States compete for many reasons, including control of territory, access to trade and resources, and influence over other states. To further their competitive goals, states may form alliances with other states. In recent years, violence and wars have increasingly been instigated by terrorist organizations not affiliated with particular states.
Key Issue 3: Why Do States Face Threats?
Global Cooperation & Competition The most important global forum for cooperation among states is the United Nations, created at the end of World War II by the victorious Allies. The early years of the U.N. were marked by competition and tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies.
The Cold War During the Cold War era, the United States and Soviet Union were the world’s two superpowers. To maintain strength in regions that were not contiguous to their own territory, the United States and Soviet Union established military bases in other countries. Both superpowers repeatedly demonstrated they would use military force if necessary to prevent an ally from becoming too independent. Before the Cold War, there were approximately eight great powers of equal strength and opposing alliances operating in a balance of power system. Because the power of the United States and Soviet Union was so much greater than the power of all other states, the world was divided into two camps, each under the influence of one of the superpowers.
Cuban Missile Crisis A major confrontation during the Cold War between the United States and Soviet Union came in 1962, when the Soviet Union covertly began to construct missile-launching sites in Cuba, less than 90 miles from U.S. territory. President John F. Kennedy appeared on television to demand that the missiles be removed, and he ordered a naval blockade to prevent additional Soviet material from reaching Cuba. At the U.N., immediately after the Soviet Ambassador denied these installations existed, U.S. Ambassador Adlai Stevenson dramatically revealed aerial photographs taken by the U.S. Department of Defense, showing that the missiles did in fact exist. Following this revelation, the missiles were removed. The United Nations The United Nations was organized in 1945 with 51 original members (49 sovereign states, plus Byelorussia and Ukraine). The number of U.N. members Byelorussia and Ukraine). The number of U.N. members reached 193 in 2011, The United Nations has provided a forum for the discussion of international problems. On occasion, the U.N. has intervened in conflicts between or within member states, authorizing military and peacekeeping actions. The U.N. seeks to promote international cooperation to address global economic problems, promote human rights, and provide humanitarian relief. The U.N. members can vote to establish a peacekeeping force and request states to contribute military forces. Any of the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, China, the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, and France, can veto a peacekeeping operation.
Governing States A state has two levels of government: a national government and local governments. At the national scale, a government can be more or less democratic. At the local scale, the national government can determine how much power to allocate to local governments.
National Scale: Regime Types A democracy is a country in which citizens elect leaders and can run for office. An autocracy is a country that is run according to the interests of the ruler rather than the people. An anocracy is country that is not fully democratic or fully autocratic, but rather displays a mix of the two types. Democracies and autocracies differ in three essential elements: selection of leaders, citizen participation, and checks and balances.
Local Scale: Unitary & Federal The internal governments of states are organized as either unitary or federal. The size of the territory of a state is not always a predictor of its form of government.
Unitary State A unitary state places most power in the hands of central government officials. Theoretically, the unitary government system works best in nation-states characterized by few internal cultural differences and a strong sense of national unity. Smaller states are also more likely to adopt a unitary government system. Unitary states are common in Europe, with France serving as an example.
Federal State A federal state allocates strong power to units of local government within the country. The federal system is more suitable for large states because the national capital may be too remote to provide effective control over isolated regions. Most of the world’s large states are federal, including Russia, Canada, the United States, Brazil, and India. In recent years, there has been a strong global trend toward federal governments facing the increasing demands of ethnicities seeking autonomy.
State Fragility The Fragile States Index measures the relative stability of every country in the world using the factors of the fairness of the legal system, youth unemployment, level of violence, and freedom to express diverse political views. The most fragile states are clustered in sub-Saharan Africa.
Weapons of Mass Destruction A weapon of mass destruction is a nuclear, biological, chemical or other weapon that can kill and bring significant harm to a large number of humans or cause great damage to human made structures, natural structures, or the biosphere. Even though originally applied to nuclear weapons, the category now includes biological and chemical attacks.
Nuclear Weapons During World War II, the United States in collaboration with Canada and the United Kingdom, developed nuclear weapons. Countries that have successfully detonated nuclear weapons include: the United States (1945), Soviet Union (1949), the United Kingdom (1952), France (1960), China (1964), India (1974), Pakistan (1998), and North Korea (2006). Israel is suspected to possess nuclear weapons. Countries not signing the treaty include India, Israel, Pakistan, and South Sudan. North Korea withdrew from the agreement in 2003 and is the world’s only country that continues to test nuclear weapons.
Suspect States include several states that have signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty but are suspected of pursuing the development of weapons of mass destruction. Most of these countries are clustered in Southwest Asia & North Africa.
Libya Muammar al- Gaddafi (1942–2011, ruler 1969–2011) created a nuclear weapons program which was abandoned in 2003.
