IB World Topics History
Diplomacy Summer Reading Questions
Chapter 1: The New World Order
1. Trace the controlling powers of international relations from the seventeenth century to the
predicted theme of the twenty-first century.
2. Kissinger uses America to refer to the United States, but explain why he’s mistaken in his
terminology usage.
3. Determine the conflict for the United States in foreign policy goals.
4. Compare and contrast European verses United States’ philosophy of internationalism.
5. Describe Kissinger’s predictions for diplomacy.
6. How does Kissinger define diplomacy?
Chapter 6: Realpolitik Turns on Itself*************
1. Describe Bismarck’s realpolitik and how it made Germany strong and weak internationally.
2. Explain how realpolitik of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire created nationalism in the Balkans,
Russia, and the Empire itself.
3. To what extent did realpolitik upset the traditional balance of power on the European Continent?
4. Analyze each of Bismarck’s goals of foreign policy towards France, Russia, Great Britain, and
Austria-Hungary.
5. Why and how did the Congress of Berlin in 1878 re-establish the balance of power and achieve
Bismarck’s realpolitik simultaneously?
6. Describe the relationship between Bismarck and Disraeli.
7. How did Bismarck’s reversal of foreign policy goals uphold realpolitik but then upset balance of
power?
8. In the 1880’s, to what extent did Bismarck’s position suffer under challenges and end realpolitik
and the balance of power in the Concert of Europe?
Chapter 7: A Political Doomsday Machine: European Diplomacy before the First World War
1. Explain why all European nations held the responsibility for starting the Great War?
 Germany
 Russia
 Great Britain
 Austrian-Hungarian Empire
 France
2. Discuss the conflict between Great Britain and Germany. How did the conflicts increase tensions
to start the Great War?
3. To what extent did the movement from realpolitik to Weltpolitik aid to increases tensions
between the Great Powers?
4. Evaluate the creation of the Triple Entente. Did the Entente’s creation solve to check growing
tensions or exacerbate tensions? Why or why not?
Chapter 8: Into the Vortex: The Military Machine
1. Explain the change to the meaning of casus belli at the start of the Great War?
2. Explain how militarism helped to start the actions of the Great War?
3. Describe the differences in the Von Schlieffen Plan verses the Von Moltke Plan. Highlight the pros
and cons of each of the plans.
4. Why was little to no voice against war on any of the diplomatic/political, social or military realms?
5. Trace how the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand diplomatically “sparked” the Great
War?
Chapter 9: The New Face of Diplomacy: Wilson and the Treaty of Versailles
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To what extent could peace never be achieved at the Paris Peace Conference?
Why was Germany vilified as a hegemonic threat by Europe?
Why did all the nations lose, including the United States, the Great War? Explain.
Why and how was Great Britain opposed to Wilsonianism?
Describe Wilsonianism’s conciliatory aims.
Explain France’s goals and aims at the Paris Peace Conference. How diametrically opposed to
Wilsonianism?
7. Explain why who attended and who did not attend aided in the Paris Peace Conference’s failure?
How did the guest list contribute to failure?
8. What were Wilson’s aims for the League of Nations? France’s? Great Britain’s?
9. What was the greatest failure of the Paris Peace Conference? Why? And how cause merely an
armistice for 20 years not lasting peace?
Chapter 10: The Dilemmas of the Victors
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Define collective security. Why or why not different from balance of power?
Why does collective security ultimately fail as a tool of diplomacy? Give at least 3 examples.
Explain why the Treaty of Versailles would only postpone Germany’s need for die Rache.
Why did Great Britain return to splendid isolation?
How did France pursue its goals against Germany even after the Treaty of Versailles adoption?
How potentially could the Allies have supported collective security? Why did the Allies fail to do
so?
7. To what extent did the Union of Soviet Republics (USSR) contribute to the failures of diplomacy
after the Great War?
8. How did Germany’s and the USSR’s diplomacy goals together and alone ultimately cause the
Second World War?
Chapter 11: Stresemann and the Re-emergence of the Vanquished***************
1. Why and how was 1923 the creation of the perfect storm between French, German and British
foreign relationships?
2. Explain Stresemann’s policy of fulfillment.
3. Why was the Treaty of Rapallo a terrific threat to Great Britain and France to alleviate some of
the provisions of the Treaty of Versailles?
