Contemporary World Politics Chapter 1 The Cold War Era

D.

C.

(ii) The idea of a New International Economics Order too originated during this period. The United Nation's Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in its report - Towards a New Trade Policy for Development - proposed a reform of the global trading system which provided LDCs a greater role in international economic institutions and control over their natural resources.

(iii) Gradually the nature of non-alignment changed to give greater importance to economic issues and it became a economic pressure group. Thus, third option — not to join either alliance — benefitted their growth during the peak of the Cold War.

(i) NAM contains some core values and enduring ideas. It is based on a recognition that decolonised states or newly independent states of Asia, Africa and Latin America share a historical affiliation and can become a powerful force if they come together.

(ii) It means that the poor and very small countries need not become followers of any of the big powers and that they could pursue an independent foreign policy.

(iii) NAM is based on a resolve to democratise the international system. It provides an alternative world order to redress the existing inequalities.

The above core ideas are still relevant today.

 (i) Argument in favour: The dropping of the atomic bombs was necessary to end the war quickly and to stop further loss of lives.

(ii) Argument against it: The US knew that Japan was about to surrender and as such there was no need to drop the atomic bombs.

(i) Allied Forces : US, Soviet Union, Britain and France.(ii) Axis Powers : Germany, Italy and Japan.

 The war was fought in Europe, southeast Asia, China, Burma (now Myanmar) and parts of India's northeast.

(i) The two superpowers and their allies were expected to act as rational and responsible actors.

(ii) Responsibility meant being restrained and avoiding the risk of another World War.

(b) The entire world was divided into two camps or two alliance system i.e., the Western and the Eastern alliance. These are called the ‘Western’ and the ‘Eastern’ because the western Europe sided with the US and the eastern Europe sided with Soviet Union.

(b) Warsaw Pact members : East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Poland andUSSR.

(ii) (a) NATO – 1949

(b) Warsaw Pact – 1955.

(iii) The object of the warsaw Pact was to counter NATO’s forces in Europe.

(iv) The NATO states declared that armed attack on any one of them in Europe or North America would be regarded as an attack on all of them and they would help each other.

(iii) Cuban Missile crisis (1962)

(iv) Fall of Berlin wall (1989)

(ii) In 1962, in order to convert Cuba into a Russian base, Nikita Khrushchev, the Soviet leader, placed nuclear missiles in Cuba.

(iii) John F. Kennedy, the US President, asked USSR to remove the missiles and nuclear weapons from Cuba because these had put the US under fire from close range.

(iv) Kennedy ordered American warships to intercept Soviet ships heading to Cuba.

(v) As a result of President Kennedy's bold move, the Soviet ships slowed down and turned back. Thus, a nuclear war between two blocs was avoided.

(i) To gain access to vital resources, such as oil and minerals.

(ii) To gain access to territory, from where the superpowers could launch their weapons and troops.

(iii) To gain access to locations from where they could spy on each other.

(iv) To get economic support, in that many small allies together could help pay for military expenses.

(v) There was also an ideological reason. The superpowers were winning the War of ideas as well, that liberal democracy and capitalism were better than socialism and communism or vice-versa.

(i) The Cuban Missile crisis took place in 1962.

(ii) The two superpowers came into direct confrontations in Korea (1950-53), Berlin (1958-62) and theCongo (The early 1960s).

 Results : (i) Many people died in arenas like Korea, Vietnam and Afghanistan.

(iii) In some cases huge military build-ups were reported.

(iv) In many cases, diplomatic communication between the superpowers could not be sustained and contributed to the misunderstandings.

 Role played by NAM leaders :(a) Jawaharlal Nehru played an important role in mediating between the two Koreas.

(b) In Congo the UN Secretary General played a key mediatory role.

(ii) US intervention led to great loss of lives. Ultimately, the US failed to achieve its objectives and a peace agreement was signed.

(ii) The founders of NAM were India's Jawaharlal Nehru, Yugoslavia's Josip Broz Tito, Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser, Indonesia's Sukarno and Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah

(iii) As a result of the following factors, the first non-aligned summit was held in Belgrade in 1961.

(a) Cooperation among the above mentioned five countries.

(b) Growing Cold War tensions and its widening arenas.

(c) Freedom of many countries and their entry in the UN.

(iv) The membership of NAM increased from 25 in the first summit to 116 member states and 15 observer countries in the 14th summit in 2006 in Havana.

(v) The policy of NAM to stay away from two power blocs but it was neither isolationism nor neutrality because these states were actually involved in wars for various reasons including mediation.

(vi) The strength of NAM was based on their unity.

(i) give the LDCs control over their natural resources.

(ii) obtain access to Western markets for the LDCs.

(iii) reduce the cost of technology from the Western countries, and

(iv) provide the LDCs a greater role in international economic institutions.

 Amidst 1970s the NAM became an economic pressure group due to NIEO. However, by 1980s,the NIEO initiative decreased due to stiff competition from the developed countries.

(ii) Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty,1968(NPT)- It allowed only the nuclear weapon states to have nuclearweapons and stops other from acquiring them.

(iii) Strategic Arms Limitation Talks-I,1972 (SALT-I) — After the talks Soviet leader Brezhnev and US President Nixon signed a Treaty on the limitations of Anti-Ballistic Missile Systems (ABM Treaty) and Interim Agreement on the limitation of strategic offensive arms.

(iv) Strategic Arms Limitation Talks-ll,1979 (SALT-II) — The US President Jimmy Carter and the Sovietleader Brezhnev signed the Treaty on the limitation of strategic offensive arms in Vienna.