Iraq Iraqi president Saddam Hussein (1937–2006, ruler 1979–2003) used chemical weapons against the Kurds and Iranians in the 1980s. Operation Desert Storm drove Iraq out of Kuwait and the U.N. located and destroyed Iraq’s stockpile of chemical weapons. In 2003 the U.S. led a second attack against Iraq and deposed Saddam Hussein. Iraq has been engaged in a long-running civil war that includes clashes between Shiites and Sunnis, the Kurds and the terrorist organization, the Islamic States.
Iran In 1979 the U.S. backed Shah of Iran abdicated during a revolution that brought a Shiite Muslim leader to power who then proclaimed Iran an Islamic republic. Fifty-two Americans were held hostage from 1979– 1981. Iran has aggressively pursued a nuclear program in recent years, causing tension between the country and much of the rest of the world. Iran maintains that the nuclear program is for civilian purposes, such as energy production, while other countries have evidence that it is meant to contribute to weapon development.
Syria Under the leadership of President Bashar al-Assad the government of Syria has employed chemical weapons during its civil war. Other nations have been unsuccessful in getting Syria to eliminate its stockpile of weapons.
Europe’s Fragile Cooperation During the Cold War that followed World War II, two military alliances and two economic alliances formed in Europe. In the twenty-first century, one of the military alliances and one of the economic alliances continues, whereas the other two have been disbanded.
Europe’s Economic Alliances Two economic alliances formed in Europe during the Cold War:
• European Union (EU). The EU (formerly known as the European Economic Community, the Common Market, and the European Community) formed in 1958 with six members. The EU was designed to catalyze cooperation in Europe in the wake of World War II.
• Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (COMECON). COMECON formed in 1949 with six members. COMECON was designed to enhance trade and sharing of natural resources in Communist Eastern Europe. Like the Warsaw Pact, COMECON dissolved in 1991
The European Union in the Twenty-first Century Economic cooperation has become increasingly important. The European Union expanded from 6 original countries to 28 today. The main task of the European Union is to promote development within the member states through economic and political cooperation. Goods move across borders without stopping and a citizen of an EU member state is permitted to work in other states.
The Eurozone A single bank, the European Central Bank, was given responsibility for setting interest rates and minimizing inflation in the eurozone. Most importantly, a common currency, the euro, was created for electronic transactions beginning in 1999 and in notes and coins beginning in 2002. Today 25 countries use the euro, including 19 EU members. European leaders bet that every country in the region would be stronger economically if it replaced its national currency with the euro. For the first few years that was the case, but the future of the euro has been called into question by the severe global recession that began in 2008. Economically strong countries, especially Germany, have been forced to subsidize the weaker states. Many European countries do not feel connected to the EU and many citizens in the United Kingdom voted to withdraw from the EU in 2019.
Europe’s Military Alliances After World War II, most European states joined one of two military alliances designed to maintain a bipolar balance of power in Europe The North Atlantic Treaty Alliance (NATO) or the Warsaw Pact.
NATO was a military alliance among 16 democratic states, including the United States and Canada plus 14 European states. For NATO allies, the principal objective was to prevent the Soviet Union from overrunning West Germany and other smaller countries. The Warsaw Pact was a military agreement among communist countries in Eastern Europe. The Warsaw Pact provided the Soviet Union with a buffer of allied states between it and Germany to discourage a third German invasion of the Soviet Union in the twentieth century. Today NATO includes 28 states and the Warsaw Pact has been disbanded.
Terrorist Attacks Against the United States The systematic use of violence by a non-state actor to attain a political, economic, religious, or social goal through fear, coercion, or intimidation is considered terrorism. In order to be considered terrorism an incident must meet certain criteria: the incident must be intentional, the result of planning and must entail some element of violence or threat of violence, including property damage as well as violence against people. Acts of terrorism by one state against another state are not included. Terrorist attacks differ from other forms of political violence, such as assassination, in that ordinary people are targeted in attacks rather than political leaders or military groups.
September 11, 2001, Attacks The most dramatic attack against the United States occurred on September 11, 2001. The twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, the two tallest buildings in the United States, were destroyed and the Pentagon was damaged. The attacks resulted in 2,977 civilian fatalities including those on the airplanes, in buildings, and on the ground.
Other Terrorist Attacks Against Americans The United States has suffered several terrorist attacks since 1988. Among the most destructive:
Lockerbie, Scotland, 1988. A terrorist bomb destroyed Pan Am Flight 103 en route from London to New York, killing all 259 aboard, plus 11 on the ground. Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi accepted responsibility for the bombing.
Oklahoma City, 1995. A car bomb killed 168 people in the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. Timothy McVeigh and Terry J. Nichols were convicted of the terrorist act.
Kenya and Tanzania, 1998. Truck bombs killed 133 in the U.S. embassy in Nairobi, Kenya and another 11 in the U.S., embassy in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. The bombings were ordered and carried out by al-Qaeda.
