Part 2 : Research for a new world order since 1991
At the end of the Cold War in 1991, the collapse of the USSR Empire had two main consequences :
The first consequence is that the United States become the winners of the Cold War, without having
fought directly their opponent. We pass from a bipolar world to a unipolar world. The United States
became the only superpower, status which they exploit in 1991 during the Gulf War by obtaining
moreover the support of the previous republic of the USSR, which was two years previously their
sworn enemy.
The second consequence is the rise of the nationalisms (will for people to create their own state and to
protect their nation against presumed enemies) in Europe, what provokes multiplication of States in
Central and eastern Europe. But also multiplication of local conflicts notably in Russia (the Chechen
people in the Southwest which dashes from 1995 into a war for independence), war on Yugoslavia.
I The United States leading the world ?
A. The USA as the only superpower in the world.
Source 1: The World as seen by the United States as the turn of the century
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Source 2 : The current geopolitical organization of the world
Questions :
1. After the end of the Cold War, who is the master in the international relations ?
The end of the CW gave the USA the status of the first global power. It’s the first time in history that
international relations are directed such as this by one country. From that time, the USA have the
name of “superpower” or “hyperpower”, title given by the French minister of international affairs,
Hubert Vedrine.
2. Which are the various forms of intervention of the USA on the international scene between the
1990’s and nowadays? For what reasons? Are there changes between the end of the Cold War and
nowadays? Why?
Directly after the CW, the USA developed their interventions all over the world. But, they never acted
alone. They acted inside coalition they led and under the UN or NATO mandates. Indeed, during the
first Gulf War (1990-1991), the led a coalition composed of various countries: France, the UK, Russia,
and Saudi Arabia. They also gave forces for the international force created under NATO mandate to
make respect the Dayton peace agreement in Bosnia in 1995.
But, after 2001 and the terrorist attack on their territory (on the WTC and the Pentagon on September
11th 2001), they launched military operations without the UN consent, first in Afghanistan then in Iraq.
In these two countries, the USA decided to attack countries suspected to help or support terrorist
(Afghanistan was suspecting of helping Taliban and Al Qaeda, responsible from the terrorist attacks
on 9/11) or to attack countries under dictatorship and suspected of producing weapon of mass
destruction (that was the case in Iraq). Doing this, the USA developed preventive war. It has been their
principle mode of action since 2001.
Moreover, the end of he CW doesn’t end weapon proliferation. In 1998, Pakistan became a nuclear
power. North Korea is suspected to have the nuclear weapon. Iran is trying to obtain the technology in
order to manufacture the nuclear weapon. The question of proliferation of Nuclear weapon is another
stake all over the world and in the international relations.
B. The UN deprived in front of the US superpower?
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Source 1 : Dayton peace agreement on Bosnia Herzegovina
For the first time after four years of fighting in the former Yugoslavia, this agreement commits the
parties to end the war and to start building peace with justice. It represents our best hope for ending the
worst atrocities Europe has seen since the Second World War and out best opportunity to prevent a
wider and more terrible war in this volatile region of Europe.
The agreement enables Bosnia and Herzegovina to continue as a single state, with full respect for its
sovereignty by its neighbors. The parties have agreed to a constitution for Bosnia and Herzegovina
that creates effective federal institutions, including a Presidency, bicameral legislature, and a
Constitutional Court. The country will have a central bank with a single currency.
The agreement settles the territorial issues over which the war was fought. The Federation of Bosnia
and Herzegovina will administer 51% of the country's territory.
Sarajevo will be reunified within the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. It will be open to all the
people of the country. […] Free and democratic elections will be held throughout Bosnia and
Herzegovina next year. […] The agreement provides for the creation of a peace implementation force,
or IFOR, under the command of NATO, which is headed by a U.S. general and with a grant authority
of the UN. IFOR will monitor the cease-fire and separation of forces.
Fact sheet released by the Office of the Spokesman, November 21st, 1995
Source 2 : American intervention in Iraq
From The Economist, September 6th, 2003.
Source 3 : Why the UN is vulnerable
“Why, why the United Nations? They’re not the Americans”, cried out one horrified Iraqi journalist,
as he stared at the rubbled1 corner of the organization’s Baghdad headquarters. At least 20 UN
officials, Iraqi employees and others were killed on August 19th when an explosive-laden flatbed
1
Rubble = décombre
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truck2 was detonated, probably by a suicide bomber, by the compound’s wall. Among the dead was the
UN’s special representative, Sergio Vieira de Mello, who was meeting with colleagues in his office
when the bomb went off.
The Brazilian official declared that his top priority was to protect the Iraqi people under occupation.
