Mingst and Arreguin-Toft (2017) Essentials of International Relations, Chapter 2 PDF

The Historical Context of Con­temporary International Relations T he morning of December 12, 1937, dawned cold in China’s new capital, Nanking. Chinese soldiers, weak and demoral...

The Historical Context of Con­temporary International Relations T he morning of December 12, 1937, dawned cold in China’s new capital, Nanking. Chinese soldiers, weak and demoralized, watched as soldiers of Imperial Japan maneuvered heavy guns into position for an assault on the city. The Japa­nese attacked from three directions, supported by heavy artillery and aerial bombardment. Some Chinese troops dropped their weapons and ran, ­others stripped off their uni- forms and tried to blend in as civilians, while still ­others resolved to fight on, beyond the city. The next day, Japan’s army entered Nanking; all hell broke loose. Chinese soldiers who raised their hands and knelt in surrender ­were simply executed. Many more w ­ ere bayonetted or beheaded. ­Women and girls as young as six or seven w ­ ere raped. Thou- sands ­were raped and gang raped each day, and usually murdered afterward. The rapes, murders, executions, torture, and humiliation of thousands of ­human beings ­were witnessed by an international community of journalists, missionaries, and busi- nesspeople who maintained del­e­ga­tions in China’s capital. Their letters of complaint to Japa­nese authorities went unanswered. By January 1938, about one month ­after the carnage had begun, the Japa­nese Army had purportedly murdered a staggering 300,000 noncombatants. 21 ESSIR7_CH02_020_069_11P.indd 21 6/14/16 10:01 AM  22  CHAPTER two H i s to r i c a l Co n t e x t o f I n t e r n at i o n a l R e l at i o n s For the Chinese ­today, the “Massacre” or “Rape of Nanking” is never forgotten. The fact that Japa­nese officials honoring the war dead visit the Yasukuni Shrine ­today angers the Chinese, who are forced to remember ­those horrible events. Students of international relations need to understand the events and trends of the past. Theorists recognize that historical circumstances have ­shaped core concepts in the field—­concepts such as the state, the nation, sovereignty, power, and balance of power. It w ­ ill prove difficult to understand the con­temporary politics of the ­Koreas, China, and Japan, for example, without understanding how the ­peoples of each pres­ent- day state remember the events of World War II. In large part, the roots of the con­temporary international system are found in Europe-­centered Western civilization. Of course, ­great civilizations thrived in other parts of the world, too. India and China, among ­others, had extensive, vibrant civili- zations long before the historical events covered ­here. But the Eu­ro­pean emphasis is justified ­because for better or worse, in both theory and practice, con­temporary international relations is rooted in the Eu­ro­pean experience. In this chapter, we ­will begin by looking at Eu­rope in the period immediately preceding and following the Thirty Years’ War (1618–48). We then consider Eu­rope’s relationship with the rest of the world during the nineteenth ­century, and we conclude with an analy­sis of the major transitions during the twentieth and early twenty-­first centuries. Learning Objectives Analyze which historical periods have most influenced the development of international relations. Describe the historical origins of the state. Understand why international relations scholars use the Treaties of Westphalia as a benchmark. Explain the historical origins of the Eu­ro­pean balance-­of-­power system. Explain how the Cold War became a series of confrontations between the United States and the Soviet Union. Analyze the key events that have s­ haped the post–­Cold War world and the first two de­cades of the new millennium. ESSIR7_CH02_020_069_11P.indd 22 6/14/16 10:01 AM  The Emergence of the Westphalian System   23 The Emergence of the Westphalian System Most international relations theorists locate the origins of the con­temporary states sys- tem in Eu­rope in 1648, the year the Treaties of Westphalia ended the Thirty Years’ War. ­These treaties marked the end of rule by religious authority in Eu­rope and the emer- gence of secular authorities. With secular authority came the princi­ple that has provided the foundation for international relations ever since then: the notion of the territo- rial integrity of states—­legally equal and sovereign participants in an international system. The formulation of sovereignty—­a core concept in con­temporary international relations—­was one of the most impor­tant intellectual developments leading to the Westphalian revolution. Much of the development of the notion is found in the writings of the French phi­los­o­pher Jean Bodin (1530–96). To Bodin, sovereignty is the “absolute and perpetual power vested in a commonwealth.”1 It resides not in an individual but in a state; thus, it is perpetual. It is “the distinguishing mark of the sovereign that he cannot in any way be subject to the commands of another, for it is he who makes law for the subject, abrogates law already made, and amends obso- lete law.”2 Although, ideally, sovereignty is absolute, in real­ity, according to Bodin, it is not without limits. Leaders are limited by divine law and natu­ral law: “All the princes on earth are subject to the laws of God and of nature.” They are also limited by the type of regime—­“the constitutional laws of the realm”—be it a monarchy, an aristocracy, or a democracy. And lastly, leaders are limited by covenants, contracts with promises to ­ eople within the commonwealth, and treaties with other states, though ­there is no the p supreme arbiter in relations among states.3 Thus, Bodin provided the conceptual glue of sovereignty that would emerge with the Westphalian agreement. The Thirty Years’ War devastated Eu­rope. The war, which had begun as a religious dispute between Catholics and Protestants, ended due to mutual exhaustion and bank- ruptcy. Princes and mercenary armies ravaged the central Eu­ro­pean countryside, fought frequent ­battles and undertook ruinous sieges, and plundered the civilian population to secure supplies while in the field. But the treaties that ended the conflict had three key impacts on the practice of international relations. First, the Treaties of Westphalia embraced the notion of sovereignty. With one stroke, virtually all the small states in central Eu­rope attained sovereignty. The Holy Roman Empire was dead. Monarchs—and not a supranational chruch—gained the authority to decide which version of Chris­tian­ity was appropriate for their subjects. With the pope and the emperor stripped of this power, the notion of the territorial state came into focus and ­people increasingly accepted it as normal. The Treaties not only legitimized territoriality and the right of states—as the sovereign, territorially ESSIR7_CH02_020_069_11P.indd 23 6/14/16 10:01 AM  24  CHAPTER two H i s to r i c a l C o n t e x t o f I n t e r n at i o n a l R e l at i o n s contiguous principalities increasingly came to be known—to choose their own reli- gion, but the Treaties also established that states had the right to determine their own domestic policies, ­free from external pressure and with full jurisdiction in their own geographic space. The Treaties thus introduced the princi­ple of noninterference in the affairs of other states. Second, b­ ecause the leaders of Eu­rope’s most power­ful countries had seen the devastation wrought by mercenaries in war, ­a fter the Treaties of Westphalia, ­t hese countries sought to establish their own permanent national militaries. The growth of such forces led to increasingly centralized control, since the state had to collect taxes to pay for ­t hese militaries and leaders assumed absolute control over the troops. The state with a national army emerged as a power­f ul force—­its sovereignty