Study Guide to accompany Charles L. Robertson, International Politics Since World War II: A Short History (Armonk, NY: M.E.Sharpe, 1997)*

balance of power system

imperialism

World War I (1914-18)

Central powers/Allies

League of Nations

Munich

World War II (1939-45)

Bretton Woods System

United Nations

Yalta, Potsdam

Iron Curtain

Soviet Bloc

Organization of American States

• How did World War I change the balance of power system?
• Why did the League of Nations fail?
• On p. 20, Robertson writes that the "political context of this new world system was not yet clearly understood…." What were the most important features of this context?
• How did each of the following relinquish their empires? The US, France, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Belgium, Portugal.

containment

Stalin

Marshall Plan

Berlin Blockade

Cominform/Comecon

NATO

Tito

Mao Zedong

Korean Conflict

Massive retaliation

United Nations

GATT

Winston Churchill

Cold War

• Why did the US take an active interest in Mediterranean and Middle East affairs?
• Robertson says that "Europe was...the focus of the revolution in American foreign policy." What was revolutionary about it?
• Explain the effects of the Korean Conflict on (a) US foreign policy, (b) Chinese foreign policy, (c) NATO, and (d) Japan.
• The Security Council of the United Nations was supposed to administer a policy of collective security. Did this happen? Why or why not?

Brezhnev Doctrine/Prague Spring

Chinese-Russian split

European Economic Community (EEC)

Charles deGaulle

Balance of Payments on Current Account

• Why did the Soviets invade Hungary in 1956? How was their action similar those that prompted the Brezhnev Doctrine?
• Was the "free world" unified in its approach to the cold war? If not, on what issues were these countries divided?
• Why did the French reduce their role in Nato from 1966-95?

Imperialism

Dien Bien Phu

Ho Chi Minh

dominoes

SEATO

U.S. "credibility"

Zionism

Palestine

Israel

Arab refugees

Palestinian nationalism

Gamal Abdel Nasser

Non-Aligned Movement

Dag Hammarskjold

Bandung conference

Decolonization

Group of 77

• Explain the rise of Arab nationalism. Why did it not produce a unified Arab state?
• Many African states became independent in a brief period, 1954-63. Why did the movement occur so quickly?
• Was the United Nations’ role in the African independence movement a success or failure? Why?
• Why did the US intervene to overthrow the government of Guatemala in 1954? How Latin American countries view this?

JFK

Lyndon Johnson

Bay of Pigs

Berlin Wall

Cuban missile crisis

Invasion of Dominican Republic

Khmer Rouge

Guerrilla War

Vietnam War

Tet Offensive

Richard Nixon

Balance of Power World View

Vietnamization

East Pakistan

Great Leap Forward

Cultural Revolution

Détente

Willy Brandt

• Robertson claims (153) that balance of power principles triumphed over ideology. How did this happen?
• What evidence supports the claim that the Cold War consensus in the US had disappeared by the end of the 1960’s?

EAC

ASEAN

Sukarno/Suharto

PLO

Six-Day War

1973 Middle-East War

Dependency Theory

Note: brief discussions of the following countries (and others) suggest the need for a map quiz, and an ability to describe some key events:

Chile

Egypt

Libya

Jordan

Indonesia

Rwanda

Nigeria

Uganda

Ethiopia

• According to Robertson, what are the main obstacles to unity and growth in the non-Arab nations of Africa?
• This chapter describes waning influence of European countries and of the US over the ‘Third World,’ but that does not necessarily mean the newly emerging nations are influential in world affairs. What seem to be the main obstacles to Third World influence in world affairs?

Monetary interdependence

Group of Seven (G-7)

OPEC

NIEO

recycled petrodollars

LDCs

EEC

NICs

Article IX of the Japanese constitution

Human rights policies

Iranian revolution

Grenada

Sandinista (FSLN)

Soviet invasion of Afghanistan

Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty

Mutually Assured Destruction

Socialist bloc, or Eastern bloc

UNESCO

UNCLOS

• Robertson says the successful OPEC raising of oil prices caused the biggest ever immediate shift of resources from one part of the world to another. What were the consequences of this shift?
• Robertson says the Carter/Reagan years produced a fundamental reorientation of US policies. How so? How did Soviet policies affect this development?
• Robertson implies that Soviet leadership leading up to the Gorbachev years had fundamental defects. What were these?