(v) Strategic Arms Reducation Treaty-I,1991 (START-I) was signed by Soviet President Gorbachev and the US President George Bush Senior on the reduction and limitation of strategic offensive arms in Moscow .

(vi) Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty-II,1993 (START-II) — The Russian President Boris Yeltsin and the US President George Bush Senior signed on the reduction and limitation of strategic offensive arms in Moscow.

(ii) As a leader of NAM, India stayed away from the two camps. Not only this, India asked the newly decolonised countries not to become part Of those alliances.

(iii) It was a policy not of ‘being neutral’ but of active intervention too. India intervened in the Korea war. India tried to involve other members of the non-aligned group with her. India repeatedly tried to activate those regional and international organisations which were not part of the alliances led by the US and USSR.

India was criticised for signing the Treaty of Friendship in August 1971 with the USSR as virtually joining the Soviet alliance system. But in fact India needed diplomatic and possibly military support during the Bangladesh crisis. Moreover, it did not stop India from having good relations with USA and other countries.

a) Poland - Eastern bloc
b) France - Western bloc
c) Japan  - Western bloc
d) Nigeria - NAM
e) North Korea - Eastern bloc
f) Sri Lanka - Nam 

The reasons for arms race:

Huge stocks of arms were considered necessary to prevent wars from taking place. Both USA and USSR wanted prove their supremacy on the global stage. The two opposite bloc were sceptical to each other about their nuclear arsenals which led them produce more and more nuclear weapons for their safeguard.

Arms control: The two sides understood that war might occur in spite of restraint. Either side might miscalculate the number of weapons in the possession of the other side. They might misunderstand the intentions of the other side. In time, therefore, the US and USSR decided to collaborate in limiting or eliminating certain kinds of nuclear and non-nuclear weapons. A stable balance of weapons, they decided, could be maintained through ‘arms control’.

Starting in the 1960s, the two sides signed three significant agreements within a decade. These were the Limited Test Ban Treaty, Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty and the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. Thereafter, the superpowers held several rounds of arms limitation talks and signed several more treaties to limit their arms.

The Cold War referred to the competition, the tensions and series of confrontations between the United States and Soviet Union, backed by their respective allies.

The Cold War referred to the competition, the tensions and series of confrontations between the United States and Soviet Union, backed by their respective allies.

The Berlin wall symbolised the division between the capitalist and the communist world. The collapse of Berlin wall marked the unification of the two parts of Germany and the beginning of the end of the communist bloc.

The rationale are:

(i) It was based on a recognition that decolonized states share a historical affiliation and can become a power force if they come together.

(ii) It meant that the poor and often very small countries of the world need not become the followers of any of the big powers.

(iii) They could pursue an independent foreign policy.

(iv) It was also based on a resolve to democratize the international system by thinking about an alternative world order to redress existing inequities.

The Western Europe countries had sided with the US to form military alliance, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) so its known as Western Alliance.

The leaders of the USSR were apprehensive that the USA would attack Communist ruled Cuba and overthrow Fidel Castro. The Soviet Union installed nuclear missiles in Cuba, and decided to convert into a Russian base. This had put US under fire from close range, leading to a situation where  clashed seemed imminent.This is  known as Cuba Missile Crisis.

The reasons:
(i) To uphold the sovereignty of the nation and to have independent foreign policy.
(ii) To reduce the differences between the alliances and thereby prevent differences from escalating into a full scale war.

(i) Because these were accompanied by a real ideological conflict as well.

(ii) The pacts: U.S.A led NATO and U.S.S.R led Warshaw Pact

(iii) US represented the ideology capitalism and Liberal democracy while U.S.S.R was committed to socialism and communism.

i. There were two rival blocs led by two superpowers of the world.
ii. There was huge stockpiling of arms by each 

When a country spends much on nuclear weapons, its economy stagnates and it becomes harder to take welfare measures, develop infrastructures, spread education and sanitations.

(i) The two new powers were the United States of America and the USSR.

(ii) It led to the division of world into two camps. The capitatist world led by USA and the Communist countries led by the USSR. This also marked the beginning of cold war.

(iii) The new superpowers could influence events anywhere on earth through the countries that were under their sphere of influence. The military alliances of NATO and Warsaw Pact had countries that were under the protection of their respective super powers. Besides, these countries could use the smaller countries as bases to launch an attack on any country.

Non-aligned posture served India’s interests in at least two ways:

(i) Non-alignment allowed India to take international decisions and stances that served its interests rather than the interests of the superpowers and their allies.
(ii) India was often able to balance one superpower against the other. If India felt ignored or unduly pressurized by one superpower, it could tilt towards the other, neither alliance system could take India for granted.

India’s Crucial role in Non-aligned Movement–
(i) India took care to stay away from the two alliances.
(ii) It raised a voice against the newly decolonised countries becoming part of these alliances.
(iii) India favoured active intervening in world affairs to soften cold war rivalries.
(iv) Indian leaders and diplomats played an important role in reducing differences between the two alliances. 
(v) India communicated and mediated to reduce tensions.
(vi) India involved other members of NAM in this mission.
(vii) India tried to activate those regional and international organisations that were not a part of alliances.

Factors responsible for the beginning of Cold War.

i) Emergence of USSR as the most powerful country.
ii) Use of Atom Bombs by USA against Japan.
iii) Ideological rivalry between the two super powers.
iv) The two super powers were keen on expanding their spheres.
v) Use of Nuclear power raised many questions and comments like why did USA drop Bombs?
vi) Bombing the two cities of Japan.
vii) Some viewed that the US action was intended to stop the Soviet Union from making political and military gains.
viii) It was necessary to end the war quickly.