POLI/
Exam 2: Spring 2024
Bill Newmann
The exam format will be the same as the previous exam: 65 multiple-choice questions
Terms that are preceded by an asterisk (*) are dealt with in the readings.
See also the two other reviews linked to the syllabus:
Things from the first exam that you should know; and
The Reading Guidelines for Singer and Brooking
List of Terms:
Review the PPT slides in the Intro to Security slideshow
The important aspects here are the computer revolution and the early conclusions of the new era.
War and Peace:
*Clausewitz major premise about war and politics: war
is politics. Nation-states seek political gain; they want territory; they want
to push around other states; they want power; they want to weaken rivals.
Sometimes they decide that violence is the best way to achieve those goals. In
that case, they choose war. (See Haass)
General reasons “Why War?”: See the PPT slide on this.
Anything that nations can disagree about. One or both nations may decide that
they can settle those disagreements best through violence. Even more simple: You have stuff; I want your
stuff (List of the type of stuff nations fight over – on the PPT slide)
Five Theories
This is new: Let’s say you’re studying for the second
exam, and you want to make sure you have all the information you need. You also
want to make sure you’ve got a good handle on the differences between each of
the theories. You can make a table for the comparisons. You can do this for any
comparisons you have to make n any class.
Here’s what I mean. In the first column, you will list the theories. In
the top of the second and third column, you will have the categories for
comparison (cause of war; cause of peace).
Then for each theory in the first column, you can write the cause of war
and cause of peace in the second and third columns. It’s a nice shorthand for comparing things
that you can use to study. I added the
comparison for the first two theories.
|
Theory |
Cause of War |
Cause of Peace |
|
Human Nature |
Human nature is
flawed, greedy, insecure, forming rivalries. The nation-states we crate will
be the same. Hobbes. |
Humans can
learn that cooperation is better than conflict. Rousseau. |
|
Balance of
Power |
War = imbalance
of power |
Peace = balance
of power |
|
Long Cycle
Theory |
|
|
|
Nuclear
Revolution |
|
|
|
Interdependence |
|
|
1.Human Nature:
Thomas Hobbes on why we have war: Hobbes argued that the nation-states we create reflect our own human nature. Not a pretty picture. Human beings are flawed. We’re insecure, greedy, trying to be more powerful; we can be bullies. If that’s the way we are, then that’s the way our nation-states will be. Sounds like Hobbes is a Realist. He’s one of the fathers of Realism.
How do we get peace? Someone rules over everyone else: To Hobbes, the only path to peace is one nation-state ruling over all the others. Someone wins the war, and then makes the rules and enforces them. That winner who imposes peace might be called the Leviathan.
Rousseau on why we can learn peace: cooperation can be
more beneficial than conflict: Human nature is flawed, but humans can learn.
One of the things they can learn is that they can learn is that cooperation is
more beneficial than conflict, that conflict can be too destructive, that there
must be a better way to solve problems than through violence.
How Europe learned to have peace: Europe learned that
cooperation was better than conflict (according to this theory) because it
fought the two most destructive wars in world history (WW I and WW II). The
leaders of Europe learned that they either have to work together, cooperate,
even give up some aspects of their sovereignty to European-wide organizations,
or fight WW III. Conflict was simply too
destructive. But it took two world wars and over 100 million deaths for them to
learn that.
European Union: The solution was to create
something almost like the United States of Europe. Currently there are 27
nations in the EU. The EU was formally
created in 1993, but other European organizations that unified nations in
Europe began to form in the 1950s.
The reason for unification and the extent of unification:
The reason for unification is as stated above – a belief among European
leaders that unless they unify in a meaningful way, they will continue to be
rivals, fearing each another, competing for power, and eventually going to war. The extent of the unification: a European
parliament, a European-wide bureaucracy that makes European-wide rules, a
European court, a common currency, and even a European flag. Nations have given up some of their
sovereignty to these European-wide organizations. Organizations that are region-wide like this
are often called “supranational” (I didn’t mention this is class, but it’s a
useful word).
*2. Balance of Power: Realism:
Number of poles of power: This number matters. How
many powerful states are there? That tells you the shape or structure of the
system.
