The Cold War 1945-1989: Regional Developments

At the regional level, the superpower tension affected regions in various ways and led to different outcomes, including decolonization, regional integration, pan-movements, revolutions, conflicts, and wars.

Regional politics are intense and interactive and typically involve three levels: regional, extra-regional, and global forces.

Decolonization —that is, the end of European imperial rule— is one of the major aspects of post-1945 global politics. Scholars have provided various definitions of the term. Whereas a group of scholars defines decolonization as “the process whereby an imperial power gives up its formal authority over its colonies”, some others call it “the ending of European control over large areas of the globe”. It is also defined as “a process that gathered momentum in the long Cold War cycle running from the 1940s to the early 1990s”.

Two waves of decolonization are outlined: the first wave occurred in the late eighteenth century and gave birth to the US and Latin American states, and the second wave came in the post-World War II era coincided with the Cold War.

The second wave of decolonization began with India, far and away the world’s most populous and important colony, who obtained its independence from Britain in 1947.

Colonized peoples’ demands for reform and independence as well as the rise of anti-colonial political and nationalist movements can be considered as internal pressures against British, Dutch, and French colonial rule. The national politics of colonized powers were shaped upon these internal pressures.

World War II demonstrated that European colonial powers were no longer able to rule their African and Asian colonies. Some scholars argue that “if World War I helped to create local resistance movements against colonialism, it was World War II that destroyed the colonial system itself.”

The external pressure can be expressed as effects made at the international level, including anti-colonial support from other states and international actors, including the United Nations (UN).

Most former colonies gained their independence from European colonial rulers between 1947 and 1980.

Mahatma Gandhi played a pioneering role in the process by leading the Indian National Congress, eventually helping India gain independence in 1947.

When India gained independence in 1947, it split into two independent states: India and Pakistan.

As an independent country, India became a republic in January 1950, making it the most populous democracy in the world.

The first Indian Prime Minister was Jawaharlal Nehru.

The Kashmir Issue is a territorial conflict between India and Pakistan over Kashmir, a majority-Muslim province in the northwest of the Indian subcontinent mostly controlled by Hindu-majority India. The conflict began in August 1947 and remains a source of instability to this day.

Eight years. Algerian independence from French rule was the result of a long and protracted war from 1954-1962.

The movement for Algerian independence began during World War I and gained momentum after World War II with the establishment of National Liberation Front (FLN) in October 1954. In November of that year, the FLN launched attacks against the French army that would drag out into an eight-year war of attrition in which over a million Algerians would perish (from an initial population of 9 million at the war’s beginning). After the French lost their will to fight an eternally bloody conflict, a referendum was held in 1962 in which the Algerian people voted for independence.

The French president was Charles de Gaulle.

It is stated that “with the Cold War under way, there was, however, no substantial interference from the superpowers in this process.” On the other hand, the superpowers’ actions, attitudes, and anti-colonial positions inflected the course and outcome of the decolonization process. It is also claimed that “the Cold War activities of the US and Soviet Union affected the course of decolonization, but they were in no causal factors in its occurrence”.

Decolonization was also accelerated by the UN efforts against colonialism. UN Charter, signed on June 26, 1945, established the principle of self-determination and provided the basis for its own decolonization push. Moreover, in 1960, the UN General Assembly adopted the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples, through which the UN affirmed that “the right of all people to self-determination” and proclaimed that “colonialism should be brought to a speedy and unconditional end”. Indeed, the process gained much momentum after the UN’s adoption of this anti-colonial stance.

Self-determination is the idea that a country can determine its own destiny and has the right to establish its own sovereign government.

The concept of “nonalignment” is a Cold War phenomenon used to explain the foreign policy of formerly colonized countries. As a term, nonalignment is commonly used to describe the policy of remaining aloof from the super power alliance system of the Cold War and developing friendly relations with other nations.

Nehru stressed the need for an international platform for Asian countries to come together and express their concerns on the basis of regional and international politics. The first Asian Relations Conference was convened under the leadership of Nehru in New Delhi between March 23 and April 2, 1947.

As the Cold War was unfolding, the prime ministers of India, Burma (now Myanmar), Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), Indonesia, and Pakistan met in Colombo (the capital of Sri Lanka) to discuss their common concerns, including liberation movements, great power involvement in Indochina, and the US and British tendency to form alliances in Asia. The Colombo Conference in 1954 was the motivation for the Bandung Conference.

The Asian-African Conference, which is known as the Bandung Conference, was organized by Indonesia, India, Burma, Sri Lanka, and Pakistan in Bandung, Indonesia in April 1955.

The participants at the Bandung Conference were The Kingdom of Afghanistan, Burma, the Kingdom of Cambodia, Ceylon, the People’s Republic of China, Cyprus (was still under colonial rule but represented by Makarios III), the Republic of Egypt, Ethiopian Empire, Gold Coast, India, Indonesia, the Imperial State of Iran, the Kingdom of Iraq, Japan, Jordan, the Kingdom of Laos, Lebanon, Liberia, the Kingdom of Libya, the Kingdom of Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, the Syrian Arab Republic, Thailand, Turkey, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, the State of Vietnam, and the Mutawakkilite Kingdom of Yemen.

