will give attempt to draw the picture of the post-Cold War era.

The cold war started after World War II (1939–45) when the Allies (United States, Britain, France, and the Soviet Union) disagreed over how to govern occupied Germany. Soon after the Second World War both the United States and the Soviet Union became "super powers.” The term “super powers” referred to the U.S. and the Soviet which both possessed military might and economic resources superior or equal to the combined strength of any group of countries of the rest of the world (Suter, 2003). Thus, they were called super powers. Countries such as Britain, France, China, Japan, and Germany were not regarded as super powers. The reason was that, at that time, Britain, France, and China acquired nuclear weapons, but did not have economic strength; Japan and Germany had great economic powers but did not have military strength. In times of the Cold-War the world was dominated by these two super powers, which came to be known as “bipolar”.

However, during the 1970's and early 1980's, the Soviet economy was deteriorating under the cumulative effects of a centralized bureaucratic system, the burdens of an increasingly costly arms race, and a failed war in Afghanistan. In contrast, the United States did not suffer the same fate as the Soviet Union though Reagan boosted US defence spending drastically—as its economic base was strong.

In 1985 a new generation of leadership came to power in the person of Gorbachev. He was determined to end the Cold War and to bring economic and political reform to the Soviet Union. He initiated dramatic new agreements with the United States, involving unilateral concessions in the armaments race. He also brought an end to Soviet support of client governments in Eastern Europe and in Cuba. He relaxed the police state repression in the Soviet empire and took steps to introduce a democratic political process. These initiatives rapidly improved relations with the United States and brought an end to the Cold War. What Gorbachev had not anticipated, however, was that, without the domination of the police and a monopoly of power in the hands of the Communist Party, the Soviet empire would collapse into 16 different national parts. Nationalism, always a potent force in the modern world, brought about the collapse of the Soviet Union by 1991(Painter, 1999). Thus, the passing of the Cold War was attributed to the breakdown of the USSR.

In order to understand the post-Cold War era I would like to examine nine models: Unipolar Model, Counterweight Model, Multipolar Model, Stratified Model, Zones-of-Chaos Model, Globalized Model, Resource-Wars Model, Clash-of-Civilizations Model, and Proliferation Model.

Unipolar Model

When the Cold War came to an end, the United States seemed to become the only nation that possessed the remaining super power. U.S played a leading role in stopping wars and bringing world peace. It can intervene in worldwide political affairs by dint of support from other countries. For example, most countries followed and supported U.S. in the 1991 Persian Gulf War. This is a unipolar system, in which U.S was the leader and others were the followers. However, this composition could not go on for so long, because other countries were no longer in the mood ...

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Unipolar Model

Counterweight Model

A counterweight model illustrates the scene of a combination of other countries to offset U.S power and resist its hegemony (Roskin, Cord, Medeiros, & Jones, 2008). As other countries did not want to give U.S. the leading role any more, they formed into group and tried to overthrow the domination of U.S. They found fault with U.S., criticized its political affairs or influence, and offered no support. For instance, France, Germany, Russia, and most of the Muslim countries refused to help America in Iraq. Nevertheless, this model failed to emerge owing to disagreement among other countries and incapability of forming an alliance.

Multipolar Model

Multipolar is system divided among several power centers and its main feature is the breakup of the two bipolar blocs into several blocs (Roskin et al., 2008). The well-known blocs are the European Union and the Pacific Rim, which tend to disregard the leadership role of America. In a Multipolar world, countries and blocs seriously focus on economic growth—as such reducing unemployment, developing trade advantages, and moving ahead technologically. In other word, they are having trade wars instead of military of confrontation. By way of illustration, U.S., Canada, and Mexico developed the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) to form a giant Free Trade Area of the Americas. Thus, there has been improvement in economy and the world appears to be relaxed as blocs and countries shifted their targets from wars to economic growth. But it can also lead the world to a new Great Depression as a result of big trade blocs’ domination and trade protectionism.

Stratified Model

In a stratified model, which is a combination of Unipolar and Multipolar systems, the United States is the top military power because of its airlift capacity; other countries—with moderate power-projection capacities (Britain and France) and money (Japan and Saudi Arabia) are the second-tier powers. In this system, the top power and the second powers joined to get things done. U.S. cannot or will not become involved in world hot spots unless the second-tier powers are in support (Roskin et al., 2008). Much accomplish in the 1991 Gulf War because U.S. can bring others together and obtain their supports. However, regarding the 2003 Iraq, U.S. could not form the same alliance again; apart from Britain other former partners offered no support.