*War caused by imbalance of power: War is caused when
one nation is so much more powerful than the other powerful nations that it
believes it can win a war against its rivals. The nation may be wrong about
that, but it still might start a war if it believes it can win a war.
WW I caused by an imbalance of power: We talked about
this in the earlier section on the evolution of the international system. One
of the explanations for WW I is that Germany grew so powerful it thought it was
the equal of England. Then when England tried to balance against Germany
(siding with Russia and France during crises), Germany was not impressed. It
thought it could go head-to-head to England and win. German perception that it
had an advantage (an imbalance of power) led to war.
*Peace achieved through stable balance of power: Peace
is caused when both sides in a rivalry feel they are equally matched. No one
thinks they can win a war against their rival, so no one starts a war. As we
talked about in the first section of the class, the old Concert of Europe
worked because England always sided with the defender, so the defender was
equal to any aggressor that might challenge the other powerful nations in
Europe.
Concert of Europe and England’s role: This just refers
to that system mentioned in the first section of the class and in the above two
examples. 1815-1914: England, France, Russia, Prussia/Germany, Austria-Hungary.
See the slide with the balance of power diagram on it. England sided with the defender.
Cold War balance of power: The PPT slide shows the
cold war balance of power that we discussed in the first section of the class.
Here the US and USSR were gaining allies on their sides to make sure that they
and their allies were roughly equal to their opponents, splitting nations in
half, aiding different sides in civil wars, always to maintain roughly equal
power. All of this was done in the
belief that convincing your opponent that you had roughly equal power would
prevent war.
Bipolarity after the Cold War: what might that look like?
See the PPT slides. There is a lot of speculation on this, but most people
believe that the emerging global balance of power is between the US and
China. Russia is an ally of China. India may be an ally of the US. An alternate
possibility is that the US-China rivalry allows India to play the role of
balancer. India may choose not to side with the US and instead act as the
nation that sides with the defender in every crisis, and acts as the
communication channel between the US and China when the two nations face a
crisis. In this case, India provides the
balance.
China’s claims in the South China Sea: The Nine-Dash Line (see the PPT on
China’s Rising Power; it’s on the map). China
claims almost the entire South China Sea. The nine-dash line is the outline of
those claims. But that means China is claiming territorial waters that under
international law belong to other nation-states in the region: Philippines,
Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, Singapore. If China’s claims are valid, it owns the
oil and natural gas that may be in the seabed of the South China Sea, and has
the rights to all minerals there, and has the right to fish in the entire South
China Sea. None of the other nations have any rights to any resources in the
South China Sea. Obviously, all the other nations who have claims in the South
China Sea, think China’s claims are absolutely wrong. China has been building naval bases and air
bases in the region (in the Paracel and Spratly Islands to enforce its clams),
and there have been small military clashes between China and Vietnam and China
and the Philippines.
Balancing with or Bandwagoning against a rising power: The
above term relates to balancing and Bandwagoning. Balancing is an attempt to oppose a rising
power. The rising power is seen as a
threat to the stability of the system. It wants to change things. China is the rising power in East Asia, and the
South China Sea claims look like an attempt to assert power and bully the other
nations in the region. Bandwagoning is
siding with the rising power., Nations may believe that the rising power is the
future, and the old system (with some other nation in charge) is the past. In the context of East Asia, China is the
rising power, so will nations bandwagon?
Or will they balance by siding with the US, the nation that has been
dominant in Asia and the nation that seems to want to contain the spread of
China’s influence? The sense that China
is being a bully in the South China Sea and the Russian invasion of Ukraine
have led to a lot of balancing behavior by nations in the region, efforts by
the nations in the region to strengthen their ties with the US and each
other. The Biden administration has
firmed up US alliances and even signed new agreements with nations in the
region: Australia, Japan, South Korea, Philippines, Singapore, Vietnam, even
India. For example, Japan pledged to
double its defense spending in response to the Russian invasion of
Ukraine. That’s a nightmare for China. Japan and South Korea even held a trilateral
summit with the US as a part of the response to China’s actions. The thinking is this: China supported the
Russian invasion of Ukraine (the Joint Declaration by Russia and China was a
few weeks before the Russian invasion). If the world allowed Ukraine to be
swallowed by Russia, and didn’t try to help Ukraine, maybe the world would also
fail to act if China invaded Taiwan or seized islands in the South China Sea by
force. The response is a balance of power response – nations around the world
joining forces to show China and Russia that they form a powerful bloc that
will balance against Russian aggression and potential Chinese aggression.