Chernobyl

Imre Nagy

Glasnost

Perestroika

Bosnia

Baltic countries

START II

Boris Yeltsin

Note: This is another chapter that indicates the need for a map quiz.

• Soviet troops were in many central and east European countries from the end of WWII until 1991. Why did they leave so suddenly?
• According to Robertson, why did the Soviet Union collapse?
• Robertson says, p. 234, that the outcome of the Dayton Peace Accords was uncertain when he wrote the book. What has happened since?

The Evil Empire

Contras

Falklands War

Strategic Defense Initiative

Manuel Noriega

Gulf War(s)

New World Order

Maastricht Treaty

• Comparing US actions in Central America and in the Middle East, why was it difficult to clearly define vital national interests?
• Why were the US and the Soviets able to agree to nuclear arms reductions?
• Did the US achieve its objectives in Somalia?
• Under full implementation of the Maastricht Treaty, what is the EU?
• What appear to be the main challenges to peaceful Pacific basin cooperation?

"Fourth World"

Cancun

Debt crisis

International Monetary Fund

structural adjustment

terrorism

• Robertson notes that Korea (ROK) and Ghana had very different development rates over the last 35 years. Does he explain why?
• What caused the debt crisis of the 1980s, and how did we get out of it?

Khmer Rouge

refugees

export-led economy

two-Chinas (One China, Two Systems)

Ferdinand Marcos

South Asia Doctrine

Aung San Suu Kyi

• Many nations, including the US, supported the barbarous Khmer Rouge. Why?
• Germany reunited, but Korea has not. Why?
• Over the last 20 years refugees became an international problem. Why?
• Do note that since p. 302 was written, India and Pakistan have each set off several nuclear explosions.

1973 War

Anwar Sadat

Camp David agreement

intifada

Oslo agreement

Benjamin Netanyahu

Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini

Islamic Salvation Front

• What were Israel’s purposes in invading Lebanon? Did Israel achieve its purposes?
• The word "fundamentalist" is used many times in this chapter. What does it mean, and why are fundamentalists politically important?

Mengistu Haile Mariam

Sudan’s Long War

Maghreb

Apartheid

Nelson Mandela

F.W. de Klerk

Mercosur

NAFTA

Caribbean Basin Initiative

• Readers should take note of the darkness metaphor Robertson uses to describe recent events in Africa. Is his usage similar to Conrad’s Heart of Darkness?
• What appear to be the chief obstacles to African development?

_______________________________________________

*All historical texts contain judgments, and will offer conclusions (and statements of fact) that are hotly contested. Here are a few examples in Robertson:

• p. 18--On the issue of why the US dropped the atomic bombs on Japan, Robertson is sympathetic to the account of Secretary of War Stimson. Historians have debated this interpretation extensively.
• p. 46--The cited generosity of the US cancelling lend lease debts might be connected to other things, such as the elimination of the UK’s system of trade restrictions in its imperial realm. Many in the UK saw this as a steep price for the cancelled debts.
• p. 170--Robertson seems to imply that the PLO Covenant was amended in 1996 to accept Israel as a legitimate state. Was it?
• p. 177--Did Allende commit suicide? The victors in the coup said yes, their opponents insist he was murdered. Was he?
• p. 191-2--The description of Japan’s postwar development emphasizes its government‘s management of the economy, and ignores the role of US policies that sought to create a prosperous anticommunist ally in Asia.
• p. 252--It is perhaps misleading to say Reagan "forbore using force in Nicaragua..." without clarifying what it meant to provide aid for the "Contras."
• Throughout, Robertson emphasizes such things as nationalism, the influence of leaders, and technological development to explain changes in international politics. He does not pay as much attention to dynamics of capitalism (although, see the mention on p. 214).

These examples do not mean Robertson has written a bad book. The reason I assigned it in the class is that it was best among many in presenting this material. The point is you have to be a critical reader, recognizing that claims of fact and judgments can be contested.

dwo