Rise of the Modern Rise of the Modern State SystemState System

1900-1950

Outline

• 1900 – early part of the cold war.• Effects of WWI & Versailles• Rise of the Soviet Union• League of Nations – Western Europe• Isolationist State – United States• Post WWII Peace

Imperialism

WWI

• Major Restructuring of World Politics• The three dominant states that collapsed

were: Austro-Hungarian Empire, Ottoman Empire and the Russian Empire.

Russian Revolution

Lenin & Stalin• Russia & surrounding area:

Civil War 1917-1922

• Total Death Toll in WWI: 15 million• Russ Civil War: 10 million

• Soviet Union under Stalin: 20 million

Collective Security• League of Nations was created in 1919, following the Treaty of Versailles.• The hope of the envisioned collective security would protect individual

states and prevent secret treaties, which was one of the factors that caused WWI.

• The main problem in IR was war; war needed to be prevented.• The idea behind the League of Nations was that International cooperation

would promote peace.

• Political idealism dominated international politics.

• Issue of reparations: France and Britain wanted Germany to pay for the entire cost of the war.

• Both Britain and France was in debt to US due to costs of the war.• United States had not officially signed the League of Nations.

Peace after WWI

Post WWII Period

• Altered the distribution of power in the world.• The map of Europe changed during the “big three

conference” of Roosevelt, Stalin and Churchill at Yalta in 1945.

• Post WWII saw the recreation of states by the allied powers and the Soviet Union.

• The post war period saw emergence – United States and the Soviet Union as superpowers.

• European colonial powers had been weakened.

Yalta

Post WWII Realism

• By mid-twentieth century the balance of power had shifted from the European Colonial Powers to the Superpowers of the United States and the Soviet Union.

• A new kind of arms race began, new alliances were formed.

• North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) – the alliance of Western Europe and North America.

• However, it is interesting to note that the post war period also saw the creation of the United Nations.

• The twentieth century marks a period in history where we see the international struggle for power continue, but increasingly a need for international cooperation.