acknowl- edged and its secular base firmly established. And that state’s power increased. Larger territorial units gained an advantage as armaments became more standardized and more lethal. Lands administered by Roman Catholic Church NORWAY S W E D E N Spain SCOTLAND Austria a Brandenburg-Prussia N o r t h S e Boundary IRELAND of the Holy S e a ic Roman Empire DENMARK lt a B EAST ENGLAND PRUSSIA MECKLEN- UNITED BURG A t l a n t i c PROVINCES HAN- OVER BRANDENBURG O c e a n S PA N POLAND ISH SAXONY NE HESSE TH. LORRAINE F R A N C E WURTTEM- WUR BURG BAVARIA A U S T R I A SWITZ. SAVOY T MILAN VENICE N MO AVIGNON PIE D OA HUNGARY CASTILE G EN A PARMA r PORTUGAL d MODENA TUSCANY ia ARAGON PAPAL t S P A I N CORSICA i STA TES c S e a SARDINIA BALEARIC ISLANDS KINGDOM OF THE TWO M e d i t e r r a n e a n S e a SICILIES Eu­rope, c. 1648 ESSIR7_CH02_020_069_11P.indd 24 6/14/16 10:01 AM  The Emergence of the Westphalian System   25 In Focus Key Developments ­after Westphalia Concept and practice of sovereignty Centralized control of institutions develops. to facilitate the creation and maintenance of military; military Cap­it­ al­ist economic system emerges power grows. (stable expectations facilitate long-­ term investment). Third, the Treaties of Westphalia established a core group of states that dominated the world ­until the beginning of the nineteenth c­ entury: Austria, Rus­sia, Prus­sia, ­Eng­land, France, and the United Provinces (the area now comprising the Netherlands). ­Those in the west—­Eng­land, France, and the United Provinces—­underwent an eco- nomic revival ­under the aegis of liberal capitalism, whereas ­those in the east—­Prussia and Russia—­reverted to feudal practices. In the west, private enterprise was encour- aged. States improved their infrastructure to facilitate commerce, and ­great trading companies and banks emerged. In contrast, in the east, serfs remained on the land, and economic development was stifled. Yet in both regions, states led by a monarch with absolute power (called “absolutist” states) dominated, with Louis XIV ruling in France (1643–1715), Peter the ­Great in Rus­sia (1682–1725), and Frederick II in Prus­sia (1740–86). The most impor­tant social theorist of the time was the Scottish economist Adam Smith (1723–90). In An Inquiry into the Nature and ­Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Smith argued that the notion of a market should apply to all social ­orders. Individuals—­ laborers, ­owners, investors, consumers—­should be permitted to pursue their own inter- ests, unfettered by all but the most modest state regulations. According to Smith, each individual acts rationally to maximize her or his own interests. With groups of indi- viduals pursuing their interests, economic efficiency is enhanced, and more goods and ser­vices are produced and consumed. At the aggregate level, the wealth of the state and that of the international system are similarly enhanced. What makes the system work is the so-­called invisible hand of the market: when individuals pursue their ratio- nal self-­interests, the system (the market) operates in a way that benefits every­one.4 Smith’s explication of how competing units enable market capitalism to ensure eco- nomic vitality has had a profound effect on states’ economic policies and po­liti­c al choices, which we w ­ ill explore in Chapter 9. But other ideas of the period would also dramatically alter governance in the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-­first centuries. ESSIR7_CH02_020_069_11P.indd 25 6/14/16 10:01 AM  26  CHAPTER two H i s to r i c a l C o n t e x t o f In t e r n at i o n a l Re l at i o n s Eu­rope in the Nineteenth ­Century Two revolutions ushered in the nineteenth c­ entury—­the American Revolution (1773– 1785) against British rule and the French Revolution (1789) against absolutist rule. Both revolutions w ­ ere the product of Enlightenment thinking as well as social-­contract theory. Enlightenment thinkers saw individuals as rational, capable of understanding the laws governing them and capable of working to improve their condition in society. The Aftermath of Revolution: Core Princi­ples Two core princi­ples emerged in the aftermath of the American and French revolutions. The first was that absolutist rule is subject to limits imposed by man. In Two Treatises of Government, the En­glish phi­los­o­pher John Locke (1632–1704) attacked absolute power and the notion of the divine right of kings. Locke argued that the state is a ben- eficial institution created by rational men to protect both their natu­ral rights (life, liberty, and property) and their self-­interests. Men freely enter into this po­liti­cal arrangement, agreeing to establish government to ensure natu­ral rights for all. The crux of Locke’s argument is that po­liti­cal power ultimately rests with the ­people, rather than with a leader or monarch. The monarch derives legitimacy from the consent of the governed.5 The second core princi­ple was nationalism, wherein a ­people comes to identify with a common past, language, customs, and territory. Individuals who share such charac- teristics are motivated to participate actively in the po­liti­cal pro­cess as a nation. For example, during the French Revolution, a patriotic appeal was made to the French masses to defend the French nation and its new ideals. This appeal forged an emotional link between the p ­ eople and the state, regardless of social class. ­These two princi­ples—­ legitimacy and nationalism—­arose out of the American and French revolutions to provide the foundation for politics in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The Napoleonic Wars The po­liti­cal impact of nationalism in Eu­rope was profound. The nineteenth ­century opened with war in Eu­rope on an unpre­ce­dented scale. France’s status as a revolution- ary power made it an enticing target of other Eu­ro­pean states intent on stamping out the contagious idea of government by popu­lar consent. In addition, France appeared disor­ga­nized and weak, stemming from years of internal conflict. As a result, follow- ing its revolution, France became embroiled in an escalating series of wars with Austria, Britain, and Prus­sia, which culminated in the rise of a “low-­born” Corsican artillery officer named Napoleon Bonaparte to leader of the French military and, eventually, to the rank of emperor of France. ESSIR7_CH02_020_069_11P.indd 26 6/14/16 10:01 AM  Eu­rope in the Nineteenth ­C entury  27 Napoleon, with help from other talented officers, set about reorganizing and regu- larizing the French military. Making skillful use of French national zeal, Napoleon fielded large, well-­a rmed, and passionately motivated armies. Modest changes in technology—in par­tic­u ­lar, more efficient cultivation of the potato—­made pos­si­ble the advent of a magazine system; this system meant war supplies could be stored in pre-­positioned locations along likely campaign routes so troops could retrieve them on the move and avoid having to stop and forage for food. In combination with nationalism, the magazine system made it pos­si­ble for the French to field larger, more mobile, and more reliable armies that could employ innovative tactics unavailable to the smaller professional armies of France’s rivals, such as the highly regarded Prus­ sian army. Through a series of famous b­ attles, including ­those at Jena and Auerstedt (1806), in which Napoleon’s armies shattered t­ hose of “invincible” Prus­sia, Napoleon was able to conquer nearly the w ­ hole of Eu­rope in a few short years. Yet the same nationalist fervor that brought about much of Napoleon’s success also led to his downfall. In Spain and Rus­sia, Napoleon’s armies met nationalists who fought a dif­fer­ent sort of war. Rather than facing French forces in direct confrontations, Span- ish guerrillas used intimate local knowledge to mount hit-­and-­run attacks on French The dramatic successes and failures of