Chapter 7: The Cold War 1945-1989: Regional Developments

The Era of Decolonization

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”. Young and Kent call it “the ending of European control over large areas of the globe”. Thomas and Thompson defines decolonization “a process that gathered momentum in the long Cold War cycle running from the 1940s to the early 1990s”.

Hopkins outlines two waves of decolonization in his study. According to him, the first wave occurred in the late eighteenth century and gave birth to the US and Latin American states. 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.

Scholars have focused on three factors to explain the decolonization process in the 20th century:

• Internal pressure
• The inability and weakness of colonial powers to rule their colonies
• The external pressure

Against this background, most former colonies gained their independence from European colonial rulers between 1947 and 1980. Principal examples of the decolonization process between 1947 to 1980 are on page 180.Table 7.1.

Decolonization was also accelerated by the UN efforts against colonialism. The 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”.

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

The Bandung Conference and Non-Aligned Movement

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.

The first Asian Relations Conference was convened under the leadership of Nehru in New Delhi between March 23 and April 2, 1947. At the conference, Nehru stated that India would adopt an independent foreign policy and stay out of great power military and ideological alliances of the Cold War. He claimed that other newly independent Asian countries should do the same in order to preserve their independence.

The Colombo Conference in 1954 was the motivation for the Bandung Conference. In 1954, the aforementioned leaders decided to convene a conference the following year whose agenda was set by five issues: “economic cooperation, cultural cooperation, human rights and selfdetermination, problems of dependent peoples, and world peace and cooperation”

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. Political leaders from twenty-nine newly independent postcolonial countries of Asia and Africa came together in Bandung (Acharya, 2016: 343). In his opening speech, Indonesia’s president Sukarno referred to the conference as “the first intercontinental conference of colored peoples in the history of mankind”.

Third World countries came together in many conferences and meetings before 1955, and the previous meetings had prepared the ground for Bandung. Nevertheless, 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 AfroAsian movement which symbolized the emergence of the Third World as a motive force in international relations”.

Considered as an alternative to the bipolar international system after the Second World War, the Conference influenced the foreign policy strategies of formerly colonized countries and laid the foundations of the NonAligned Movement. The Ten Principles of Bandung were also adopted in the Afro-Asian Conference at Bandung, providing the foundations of the movement and guiding spirit of African-Asian solidarity and peaceful coexistence.

The Ten Principles of Bandung:

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. The non-use of collective defense pacts to benefit the specific interests of any of the great Powers.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

Acharya emphasizes the importance of the Bandung Conference for understanding the evolution of post-war global political order. According to him, the Bandung Conference led to the development of the NonAligned Movement and the emergence of SouthEast Asian regionalism and strengthened the global norms of anticolonialism, 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. The preparatory meeting emphasized the importance of holding such a conference by stating that: “The participants expressed the conviction that, by holding such a conference, positive results could be achieved in the interests of world peace, effective international cooperation, and the realization of the aspirations of millions of people for independence and a better and happier future,”

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 (Lüthi, 2016: 98). 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.

Throughout the Cold War, developing countries sought to achieve an economic voice through the Group of 77 and a political one through the Non-Aligned Movement.

The Cold War and European Integration

Hanhimaki (2012) divides Europe’s Cold War 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 mid1970s, 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. While the policy-makers of France and Britain continued to act as world powers, their influence over the international system had dramatically diminished. On the other hand, the Soviet Union and US rose as superpowers with their economic and military capabilities, including weapons of mass destruction, in the international system.

These developments led to fundamental changes in Europe, and Cold War European politics were characterized by the bipolar structure of the international system. Best et al. provides an explanation of the political structure of the continent as “...Germany in ruins, France largely excluded from the victor’s table and Britain in no condition to play a major role in continental Europe [and] there were, ultimately, only two major powers capable of exercising predominant influence over the old continent”.

In the wake of World War II, Europe had two priorities: post-war economic recovery and the maintenance of longterm peace and stability.

Jean Monnet’s speech inspired the Schuman Plan of 1950 which led to the realization of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC). French statesman Robert Schuman proposed his initiative in a speech in May 1950 in which he outlined the need to pool German and French coal and steel resources under a single authority. The proposal’s two biggest aims were economic recovery and ensuring peace among European countries, especially between the continent’s two historic rivals: France and Germany. The establishment of the European Coal and Steel Community was the first step towards the European integration and paved the way for the establishment of the European Economic Community in 1957.

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.

The 1970s and 1980s saw further developments in the deepening and enlargement of European integration. The global economic recession of the 1970s, greatly exacerbated by the 1973 oil crisis, affected Western countries in particular.

