Today

1. Today • Updates: Kenya and Chad • Simulation: your country assignments • The Cold War, 1948-1989/91 • Causes of the Cold War • Cuban Missile Crisis • The Victims of the Cold War: Africa, Asia, Latin America • End of Cold War

2. Levels of analysis • Where causes are found: • International level of analysis – third image • Domestic level of analysis – second image • Individual level of analysis – first image

3. Realism • Neorealism or defensive realism • International level/third image • Anarchy as a structure of international politics • Power as a means to security • Classical realism or offensive realism • Individual level/first image • Human nature • Power as an end in itself

4. Liberal Institutionalism • Institutionalism • International level/third image • Interdependence • Liberalism • Domestic level/second image • Business and other interest groups

5. Identity/Idealism • Identity perspective • Focuses on how identities shape global politics • Idealism • Role of ideas and norms • Constructivism • Focuses on how actors perceive of their environment • Transnationalism • Role of NGOs/across all levels of analysis

6. Keenan’s ‘long telegram’ Six points (written in 1946, Nau, p. 118/9) • Soviet Union was confrontational. • Insecurity drives Soviet aggression and expansion. • Soviet Union will expand its power globally. • Soviet Union will seek allies abroad. • US must contain Soviet expansion. • Victory will depend on improving U.S. society (civil rights), not on spreading our democratic ideas. • Which theory is closest to Keenan’s view?

7. What caused the Cold War?

8. Realist account of the Cold War Structural explanation (systemic/third/international level of analysis) • The power vacuum in Europe after WWII created a security dilemma and forced both nations to enter an arms race. • Classical/offensive realism (Nau, p. 121): • Communism as a global ideology • Capitalism as a global ideology

9. Adding nuclear weapons • MAD – Mutually Assured Destruction • The Cuban Missile Crisis • Soviet Union: Cuba as the equivalent of Western Europe (close to the enemy territory) • Soviet Union: Trading Berlin for Cuba • Nuclear weapons transform world politics by focusing attention on credibility, rather than ability. Risk of total destruction increases. • Why the crisis ended • Realism: because the US threatened credibly with total destruction. • Liberal institutionalism: trade of interests (Turkey) • Identity/Idealism: pure luck that both sides came to their senses

10. Why did the Cold War end (peacefully)?

11. Adding Identity • World politics is not just about material capabilities, rational interest calculation, and economic interdependence. • A struggle for the values of common humanity • Common human survival in the face of nuclear destruction • Fundamental struggle between capitalism and socialism • What ended the Cold War? • Emerging common framework of understanding • Gorbachev factor: shift in ideologies