France’s Napoleon Bonaparte illustrated both the power and the limits of nationalism, new military technology, and organ­ization. ESSIR7_CH02_020_069_11P.indd 27 6/14/16 10:01 AM  28  CHAPTER two H i s to r i c a l C o n t e x t o f I n t e r n at i o n a l R e l at i o n s occupying forces. The Spanish guerrillas also enjoyed the support of Britain, whose unrivaled mastery of the seas meant the country could lend supplies and occasional expeditionary forces. When local French forces attempted to punish the Spanish into submission by barbarism (including looting, torture, rape, and execution of prisoners and suspected insurgents without trial), re­sis­tance to French occupation escalated. The cost to France was high, draining away talented soldiers and cash and damaging French morale far beyond Spain. When Napoleon invaded Rus­sia in 1812 with an army num- bering a staggering 422,000, the Rus­sians also refused to give direct ­battle. Instead, they retreated ­toward their areas of supply, destroying all available food and shelter ­behind them in what came to be known as a “scorched earth” policy. The advancing French began to suffer from severe malnutrition, with the entire army slowly starving to death as it advanced to Moscow. By the time the French reached the Rus­sian capital, the government had already evacuated. The French army occupying Moscow had dwindled to a mere 110,000. Napoleon waited in vain for the tsar to surrender. ­A fter realizing the magnitude of his vulnerability, Napoleon attempted to return to France before Rus­sia’s harsh winter set in. But, it was already too late. By the time French troops crossed the original line of departure at the Nieman River, Napoleon’s Grande Armeé had been reduced to a mere 10,000. The proud emperor’s final defeat in 1815 by En­glish and Prus­sian forces at the ­Battle of Waterloo (in pres­ent-­day Belgium) was assured. Peace at the Core of the Eu­ro­pean System Following the defeat of Napoleon in 1815 and the establishment of peace by the Con- gress of Vienna, the five powers of Europe—­Austria, Britain, France, Prus­sia, and Russia—­k nown as the Concert of Eu­rope, ushered in a period of relative peace in the international po­liti­cal system. ­These ­great powers fought no major wars ­after the defeat of Napoleon u ­ ntil the Crimean War in 1854, and in that war, both Austria and Prus­sia remained neutral. Other local wars of brief duration ­were fought, and in ­these, too, some of the five major powers remained neutral. Meeting more than 30 times before World War I at a series of ad hoc conferences, the Concert became a club of like-­minded leaders. Through ­these meetings, ­these countries legitimized both the in­de­pen­dence of new Eu­ro­pean states and the division of Africa among the colonial powers. The fact that peace among g­ reat powers prevailed during this time seems surpris- ing since major economic, technological, and po­liti­cal changes ­were radically altering power relationships. Industrialization, a critical development during the nineteenth ­century, was a double-­edged sword. During the second half of the nineteenth c­ entury, the powers focused all attention on the pro­cesses of industrialization. ­Great Britain was the leader, outstripping all rivals in its output of coal, iron, and steel and the export of manufactured goods. In addition, Britain became the source of finance capital, the ESSIR7_CH02_020_069_11P.indd 28 6/14/16 10:01 AM  Eu­rope in the Nineteenth ­C entury  29 Boundary of KINGDOM OF the German NORWAY AND SWEDEN Confederation Austrian Empire SCOTLAND France KINGDOM OF Prussia IRELAND DENMARK Russian Empire SCHLESWIG United Kingdom MECK- R U S S I A N of Great Britain ENGLAND KINGDOM HOLSTEIN LENBURG and Ireland OF HANOVER E M P I R E NETHER- POLAND LANDS P R U S S I A E SS SAXONY HE A t l a n t i c LUXEMBOURG BAVARIA REPUBLIC EN O c e a n OF CRACOW BAD WURTTEM- KINGDOM BURG HUNGARY MOL OF SWISS A U S T R I A N E M P I R E DA CONFED. FRANCE V IA LOMBARDY- PARMA VENETIA K IN G D O WALLACHIA MODENA KINGDOM LUCCA PAPAL OF TUSCANY STATES MONTENEGRO PORTUGAL KINGDOM M OF O OF TT OM SPAIN SAR AN KINGDOM OF EM PI D IN RE THE TWO A I M e SICILIES d i t e r r a n e a TUNISIA n S e MOROCCO ALGERIA a Eu­rope, c. 1815 banker for the continent and, in the twentieth c­ entury, for the world. Industrializa- tion spread through virtually all areas of western Eu­rope as the masses flocked to the cities and entrepreneurs and middlemen scrambled for economic advantage. In addi- tion, more than any other ­factor, industrialization led the ­middle classes to capture po­liti­cal power at the expense of the aristocratic classes. Unlike the aristocratic classes, the m­ iddle classes did not depend on land for wealth and power; their ability to invent, use, and improve industrial machines and pro­cesses gave them power. As machine power became indispensable to the security (think artillery, battleships) and prosper- ity (think merchant ships and railroads) of states, the ­middle classes began to seek more po­liti­cal power to match their contributions. The population of Europe soared and commerce surged as transportation corridors across Europe and the globe w ­ ere strengthened. Po­liti­cal changes ­were dramatic: Italy was unified in 1870; Germany was formed out of 39 dif­fer­ent fragments in 1871; the United Kingdom of the Netherlands was divided into the Netherlands and Belgium in the 1830s; and the Ottoman Empire gradually disintegrated, leading to in­de­pen­dence for Greece in 1829 and for Moldavia and Wallachia (Romania) in 1856. With such ESSIR7_CH02_020_069_11P.indd 29 6/14/16 10:01 AM  30  CHAPTER two H i s to r i c a l C o n t e x t o f I n t e r n at i o n a l R e l at i o n s dramatic changes ­under way, what explains the absence of major war? At least three ­factors discouraged war. First, Eu­rope’s po­liti­c al elites ­were united in their fear of revolution among the masses. In fact, at the Congress of Vienna, the Austrian diplomat Count Klemens von Metternich (1773–1859), architect of the Concert of Eu­rope, believed that returning to the age of absolutism was the best way to manage Eu­rope. Elites envisioned ­grand alliances that would bring Eu­ro­pean leaders together to fight revolution by the lower classes. During the first half of the ­century, ­these alliances ­were not successful. In the 1830s, Britain and France sided together against the three eastern powers (Prus­sia, Rus­sia, and Austria). In 1848, all five powers faced demands for reform from the masses. But during the second half of the ­century, Eu­ro­pean leaders acted in concert, ensuring that mass revolutions did not spread from state to state. In 1870, in the turmoil fol- lowing France’s defeat in the Franco-­Prussian War, the leader Napoleon III was iso- lated quickly for fear of a revolution that never occurred. Fear of revolt from below thus united Eu­ro­pean leaders, making interstate war less likely. Second, two of the major conflicts of interest confronting the core Eu­ro­pean states took place within, rather than between, culturally close territories: the unifications of Germany and Italy. Both German and Italian unification had power­ful proponents and opponents among the Eu­ro­pean powers. For example, Britain supported Italian unification, making pos­si­ble Italy’s annexation of Naples and Sicily. Austria, on the other hand, was preoccupied with the increasing strength of Prus­sia and thus did not actively oppose what may well have been against its national interest—­the creation of two sizable neighbors out of myriad in­de­pen­dent units. German unification was accept- able to Rus­sia, as long as Rus­sian interests in Poland ­were respected. German unifica- tion also got support from Britain’s dominant ­middle class, which viewed a stronger Germany as a potential counterbalance to France. Thus, b­ ecause the energies and resources of German and Italian ­peoples w ­ ere concentrated on the strug­gle