Civil Wars & the Post–Cold War International Order

Daedalus ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 146 (4) ◽  
pp. 33-44 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruce D. Jones ◽  
Stephen John Stedman
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
Alternative Assessment ◽  
Previous History ◽  
The United States ◽  
International Order ◽  
Failed States ◽  
Global Crisis ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
And Migration

By the standards of prosperity and peace, the post–Cold War international order has been an unparalleled success. Over the last thirty years, there has been more creation of wealth and a greater reduction of poverty, disease, and food insecurity than in all of previous history. During the same period, the numbers and lethality of wars have decreased. These facts have not deterred an alternative assessment that civil violence, terrorism, failed states, and numbers of refugees are at unprecedentedly high levels. But there is no global crisis of failed states and endemic civil war, no global crisis of refugees and migration, and no global crisis of disorder. Instead, what we have seen is a particular historical crisis unfold in the greater Middle East, which has collapsed order within that region and has fed the biggest threat to international order: populism in the United States and Europe.

Diplomacy and War

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Weiner ◽  
Paul Sharp
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
International System ◽  
The United States ◽  
International Order ◽  
Nuclear War ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Military Diplomacy ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Invasion Of Iraq

Scholars acknowledge that there is a close connection between diplomacy and war, but they disagree with regard to the character of this connection—what it is and what it ought to be. In general, diplomacy and war are assumed to be antagonistic and polar opposites. In contrast, the present diplomatic system is founded on the view that state interests may be pursued, international order maintained, and changes effected in it by both diplomacy and war as two faces of a single statecraft. To understand the relationships between diplomacy and war, we must look at the development of the contemporary state system and the evolution of warfare and diplomacy within it. In this context, one important claim is that the foundations of international organizations in general, and the League of Nations in particular, rest on a critique of modern (or “old”) diplomacy. For much of the Cold War, the intellectual currents favored the idea of avoiding nuclear war to gain advantage. In the post-Cold War era, the relationship between diplomacy and war remained essentially the same, with concepts such as “humanitarian intervention” and “military diplomacy” capturing the idea of a new international order. The shocks to the international system caused by events between the terrorist attacks on the United States in 2001 and the invasion of Iraq in 2003 have intensified the paradoxes of the relationship between diplomacy and war.

America's Wars

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas H. Henriksen
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
The United States ◽  
Terrorist Attacks ◽  
Ethnic Cleansing ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
Liberal Internationalism ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Small Footprint

The collapse of the Soviet Union ushered in American global hegemony in world affairs. In the post-Cold War period, both Democrat and Republican governments intervened, fought insurgencies, and changed regimes. In America's Wars, Thomas Henriksen explores how America tried to remake the world by militarily invading a host of nations beset with civil wars, ethnic cleansing, brutal dictators, and devastating humanitarian conditions. The immediate post-Cold War years saw the United States carrying out interventions in the name of Western-style democracy, humanitarianism, and liberal internationalism in Panama, Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia and Kosovo. Later, the 9/11 terrorist attacks led America into larger-scale military incursions to defend itself from further assaults by al Qaeda in Afghanistan and from perceived nuclear arms in Iraq, while fighting small-footprint conflicts in Africa, Asia, and Arabia. This era is coming to an end with the resurgence of great power rivalry and rising threats from China and Russia.

Aspiring for Vicarious Identity Through Engagement in War

2021 ◽  
pp. 151-182
Author(s):  
Christopher S. Browning ◽  
Pertti Joenniemi ◽  
Brent J. Steele
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Cold War ◽  
The United States ◽  
International Order ◽  
Ontological Security ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
Military Engagement ◽  
The Cold War

The chapter explores Denmark’s post–Cold War reorientation in foreign policy, where a previous emphasis on laying low and a reluctance to engage in military actions has been replaced by a willingness to support activist military engagement. The transformation has entailed a fundamental reappraisal of the Cold War past, where a once comfortable and ontological-security-affirming narrative has been recast as a betrayal of Denmark’s true being and its responsibilities for upholding a norms-based international order. The chapter argues that such self-shaming is designed to elicit anxiety and ontological insecurities that can only be salved through activist engagement. However, lacking sufficient resources itself, Denmark’s redemption is possible only by establishing a vicarious bond with the United States and partaking in American wars. In Denmark’s case, vicarious identification has therefore been central to driving change and reconstituting selfhood anew, rather than reaffirming extant identities as might be expected.