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.

Effects of the Cold War on Developing Regions

The superpower rivalry between the US and Soviet Union and their respective blocs impacted every region of the world. However, the Cold War affected certain regions more than others.

During the Cold War, the Middle East was one of the most important scenes of contention and intense superpower rivalry because of its strategic geographical location and oil reserves.

The colonial experience also had a lasting impact on the region, and the political legacy of colonialism is especially crucial to understanding how the Middle Eastern regional subsystem was formed, why the region experienced more conflicts and rivalries relative to other regions, and what the implications of this legacy are for the formation of national consciousness in the region, namely PanArabism.

The political atmosphere of the Middle East at the end of World War II was characterized by violence and war, in large part because of the continuing tension between Arabs and Jews (Galtung, 1971: 173). Both the sense of nationalism and nation building, and the legacy of colonialism have played a role in the Arab-Israeli conflict. Zionism as an ideology and nationalist movement arose in Europe during the 19 ^th century and set about trying to find a homeland for the Jews. During this period, Palestine was only one of the options. 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 Six-Day war of 1967 was 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.

The partition of Palestine and ensuing wars caused a serious refugee problem as hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were forced to flee their country and seek refuge in neighboring Arab states, including Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, and Syria. This created huge internal political turmoil and led directly to the Jordanian and Lebanese civil wars.

Arab nationalism emerged as an opposition movement in the Ottoman Empire during the twentieth century and remained a minority movement until the end of the Ottoman Empire.

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.

In this conflictive environment, the rise of Arab nationalism also triggered inter-Arab rivalry rather than playing a cooperative role. Arab nationalism, which aims to incorporate all Arabs into the same political entity and create an Arab state system, has led to disagreements and competition among Arabs themselves over the leadership of the Arab world.

The Iranian Revolution of 1979 greatly affected both regional dynamics and relations between the superpowers, but hardly along Cold War lines. Firmly rejecting the model of both Washington and Moscow, Tehran not only broke ties with the US in 1979 but later fought a brutal and disastrous eight-year war with neighborhood Iraq (1980-88) that would change the course of the region for the rest of the century.

The Iran-Iraq War broke out one year after the Iranian Revolution. On September 16, 1980, Saddam announced that Iraq had exited the Shatt al-Arab Agreement and intended to have full control over the Shatt al-Arab river. On September 22, Iraq launched a surprise attack, triggering a disastrous eight- year war between the two countries and further destabilizing the Middle East.

The Balkan region was an important arena of superpower rivalry given its geopolitical and strategic position.

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.

During the Cold War, other regional developments in the region were dramatically influenced the dynamics and structure of bipolar rivalry. After rejecting the Marshall Plan in July 1947, the Cominform (the Communist Information Bureau) was organized as a response to the Marshall Plan, and the USSR adopted a more repressive strategy in Eastern Europe to increase its influence there.

The Federative People’s Republic of Yugoslavia was proclaimed on January 31, 1946. From its proclamation in 1946 to 1948, Yugoslavia was voluntarily aligned with the Soviet Union. The Cominform resolution was proof of the final split between the two countries. Not only did it change the dynamics of the Cold War, it also led Yugoslavia to search for “a foreign policy alternative that would secure its independence and guarantee future disassociation from the Soviet bloc while also internally strengthening the country’s socialist system”. After the split, Yugoslavia get into the Balkan Pact with Greece and Turkey.

Right after World War II, Albania had close relations with Yugoslavia. In late 1940s, however, it moved away from Yugoslavia and saw a rapprochement with the Soviet Union. In order to prevent Tito from integrating Albania into Yugoslavia and creating the Balkan Federation ,Enver Hoxha , in power in Albania since 1944, sought protection from Moscow, and Albania became a Soviet satellite. In 1960, however, it broke ties with the USSR.

The intensity of the Cold War in Latin America sharpened during the détente years of the 1960s and 1970s. The interaction between international and regional politics had drastically influenced Latin American political dynamics during this period.

As a result of Monroe Doctrine , among other things, the US was politically and economically dominant in Latin America and highly involved in the affairs of its neighbors to the south.

Contrary to US desires, not every Latin American country had taken pro-US positions. The Cuban Revolution of 1959, for example, had led to the emergence of a communist Cuba that soon became an ally of the Soviet Union.

During the Cold War, the US was deeply involved in Latin American domestic affairs and followed an interventionist policy toward the region. Latin American militaries, on the other hand, had always played a critical role in regional politics. Historical legacies and economic factors help to explain the region’s tendency to military rule.