to form single contiguous territorial states, and ­because the precise impact of the newly uni- fied states on the Eu­ro­pean balance of power was unknown, a wider war was averted. The third f­actor in supporting peace in Eu­rope was the complex and crucial phe- nomenon of imperialism-­colonialism. Imperialism and Colonialism in the Eu­ro­pean System before 1870 The discovery of the “new” world—as Eu­ro­pe­a ns a­ fter 1492 called it—­led to rapidly expanding communication between the Amer­i­cas and Eu­rope. The same blue-water navigation technology also made contact with Asia less costly and more frequent. The first to arrive in the new world w ­ ere explorers seeking discovery, riches, and personal ESSIR7_CH02_020_069_11P.indd 30 6/14/16 10:01 AM  Eu­rope in the Nineteenth ­C entury  31 glory; merchants seeking raw materials and trade relations; and clerics seeking to con- vert “savages” to Chris­tian­ity. But the staggering wealth they discovered, and the relative ease with which it could be acquired, led to increasing competition among Eu­ro­pean powers for territories in far-­distant lands. Most of the Eu­ro­pean powers became empires and, once established, claimed as sovereign territory the lands indigenous p ­ eoples occupied. ­These empires are the origin of the term imperialism, the annexation of distant territory (most often by force) and its inhabitants to an empire. Colonialism, which often followed or accompanied imperialism, refers to the settling of ­people from a home country like Spain among indigenous p ­ eoples of a distant territory like Mexico. The two terms are thus subtly dif­fer­ent; most but not all imperial powers settled their own citizens among the p ­ eoples whose territories they annexed, and some states established colonies but did not identify themselves as empires. Still, most scholars use the two terms interchangeably. This pro­cess of annexation by conquest or treaty continued for 400 years. As the technology of travel and communications improved, and as Eu­ro­pe­ans developed vac- cines and cures for tropical diseases, the costs to Eu­ro­pean powers of imposing their ­will on indigenous p ­ eople continued to drop. Eu­ro­pe­ans w­ ere welcomed in some places but w ­ ere resisted in most. In most cases, Eu­ro­pe­ans overcame that re­sis­tance with very ­little cost or risk. They met spears with machine guns and h ­ orses with heavy artillery. In the dawning machine age, it became more common to target indigenous civilians deliberately, often with near genocidal results. By the close of the nineteenth ­century, almost the ­whole of the globe was “ruled” by Eu­ro­pean states. G ­ reat Britain was the largest and most successful of the imperial powers, but even small states, such as Portugal and the Netherlands, maintained impor­tant colonies abroad. The pro­cess also led to the establishment of a “Eu­ro­pean” identity. Eu­ro­pean states enjoyed a solidarity among themselves, based on their being Eu­ro­pean, Christian, “civ- ilized,” and white. ­These traits differentiated an “us”—­white Christian Europeans—­ from an “other”—­the rest of the world. With the rise of mass literacy and increasing contact with the colonial world due to industrialization, Eu­ro­pe­ans more than ever saw their commonalities, the uniqueness of being “Eu­ro­pean.” This identity was, in part, a return to the same kind of unity felt under the Roman Empire and Roman law, a secular form of medieval Christendom, and a larger Eu­rope as Kant and Rousseau had envisioned (see Chapter 1). The Congress of Vienna and the Concert of Eu­rope gave more concrete form to ­t hese beliefs. The flip side of ­t hese beliefs was the ongoing exploration, conquest, and exploitation of p ­ eoples in the non-­European world and the subsequent establishment of colonies t­ here. The Industrial Revolution provided the Eu­ro­pean states with the military and eco- nomic capacity to engage in territorial expansion. Some imperial states ­were motivated by economic gains, seeking new external markets for manufactured goods and obtain- ing, in turn, raw materials to fuel their industrial growth. For ­others, the motivation was ESSIR7_CH02_020_069_11P.indd 31 6/14/16 10:01 AM  32  CHAPTER two H i s to r i c a l C o n t e x t o f I n t e r n at i o n a l R e l at i o n s cultural and religious—to spread the Christian faith and the ways of white “civilization” to the “dark” conti­ nent and beyond. For still o­ thers, the motivation was po­liti­c al. Since the Eu­ ro­pean balance of power ­pre­vented direct confrontation in Eu­rope, Eu­ro­pean state rivalries ­were played out in Africa and Asia. Two impor­tant questions follow. First, why did territorial expan­ sion only happen in Asia and Africa and not Latin Ame­ rica? Second, how did Germany and Italy—two European powers who unified late—​ react to having so few of their own colonies as compared to, say, Por­ tugal, a much smaller state? Latin Ame­rica was “protected” from late-­ nineteenth-­century Eu­ro­pean colo­ In the nineteenth ­century, explorers often paved the nial and imperial attention by the way for the colonization of African and Asian lands Monroe Doctrine—­t he U.S. policy by Eu­ro­pean powers. ­Here, a French expedition of defending the Western Hemi­ seeks to stake a claim in central Africa. sphere from Eu­ro­pean interference. As to Italy and Germany, once they unified and industrialized, many within each state felt that to have international re­spect (and to guarantee cheap imports of raw mate­ rials), both states “needed” to annex or colonize countries in Asia or Africa. Italy attempted to conquer and colonize Ethiopia, a Christian empire in the horn of Africa, but suffered a humiliating defeat at the B ­ attle of Adowa in 1896. To mollify Germany’s imperial ambitions, during the Congress of Berlin in 1885, the major powers divided up Africa, “giving” Germany a sphere of influence in east Africa (Tanganyika), west Africa (Cameroon and Togo), and southern Africa (South­ west Africa). Eu­ro­pean imperialism seemed to provide a con­ve­nient outlet for Germany’s aspirations as a ­great power, without endangering the delicate balance of power within Eu­rope itself. By the end of the nineteenth ­century, 85 ­percent of Africa was u ­ nder the control of Eu­ro­pean states. In Asia, only Japan and Siam (Thailand) w ­ ere not ­under direct Eu­ro­pean or U.S. influence. China is an excellent example of the extent of external domination. ­Under the Qing dynasty, which began in the seventeenth c­ entury, China had slowly been losing po­liti­cal, economic, and military power for several hundred years. During the nine­ ESSIR7_CH02_020_069_11P.indd 32 6/14/16 10:01 AM  Eu­rope in the Nineteenth ­C entury  33 Europe Colonized or controlled by Europe European sphere of influence Partial European control or influence Never colonized by Europe This map shows every country that has been under European control at any point from the 1500s to the 1960s. The United States, Mexico, and most of Latin Ame­rica became in­de­pen­dent of Eu­rope in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, respectively, but much of the rest of the world remained ­under colonial control ­until ­after World War II. teenth c­ entury, British merchants began to trade with China for tea, silk, and porcelain, often paying for ­these products with smuggled opium. In 1842, the British defeated China in the Opium War, forcing China to cede vari­ous po­liti­cal and territorial rights to foreigners through a series of unequal treaties. Eu­ro­pean states and Japan w ­ ere able to occupy large portions of Chinese territory, claiming to have exclusive trading rights in par­tic­u­lar regions. Foreign powers exercised separate “spheres of influence” in China. By 1914, Eu­ro­pe­ans had colonized four-­fifths of the world, and still controlled much of it. The United States eventually became an imperial power as well. Having won the 1898 Spanish-­A merican