Zones-of-Chaos Model

Next to the top layer of rich, high-tech countries and the second layer of middle-income industrialized lands, there is a third layer—a zone of chaos. Crime, terrorism, warlords, and unceasing volatility resound in these chaos zones. The top-layer countries cannot to control the chaos of the bottom-layer countries although they can devastate most military targets (Roskin et al., 2008). Most organized crime in the world is in connection with these countries, such as the flow of drug trafficking from such countries to others. Many top-layer countries want to turn a blind eye to these chaos zones but to no avail. The reason is that the top layers are in desperate need of limited natural resources such as oil which available in these chaos zones. Thus, the desire for natural resources or illicit drugs draws the top-layer countries into addressing the third-layer countries’ difficulties and pave ways for the bottom to reach the top.

Globalized Model

Globalization, the free flow of commerce across borders making the world one big market, has emerged since the Cold War ended. In a globalized world, most countries become economic players and the world economy has grown as never before by means of a largely free flow of trade and transnational corporations. Money, goods, ideas, and information can flow easily from one place to another; the communication among nations has become quite easier; a wide variety of products are produced at low cost and high-tech products are available in the world market. Here, the aim is make money, not war, and the system is self-enforcing: play capitalism or stay poor (Roskin et al., 2008). Few countries that do not want to play, such as Cuba and North Korea, fall behind and live in poverty. Many big, transnational corporations have developed design and market products all around the world. Thus, these corporations state that they are more effective than U.S. in promoting world peace and prosperity. AND the dream of “one world” has come into view. Nonetheless, it has five problems:

It might cause conflict and affect world peace, as newly prosperous countries often demand influence, respect, resources, and sometimes territory.
It can affect the environment and social justice, as the corporations become powerful and have tendencies to leave a country with lots of troubles behind, when they do not like the costs, taxes, and restrictions of that country.
The economy of both rich countries and poor countries can grow faster or fall behind, as the economic growth is highly uneven.
A new depression can happen as a result financial meltdowns, as most countries tend to undermine the basis of a globalized system.
Capitalist culture of a globalized system can result in resentments and conflicts, as Muslim and some countries with proud take value of their cultural traditions and are unwilling to abandon them.

Owing to these problems, to count on the stability or durability of a globalized system is in doubt.

Resource-Wars Model

If the most demanding resources such as petroleum were no longer available as usual, no matter what it takes every nation might do to get them—even get into war. As many countries have become industrialized the amount of energy for industry and private use will gradually mount up. Thus, sooner or later, the world will run out of natural resources and the free flow of natural resources will cease. As nations will struggle hard to meet their own requirements, the going will finally result in “resource-wars” indeed. In this respect, the 1991 and 2003 wars with Iraq were the first resource-wars based on the demand petroleum.

Clash-of-Civilizations Model

According to Huntington (1993), the post-Cold War appears to be dominated by clashes among eight civilizations which based heavily on religion: Western, Slavic/Orthodox, Islamic, Hindu, Confucian, Japanese, Latin American, and African. While some civilizations get along with each other, some such as Islamic civilization clash with others. Countries with two or three civilizations are “clef” countries and mostly cause civil wars (Roskin et al., 2008). For example, Myanmar, home to three or more civilizations, has confronted many civil wars throughout history. Huntington called countries with Westernized elite but traditional masses, “torn”, such as Mexico and Turkey; they are torn between becoming Western or staying in their old civilization. Many conflicts occur because of religion; in particular, most happen where Islam meets other civilizations (Bosnia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Chechnya, and Israel). However, this theory failed to explain clashes or conflicts between the same civilizations and friendship between different civilizations; it centers only on splits and hostilities among different civilizations.

Proliferation Model

A Proliferation Model refers to the acquisition of nuclear weapons by many countries (Roskin et al., 2008). In terms of this, only five countries have nukes in hand from the start: U.S., Britain, France, the Soviet Union, and China. Later on, other countries (Israel, South Africa, India, Pakistan, and North Korea) secretly developed their own nuclear weapons regardless of the 1968 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT). Nowadays, there might be some other countries that give attempt to possess nukes in secret, and hence the proliferation of nukes among nations will increase. Some counties may threaten other countries on account of their nuclear weapons, in addition to selling them to terrorists. Thus, it can affect the peace of the world and finally result in the nuclear war. On the other hand, as Waltz has mentioned, a world with many nuclear powers can be more stable, for their nukes will instill caution.

