Mastering Modern World History

by Norman Lowe

  In spite of all these criticisms, it would be wrong to write the UN off as a failure, and there can be no doubt that the world would be a far worse place without it.

  It provides a world assembly where representatives of around 190 nations can come together and talk to each other. Even the smallest nation has a chance to make itself heard in a world forum.

  Although it has not prevented wars, it has been successful in bringing some wars to an end more quickly, and has prevented further conflict. A great deal of human suffering and bloodshed have been prevented by the actions of the UN peacekeeping forces and refugee agencies. At the present time (2012) there are around 85 000 UN peacekeepers in action across the world.

  The UN has done valuable work investigating and publicizing human rights violations under repressive regimes like the military governments of Chile and Zaire. In this way it has slowly been able to influence governments by bringing international pressure to bear on them.

  Perhaps its most important achievement has been to stimulate international co-operation on economic, social and technical matters. Millions of people, especially in poorer countries, are better off thanks to the work of the UN agencies. It continues to involve itself in current problems: UNESCO, the ILO and the WHO are running a joint project to help drug addicts and there has been a series of 15 conferences on AIDS in an attempt to co-ordinate the struggle against this terrible scourge, particularly in Africa (see Section 28.4).

  9.7 WHAT ABOUT THE FUTURE OF THE UN?

  Many people thought that with the end of the Cold War, most of the world’s problems would disappear. In fact, this did not happen; during the 1990s there seemed to be more conflicts than ever before, and the world seemed to be less and less stable. Obviously there was still a vitally important role for the UN to play as international peacekeeper, and many people were anxious for the UN to reform and strengthen itself.

  Kofi Annan, who became Secretary-General in December 1996, had gained an excellent reputation over the previous few years as head of UN peacekeeping operations. He was well aware of the organization’s weaknesses and was determined to do something about them. He ordered a thorough review of all UN peace operations; the resulting report, published in 2000, recommended, among other things, that the UN should maintain permanent brigade-size forces of 5000 troops, which would be ready for immediate deployment, commanded by military professionals. The spread of terrorism, especially with the September 2001 attacks on New York, prompted Annan, now in his second term as Secretary-General, to produce his Agenda for Further Change (September 2002). This was a plan for reforms to strengthen the UN’s role in fighting terrorism, and it included a much-needed streamlining of the cumbersome budget system. These things take time, but none of the suggested reforms is beyond the bounds of possibility.

  The really serious problem, which had been brewing ever since the end of the Cold War and the emergence of the USA as sole superpower, was about the future relationship between the UN and the USA. Tensions began to mount as soon as the Bush administration took office in 2001: within its first year the new government rejected the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, the 1997 Kyoto Protocol (which aimed to limit the emission of greenhouse gases) and the Rome Statute of the new UN International Criminal Court, as well as Security Council offers of a resolution authorizing a war against terrorism (this was because it prefers to conduct its own self-defence in whatever way it chooses). Tensions reached a climax in March 2003, when the US government, aided and abetted by the UK, decided to attack Iraq, without UN authorization and against the wishes of the majority of UN members. The USA was so disproportionately powerful that it could ignore the UN and act as it pleased unless the UN delivered the outcome it wanted.

  An important American technique in its quest to control the UN was to secure the appointment of a sympathetic Secretary-General. A prime example was Kofi Annan, Secretary-General from 1996 until 2006, who whole heartedly supported the American line on every major UN involvement except one – Iraq. In a book published in November 2006 to mark the end of Annan’s two terms as Secretary-General, James Traub chronicles his rise to the top. Since 1993 Annan had been in charge of all UN peacekeeping operations under Secretary-General Boutros-Ghali. However, Dr Boutros-Ghali had displeased Washington by refusing to send a UN mission into Somalia and delaying the NATO bombing of Serbia. In both cases Annan had supported the American line. In 1996 all the signs were that Boutros-Ghali would have his mandate extended for another five years. But President Clinton was determined to get rid of him; it was relentless pressure from the Clinton administration that got Kofi Annan chosen instead of Boutros-Ghali. Consequently when NATO launched its bombing attack on Yugoslavia early in 1999, instead of condemning it as a blatant violation of the UN Charter – which it most certainly was – Annan announced that it was a legitimate action.