War, pushing the Spanish out of the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Cuba, and other small islands, the United States acquired its own small empire. The strug­gle for economic power led to heedless exploitation of colonial areas, par- ticularly in Africa and Asia. One striking aspect of the contest between the Eu­ro­pe­ans and the ­peoples they encountered in Africa and Asia is that Eu­ro­pean weapons and communications technology proved very difficult for indigenous p ­ eoples to resist. Eu­ro­ pean states and their militaries became accustomed to winning ­battles against vastly more numerous adversaries, and often attributed their ability to do so to their military ESSIR7_CH02_020_069_11P.indd 33 6/14/16 10:01 AM  34  CHAPTER two H i s to r i c a l C o n t e x t o f I n t e r n at i o n a l R e l at i o n s technology. As one famous apologist for colonialism put it: “Thank God that we have got the Maxim gun, and they have not.”6 But, as the nineteenth c­ entury drew to a close, the assumption that imperialist coun- tries could cheaply control vast stretches of distant territory containing large numbers of aggrieved or oppressed ­people with only a few colonial officers and administrators was being challenged with increasing frequency. For ­Great Britain, the world’s most success- ful colonial power, the f­ uture of colonialism was clearly signaled by Britain’s Pyrrhic victory in the Second Anglo-­Boer War (1899–1902; also known as the South African War). British soldiers fought, against Boer commandos (white descendants of Dutch immigrants to South Africa in the 1820s), a lengthy and b­ itter counterinsurgency war that claimed the lives of more than 20,000 Boer ­women and c­ hildren through the fail- ure of the British to provide sanitary internment conditions, sufficient food, and fresh ­water. The war, which Britain expected to last no longer than three months and cost no more than 10 million pounds sterling, ended up costing 230 million pounds and last- ing two years and eight months. It proved the most expensive war, by an order of mag- nitude, in British colonial history. The war was largely unpopular in Eu­rope and led to increased tensions between Britain and Germany, ­because the Boers had purchased advanced infantry ­rifles from Germany and sought German diplomatic and military intervention during the war. However, the five Eu­ro­pean powers had still not fought major wars directly against each other. In sum, much of the competition, rivalry, and tension traditionally marking rela- tions among Eu­rope’s states could be acted out far beyond Eu­rope itself. Eu­ro­pe­ans raced to acquire colonies to achieve increased status, wealth, and power vis-­à-­vis their rivals. Eu­ro­pe­ans could imagine themselves as bringing the light of civilization to the “dark” regions of the world, while at the same time acquiring the material resources (mineral wealth and “native levies”) they might need in a ­future war in Eu­rope. Each colonial power understood it might take years to accumulate sufficient resources to gain an advantage in a major Eu­ro­pean war. Therefore, each state maintained an interest in managing crises so conflicts of interest would not escalate to all-­out war. Thus, the “safety valve” of colonialism both reinforced Eu­ro­pean unity and identity and prevented the buildup of tension in Eu­rope. By the end of the nineteenth c­ entury, however, the toll of po­liti­cal rivalry and eco- nomic competition had become destabilizing. Germany’s unification, rapid industri- alization, and population growth led to an escalation of tension that could not be assuaged in time to prevent war. In 1870, France and Germany fought a major war, in which France suffered defeat. Through a humiliating peace treaty, France was forced to surrender the long-­contested provinces of Alsace and Lorraine, which became part of the new Germany. The war and the simmering resentments to which it gave birth ­were mere harbingers of conflicts to come. In addition, the legacy of colonialism, which had served to defuse tension in Eu­rope, laid the groundwork for enduring resentment of ESSIR7_CH02_020_069_11P.indd 34 6/14/16 10:01 AM  Eu­rope in the Nineteenth ­C entury  35 Eu­ro­pe­ans by many Asians and Africans; this resentment continues to complicate peace, humanitarian work, and development operations in t­ hese areas of the world to this day. Balance of Power During the nineteenth c­ entury, colonialism, the common interests of conservative Eu­ro­pean elites, and distraction over the troubled unifications of German and Italian principalities seemed to promote a long peace in Eu­rope. But this condition of relative peace was underpinned by another f­actor as well: a balance of power. The in­de­pen­ dent Eu­ro­pean states, each with relatively equal power, feared the emergence of any predominant state (hegemon) among them. As a result, they formed alliances to coun­ teract any potentially more power­ful faction, thus creating a balance of power. The idea ­behind a balance of power is ­simple. States ­will hesitate to start a war with an adversary whose power to fight and win wars is relatively balanced (symmetrical ), ­because the risk of defeat is high. When one state or co­a li­tion of states is much more power­ful than its adversaries (asymmetrical ), war is relatively more likely. The treaties signed a­ fter 1815 ­were designed not only to quell revolution from below but also to prevent the emergence of a hegemon, such as France had become ­under Napoleon. Britain or Rus­sia, at least ­later in the ­c entury, could have assumed a dominant leadership position—­ Britain ­because of its economic capability and naval prowess, and Rus­sia ­because of its relative geographic isolation and extraordinary manpower. However, neither sought to exert hegemonic power; each one’s respective capacity to effect a balance of power in Eu­rope was declining and the status quo was acceptable to both states. Britain and Rus­sia did play dif­fer­ent roles, ­however, in the balance of power. Britain most often played the role of off-­shore balancer; for example, it intervened on behalf of the Greeks in their strug­gle for in­de­pen­dence from the Turks in the late 1820s, on behalf of the Belgians during their war of in­de­pen­dence against Holland in 1830, on behalf of Turkey against Rus­sia in the Crimean War in 1854–56, and again in the Russo-­Turkish War in 1877–78. Thus, Britain ensured that power in Eu­rope remained relatively balanced. Rus­sia’s role was as a builder of alliances. The Holy Alliance of 1815 kept Austria, Prus­sia, and Rus­sia united against revolutionary France, and Rus­sia used its claim on Poland to build a bond with Prus­sia. Rus­sian interests in the Dardanelles, the strategic waterway linking the Mediterranean Sea and the Black Sea, and in Con­ stantinople (­today’s Istanbul) overlapped with t­ hose of Britain. Thus, t­ hese two states, located at the margins of Eu­rope, played key roles in making the balance-­of-­power system work. During the last three de­c ades of the nineteenth c­ entury, the Concert of Eu­rope frayed, beginning with the Franco-­Prussian War (1870) and the Rus­sian invasion of Turkey (Russo-­Turkish War, 1877–78). Alliances began to solidify as the balance-­of-­ power system began to weaken. The advent of the railroad gave continental powers such ESSIR7_CH02_020_069_11P.indd 35 6/14/16 10:01 AM  36  CHAPTER two H i s to r i c a l C o n t e x t o f I n t e r n at i o n a l R e l at i o n s In Focus Key Developments in Nineteenth-­Century Eu­rope From revolutions emerge two Eu­ro­pean imperialism in Asia and concepts: the idea that legitimate Africa helps to maintain the rule requires (some) consent of the Eu­ro­pean balance of power. governed, and nationalism. The balance of power breaks down A system managed by the balance due to imperial Germany’s too-­rapid of power brings relative peace to growth and the increasing rigidity of