Historical Overview

International Society
End of the Cold War: Now What?
From the viewpoint of IR Scholars
• Francis Fukuyama: The End of History (1989)
– Western Liberal Order (democracy, free market,
international trade) wins the battle of ideas
• John Mearsheimer: “Why We Will Soon Miss
the Cold War” (1990)
• https://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/politi
cs/foreign/mearsh.htm
• Samuel Huntington: The Clash of Civilizations
– Identity??? Civilization/Religion (1992)
• Bernard Lewis Article, 1990
What Kind of World Order?: From bi-polar
to unipolar to multi-polar?
• A unipolar moment:
– A U.S.-led order:
• U.S. Power is unrivaled
• What is Power?
– Relational
– Institutional
– Hard
– Soft
Defense Spending: 2017 Data
2015
 $$$$
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbJk1za7
4kE
• U.S. accounts for about 20 percent of the world’s economic output, more
than half of all global currency reserves and trade is in dollars.
• The dollar is the most widely used unit of currency in the world economy
• Sanctions and Secondary Sanctions
– Secondary curbs restrict foreign corporations, financial institutions and individuals from
doing business with sanctioned entities.
$$$ Sanctions
 Post Cold War: How to manage this
“unipolar moment”?
• How should the U.S. exercise power?
 Multi-laterally
– Through International Institutions?
• The UN, the World Bank, IMF, … formed under a
Western/US led global order
– First Gulf War (UN)
» Iran sanctions (nuclear issue)
– Yugoslavia (NATO)
• Bill Clinton:
– Enlargement of NATO
NATO Expansion
9/11 towards Unilateralism
 Birth of the threat of Islamic Jihadist
organizations against U.S. targets
• Sensitivity over U.S. Presence in Saudi Arabia
• From overthrow of governments to hitting the
foreign enemy
– 1990 (Iraq War): Bin Laden proposal to the Saudi
Government
– 1993 World Trade Center bombing
– 1998 U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania
– 2000 USS Cole (Yemen)
 Unilaterally?
• Symbolized by Second Gulf War (George W. Bush)
• Coalition of the Willing (Iraq)

– Or?
– Both??
 The Bush Doctrine
• Pre-emptive War
• Rogue States Hostile to the United States potentially
cooperating with terrorist organizations, facilitating
WMD
Problems:
• Raised questions of U.S. moral superiority and right to
lead? Abu Ghraib
• Effectiveness??
– Mistakes led to conflict degenerating into civil war in Iraq,
massive violence
– Are there limits to military power?
» Situation improved with surge in 2007
– Question over the Success of Iraq as part of the
War on Terror
• Did it generate more? Madrid, UK, etc.
 Obama’s Victory in the Democratic Primaries:
• Defeat of Hillary over Iraq vote
• Defeat of Republicans over the economy
• Early focus on changing the U.S. image
abroad:
– Speeches in the Middle East
• But, extensive use of Drones (begins with Bush Jr.)
– Mistakes
– Violation of sovereignty
– Move away from the Middle East, ‘pivot to Asia’
• Fareed Zakaria: The Post-American World and
the Rise of the Rest (2008)
Who will emerge to challenge the U.S.’s Unipolar “Moment”?

– Emerging countries
• BRICS? (Brazil, Russia, India, China?)
– MINTS: Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria, Turkey
• For what purpose do they seek power?
– What are their values and motives?
• Why do these countries matter politically or
geopolitically?
• What influence do they have, over what actors
and with regards to what issues?
 Flash Forward to 2014
• Impact of 2003 on regional balance of power:
– Saud-Iranian “Cold War”
– Increasing Sectarianism (Shi’i/Sunni)
– Arab Spring and Intervention of Regional Actors
– Impact on Syria
– ISIS
– Refugee Crisis
– Europe
– Rise of Right Wing Nationalism
• President Trump:
– Revisionist States:
• China
• Russia
– North Korea
– Iran