  However, the attack on Iraq in 2003 (see Section 12.4) was more difficult for Annan. When the joint US and British operation against Iraq was launched without a second Security Council Resolution authorizing the attack, Annan was eventually forced to admit that the invasion had been illegal. When he was asked in a BBC interview, ‘Are you bothered that the US is becoming an unrestrainable, unilateral superpower?’ he replied: ‘I think in the end everybody is concluding that it is best to work together with our allies.’ That innocent remark sums up the whole situation: the challenge for the UN over the coming years is to find a way to harness and make use of the power and influence of the USA instead of being impeded or stampeded by it.

  FURTHER READING

  Bailey, S., The United Nations (Macmillan, 1989).

  Meisler, S., United Nations: The First Fifty Years (Atlantic Monthly Press, 1997).

  Meisler, S., Kofi Annan: A Man of Peace in a World of War (Wiley, 2007).

  Mingst, K. A. and Karns, M. P., The United Nations in the Post-Cold War Era (Westview Press, 2000).

  Roberts, A. and Kingsbury, B., United Nations, Divided World (Oxford University Press, 1993).

  Traub, J., The Best Intentions: Kofi Annan and the UN in the Era of American World Power (Bloomsbury, 2006).

  QUESTIONS

  ‘There can be little doubt that the social, economic and humanitarian work of the UN has been far more successful and valuable than its peacekeeping role.’ Assess the validity of this verdict on the work of the United Nations Organization.

  ‘The UN has only been successful in resolving conflict when one of the superpowers has intervened to support it.’ How far would you agree with this view?

  To what extent would it be true to say that the UN has been more successful in dealing with conflicts since 1990 than it was during the Cold War?

  There is a document question about the UN and the 1956 crisis in Hungary on the website.

  Chapter 10

  The two Europes, East and West since 1945

  SUMMARY OF EVENTS

  At the end of the Second World War in 1945, Europe was in turmoil. Many areas, especially in Germany, Italy, Poland and the western parts of the USSR, had been devastated, and even the victorious powers, Britain and the USSR, were in serious financial difficulties because of the expense of the war. There was a huge job of reconstruction to be done, and many people thought that the best way to go about this was by a joint effort. Some even thought in terms of a united Europe, rather like the United States of America, in which the European states would come together under a federal system of government. However, Europe soon split into two over the American Marshall Plan to promote recovery in Europe (see Section 7.2(e)). The nations of western Europe gladly made use of American aid, but the USSR refused to allow the countries of eastern Europe to accept it, for fear that their own control over the area would be undermined. From 1947 onwards the two parts of Europe developed separately, kept apart by Joseph Stalin’s ‘iron curtain’.

  The states of western Europe recovered surprisingly quickly from the effects of the war, thanks to a combination of American aid, an increase in the wor
ld demand for European products, rapid technological advances and careful planning by governments. Some moves took place towards unity, including the setting up of NATO and the Council of Europe (both in 1949), and the European Economic Community (EEC) in 1957. In Britain, enthusiasm for this type of unity developed more slowly than in other countries for fear that it would threaten British sovereignty. The British decided not to join the EEC when it was first set up in 1957; when they changed their minds in 1961, the French vetoed their entry, and it was 1972 before it was finally agreed that Britain could become a member.

