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 dominated by the start of the Cold War era (late 1940s until the early 1990s), a period of competition and tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies. Recent events have revived some elements of the Cold War rivalry.

The Cold War

During the Cold War era, the United States and the Soviet Union were the world’s two superpowers. As very large states, both superpowers could quickly deploy armed forces in different regions of the world. To maintain strength in regions that were not contiguous to their own territory, the United States and the Soviet Union established military bases in other countries. From these bases, ground and air support were in proximity to local areas of conflict. Naval fleets patrolled the major bodies of water.

Both superpowers repeatedly demonstrated that they would use military force if necessary to prevent an ally from becoming too independent. The Soviet Union sent its armies into Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968 to install more sympathetic governments. Because those states were clearly within the orbit of the Soviet Union, the United States chose not to intervene militarily. Similarly, the United States sent troops to the Dominican Republic in 1965, Grenada in 1983, and Panama in 1989 to ensure that those countries would remain allies.

Before the Cold War, the world typically contained more than two superpowers. For example, before the outbreak of World War I in the early twentieth century, there were eight great powers: Austria, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. When a large number of states ranked as great powers of approximately equal strength, no single state could dominate. Instead, major powers joined together to form temporary alliances. A condition of roughly equal strength between opposing alliances is known as a balance of power.

During the Cold War, the balance of power was bipolar between the United States and the Soviet Union. Because the power of these two states was so much greater than the power of all other states, the world comprised two camps, each under the influence of one of the superpowers. Other states lost the ability to tip the scales significantly in favor of one or the other superpower. They were relegated to a new role of either ally or satellite.

Cuban Missile Crisis

A major confrontation during the Cold War between the United States and Soviet Union came in 1962, when the Soviet Union secretly began to construct missile-launching sites in Cuba, less than 150 kilometers (90 miles) from U.S. territory. President John F. Kennedy went on TV 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., after Soviet Ambassador Valerian Zorin denied that his country had placed missiles in Cuba, U.S. Ambassador Adlai Stevenson dramatically revealed U.S. Department of Defense aerial photographs clearly showing preparations for them (Figure 8-31). Faced with irrefutable evidence that the missiles existed, the Soviet Union ended the crisis by dismantling them.

Cuban Missile Crisis

Aerial photographs show the Soviet buildup in Cuba in 1962. (a) Soviet ships unload missile equipment at Mariel naval port. (b) Soviet missile transporters, fuel trailers, and oxidizer trailers, which are used for the combustion of missile fuel.

The United Nations

The United Nations was organized in 1945 with 51 original members, including 49 sovereign states plus Byelorussia (now Belarus) and Ukraine, then part of the Soviet Union. The number of U.N. members reached 193 in 2011 (Figure 8-32). The U.N. membership has increased rapidly on three occasions:

• 1955. Sixteen countries joined in 1955, mostly European countries that had been liberated from Nazi Germany during World War II.

• 1960. Seventeen new members were added in 1960, all but one a former African colony of Britain or France. Only four African states were original members of the United Nations—Egypt, Ethiopia, Liberia, and South Africa—and only six more joined during the 1950s.

• 1990–1993. Twenty-six countries were added between 1990 and 1993, primarily due to the breakup of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia. U.N. membership also increased in the 1990s because of the admission of several microstates.

Growth in U.N. Membership

U.N. membership has increased from its original 51 to 193.

The United Nations was not the world’s first attempt at international peacemaking. The U.N. replaced an earlier organization known as the League of Nations, which was established after World War I. The League of Nations was never an effective peacekeeping organization. The United States did not join it, despite the fact that President Woodrow Wilson initiated the idea, because the U.S. Senate refused to ratify the membership treaty. By the 1930s, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the Soviet Union had all withdrawn, and the League of Nations could not stop aggression by these states against neighboring countries.

On occasion, the U.N. has intervened in conflicts between or within member states, authorizing military and peacekeeping actions. U.N. members can vote to establish a peacekeeping force and request that states contribute military forces (Figure 8-33). The U.N. is playing an important role in trying to separate warring groups in a number of regions, especially in Eastern Europe, Central and Southwest Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa.

United Nations Peacekeepers From China on Patrol in South Sudan

Because it must rely on individual countries to supply troops, the U.N. often lacks enough of them to keep peace effectively. The U.N. tries to maintain strict neutrality in separating warring factions, but this has proved difficult in places such as Bosnia & Herzegovina, where most of the world sees two ethnicities (Bosnia’s Serbs and Croats) as aggressors undertaking ethnic cleansing against weaker victims (Bosniaks), as discussed in Chapter 7.

However, any one of the five permanent members of the Security Council—China, France, Russia (formerly the Soviet Union), the United Kingdom, and the United States—can veto a peacekeeping operation. During the Cold War era, the United States and the Soviet Union used the veto to prevent undesired U.N. intervention, and it was only after the Soviet Union’s delegate walked out of a Security Council meeting in 1950 that the U.N. voted to send troops to support South Korea. More recently, the opposition of China and Russia has made it difficult for the international community to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons.

Despite its shortcomings, though, the U.N. represents a forum where, during this era of rapid changes in states and their relationships, for the first time in history virtually all states of the world can meet and vote on issues without resorting to war. More importantly, the U.N. has played a major role in the promotion of international cooperation to address global economic problems, promote human rights, and provide humanitarian relief.

Pause & Reflect 8.3.1

Why have only a small handful of states joined the U.N. since 2000?