The Bandung Conference is significant because it was the first multilateral meeting of newly independent states and a milestone for the development of a Third World consciousness. As other scholars have noted its importance, “it was the Bandung conference of the Afro-Asian movement which symbolized the emergence of the Third World as a motive force in international relations”.

Third World is “a collective term of French origin for those states that are part of neither the developed capitalist world nor the communist bloc. It includes the states of Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, and South-East Asia. It is also referred to as ‘the Global South’ in contrast to developed ‘North’”.

The ten principles of the Bandung Conference were as the following:

1. Respect for fundamental human rights and for the purposes and the principles of the Charter of the United Nations.
2. Respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all nations.
3. Recognition of the equality of all races and of equality among all nations, both large and small.
4. Non-intervention or non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries.
5. Respect for the right of every nation to defend itself, singularly or collectively, in conformity with the Charter of the United Nations.
6. A. The non-use of collective defense pacts to benefit the specific interests of any of the great Powers. B. The non-use of pressure by any one country against another.
7. Refraining from acts or threats of aggression or the use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any country.
8. Settlement of all international disputes by peaceful means, such as negotiation, conciliation, arbitration, or judicial settlement as well as other peaceful means of the parties’ own choice in conformity with the Charter of the United Nations.
9. Promotion of mutual interests and cooperation.
10. Respect for justice and international obligations.

The Conference influenced the foreign policy strategies of formerly colonized countries and laid the foundations of the Non-Aligned Movement. Bandung Conference led to the development of the NonAligned Movement and the emergence of SouthEast Asian regionalism and strengthened the global norms of anti-colonialism, self-determination, human rights, and nonintervention.

The Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) was institutionalized with its first summit in September 1961 in Belgrade, following a preparatory conference in Cairo.

Some scholars prefer to use the terms ‘neutrality’ and ‘neutralism’ instead of ‘nonalignment’ while others use nonalignment synonymously with neutralization, isolationism, and unilateralism. Sometimes the term neutrality is used interchangeably with nonalignment.

The Non-Aligned Movement is seen as a product or consequence of World War II and considered as a reaction to the post-war bipolar world order. Participants of the movement came together to fight against colonialism in Asia and Africa, and the actions of the movement played fundamental roles in the decolonization process. The most newly independent states adopted nonalignment as their foreign policy strategy and engaged in regional and global political environments.

In order to be considered as a member of the movement, a country should meet the following criteria:

1. The country should adopt an independent foreign policy based on the co-existence of states with different political and social systems and on non-alignment, or should be showing a trend in favor of such a policy.
2. The country concerned should be consistently supporting movements for national independence.
3. The country should not be a member of a multilateral military alliance concluded in the context of great power conflicts.
4. If a country has a bilateral military agreement with a great power or is a member of a regional defense pact, the agreement or pact should not be one deliberately concluded in the context of great power conflicts.
5. If it has conceded military bases to a foreign power, the concession should not have been made in the context of Great Power conflicts.

Europe’s Cold War is divided into three periods:

• The first was from 1945 to the early 1960s, during which the division of the continent took place. This period also coincided with the era of decolonization.
• The second was from the early 1960s to the mid-1970s, the period of the rise of détente and the relative stabilization of Europe.
• The last period was from the mid-1970s to the late 1980s, during which the Cold War affected every region on earth. Finally, the Soviet Union collapsed and the Cold War ended in 1989-1991. Europe had thus experienced the beginning, maturity, and the end of the Cold War.

After long years of Franco-German antagonism, Europe had witnessed a shift in French-German relations in the post-World War II era, and the European integration became a crucial development in both regional and global politics. The idea of the European integration gained momentum after the end of World War II. The war had disastrous effects on European political stability, as well as its economic and military power. Moreover, the postwar era marked major changes in the international system and brought shifts in the international power dynamics. In the wake of World War II, Europe had two priorities: post-war economic recovery and the maintenance of long-term peace and stability.

US financial assistance for recovery of Europe, which is known as the Marshall Plan of 1947, was important for the reconstruction of the European economy. The US demonstrated its support for the idea of European unity by insisting that those European countries should establish a permanent agency to manage US financial aid. In 1948, the Organization for European Economic Cooperation (OEEC) was established to administer the aid.

Six European countries, namely Belgium, the Federal Republic of Germany, France, Italy, Luxembourg, and Netherlands agreed to pool their coal and steel industries and signed the Treaty of Paris in 1951. The establishment of the European Coal and Steel Community was the first step towards the European integration.

With the 1957 Treaties of Rome, two supranational communities were established: the European Economic Community (EEC), and the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom).

The EEC was set up to foster economic cooperation and work toward broader integration with the same six founding countries. Member countries set specific goals including “agreement on a common external tariff for all goods coming into the community, the development of a single market, within which there would be free movement of people, goods, money, and services, and a common agricultural policy”.

Britain declined to sign the Treaty of Rome in 1957 and did not join the EEC until 1973. After World War II, the British paid less attention to Europe and mainly focused on cooperation with the United States.