  Meanwhile the communist states of eastern Europe had to be content to be satellites of the USSR. They, too, moved towards a sort of economic and political unity with the introduction of the Molotov Plan (1947), the formation of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (COMECON) in 1949 and the Warsaw Pact (1955). Until his death in 1953 Stalin tried to make all these states as much like the USSR as possible, but after 1953 they began to show more independence. Yugoslavia under Tito had already developed a more decentralized system in which the communes were an important element. Poland and Romania successfully introduced variations, but the Hungarians (1956) and the Czechs (1968) went too far and found themselves invaded by Soviet troops and brought to heel. During the 1970s the states of eastern Europe enjoyed a period of comparative prosperity, but in the 1980s they felt the effects of world depression.

  Dissatisfaction with the communist system began to grow; in a short period from mid-1988 until the end of 1991, communism collapsed in the USSR and in all the states of eastern Europe except Albania, where it survived until March 1992. Germany, which had been divided into two separate states, one communist and one non-communist, since soon after the war (see Section 7.2(h)), was reunified (October 1990), becoming once again the most powerful state in Europe. With the end of communism, Yugoslavia sadly disintegrated into a long civil war (1991–5).

  In the west the European Community, which from 1992 was known as the European Union, continued to function successfully. Many of the former communist states began to apply to join the Union; in 2004 there were 25 members, and in 2007 the total reached 27 with the addition of Bulgaria and Romania. But the enlargement brought its own problems.

  10.1 THE STATES OF WESTERN EUROPE

  Shortage of space allows only a brief look at the three most influential states in mainland Europe.

  (a) France

  Under the Fourth Republic (1946–58) France was politically weak, and though her industry was modernized and flourishing, agriculture seemed to be stagnating. Governments were weak because the new constitution gave the president very little power. There were five major parties and this meant that governments were coalitions, which were constantly changing: in the 12 years of the Fourth Republic there were 25 different governments, which were mostly too weak to rule effectively. There were a number of disasters:

  French defeat in Indo-China (1954) (see Section 8.3(a));

  failure in Suez (1956) (see Section 11.3);

  rebellion in Algeria, which brought the government down in 1958.

  General de Gaulle came out of retirement to lead the country; he introduced a new constitution giving the president more power (which became the basis of the Fifth Republic), and gave Algeria independence. With the Cold War continuing, De Gaulle successfully demonstrated that France was a strong, independent power, not a weak country in decline. He built France’s own nuclear deterrent, withdrew French forces from NATO command, condemned the USA’s war in Vietnam, criticized Israeli behaviour in the Middle East and vetoed Britain’s entry into the Common Market. De Gaulle retired in 1969 after a wave of strikes and demonstrations protesting against, among other things, the authoritarian and undemocratic nature of the regime.

  The Fifth Republic continued to provide stable government under the next two presidents, both right-wingers – Georges Pompidou (1969–74) and Valéry Giscard d’Estaing (1974–81). François Mitterand, the socialist leader, had a long period as president, from 1981 until 1995, when Jacques Chirac of the right-wing RPR (Rassemblement pour la République) was elected president for the next seven years. The dominant issues in France in the 1990s were the continuing recession and unemployment, doubts about France’s role in the European Community (there was only a very small majority in September 1992 in favour of the Maastricht Treaty (see Section 10. 4(h)) and uneasiness about the reunified Germany. When Chirac’s new prime minister, Alain Juppé, began cutbacks to get the French economy into shape for the introduction of the euro – the new European currency – which was due to take place in 2002, there were widespread protest demonstrations and strikes (December 1995).

  It was no surprise when there was a swing towards the left in the parliamentary elections of May 1997. Chirac’s conservative coalition lost its majority in parliament, and the socialist leader, Lionel Jospin, became prime minister. His policies were designed to reduce the budget deficit to no more than 3 per cent of GDP (Gross Domestic Product), as required by the European Community for entry into the new currency. They failed to arouse much enthusiasm; in the presidential elections of 2002, the general apathy of the voters allowed Jospin to be beaten into third place, leaving Chirac and the right-wing nationalist, Jean-Marie le Pen, to fight it out in the run-off. Chirac won easily, taking 80 per cent of the votes, but his second term as president (2002–7) was not a success. In a referendum held early in 2005, the electorate overwhelmingly rejected proposals for a new European Constitution, in spite of the government’s wall-to-wall campaign in its favour. Later in the year there was a wave of riots in poorer areas of cities throughout the country protesting against the high level of youth unemployment. This was followed by a series of strikes and demonstrations against a new government policy designed to enable employers to take on young workers on a temporary basis instead of giving them job security. After two months of chaos, Chirac was forced to drop the plan. As the presidential election of 2007 approached, the Socialist Party was looking forward to victory.