The Rise and Decline of the Post-Cold War International Order

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
The United States ◽  
International Order ◽  
Quarter Century ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
Republic Of China ◽  
Public Health Emergencies ◽  
Nation States ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Cold War

This books surveys the evolution of the international order in the quarter century since the end of the Cold War through the prism of developments in key regional and functional parts of this “liberal international order 2.0” (LIO 2.0) and the roles played by two key ordering powers, the United States and the People’s Republic of China. Among the partial orders analyzed in the individual chapters are the regions of Europe, the Middle East, and East Asia and the international regimes dealing with international trade, climate change, nuclear weapons, cyberspace, and international public health emergencies, such as SARS and Zika. To assess developments in these various segments of the LIO 2.0, and to relate them to developments in the two other crucial levels of political order, order within nation-states and at the global level, the volume develops a comprehensive, integrated framework of analysis that allows systematic comparison of developments across boundaries between segments and different levels of the international order. Using this framework, the book presents a holistic assessment of the trajectory of the international order over the last decades, the rise, decline, and demise of the LIO 2.0, and causes of the dangerous erosion of international order over the last decade.

The International Regime for Treating Civil War, 1988–2017

Daedalus ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 147 (1) ◽  
pp. 171-184 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Gowan ◽  
Stephen John Stedman
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Civil War ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
Standard Treatment ◽  
International Order ◽  
Major Power ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
Leading Role ◽  
Standard Response ◽  
Peacekeeping Forces

The post–Cold War international order has promoted a “standard treatment” for civil wars involving the use of mediation to end conflicts and the deployment of peacekeeping forces to implement the resulting settlements. The United Nations has played a leading role in applying this standard treatment, which enjoys broad international support. By contrast, Western efforts to promote more robust humanitarian intervention as a standard response to civil wars remains controversial. While effective in relatively permissive postconflict environments, international mediation and peacekeeping efforts have proved insufficient to resolve harder cases of civil war, such as those in South Sudan and Syria. The UN has struggled to make the standard treatment work where governments refuse to cooperate or low-level violence is endemic. Growing major-power tensions could now undermine the post–Cold War regime for the treatment of civil wars, which, for all its faults, has made a significant contribution to international order.

Why Nations Rise

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Manjari Chatterjee Miller
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
The United States ◽  
International Order ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Great Power ◽  
Economic Power ◽  
Rising Powers ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
China And India ◽  
The Military

What are rising powers? Do they challenge the international order? Why do some countries, but not others, become rising powers? Why Nations Rise answers these questions and shows that some countries rise not just because they develop the military and economic power to do so, but because they develop particular narratives about how to become a great power in the style of the great power du jour. These active rising powers accept the prevalent norms of the international order in order to become great powers. On the other hand, countries that have military and economic power but not these narratives do not rise enough to become great powers—they remain reticent powers. This book examines the narratives in historical (the United States, the Netherlands, Meiji Japan) and contemporary (Cold War Japan, post–Cold War China and India) cases to show patterns of active and reticent rising powers. It ends with lessons for how to understand two rising powers today, China and India.

scholarly journals The Rivalry Between the United States, China and Russia in the Process of Shaping a New International Order in the 21st Century

2020 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-33
Author(s):  
Józef M. Fiszer
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
21St Century ◽  
International System ◽  
The United States ◽  
International Order ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
New Order ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
The World

The purpose of the article is to show the essence and perspectives of the new international order that is emerging in the world, and which is referred to in the literature as the post-Cold War system. In other words, the article includes perspectives and visions of the world in the mid-21st century. In addition, the article is the analysis of the competition and opportunities for cooperation between the United States, China and Russia in the process of shaping the new international system in the world today. The author attempts to show the opportunities and threats for the new order that is emerging in the world, and answer many questions related to this process, including when it will rise and what its shape and character will be. Will it be a democratic and peaceful order, or an undemocratic order, based on rivalry and confrontation between its main subjects, and especially between the great powers, such as the United States, China and Russia?