He called for the UN, rather than the American-dominated coalition, to control Iraqi oil revenues.
The Canal hotel has housed UN weapons inspectors, which many Iraqi nationalists considered an
insult to their sovereignty. Although many Iraqis express revulsion at the bombing of the Jordanian
embassy and the UN headquarters, the two deeds undoubtedly serve the interests of the anti-coalition
fighters. Iraqis are reluctant to blame their compatriots.
The Economist, August 23rd, 2003.
1. What is the UN role after the Cold War?
With multiplication of states (194 members today instead of 125 in 1970) and the end of the CW, the
UN plays an important role in the international relations. It seems to be the case with the first Gulf
War in 1991 and with the help to people or with the signature of Dayton peace agreements. The UN
stands security for peace in the world and manages with diplomatic relations on world scale.
2. Which are its missions? How can it act?
With multiplication of local conflicts on Earth, its domain and locations of intervention still grow. It
intervenes more and more for civilians using the humanitarian interference right (it’s the right to enter
in an independent country to provide help to refugees or people in danger on the humanitarian plan).
It creates in 1998 the International Crime Tribunal in La-Haye (Netherlands) to judge people
convicted in genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. There were two chambers: one for
Rwanda (now closed) and one for Bosnia (still existing)
It has for mission to maintain peace and preserve the respect of human rights.
It creates resolution to manage with international conflicts (like in Darfour) or diplomatic problems. It
sends missions to maintain peace under the blue berets’ authority who can act on two scales:
- using force to separate belligerents like in Bosnia
- help and assistance to populations to rebuild like in Rwanda.
3. Is the UN the master of the situation and can it impose its own views?
Its political weight is very relative as the attitude of the United States during the 2nd Gulf War showed
it. It is not the boundless power expected by some people at the beginning of the 1990s. Nowadays, we
can see that the UN has problem to act on problems when the main countries of its security council
don’t pay attention on its resolution. Moreover, the UN don’t’ have enough soldiers to help everyone
and the actions of the blue berets are most of the time difficult because they don’t have the right to
fire, except for self defense.
More than that, next to the UN, other actors intervene to manage with international, humanitarian or
environmental problems, as the NGO like Greenpeace or the Red Cross, the anti-globalization
associations.
II The World facing new threats :
Source 1 : World peace or world of fear :
2
camion chargé d’explosifs
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Peter Nicholson, “Travel warning from mum”, cartoon published in The Australian Times, October 2th, 2002 (after Bali suicide Bombing).
Vocabulary : A jumper = a sweater ; APEC = Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation ; landmine = mine
anti-personnel ; Al Jazeera = a TV channel headquartered in Doha, Qatar.
Source 2 : George W. Bush lays down the principle on the war on terror.
Our nation will continue to be steadfast and patient and persistent in the pursuit of two great
objectives. First, we will shut down terrorist camps, disrupt terrorist plans, and bring terrorists to
justice. And, second, we must prevent the terrorists and regimes who seek chemical, biological or
nuclear weapons from threatening the United States and the world. […]
Some of these regimes have been pretty quiet since September the 11th. But we know their true
nature. North Korea is a regime arming with missiles and weapons of mass destruction, while starving
its citizens. Iran aggressively pursues these weapons and exports terror […]Iraq continues to flaunt its
hostility toward America and to support terror. […] States like these, and their terrorist allies,
constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world. By seeking weapons of mass
destruction, these regimes pose a grave and growing danger. They could provide these arms to
terrorists, giving them the means to match their hatred. They could attack our allies or attempt to
blackmail the United States. In any of these cases, the price of indifference would be catastrophic
Georges W. Bush, State of Union Address, January 29th, 2002
Vocabulary : Steadfast = firm ; to starve = to be hungry/ to make people hungry ; to flaunt = to
exhibit/display defiantly ; to blackmail = faire chanter.
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Source 3 : Nuclear scattering
North Korea’s reckless and provocative firing of missiles over the Sea of Japan has brought a stale but
unmistakable whiff of cold war days. […]
These manoeuvres break a moratorium on missile launches going back to 1999. They come too amidst
concern about the proliferation of missiles (some sold by North Korea to Iran and Pakistan) and the
alarming erosion of the global nuclear non-proliferation regime. In recent years India and Pakistan
have "crossed the threshold" to join Israel as nuclear weapons powers outside any legal framework.
Iran - a signatory to the non-proliferation treaty - is playing cat and mouse over its own nuclear
ambitions.
[…] [North Korea’s move’s] immediate effect will be counterproductive and is likely to strengthen the
hawks in Washington, Tokyo and Seoul. Aid from South Korea, such as rice and fertilizer, is likely to
dry up, worsening hunger in the north. Japan announced immediate punitive measures. But wider
sanctions, given China's aversion to backing them at the UN, and the parlous state of the North Korean
economy, are unlikely.