  However, unexpectedly, the Socialist candidate, Ségolène Royal, was heavily defeated by the Centre-Right candidate, Nicolas Sarkozy. Inexperienced in front-line politics, Royal fought a lacklustre campaign, while Sarkozy impressed the electorate with promises of greater security on the streets, tough policies on crime and immigration and a clean break from the Chirac era in order to reverse the increasingly obvious national decline. Unfortunately, from the autumn of 2008, the Sarkozy presidency was dominated by the aftermath of the great financial collapse in the USA, which plunged the whole EU into an ongoing economic crisis (see Section 27.7). The presidential election of 2012 was won by the socialist candidate, François Hollande.

  (b) The German Federal Republic (West Germany)

  Set up in 1949, the German Federal Republic enjoyed a remarkable recovery – an ‘economic miracle’ – under the conservative government of Chancellor Konrad Adenauer (1949–63). It was achieved partly thanks to the Marshall Plan, which brought substantial American investment into the country. This enabled the rebuilding of German industry to accelerate and provided funds for the installation of the latest up-to-date plant and equipment. The government encouraged the ploughing back of profits into industry rather than distributing them as higher dividends or higher wages (which happened in Britain). Taxation was reduced, which meant that people had more money to spend on manufactured goods; rationing and other controls were either reduced or removed altogether. Events abroad contributed to the German recovery; for example, the war in Korea (1950–1) produced a demand for exactly the type of high-quality goods that the Germans were so good at producing. Industrial recovery was so complete that by 1960 West Germany was producing 50 per cent more steel than the united Germany in 1938, and unemployment was less than a quarter of a million. The German people themselves must take much of the credit for their determination and ingenuity that enabled their country not only to recover from the catastrophe of military defeat, but also to enjoy arguably the most successful econo
my in Europe. All classes shared in the prosperity; pensions and children’s allowances were geared to the cost of living, and 10 million new dwellings were provided.

  The new constitution encouraged the trend towards a two-party system, which meant there was a better chance of strong government. The two major parties were:

  the Christian Democrats (CDU) – Adenauer’s conservative party;

  the Social Democrats (SDP) – a moderate socialist party.

  There was a smaller liberal party – the Free Democratic Party (FDP). In 1979 the Green Party was founded, with a programme based on ecological and environmental issues.

  Adenauer’s CDU successors, Ludwig Erhard (1963–6) and Kurt Georg Kiesinger (1966–9), continued the good work, though there were some setbacks and a rise in unemployment. This caused support to swing to the SDP, who stayed in power, with FDP support, for 13 years, first under Willi Brandt (1969–74) and then under Helmut Schmidt (1974–82). After the prosperous 1970s, West Germany began to suffer increasingly from the world recession. By 1982 unemployment had shot up to 2 million; when Schmidt proposed increasing spending to stimulate the economy, the more cautious FDP withdrew support and Schmidt was forced to resign (October 1982). A new right-wing coalition of the CDU and the Bavarian Christian Social Union (CSU) was formed, with FDP support, and the CDU leader, Helmut Kohl, became Chancellor. Recovery soon came – statistics for 1985 showed a healthy economic growth rate of 2.5 per cent and a big export boom. By 1988 the boom was over and unemployment rose to 2.3 million. However, Kohl managed to hold on to power, and had the distinction of becoming the first Chancellor of the reunified Germany in October 1990 (see Section 10.6(e)).