Worse Than a Monolith

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas J. Christensen
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
The United States ◽  
Burden Sharing ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
Coercive Diplomacy ◽  
Regional Conflicts ◽  
Security Relations ◽  
Opposing Camp ◽  
The Cold War

In brute-force struggles for survival, such as the two world wars, disorganization and divisions within an enemy alliance are to one's own advantage. However, most international security politics involve coercive diplomacy and negotiations short of all-out war. This book demonstrates that when states are engaged in coercive diplomacy—combining threats and assurances to influence the behavior of real or potential adversaries—divisions, rivalries, and lack of coordination within the opposing camp often make it more difficult to prevent the onset of regional conflicts, to prevent existing conflicts from escalating, and to negotiate the end to those conflicts promptly. Focusing on relations between the Communist and anti-Communist alliances in Asia during the Cold War, the book explores how internal divisions and lack of cohesion in the two alliances complicated and undercut coercive diplomacy by sending confusing signals about strength, resolve, and intent. In the case of the Communist camp, internal mistrust and rivalries catalyzed the movement's aggressiveness in ways that we would not have expected from a more cohesive movement under Moscow's clear control. Reviewing newly available archival material, the book examines the instability in relations across the Asian Cold War divide, and sheds new light on the Korean and Vietnam wars. While recognizing clear differences between the Cold War and post-Cold War environments, the book investigates how efforts to adjust burden-sharing roles among the United States and its Asian security partners have complicated U.S. security relations with the People's Republic of China since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Reconsidering American Civil-Military Relations

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Armed Conflict ◽  
New Technology ◽  
The United States ◽  
Grey Zone ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
Asymmetric Warfare ◽  
Civil Military Relations ◽  
Military Relations ◽  
Civilian Leadership

This book explores contemporary civil-military relations in the United States. Much of the canonical literature on civil-military relations was either written during or references the Cold War, while other major research focuses on the post-Cold War era, or the first decade of the twenty-first century. A great deal has changed since then. This book considers the implications for civil-military relations of many of these changes. Specifically, it focuses on factors such as breakdowns in democratic and civil-military norms and conventions; intensifying partisanship and deepening political divisions in American society; as well as new technology and the evolving character of armed conflict. Chapters are organized around the principal actors in civil-military relations, and the book includes sections on the military, civilian leadership, and the public. It explores the roles and obligations of each. The book also examines how changes in contemporary armed conflict influence civil-military relations. Chapters in this section examine the cyber domain, grey zone operations, asymmetric warfare and emerging technology. The book thus brings the study of civil-military relations into the contemporary era, in which new geopolitical realities and the changing character of armed conflict combine with domestic political tensions to test, if not potentially redefine, those relations.

scholarly journals Sad delusions: The decline and rise of Greater Europe

2021 ◽  
pp. 187936652199975
Author(s):  
Richard Sakwa
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
International Order ◽  
Berlin Wall ◽  
Mikhail Gorbachev ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
Fundamental Tension ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
West European

The end of the Cold War was accompanied by the idea that the fall of the Berlin Wall represented the beginning of the unification of Europe. Mikhail Gorbachev talked in terms of a “Common European Home,” an idea that continues in the guise of the project for a “Greater Europe.” However, right from the start, the transformative idea of Greater Europe was countered by the notion of “Europe whole and free,” whose fundamental dynamic was the enlargement of the existing West European order to encompass the rest of the continent. This was a program for the enlargement of the Atlantic system. After some prevarication, the enlargement agenda proved unacceptable to Moscow, and while it continues to argue in favor of transformation its main efforts are now devoted to creating some sort of “greater Eurasia.” There remains a fundamental tension between Atlanticist and pan-continental version of the post-–Cold War international order in the region. This tension gave rise to conflict and war: in 2008 (the Russo-Georgian War) and again from 2014 (Ukraine), and to what some call the Second Cold War. The continent is once again divided. However, pan-continentalism is far from dead, and although Greater Eurasian ideas have thrived, some sort of Greater European continentalism remains on the agenda. Is this, though, no more than a “sad delusion” or a genuine possibility?

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