The Post Cold War Era

INTRODUCTION : The post-cold war era is the period in world history from

the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 to the present.

As the world moves away from the familiar cold war era,

many international relations theorists have renewed and

a world with two great powers or a world with many great

powers.

It has mostly been dominated by the rise of globalization

enabled by the commercialization of the internet and the

growth of the mobile phone system.

The ideology of postmodernism and cultural relativism

has according to some scholars replaced modernism

and nations of absolute progress and ideology.

Environmentalism has also become a mainstream

concern in the post-cold war era.

Global warming entered public discourse in 1988 after a

very hot summer which burned down 40 percent of the

forest land in Yellowstone national park.

Recycling has become common place in many countries

and cities over the past 30 years.

Background :

During most of the latter half of the 20th century the

two most powerful states in the world by far were the

United States (formed in 1783) and the Union of

Soviet Socialist Republics (formed in 1917).

These two federations were called the world’s

superpowers.

The Emergence of Rivalry Between the Superpowers :

The USA was a democratic state, with free elections,

freedom of speech and a capitalist economic system.

The Second World War helped to regenerate the USA’s

industries to such an extent that peoples standards of

living actually went up during Second World War.

The USA emerged immeasurable more powerful from the

War with Germany and Japan. It was clear that the USA

could no longer sit on the sidelines in the World politics.

However, the USA was extremely concerned by the

spread of communism in Eastern Europe and the Far

East.

The USA had fought the fascist ideologies of Germany,

Italy and Japan, now it was prepared to fight the

communist ideology of the USSR.

The Post Cold War Era

Results : Both the USA and USSR realized that they had a narrow escape.

Relations between the two sides had to improve. In 1963, a

Test Ban Treaty was signed, banning the testing of nuclear

weapons in the air or under water. A hot-line was setup

between Moscow and Washington.

Relations worse after the USSR’s invasion of Afghanistan in

1979 but in 1989 communism collapse in Eastern Europe and in

Russia in 1991.

Since then relations between the USA and Russia have

improved, although a clear pattern has yet to emerge.

The alliance between the USA and USSR was simply against a

grayer common enemy and the two countries never really

trusted each other.

This struggle, known as the Post Cold War Era, lasted from

about 1946 to1991, beginning with the second Red Scare and

ending with the August Coup when the Soviet Union collapsed.

The collapse of the Soviet Union caused profound changes in

nearly every society in the world.

Soviet revolved around the capitalist and communist

ideologies respectively and the possibility of a hot War.

Technology :

The end of the Cold War allowed many technologies that were

formerly off limits to the public to be declassified.

The most important of these was the internet, which was

created as ARPANET by the Pentagon as a system to keep in

touch following an impending nuclear war.

1991 bought some major innovations to the world of the

internet. The first Web page was created and much like the

first email explained what its purpose was to explain what the

World Wide Web page.

1995 is often considered the first year the web became

commercialized.

First SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) encryption was developed by

Netscape, making it safer to conduct financial transactions

(like credit card payments) online.

In the approximately two decades since, about 20 million

people (less than 0.5 percent of the world’s population at the

time) were online in 1995, mostly in the US and several other

western countries.

Today in the 2014, more than one third of the world’s

populations are online.

From the Post Cold War to the Post 9/11 Era: US policies of preemptive strike and regime change started

not with the collapse of the World Trade Center in 2001 but

with the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989.

Beneficiaries of war dividends, that is, the military-industrial-

security complex, were alarmed by the demise of the Soviet

Union, by the end of the “Communist Threat”.

Major Post-Cold War US military strategies such as regime

change were formulated not after the 9/11 attacks under the

president George W. Bush.

Conclusion : For the first time in over half a century, no single great power, poses

a “Clear and Present Danger” to the national security of the United

states.

The end of the Cold War has left Americans in the fortunate position

of being without an obvious major adversary.

It would be foolish to claim, though, that the United States after

1991 can return to the role it played in world affairs before 1941.

The passing of the cold war world by no means implies an end to

American involvement in whatever World is to follow; it only means

that the nature and the extent of that involvement are not yet clear.