So as to reflect my understanding of the post-Cold War, I feel inclined to discuss some aspects of the going by means of my own model—the Power-Competition Model.

The Power-Competition Model refers to the ways in which most countries recklessly make an effort to obtain political power and economic growth, and compete against each other to project themselves or reach above others. In this respect, in order to obtain power and economic growth they battle against each other and struggle for their own respective spheres of influence. For example, the United States became the only dominant power in restructuring the international political and economic order after the Cold War, when the Soviet Union collapsed down and can organize others and make them into following him, as in the Persian Gulf War. But, when other countries were not pleased with his leading role they tried to form alliance and oppose him—in attempt to break down U.S. super power. As countries did not want to let U.S. obtain the absolute power, they combined and pitted themselves against U.S.

The atmosphere in the post-Cold War has become fiercely competitive when there were several blocs among nations, such as the European Union, Pacific Rim, The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and NAFTA. By means of their own blocs, they get involved in competition with each other and try to enlarge their realms of political power and economic growth. As a result, most players grow bigger and bigger regarding military power and economy. In addition, the world has become one big market with a free flow of commerce across borders, a globalized world, in which the communication, transportation, information, trading, and networking around the world flow faster, easier, wider, and bigger—along with high technology.

However, while some countries are moving ahead others falling behind; not all countries advantage from this game; there are also lots of unseen disadvantage, such as social, culture, environment, or religion. Thus, this antagonism has resulted in resentment, discontent, and hatred. Then it leaves the world in the middle of a wide variety of conflicts, clashes, or hostilities. , it doubles up the conflicts, bitterness, fighting, and hatred out of religious practices or nationalism which have been happening throughout human history. Terrorists’ attack to World Trade Centre was an example.

The more most of the countries are in the equal level of influence concerning economy and political might, the more fierce rivalries among them will grow in many ways. For instance, in the past, apparently most countries feared and respected U.S., Britain, France, the Soviet Union, and China because of their nuclear weapons and economic strength. Hence, to gain influence like them others have tried to create their own nukes for respect, security, economic growth, and military power. They give attempt through being a member of blocs as well. This situation has become a never-ending process and the competition still goes on and on, and harder and harder.

In the post-Cold War, the world appears to be in the state of improvement and development without major wars, as the world is engaged in the race of expanding political and economic power—though some countries claim that they fighting for keeping world peace, such like U.S. BUT, on the other hand, the world becomes restless and frantic, in which trust, love, hope, and peace are in danger of extinct; it seems as if most of the countries ends up fighting a losing battle. A world without wars or conflicts among nations is merely a daydream.

In short, during the Cold War, the socialist group led by the Soviet Union, and the capitalist or the free world was led by the United States were the main rivals. They tried to possess greater military, political and economic control and influence in Europe and other parts of the world rather than direct confrontation. Nevertheless, it came to an end when the power of Soviet Union collapsed down abruptly, and the United States became the only super power.

There are nine models that explain the post-Cold War situation: the super power of U.S. is described as a Unipolar model; the way several countries combine to offset U.S. dominating and leading power is indentified as a Counterweight model; system divided among several power centers refers to a Multipolar model; the relationship between the top-power countries and moderate-power countries is classified as a Stratified model; a Zones-of-Chaos model is the way in which high-tech countries deal with the third-layer countries; a Globalized Model describes a largely free flow of trading system around the world which makes the world become one big market; a Resource-Wars model shows how most countries would be in trouble due to lacking of resources; a Clash-of-Civilizations model refers to the conflicts and fights among a wide verity of civilizations, and a Proliferation model refers to how do nations try to acquire nuclear weapons. The Power-and-Pride-Competition model, in which most countries compete against each other to obtain military might and economic growth, is my last attempt to the post-Cold War situation.

References:

Painter, David. S. (1991). The Cold War. New York: Routledge.

Roskin, M. G., Cord, R. L., Medeiros, J. A., & Jones, W. S. (2008). Political Science. New Jersey: Pearson Education.

Suter, K. (2003). Global Order and Global Disorder. The United States of America: Greenwood Publishing Group.