*There is a good discussion of Alliances in the Haass book
3. *Power Transition/Long Cycle Theory: Realism:
Peace imposed by a dominant power: Peace = imbalance of power
War caused by challenges to that dominant power: War = balance of power
The 100-year cycle of war and peace
Implications (US decline?)
*US hegemonic power (American Dominance)
*China as the rising challenger?
4. Nuclear Revolution
Peace caused by the fear of nuclear weapons
*Nuclear deterrence
War caused by irrational, outlaw states: Can they be deterred?
Iraq under Saddam Hussein, Iran, North Korea
5. Interdependence: Idealism:
Global Economic Marketplace as cause of peace
Free Trade
Interdependence
war caused by outsiders, non-free traders, closed economies
Growth in world trade since WW II
*From Haass: Preventive War vs. Preemptive War
International Organizations
Transnationalism defined
Intergovernmental Organizations (IGOs)
The way nations cooperate
As representative organizations
Organizations that have rules for nation-states to follow
Organizations that provide benefits for member states
growth of IGOs
Global IGOs and Regional IGOs
League of Nations failure
United Nations
UN Charter
UN does not replace nation-state sovereignty (Article 2)
Non-interference in domestic affairs
UN General Assembly
Equality of members states in in UNGA
Trends in UN membership and why was there an increase since 1945
Powerful nations are outnumbered by poorer and weaker nations
50% plus one to pass a resolution
UN Security Council
voting procedures
Permanent 5
veto
Collective Security
Chapter 7 of the UN Charter
Collective Security during the Cold War: No consensus at the UNSC
Korean War Collective Security (1950-1953)
*Collective security after the Cold War: the Persian Gulf War
UN Secretary General
responsibilities
selection
Antonio Guterres
Secretariat
Nationalism,
Ethno-Nationalist Conflict, and the UN
Definition of Nationalism
state (territorial entity)
government: type and regime
nation
Interaction among characteristics (nation-state fit)
nation-state fit and nationalism
*Ethno-nationalist wars
*Most wars today: ethno-nationalist wars, not wars between nation-states
Examples of poor nation-state fit leading to civil wars
Good leadership: no ethnonationalist wars
Chapter 6 and its areas of concern
Peacekeeping Operations (PKO)
Types of operations in PKO
Buffer/interpositioning missions
*R2P and sovereignty
Test Case: Somalia 1992-1995 (success or failure)
Rwanda 1994
NGOs
Definition
Good News
Lobbying and action-oriented NGOs
Human Rights Watch
International Campaign to Ban Land Mines
NGOs: The Bad News
Terrorism
*Not foreign; not new
Terrorism from every ideology
Acceleration of Terrorism since 1990s
*Definitions of terrorism: (See Haass)
Political
Terrorism is a strategy
violence to achieve a political agenda
to show power (realist explanation)
aimed at civilians
A weapon of the weaker
Terrorist’s needs and How globalization makes terrorism easier
Social Media and
Conflict and IR
Traditional: Government power over communication and media
censorship and silencing of dissent
New Era: Governments now have rivals
Power of organizations and people to communicate: information and propaganda
Early ideas of digital era: the web would set us all free
Tahrir Square and Arab Uprising
Authoritarian states would fade
New Reality: world is an information battlefield
Big players
And LYING
*Social media as propaganda
Attention Economy and what gets attention
Birthers and Trump emergence as political factor
*Competition to control narrative, to define reality
Social media creates reality bubbles/echo chambers
The Big Lie and its impact on US politics
Moynihan argument
*Ukraine 2014/2022
How easy is it? North Korean Flag in the Professor’s Office!!!!! And Fact Checking Sites