Eu­rope. Elites are united in fear of alliances, resulting in World War I. the masses, and domestic concerns are more impor­tant than foreign policy. as Germany and Austria-­Hungary an enhanced level of economic and strategic mobil- ity equal to that of maritime powers such as Britain. This change reduced Britain’s ability to balance power on the continent. Rus­sia, for its part, began to fall markedly ­behind in the industrialization race, and its relatively few railroads meant that its massive manpower advantage would be less and less able to reach a battlefield in time to deter- mine an outcome. So Rus­sia’s power began to wane compared with that of France, Germany, and Austria-­Hungary. The Breakdown: Solidification of Alliances By the waning years of the nineteenth ­century, the balance-­of-­power system had weak- ened. Whereas alliances previously had been flexible and fluid, now alliances became increasingly rigid. Two camps emerged: the ­Triple Alliance (Germany, Austria-­Hungary, and Italy) in 1882 and the Dual Alliance (France and Rus­sia) in 1893. In 1902, Britain broke from the “balancer” role, joining in a naval alliance with Japan to forestall Rus­sian and Japa­nese collaboration in China. This alliance marked a significant turn: for the first time, a Eu­ro­pean state (­Great Britain) turned to an Asian one (Japan) to thwart a Eu­ro­pean power (Rus­sia). And, in 1904, Britain joined with France in an alliance called the Entente Cordiale. In that same year, Rus­sia and Japan went to war (the Russo-­Japanese War) in a con- test Eu­ro­pe­ans widely expected to result in a Japa­nese defeat. A­ fter all, the Japa­nese had come late to industrialization, and although Japan’s naval forces looked impres- sive on paper, their opponents would be white Eu­ro­pe­ans. But Rus­sia’s industrial back- ESSIR7_CH02_020_069_11P.indd 36 6/14/16 10:02 AM  Eu­rope in the Nineteenth ­C entury  37 wardness would affect it severely. As the war opened, Japa­nese forces surrounded a key Rus­sian fortress at Port Arthur. Rus­sia’s lack of sufficient railroads meant it could not reinforce its forces in the Far East by rail, so it attempted to relieve the siege by send­ ing a naval flotilla from its Baltic home ports 18,000 miles away. But a­ fter a very costly Japa­nese assault, Port Arthur was captured while the Rus­sian fleet was still at sea. In May 1905, the Rus­sian and Japa­nese fleets clashed in Tsushima Bay, and the result was perhaps the greatest naval defeat in history: Rus­sia lost eight battleships, some 5,000 sailors w ­ ere killed, and another 5,000 w ­ ere captured as prisoners of war. The Japa­nese lost three torpedo boats and 116 sailors. The impact of Japan’s victory would extend far beyond the defeat of Rus­sia in the Far East. An Asian power’s defeat of a white colonial power seriously compromised a core ideological foundation of colonialism—­ that whites ­were inherently superior to nonwhites. The Rus­sian defeat spurred Japa­ nese expansion and caused Germany to discount Rus­sia’s ability to interfere with German ambitions in Eu­rope. Rus­sia’s defeat severely compromised the legitimacy of the tsar, setting in motion a revolution that, a­ fter 1917, was to topple the Rus­sian empire and replace it with the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR, or the Soviet Union). The final collapse of the balance-­of-­power system came with World War I. Germany’s rapid rise in power intensified the destabilizing impact of the hardening of alliances at the turn of the twentieth ­c entury. By 1912, Germany had exceeded France and Britain in both heavy industrial output and population growth. Germany also feared Rus­sian efforts to modernize its relatively sparse railroad network. Being “late­ comers” to the core of Eu­ro­pean power, and having defeated France in the Franco-­ Prussian War (1870), many Germans felt that Germany had not received the diplomatic recognition and status it deserved. This lack of recognition in part explains why Germany encouraged Austria-­Hungary to crush Serbia following the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand (heir to the throne of the Austro-­Hungarian Empire), who was shot in Sarajevo in June 1914. Like most of Eu­rope’s leaders at the time, Germany’s leaders believed war made the state and its citizens stronger, and that back­ ing down ­after a humiliation would only encourage further humiliations. Besides, the outcome of a local war between Austria-­Hungary and Serbia was certain to be a quick victory for Germany’s most impor­tant ally. But ­under the tight system of alliances, the fateful shot set off a chain reaction. What Germany had hoped would remain a local war soon escalated to a continental war, once Rus­sia’s tsar ordered a premobilization of Rus­sian forces. And once German troops crossed into Belgium (thus violating British-­guaranteed Belgian neutrality), that con­ tinental war escalated to a world war when Britain sided with France and Rus­sia. The Ottoman Empire, long a rival with Rus­sia, entered the war on the side of Germany and Austria-­Hungary. Both sides anticipated a short, decisive war (over by Christmas), but this did not happen. Germany’s Schlieffen Plan—­its strategy for a decisive victory in a two-­front war against Rus­sia and France—­failed almost immediately, leading to a ESSIR7_CH02_020_069_11P.indd 37 6/14/16 10:02 AM  38  CHAPTER two H i s to r i c a l C o n t e x t o f I n t e r n ati o n a l R e l ati o n s ICELAND A t l a n t i c SWEDEN FINLAND O c e a n NORWAY RUSSIA IRELAND DENMARK UNITED NETHER- KINGDOM LANDS BELGIUM GERMANY Casp LUXEMBOURG ian FRANCE SWITZ. AUSTRIA-HUNGARY Se ITALY ROMANIA B l a c k S e a SE a PORTUGAL MONTENEGRO BULGARIA RB CORSICA IA SPAIN ALBANIA BALEARIC SARDINIA GREECE OTTOMAN EMPIRE PERSIA ISLANDSM e d SICILY SPANISH i t e r MOROCCO r a n e CYPRUS FRENCH ALGERIA a n CRETE TUNISIA S e a (GR.) MOROCCO ARABIA Eu­rope, 1914 ghastly stalemate. Between 1914 and 1918, soldiers from more than a dozen countries endured the per­sis­tent degradation of trench warfare and the horrors of poison gas. The “­Great War,” as it came to be known, saw the introduction of aerial bombing and unre- stricted submarine warfare as well. Britain’s naval blockade of Germany caused wide- spread suffering and privation for German civilians. More than 8.5 million soldiers and 1.5 million civilians lost their lives. Germany, Austria-­Hungary, the Ottoman Empire, and Rus­sia w­ ere defeated, while Britain and France—­two of the three “victors”—­ were seriously weakened. Only the United States, a late entrant into the war, emerged relatively unscathed. The defeat and subsequent dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire by France and Britain—­which created new states subject to control and manip- ulation by both—­continues to affect interstate peace in the ­Middle East to this day. The Interwar Years and World War II The end of World War I saw critical changes in international relations. First, three Eu­ro­ pean empires ­were strained and fi­nally broke up during or near the end of World ESSIR7_CH02_020_069_11P.indd 38 6/14/16 10:02 AM  The Interwar Years and World War II   39 War I. With t­hose empires went the conservative social order of Eu­rope; in its place emerged a proliferation of nationalisms. Rus­sia exited the war in 1917, as revolution raged within its territory. The tsar was overthrown and eventually replaced by not only a new leader (Vladimir Ilyich Lenin) but also a new ideology—­Communism—­that would have profound implications for international politics during the remainder of the twentieth ­century. The Austro-­Hungarian and Ottoman Empires disintegrated. Austria-­Hungary was replaced by Austria, Hungary, Czecho­slo­va­kia, part of Yugo­slavia, and part of Romania. The Ottoman Empire was also reconfigured. Having gradually weakened throughout the nineteenth c­ entury, its defeat resulted in the final overthrow of the Ottomans. Arabia