The course aims to introduce the key assumptions of the international relations theory as a part of social science and as an analytic tool, focusing on the problems of war and peace, foreign policy decision-making, etc. The course combines historic approach and analysis of the modern political problems. The historic part shows the evolution of the international relations theory from being a part of political philosophy to its emergence as a special branch of political science, which is essential to understand the key ideas of the IR science. The lectures also include broad outline of the modern concepts and debates in the context of the contemporary political problems, such as rise of China and other emerging powers, threat of terrorism, US-Russia confrontation, etc. The lectures of the two outstanding Russian scholars and political analysts – Timofey Bordachev and Dmitry Suslov - cover such fields as the problems of international security and conflict resolution, international economic relations, foreign policy decision-making, global governance, the role of power in the IR.
Decline of the post-WWI order
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Understanding International Relations Theory
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National Research University Higher School of Economics
50 classificações
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The beginning: the World Wars and genesis of the IR science
Since the very beginning the development of political thought was hugely stimulated by wars. In the first half of the XX century the question of war and peace became critical for survival of our civilisation. The module introduces to the great debates between the two grand paradigms during the World Wars and explains how the first scientific theories emerged from these debates.
Conheça os instrutores
Timofei BordachevAssociate professor
Department of international relations
Dmitrii SuslovSenior Lecturer
Department of international relations, HSE
The liberal idealist approach to the international relations and
the recipes which liberal idealists proposed were basically ideal,
and might be an ideal solution for the international community.
But most unfortunately, these bright ideas
faced the very very harsh reality of international politics.
States, by that time,
have never been so idealistic as something else.
Statesman of France, Britain,
some other nations, have not been thinking about their humanity,
have not been thinking about how to make the peace prominent and permanent,
they have been thinking about how to maximalize the achievements and
the gains they could receive after the victory against Germany,
and allies of Germany.
However, the Treaty of Versailles was considered to become liberal triumph.
Formally, it was based on the 14 points.
It has encouraged the independence of new nations.
It has endorsed the establishment of
the League of Nations and many many other very good things.
But, however, during the negotiations in Paris,
most of Wilson's proposals were hugely revised or even rejected.
European powers, first of all France and Britain,
were less interested in establishing of an ideal international order,
but focused on their national interests and security considerations.
British and French politicians,
as well as their smallest supporters in Greece,
Yugoslavia, and some Eastern European countries,
they have not been thinking about how to make this world better.
They have been thinking about how to get more land.
They have been thinking about how to get
more concessions from those who started the Great War and lost the Great War,
they have been thinking about the territories.
Unlike those who created the Versaillian order,
those who made the Treaty of Versailles,
have been concerned with the rules of the game,
but even unlike those who made a piece of [inaudible] one century before, in 1815,
they have not been thinking about how to
create the new rules which will govern their relationships,
which will structure the relationships.
They have been thinking about very very simplistic things,
primarily, territories and money.
Moreover, in the end,
Wilson was defeated even at home, in his native,
United States of America, the Congress,
American Parliament, refused to ratify the treaty.
As a result, the United States,
the victorious party of the war did not become a member of League of Nations,
nor of the post war European order.
The final agreement went far away from the idealist program,
combining interests of great powers with some liberal minor adjustments.
First of all, German army was reduced to 100,000 of personnel.
German navy was allowed to have only six ships, and no submarines.
It was decided to demilitarize Rhineland,
the territory between France and Germany,
and the major economic and industrial part of Germany.
Later on, France even intervened,
even sent the troops to some parts of the Rhineland when Germany was
not physically capable to pay all their enormous reparations.
These war reparations amounted to about 30 billion of U.S Dollars,
and remember that time,
US dollars had much more value than it has now.
The other territorial transfers primarily in eastern Europe,
were also supported by the Versailles order and by the Versailles treaty.
