ROBERT COOPER: THE POST-MODERN STATE AND THE WORLD ORDER

JONATHAN SMITH

4013R966-2

EUROPE AND ASIA CLASS

2013/11/18

CONTENTS

1. The old order 11. Dangers

2. Cold War order 12. Reflections

3. The new world order 13. World order apartheid

4. Pre-modern world 14. Intervention Problems

5. Modern world 15. The U.S.

6. Post-modern world 16. Can the EU go alone?

7. Post-modern state

8. Security implications

9. Security and the modern world

10.Security and the pre-modern world

THE OLD ORDER• 1648 – 1945

• Small European states competing with one another

• Balance of power

• Inherent instability

• Imposed on rest of world through empire

• Seeds of destruction sewn long before the end

• 1) German unification

• 2) Military technology

• 3) Rise of democracy

• Assumptions of hegemony

THE COLD WAR SYSTEM• Not really a new system

• Global balance of power logic

• Nuclear deterrence

• System not built to last

• War of ideas

NEW WORLD ORDER• 1989

• End of balance of power system in Europe

• Europe sought method of solving disputes

PRE-MODERN WORLD ORDER• Pre-state/post-imperial chaos

• State lost monopoly on legitimate use of force

• Either lost or taken away

• Imperial urge gone

MODERN WORLD ORDER• Classical state remains intact

• State sovereignty

• World of IR scholarship

• Balance of power still developing

• New states

POST-MODERN WORLD ORDER• Collapse of state system

• Failure of balance of power to ensure security

• Treaty of Rome

• Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty

• Balance and transparency

• Open governance revolution

• Key characteristics

POST-MODERN WORLD• Conquest of territory and population

unattractive• Why?• i) Disconnect between resources and prosperity • ii) Nationalism• Security through transparency, transparency

through integration• New way of seeing national interest• Who’s in the order? Europe, Canada. Japan?

Russia? US?

POST-MODERN STATE

• Pluralist, complex, de-centralised

• Not chaotic

• Individual value

SECURITY IMPLICATIONS• New world but no world order

• European zone of safety, outside zone of danger and chaos

• Threefold security policy needed

• Accompanied by threefold mindset

• No more absolutes

• Security within post-modern zone

SECURITY AND THE MODERN WORLD

• Possibility of joining post-modern system• Still playing by previous rules• Uncertainty• Wars against threats, not for principles• Danger of unity• Deliberate double standards• Cannot neglect defences

SECURITY AND PRE-MODERN WORLD• Rational response• Dangers of becoming actively involved• Rational but not realistic• Domestic sentiments• Liberal cosmopolitanism• Wide scope for humanitarian intervention• Halfway houses• Different set of rules

DANGERS FACING POST-MODERN STATE

1. Danger from pre-modern

2. Danger from modern

3. Danger from within

REFLECTIONS

WORLD ORDER APARTHEID

• How does a modern state become post-modern?

• Who could do it?

• When did this divide become inevitable?

INTERVENTION PROBLEMS• What an army is for

• Can relative goals sit with leading post-modern states’ self-image?

THE UNITED STATES

• Is it a post-modern state?

• Does European post-modernism depend on the U.S.?

INDEPENDENT EU

• Can the EU go alone?

• Double standards and compromises

• Post-modern imperialism?

• Possibility of backsliding?