r­ ose against Ottoman rule, and British forces occupied Pales- tine (including Jerusalem) and Baghdad. Turkey became the largest of the successor states that emerged from the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire. The end of the empires accelerated and intensified nationalisms. In fact, one of Pres- ident Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points in the treaty ending World War I called for self-­determination, the right of national groups to self-­rule. Technological innovations in the printing industry and a mass audience, now literate, stimulated the nationalism of ­t hese vari­ous groups (for example, Austrians and Hungarians). Now it was easy and cheap to publish material in the multitude of dif­fer­ent Eu­ro­pean languages and so offer differing interpretations of history and national life. A second critical change was that Germany emerged from World War I an even more dissatisfied power. Germany had been defeated on the battlefield, but German forces ended the war in occupation of ­enemy territory. What’s more, German leaders had not been honest with the German p ­ eople. Many German newspapers had been predicting a major breakthrough and victory right up ­until the armistice of Novem- ber 11, 1918, so the myth grew that the German military had been “stabbed in the back” by “liberals” (and ­later Jews) in Berlin. Even more devastating was the fact that the Treaty of Versailles, which formally ended the war, made the subsequent generation of Germans pay the entire economic cost of the war through reparations—­$32 billion for war­time damages. As Germany printed more money to pay its reparations, Ger- mans suffered from hyperinflation, causing widespread impoverishment of the ­middle and working classes. Fi­nally, Germany was no longer allowed to have a standing mili- tary, and French and British troops occupied its most productive industrialized region, the Ruhr Valley. Bitterness over ­these harsh penalties provided the climate for the emergence of conservatives such as the National Socialist Worker’s Party (Nazis for short), led by Adolf Hitler. Hitler publicly dedicated himself to righting the “wrongs” imposed on the German p ­ eople a­ fter World War I. Third, enforcement of the Treaty of Versailles was given to the ultimately unsuc- cessful League of Nations, the intergovernmental organ­ization designed to prevent all ­future interstate wars. But the organ­ization itself did not have the po­liti­cal weight, the ­legal instruments, or the legitimacy to carry out the task. The po­liti­cal weight of ESSIR7_CH02_020_069_11P.indd 39 6/14/16 10:02 AM  40  CHAPTER two H i s to r i c a l C o n t e x t o f I n t e r n at i o n a l R e l at i o n s the League was weakened by the fact that the United States—­whose president Wood- row Wilson had been the League’s principal architect—­itself refused to join, retreat- ing instead to an isolationist foreign policy. Nor did Rus­sia join, nor ­were any of the vanquished states of the war permitted to participate. The League’s l­egal authority was weak, and the instruments it had for enforcing the peace proved in­effec­tive. Fourth, the blueprint for a peaceful international order enshrined in Wilson’s Four- teen Points failed. Wilson had called for open diplomacy—­“open covenants of peace, openly arrived at, ­after which ­there ­shall be no private international understandings of any kind but diplomacy s­ hall proceed always frankly and in public view.”7 Point three was a reaffirmation of economic liberalism, the removal of economic barriers among all the nations consenting to the peace. The League, a “general association of nations” that would ensure war never occurred again, would maintain order. But ­these princi­ples w ­ ere not a­ dopted. In the words of historian E. H. Carr, “The characteristic feature of the twenty years between 1919 and 1939 was the abrupt descent from the visionary hopes of the first de­cade to the grim despair of the second, from a utopia which took ­little account of real­ity to a real­ity from which ­every ele­ment of utopia was rigorously excluded.”8 Liberalism and its utopian and idealist ele­ments w ­ ere replaced by realism as the dominant international-­relations theory—­a fundamentally divergent theoretical perspective. (See Chapter 3.) The world from which ­these realists emerged was a turbulent one. The German economy imploded; the U.S. stock market plummeted; and the world economy sput- tered, and then collapsed. Japan marched into Manchuria in 1931 and into the rest of China in 1937; Italy overran Ethiopia in 1935; fascism, liberalism, and communism clashed. In Focus Key Developments in the Interwar Years Three empires collapse: Rus­sia by Treaty) leads to the rise of Fascism revolution, the Austro-­Hungarian in Germany. Germany finds allies in Empire by dismemberment, and the Italy and Japan. Ottoman Empire by external wars A weak League of Nations is unable and internal turmoil. ­These collapses to respond to Japa­nese, Italian, and lead to a resurgence of nationalisms. German aggression. Nor can it German dissatisfaction with the prevent or reverse widespread World War I settlement (Versailles economic depression. ESSIR7_CH02_020_069_11P.indd 40 6/14/16 10:02 AM  The Interwar Years and World War II   41 World War II In the view of most Eu­ro­pe­ans and many in the United States, Germany, and in par­ tic­u­lar Adolf Hitler, started World War II. But Japan and Italy also played major roles in the breakdown of interstate order in the 1930s. In 1931, Japan staged the Mukden inci­ dent as a pretext for assaulting China and annexing Manchuria. The Japa­nese invasion of China was marked by horrifying barbarity against the Chinese p ­ eople, including the rape, murder, and torture of Chinese civilians, and by the increasing inability of Japan’s civilian government to restrain its generals in China. Japan’s rec­ord in K ­ orea was equally brutal. Japan’s reputation for savagery against noncombatants in China reached its peak in the Rape of Nanking, discussed at the beginning of the chapter. When news of the massacres and rapes reached the United States—­itself already embroiled in a dispute with Japan over Japan’s prior conduct in China—­a diplomatic crisis ensued, the result of which was war, when Japa­nese forces attacked the U.S. Seventh Fleet at Pearl Harbor in December 1941. But Nazi Germany, the Third Reich, proved to be the greatest challenge to the nascent interstate order that followed World War I. Adolf Hitler had come to power with a promise to restore Germany’s economy and national pride. The core of his eco­ nomic policies, however, was an over-­investment in armaments production. Germany could not actually pay for the foodstuff and raw materials needed to maintain the pace of production, so it bullied its neighbors—­mostly much weaker new states to the east, such as Bulgaria, Hungary, and Romania—­into ruinous (for the weaker states) trade deals. As one economic historian of the period put it: “The pro­cess was circular. The economic crisis itself was largely caused by the extreme pace of German rearmament. One way out would have been to slacken that pace: when that was rejected, Germany was in a position where she was arming in order to expand, and then had to expand in order to continue to arm.”9 But once the other Eu­ro­pean powers realized how far ­behind they ­were, they used ­every diplomatic opportunity to delay confronting Ger­ many ­until they themselves might have a chance to succeed. For ­these and other rea­ sons, including the economic damage both Britain and France suffered in World War I, Britain and France did l­ittle to halt Germany’s resurgence. The Third Reich’s fascism effectively mobilized the masses in support of the state. It capitalized on the idea that war and conflict ­were noble activities from which ulti­ mately superior civilizations would be formed. It drew strength from the belief that certain racial