The several new countries emerged like Czechoslovakia, New Yugoslavia, Poland,
Finland, on the ruins of Austria-Hungary,
German Empire, and the Russian Empire.
The other point was, there were distribution of colonial possessions.
France and Britain have taken over all colonial possessions,
all those territories which they have considered to be colonies,
from Turkey, Germany, Austria-Hungary.
Well, Austria-Hungary did not have actually enough,
or it didn't have at all,
any colonial possessions, but still.
So, but all the territories of Turkey and
Germany had been taken by the winners of this war.
In some cases, they have taken these territories directly
as their new colonies to France,
Britain, or even Tiny Belgium.
In other cases, they declared the sort of
the independence dominance of states under their protection.
But of course, everybody understood, that it means nothing.
It means that the winners take what belonged to the losers.
And the last but not least,
Versailles order and Versailles treaty established the League of Nations.
The decline of Versailles order arrived very very soon after it had emerged.
As a result of these decisions,
the post World War one international order from the very beginning,
had several critical weak points.
First weak point, mis-balance of power.
Some countries, first of all France and Britain,
have been very very powerful.
They managed to keep,
and they increased their military strength after the First World War,
as some countries were terribly deprived,
like Germany, but also communist Russia and Italy,
which was the winner of the First World War,
but still did not receive what it has been thinking it's due to receive.
One of the results, was the rise of the German revanchism.
During 1920s, Germany suffered terrible economic disaster.
German economy was ruined.
German people suffered from the consequences of the defeat.
Germany paid terribly big reparations to the winners.
And German revanchism and German desire to reconsider the results of the First World War,
have been also the natural consequence of
the unfair decisions within their assigned international border.
Two major powers, USSR and
United States of America were not involved in the established order.
Because first of fall,
the Western European countries did not recognize USSR for a long time,
and the United States just wanted to join it by their own will.
As we remember, the US Congress did not vote to join the League of Nations.
As a result, League of Nations,
this presumably ideal international body has been paralyzed.
Decline of the Versailles order consisted
the several other very important characteristics.
The main reason for this decline was again,
change in distribution of power and numerous miscalculations of political leaders.
First of all, defeated Germany was not integrated into the new international order.
For example, like France after Napoleonic War,
or the Holy Roman Empire after the thirty years war,
it was a major mistake.
Germany was integrated into western international order by the way,
after the Second World War,
but in Paris in 1919,
the allies, France and Britain first of all,
made this terrible mistake.
Germany was robbed, put under huge reparations and left aside,
but at the same time,
Germany was not fully eliminated and Germany
kept all potential for the rise and for the revanchism.
And the contradictions which gave a way to the First World War,
emerged again in even more brutal and dangerous form.
It allows some researchers to consider
the two world wars as one long conflict with the same origins,
but with a short interruption of 20 years.
And ineffectiveness of idealist approach towards post First World War security order,
was in many respects proved by inability of
political leaders to construct a so-called collective security.
The end of 1930s, as a consequence,
was marked by a number of diplomatic maneuvers made by both sides,
and which in many aspects,
triggered the beginning of the new terrible conflict,
the Second World War,
the most terrible conflict so far in the human history.
These two diplomatic maneuvers were the Munich Agreement of 1939,
and the equally bad,
Molotov-Ribbentrop Act of 1939.
Decline of the Versailles order and the establishment of
emergence of the German revanchism is represented on this map,
where you can see, the distribution of territories and
power in Europe just before the beginning of the Second World War.
And so, the greatest war started because Germany felt absolutely humiliated,
and the German revanchism lost.
Here we quote one very bad man, Adolf Hitler.
He wrote, Germany has faithfully fulfilled the obligations imposed upon her,
in spite of all the intrinsic lack of reason and
the obviously social consequences of this fulfillment.
This judgment, though made by the very very bad person,
a very real criminal,
is correct in a way.
The reason for the Second World War was the mistakes made after the First World War,
and then we need to learn them.
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