“Perspective on provocation”, The Guardian, July 6th, 2006.
Vocabulary : reckless = fearless ; stale = not fresh ; a whiff = smell ; to cross the threshold = to enter ;
to back = to support ; parlous = dangerous, precarious.
Source 4 : US Supremacy challenged
So, welcome to the new multipolar disorder - and farewell to the unipolar moment of apparently
unchallengeable American supremacy.
[…] This new multipolarity is the result of at least three trends. The first, and most familiar, is the rise
or revival of other states - China, India, Brazil, Russia as comeback kid - whose power resources
compete with those of the established powers of the west. The second is the growing power of nonstate actors. These are of widely differing kinds. They range from movements like Hamas, Hizbullah
and al-Qaeda, to non-governmental organisations like Greenpeace, from big energy corporations and
drug companies to regions and religions.
A third trend involves changes in the very currency of power. Developments in technologies with
violent potential mean that very small groups of people can challenge powerful established states,
whether by piloting an aeroplane into the World Trade Centre in New York, targeting a missile at
Haifa, taking on the US military in Iraq, bombing the London underground […]
The net effect of these very disparate trends is to reduce the relative power of established western
states, above all of the US. […]
Timothy Garton Ash, “Lebanon, North Korea, Russia … Here is the world’s new multipolar disorder”,
The Guardian, July 20th, 2006.
Vocabulary : the comeback kid = l’enfant prodigue ; the currency of power = la notion même de
pouvoir ; a trend = a tendency.
Questions:
1. Which are the new threats and the new challenges and stakes in the world nowadays?
There are several new threats in the world nowadays:
- terrorism first as the places mentioned in the cartoon show. Indeed, tall buildings, the pentagon,
the Middle East, Bali, Indonesia, Asia, Al Jazeera are all places where terrorists attacks occurred or
where terrorists group are supposed to be located. The mother also refers to the aspect and the means
used by terrorist when it talks about planes and Man with long bears.
Terrorism is also mentioned by G.W. Bush in the State of Union Address on 2002 when he said “we
will shut down terrorist camps, disrupt terrorist plans, and bring terrorists to justice. And, second, we
must prevent the terrorists and regimes who seek chemical, biological or nuclear weapons from
threatening the United States and the world”. The countries that protect terrorist are named the axis of
evil.
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By these words, G. W. Bush targets Islamism: Islamism, after having tried to take the power in the
Moslem worlds, today uses the way of the terrorism to destabilize the Westerners in particular the
United States. It derives towards the fundamentalism by trying to federate those who behind Bin
Laden appear as the defenders of a Moslem community victim of the disparities of wealth and a
cultural standardization on the western mode.
- Nuclear threat : since the end of the CW, we’ve assisted to a proliferation of the nuclear weapon.
At the end of the CW, a lot of countries expected that the nuclear weapon wouldn’t proliferate but it’s
not the case. The nuclear countries are numerous than ever with the entry of Pakistan, India, and North
Korea in the nuclear nations. Iran tries to realize it. We can see it on source 3 : “They come too amidst
concern about the proliferation of missiles (some sold by North Korea to Iran and Pakistan) and the
alarming erosion of the global nuclear non-proliferation regime” or on G.W. speech : “North Korea is
a regime arming with missiles and weapons of mass destruction, while starving its citizens” and “Iran
aggressively pursues these weapons”.
- Challenge on economic and technology : small groups could use new technologies to blast some
facilities. Non-state actors could be as strong as states at war like Hamas or Hezbollah or Al-Qaeda.
2. How do the nations react in front of these threats, and especially the USA ?
There are many kinds of reactions:
- sending troops under an international coalition : case in Afghanistan after September 11th, 2001
- sending troops to set up democracy and to wipe out regimes supporting terrorism : case of the war
on Iraq from 2003 to nowadays. That’s the new action of the USA: the preventive war.
- International resolution from the UN to embargo some countries because of their actions in front
of terrorism or nuclear weapons as on Iran or on North Korea => international pressures to make these
country react or to make them back.
- Developing some fear: see cartoon. Those fears are so developed that laws to control populations
were edicted in many countries such as in the USA. In the USA, in January 2002, the American
congress voted the Patriot act which authorized to arrest any people suspected from terrorism, to arrest
it and to put him in jail, without any form of trial and without any penalty time. This law also
authorized to search every car or house without mandate in case of suspicion of terrorism. This law is
completely opposed to the principle and inalienable rights mentioned in the American constitution of
1787.
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