groups ­were superior and ­others inferior, and it mobilized the disen­ chanted and the eco­nom­ically weak on behalf of its cause. In autumn 1938, Britain agreed to let Germany occupy the westernmost region of Czecho­slo­va­k ia, in the hope of averting a general war, or at least delaying war u ­ ntil Britain’s defense preparations could be sufficiently strengthened. But this was a false hope. In spring 1939, the Third Reich annexed the remainder of Czecho­slo­va­k ia, and in September 1939, ­after having ESSIR7_CH02_020_069_11P.indd 41 6/14/16 10:02 AM  42  CHAPTER two H i s to r i c a l C o n t e x t o f I n t e r n at i o n a l R e l at i o n s Axis-aligned ICELAND Allies-aligned Neutral A t l a n t i c O c e a n SWEDEN FINLAND NORWAY ESTONIA UNION OF LATVIA SOVIET DENMARK LITHUANIA SOCIALIST IRELAND REPUBLICS UNITED EAST KINGDOM NETHER- LANDS PRUSSIA BELGIUM POLAND GERMANY LUXEMBOURG SLOVAKIA FRANCE SWITZ. HUNGARY ROMANIA ITALY B l a c k S e a YUGOSLAVIA PORTUGAL BULGARIA CORSICA IRAN SPAIN ALBANIA SARDINIA TURKEY GREECE M e d i t e SPANISH r r SICILY SYRIA MOROCCO a n e a CYPRUS IRAQ ALGERIA n LEBANON MALTA S e CRETE MOROCCO TUNISIA a PALESTINE Eu­rope, showing alliances as of 1939 signed a peace treaty with the Soviet Union that divided Poland between them, German forces stormed into Poland from the west while Soviet forces assaulted from the east. Hitler’s real intent was to secure his eastern flank against a Soviet threat while he assaulted Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, and, ultimately, France (intending to force Britain into neutrality). His ­grand plan then called for Germany to turn east and conquer the Soviet Union. Poland was quickly overcome, but ­because Britain and France had guaranteed Polish security, the invasion prompted a declaration of war: World War II had begun. In 1940, Hitler set his plans into motion and succeeded in a series of rapid con- quests, culminating in the defeat of France in May. In the late summer and fall, ­after being repeatedly rebuffed in its efforts to coerce Britain into neutrality, the Third Reich prepared to invade and the ­Battle of Britain ensued. Fought almost entirely in the air, Britain eventually won the ­battle with a combination of extreme courage, resourcefulness, and luck; and Hitler was forced to turn east with a hostile Britain at his back. In June 1941, the Third Reich undertook the most ambitious land invasion ESSIR7_CH02_020_069_11P.indd 42 6/14/16 10:02 AM  The Interwar Years and World War II   43 in history: Operation Barbarossa—­its long-­planned yet ill-­fated invasion of the Soviet Union. This surprise attack led the Soviet Union to join sides with Britain and France. The power of fascism—in German, Italian, and Japa­nese versions—­led to an uneasy alliance between the communist Soviet Union and the liberal United States, ­Great Britain, and France, among ­others (the Allies). That alliance sought to check the Axis powers (Germany, Italy, and Japan), by force if necessary. Thus, during World War II, ­those fighting against the Axis powers acted in unison, regardless of their ideological disagreements. At the end of the war in 1945, the Allies prevailed. Italy had already surrendered in September 1943, and the Third Reich and imperial Japan lay in ruins. In Eu­rope, the Soviet Union paid the highest price for the Third Reich’s aggression, and, with some justification, considered itself the victor in Eu­rope, with help from the United States and Britain. In the Pacific, the United States, China, and ­Korea paid the highest price for Japan’s aggression. With some justification, the United States considered itself the victor in the Pacific. Two other features of World War II demand attention as well. First, the Third Reich’s military invasion of Poland, the Baltic states, and the Soviet Union was followed by or­ga­nized killing teams whose sole aim was the mass murder of ­human beings, regardless of their support for, or re­sis­tance to, the German state. Jews in par­tic­u­lar ­were singled out, but Nazi policy extended to gypsies (now called Roma), communists, homosexuals, and even ethnic Germans born with ge­ne­tic defects such as a cleft palate or a club foot. In Germany, Poland, the Baltic states, Yugo­slavia, and the Soviet Union, persons on target lists w ­ ere forced to abandon their homes. Nazi captors forced ­these p ­ eople to work in forced-­labor camps ­under cruel conditions, then ­either slowly or rapidly murdered them. In East Asia, Japa­nese forces acted with simi- lar cruelty against Chinese, Viet­nam­ese, and Korean noncombatants. The Japa­nese often tortured victims or forced them to become subjects in gruesome experiments before murdering them. In many places, ­women w ­ ere forced into brothels, or “com- fort stations,” as Japa­nese rhe­toric of the day described them. The nearly unpre­ce­ dented brutality of the Axis powers against noncombatants in areas of occupation during the war led to war crimes tribunals and, ultimately, to a major new feature of international politics following the war: the Geneva Conventions of 1948 and 1949. ­These conventions—­which ­today have the force of international law—­formally crimi- nalized many abuses, including torture, murder, and food deprivation, all perpetrated against noncombatants in areas of German and Japa­nese occupation during World War II. The conventions are collectively known as international humanitarian law (IHL); however, b­ ecause enforcement is largely voluntary, their effectiveness has often been called into question. The Germans and Japa­nese w ­ ere not the only forces for whom race was a ­factor in World War II. As documented by John Dower in his book War without Mercy, U.S., British, and Australian forces fighting in the Pacific tended to view the Japa­nese as ESSIR7_CH02_020_069_11P.indd 43 6/14/16 10:02 AM  44  CHAPTER two H i s to r i c a l C o n t e x t o f I n t e r n at i o n a l R e l at i o n s “apes” or “monkey men.” As a result, they rarely took prisoners and ­were more com- fortable in undertaking massive strategic air assaults on Japa­nese cities. In the United States in 1942, citizens of Japa­nese descent w­ ere summarily deprived of their constitu- tional rights and interned for the duration of the war. In the Pacific theater, racism affected the conduct and strategies of armed forces on both sides.10 Second, although Germany surrendered unconditionally in May 1945, the war did not end ­until the Japa­nese surrender in August of that year. By this point in the war, Japan had no hope of winning. Japan had made it clear as early as January that it might be willing to surrender, so long as Allied forces did not try or imprison Emperor Hirohito. But the Allies had already agreed they would accept no less than uncondi- tional surrender, so Japan prepared for an invasion by U.S. and possibly Soviet forces, hoping that the threat of massive Allied casualties might yet win it a chance to pre- serve the emperor from trial and punishment. Instead, on August 6, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, and three days ­later, a second bomb on Nagasaki. The casualties ­were no greater than ­t hose experienced in fire-­bombings of major Japa­nese cities earlier that year. But the new weapon, combined with a Soviet declaration of war on Japan the same day as the Nagasaki bombing (and Japa­nese cal- culation that the emperor might be spared), led to Japan’s unconditional surrender on August 15, 1945. The end of World War II resulted in a major re­distribution of power. The victori- ous United States and Soviet Union emerged as the new world powers, though the USSR had been severely hurt by the war and remained eco­nom­ically crippled as com- pared to the United States. Yet what the USSR lacked in economic power, it gained from geopo­liti­cal proximity to the two places where the ­future of the international sys- tem would be deci­ded: Western Eu­rope and East Asia. The war