As an alternative to the Franco-German led EEC, Britain created the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) in 1960 with other six European countries, namely Austria, Denmark, Norway, Portugal, Sweden, and Switzerland.

One of the crucial developments in European integration during the 1960s was the signing of the Treaty of Brussels in 1965 (Merger Treaty), which officially combined the executive bodies of the ECSC, EEC, and Euratom.

Since the early 1970s, the EEC also made significant efforts to achieve an economic and monetary union, as a result of which the European Monetary System was finally established in 1979.

The most significant development made in the 1980s was the signing of the Single European Act (SEA), which gave new momentum to European integration. The SEA was a milestone in creating a single market across Europe and initiated the transformation of the EEC into the European Union.

The superpowers’ military and diplomatic involvement in the region deeply affected and shaped regional political dynamics and led to major regional developments, including the establishment of Israel, the Arab-Israeli wars, and the rise of Arab nationalism.

Theodor Herzl was one of the most important figures in the early history of Zionism and called for the creation of a Jewish homeland.

The issuance of the Balfour Declaration of 1917 by the British government pledged the British support for the Zionist movement and proved a milestone in the creation of the State of Israel. The declaration allowed Jewish immigration to Palestine and stated that “[h]is Majesty’s Government views with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object […]”.

Palestinians refused to accept Jewish settlement policies. The Arab Revolt, which is also known as Great Revolt, broke out in Palestine in 1936 with the rise of Jewish immigration to Palestine and ended in 1939. The anti-British revolt is important in terms of being the first major uprising in the modern history of Palestinians.

In February 1947, the British Government decided to turn the Palestinian issue over to the United Nations. In November 1947, the UN General Assembly passed Resolution 181 regarding the partition of Palestine.

The partition plan included the following issues: “The creation of the Arab and Jewish States not later than 1 October 1948; the division of Palestine into eight parts: three were allotted to the Arab state and three to the Jewish state; the seventh, the town of Jaffa, was to form an Arab enclave within Jewish territory; The international regime for Jerusalem, the eighth division, is to be administered by the United Nations Trusteeship Council,”.

Following the 1947 UN resolution on the authorization of partition of Palestine, the state of Israel was established on May 14, 1948.

Arab states refused to accept the partition plan. A few hours after the proclamation of independence of Israel, the armies of five Arab nations, Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Transjordan (Since 1949 Jordan), and Lebanon invaded the newly established country on the night of 15 May 1948. Cold War superpowers influenced the war by providing military aid to their allies in the Middle East. The war ended in 1949 with an armistice. However, this agreement left the main issues unresolved and created the conditions for substantial wars involving Arab states and Israel, including the wars of 1956, 1967, 1969-70, 1973, and 1982.

The Six-Day war of 1967 also resulted from increasing tensions between Arabs and Israelis. Triggered by Nasser’s closure of the Gulf of Aqaba to Israeli shipping on May 22, the war began on June 5, when Israel launched a surprise attack on Egyptian, Syrian, and Jordanian airfields. Lasting six days and resulting in an overwhelming Israeli victory, the latter seized the Palestinian territories of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza Strip, in addition to the Syrian Golan Heights and the Egyptian Sinai Peninsula. A turning point in Middle Eastern politics, the war changed the regional balance of power strongly in Israel’s favor, discrediting Nasser and arguably shattering pan-Arabism once and for all.

They are the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), Hamas and Hezbollah. 

The Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) is a political organization founded in 1964 in Jerusalem with the purpose of representing all Palestinian Arabs and their claims for the liberation of their homeland. From 1969 to 2004, Yasser Arafat was the leader of the PLO. The PLO embraced a broader role over time and later represented Palestine in international organizations and forums, including the United Nations and Non-Aligned Movement.

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) is an intergovernmental organization founded in September 1960 by Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela. Its main objective is to coordinate and unify the petroleum policies of member countries.

Pan-Arabism is basically the idea that all Arabs should get together to form one Arab state. It is defined as “an idea and a movement that recognizes the close affinity shared by the Arab people and attempts to give that affinity some meaningful practical expression”.

Especially with the establishment of Israel and the effects of Arab-Israeli dispute, Arab states believed they need to unite against Israel under “the banner of Arab nationalism” to liberate Palestine and keep the integrity of Arab soil. The establishment of a single state had been experienced in some measure with the establishment of the United Arab Republic (UAR) between Egypt and Syria.

The outbreak of the Greek Civil War at the beginning of the Cold War was especially considered as one of the most important events since it was the first battle of the Cold War period.

Rapprochement is a diplomatic term for the improvement of previously hostile relations between two former adversaries.

The Monroe Doctrine was a US foreign policy principle that laid out guidelines for US supremacy over other European powers in the Western Hemisphere. Declared by President Monroe in 1823, it stated that the United States would not tolerate European countries to intervene in the affairs of the Western Hemisphere.

During the Cold War, the US was deeply involved in Latin American domestic affairs and followed an interventionist policy toward the region. Throughout the 1960s, 1970s, and early 1980s, the U.S. intervened in many Latin American countries, even undermining democracy, including the Dominican Republic and Haiti, to eliminate the Soviet threat “in its own backyard”.