Orlando, 2016. A gunman killed 49 and injured 58 others in an attack in Pulse, a nightclub in Orlando, Florida. The suspect, a U.S. citizen born in the United States was killed at the nightclub.
Other attacks on sites in the United States are detailed in Figure 8-47, Terrorist Attacks in the United States.
Terrorist Organizations Some terrorist attacks are the work of one or two individuals who are not formally associated with terrorist organizations. However, most recent attacks have been carried out by members belonging to terrorist organizations. Al-Qaeda, the Islamic State, and Boko Haram are three prominent terrorist organizations from recent years.
Al-Qaeda Al-Qaeda is not a single unified organization and the number of people involved is unknown. The organization was founded by Osama bin Laden in 1988 to unite several groups of fighters in Afghanistan and other areas in Southwest Asia. In 1996, bin Laden issued a declaration of war, known as a fatwa, against the United States because of U.S. support for Saudi Arabia and Israel. The al-Qaeda network subsequently planned and coordinated the 9/11 attacks in 2001 on the World Trade Center. The deadliest attacks perpetrated by al-Qaeda since the 9/11 occurred in 2007 and 2011, both in Baghdad. Al-Qaeda’s most active affiliate has been in Yemen in recent years. In 2015, the Yemeni affiliate undertook the Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris. Today al-Qaeda is a decentralized organization with shared ideological goals, but without financial ties. Examine Figure 8-48, Terrorist Attacks with at Least 100 Fatalities, 2000–2017.
Boko Haram Boko Haram (Arabic for “Western education is forbidden”) was founded in 2002 in northeastern Nigeria. The organization seeks to impose their interpretation of Islamic law in Nigeria and opposes cultural practices of the West. Boko Haram has resorted to terrorist tactics in recent years.
Taliban The Taliban which means “religious students” gained power in Afghanistan in 1996. Once in control of the government the Taliban imposed very strict laws based on Islamic values as they interpreted them. The U.S.-led coalition overthrew the Taliban in 2001 and replaced it with a democratically elected government. But the Taliban has regained control of parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) The Islamic State, also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), originated in 1999 and became an affiliate of al-Qaeda in 2004. In 2014, ISIS split from al-Qaeda due to a lack of agreement on how to coordinate and consult with each other. Members of the Islamic State are Sunni Muslims who seek to impose strict religious laws throughout Southwest Asia. They have gained control of territory in northern Iraq and eastern Syria through human rights violations, such as beheadings, massacres, and torture. ISIS has found remarkable success in recruiting members on the Internet and social media, showing beheadings and destruction of sites of historical importance, such as Shiite Muslim shrines. ISIS has also launched attacks in Europe in 2015. Its control of Iraq has decreased from 40 percent in 2014 to 2 percent in 2018.
Distribution of World Terrorism The number of deaths from terrorism has increased from 5,000 in 2000 to 32,000 in 2014 before declining to 25,000 in 2016. Most of the terrorist incidents and fatalities have occurred in five countries: Iraq. Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nigeria, and Syria. The use of religion to justify attacks has posed challenges to Muslims and non-Muslims as they seek to distinguish between the principles and practices of Islam and the abuse of Islam by terrorist groups.
8.3
Anocracy A country that is not fully democratic or fully autocratic but rather displays a mix of the two types.
Autocracy A country that is run according to the interests of the ruler rather than the people.
Balance of power When competing forces (or countries) come to a level where no single one is strong enough to dominate the others
Balance of power A condition of roughly equal strength between opposing countries or alliances of countries.
cold war [lower case] A state of political hostility between countries characterized by threats short of open warfare
Cold War [upper case] The state of political hostility that existed between the Soviet Union and the US and their allies from 1945 to 1990
Democracy A form of government in which the ultimate power rests with the people through, usually through their elected representatives
Democratization When a government makes changes to give all citizens have a greater voice in the country
Federal state A country where the national government is strong and the regional governments are also strong so the share power
Monarchy A country ruled by a king or queen
Nationalism Loyalty to a nation even over allegiance to country, often seen as patriotism taken to an extreme
Nationality Identity with a group of people who share legal attachment to a particular country.
Nation-state A country where the vast majority of the people are of the same ethnicity (nationality)
Socialism An economic system in which trade and industry are partially collectively owned by the state and partially privately owned by individual citizens - partial control of the economy by the government
Terrorism Using violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims
Theocracy When a country is ruled by religious leaders
Unitary state A country where the national government is strong and the regional governments are weak
Weapon of mass destruction A nuclear, biological, chemical, or other weapon that can kill and bring significant harm to a large number of humans or cause great damage to human-made structures, natural structures, or the biosphere.
European Union (EU) A supranational organization in Europe that allows for free trade, freedom of movement between members states, and a common currency (the Euro)