4. Compare Stresemann’s policy of fulfillment with Bismarck’s policy of realpolitik.
5. Explain why the Locarno Agreement issued in the “Locarno Spring”.
6. After the Locarno Agreement, describe the foreign policy relationships of Europe.
7. How was the Locarno Agreement also a prelude to the Second World War?
8. Describe the Pact of Paris (Kellogg-Briand Pact) and its terms. How was the pact diplomatically
received by Great Britain, France, the United States, and Germany?
9. Trace how Stresemann used the League of Nations to Germany’s advantage.
10. Evaluate Stresemann’s legacy after his death.
11. Why did Stresemann’s death further the looming conflict of the Second World War?
Chapter 12: The End of Illusion: Hitler and the Destruction of Versailles
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Explain why Hitler’s rise in Germany should have been benign. Why wasn’t it?
Why did foreign powers also believe Hitler to be benign?
Evaluate whether or not Hitler’s early success was his own work or the riding of coattails.
Explain foreign nations’ policy of disarmament and its relationship to Hitler’s Germany.
What foreign policy goals was France pursuing and how?
Describe the USSR’s pivotal position in foreign policy during the 1930s.
Describe Italian diplomacy during the 1930s.
Describe British foreign policy failures during the 1930s.
To what extent did the League of Nations’ role of the 1930s create the causes of the Second World
War?
Why and how did the French and British diplomatic relationship fail to prevent the Second World
War?
Define the policy of appeasement.
Trace Hitler’s actions of 1937 and 1938. How were his actions acts of war? Why did those actions
not spark the Second World War?
Describe the Munich Conference.
Explain the impacts of the Munich Conference.
Chapter 13: Stalin’s Bazaar
1. Ideologically, why was Hitler’s and Stalin’s relationship diametrically opposed as well as
compatible?
2. How did Stalin view the USSR’s position in history?
3. Describe Stalin’s realpolitik policy.
4. Why was Stalin more distrusting of Hitler than the Western nations?
5. How did the Munich Conference impact Stalin’s foreign policy?
6. Explain how Stalin’s actions after Munich and Hitler’s actions of 1938 forced Great Britain to reevaluate the policy of appeasement.
7. Explain Poland’s position in foreign policy goals.
8. Which goal was more important to Hitler, British non-interference in continental affairs or
Lebensraum? Which did Hitler choose to pursue first? Why?
Chapter 14: The Nazi-Soviet Pact******************
1. How did the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact (Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact) illustrate realpolitik at
the policy’s finest?
2. Describe the secret provisions of the Nazi-Soviet Pact?
3. Why and how did Hitler flounder in his foreign policy goals after the routing of France?
4. Describe Stalin’s reaction to Hitler’s choice.
5. How did Ribbentrop and Molotov try to achieve each of their leaders’ foreign policy goals?
6. Why was the invasion of the USSR a foregone conclusion by the end of 1940? From Hitler’s point
of view? From Stalin’s?
Chapter 15: America Re-enters the Arena: Franklin Delano Roosevelt
1. Describe why Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s (FDR) presidency knew that the United States must reenter the international arena.
2. Describe the United States’ isolationist policy of the 1920s.
3. Compare and contrast isolationism in the East (Asian sphere) verses in the West (European
sphere).
4. Evaluate why the Neutrality Acts were passed and how the acts failed to prevent the United
States’ entrance into global diplomacy.
5. How did FDR slowly place the United States’ public in the mindset of global involvement?
6. Describe the contributions to FDR’s foreign policy of Stimson, Hull and Bullitt.
7. Why after the Neutrality Act of 1939 was the United States not neutral anymore?
8. Describe how the Lend-Lease Act of 1941 furthered FDR’s entry into the European theatre of the
Second World War.
9. To what extent did the Atlantic Charter shape the Second World War and its aftermath?
10. Why was the United States’ entrance into the Second World War as sudden not factual?
Chapter 16: Three Approaches to Peace: Roosevelt, Stalin, and Churchill in World War II
1. Explain Roosevelt’s, Stalin’s and Churchill’s (the Big Three) goals for the post-World War globe.
2. Why would each of the Big Three’s foreign policy goals vastly underestimate each other’s
commitments to realpolitik?
3. Compare and contrast the post-world war European Theatre vision verses the post-world war
Pacific Theatre vision.
4. Why and how did Stalin have the upper hand in the negotiations for the postwar world?
5. Describe the foreign policy goals of the Big Three at Tehran. At Yalta?
6. After Yalta, who of the Big Three won their nation’s goals? Why?
7. Explain China’s role in the postwar world. Why was China’s role not feasible?
8. To what extent could peace achieved after the Second World War?
***************Mark extremely important chapters!!!!! Please read with great care!!!!!!!!