History of International Relations
2nd of October
Foreign policy: political projection, activities, and relationships, of one player in its interactions with other players, inside
the international arena
International relations: interaction between different foreign policies in between different players.
Geopolitics and the return of the great power competition were absent in the international vocabulary of the past three
decades, which is now today the synonyms. International relations are composed of collaboration, institution, competition
while in geopolitics is more reduced and just a way to understand international relations.
Germany was the hometown of geopolitics: Friedrich Ratzel, 1844-1904, who was a German thinker and Rudolf
Kjellén, 1864-1922, a Swedish thinker. The start of geopolitics in Germany got shaped in the 1930’s, by the dangerous
ideology of Adolf Hitler.
In 1991, the collapse of Ussr, the lowering of the Soviet Flag, a change in the landscape inside the borders of geopolitics.
A debate of the condition of the international system has started, the unipolar age between the US and the USSR, where
the US was the only one remaining.
Francis Fukuyama, The end of history, was an optimistic viewer of the under course of after the war.
Charles Krauthammer, At the unipolar moment, believed that the problem is that the only super power left is the
US, and we have to be sure that the future is bright.
Samuel Huntington, The clash of civilizations, agreed on the fact that the US was the only player inside the
international system. He was scared of the rise of China and Islam.
Robert Kagan, The return of history, believed that the future is going to be darker, and the US is still the most
powerful one.
The narrative of victory, the US represented itself as the winner of the cold war. The cold war between 2 superpower
who fought and only one of them won in 1991.
The age of extreme, Eric Hobsbawn, who described the narrative from WW1 to today.
1914-1945, multipolar balance, with many powers.
1945-1991, bipolar balance of power with 2 superpowers.
1991-2008, when the US was described as an empire
After 2008, which we go back to the classis multipolar balance of power, a competition for world hegemony
In the eastern theater, Germany was able to destroy its biggest enemy, The Soviet Union, which was underlined in the 3rd
of March with Brets Agreement.
Western centrism, being the center of the world as europe with no Americans, the western culture is the most important
and influential in the world. It came from old roots, the idea of progress with Enlightenment.
The moment where europe and America was not being the center of power, where we can talk about the beauty of the west
which got misinterpreted as defining the ‘best’ way of civilization, mapping is creation as much as representation. They
defined the geographic projection of the map, as making europe and America huge while India is much bigger. These
instruments shape the ideals of Europeans, as being in the center.
In the Washington conference, 1884, the British power being the most important power of the world.
,The western society, claiming to be the heir of the Roman Empire or ancient Greece was shaped during the area of
imperialism. The scholar who discovered America, Colombo, being claimed as Italian is just a narrative, he was a
Genevese. The British, French, Canadian, and American empires defined the world's rules.
With the creation of imperial spaces in the 20th century, some thinkers started to challenge the West's idealism.
Edward Said, Orientalism, believed that the West developed its identity by constructing a stereotyped image of
the East.
Dipesh Chakrabarty, Provincializing Europe, the European traditions are not the key to understanding the
transformation of the current global reality. The West is not the source of all global change.
The reshaped vision of the Cold War also requires the reshaping of before the Cold War process. Talking about the Cold
War, only gave the perspective inside history, if it only disturbed the Western powers, not mentioning India, Myanmar,
Dominican Republic. The unipolar moment of shifting is not 1991, it's 1945, with the ending of WW2. Between 1945 and
1950, the US had the atomic bomb, 66% of the world's gold, %75 of the global capital, 3 times the USSR's GDP, and 5
times the British Empire's GDP.
In the 1970s, the rise of Japan, the economic European Union, and the beginning of the rise of China as the new players
rising in the international system.
The unipolar moment of the US in 1945 changed the historical narrative, the Cold War being the last process of
reconvergence. The us managed the rise of an international system, the new hegemon becoming China, and the rise of
Asia. We are just living in the Second World War world, which is crumbling with the rise of a new hegemony. The new
center rising as China.
In history, there are no good or bad guys, every guy is a bad guy. Stalin being the bad guy, possible with new clashes with
the capitalists. The US’s share of the world economy is shrinking. During the Cold War, the US became richer and richer
while the Soviet Union stayed the same, a sort of decline in national income growth. The US knew that the USSR would
not be able to compare to the US, they were only strong in nuclear powers.
The world war became the last hegemonic conflict to define the cultural, competition impact. World War 2 became the
turning point of the century, a constitutional moment, this war changed everything even the cultural value. We are still
fighting against the consequences.
Tordesillas treaty, 1914, the first draft project of the global order. The dividend of Spanish and Portuguese speaking of
Latin America. Spaniards and Portuguese shared the world, even though they weren’t the main players in the international
system. The Westerners defined this global order without taking into consideration China, the idea of being universal by
the West.
1750, China 33% of global production
1913, China 4% of global production
1837, UK %25 of global production
1945, US 50% of global production
2008, China 50% of global production
The great divergence, the Industrial Revolution changed the face of the entire world starting from Scotland and
spreading to the Atlantic, to project the Western civilization onto others. The British and the other Westerners used to
claim their industrial power over others, and China was forced to buy opium from the British.
In the future Asia will be more powerful than the West, systemic reconverting.
, 9th of October
The Paris Peace Conference: the real problem of the world system after WW1, France and Britain. In theory, Western
civilization is only a good idea for our world as Westerners. The oppressed nations, what about their destiny? The West is
not the only place that has to be saved.
According to George Orwell, even the British ideology, the supposed Western ideals are hurtful as the Nazist Germany,
especially through the civilization in Africa and Asia. The British army mobilized 8 million soldiers, half from its
colonies. UK was relying on its colonies for its finances until WW1 became a turning point: India was the heart of the
empire for its population and raw materials. The Middle East, being central to the heart of warfare, London was dependent
on these areas to rage war. Canada, Australia, and New Zealand were recognized as states, and later South Africa as well
but they were the new part created on the British Commonwealth of Nations. Dominion, as states more or less equal to
Great Britain. To be able to create the Commonwealth, they were supposed to create a bounding identity, as all of them
were white states.
India, on the other hand, being greater than all other territories, nearly a million soldiers from the British raj, were
promised citizenship, which in the end was not given. The Communist population in Russia created the USSR, while
Britain wanted to create a communist revolution with the Indian identity. Communist Russia started to organize a lot of
reforms to organize the elitists, creating the communist university of the minorities, to shape the vision of the future ruling
of the communist regime. The geopolitical schools, one from earth land, being able to control the entire world, the other
one being from rimland, which the British empire controlled.
Edwin Montagu, the state secretary of India, signed the Montagu statement and the Government of India Act (1919) to be
able to self-rule the country which was never applied. However, with a new treaty, Britain was able to take power over
India once again while India was not able to participate in the peace conference and the Amritsar massacre, The
systematic massacre carried out by the British against the Indians under their colonial rule in 1919.
Gandhi established the no corporation movement, a protest against the repressive power of the British. They refused to
pay taxes, and self-subsistence on British goods while he also criticized the self-rule (sharaj) freed from Britain.
According to Nehru, the British were worse than the soviet Russia, which both led to an antagonist war.
The idea of appeasement, bowing to the dictator, according to Bush, does not work as we can see with Saddam Hussein.
The obsession of not being allowed to be tied with the dictators such as Stalin. Crime against peace, punished after WW2,
an outcome to face after the war. The division of Korea, the idea of British identity, the European Union, the idea of
decolonization came from WW2, the real shaping of politics.
In the origins of WW2, many historians say that Hitler had a great power of dictatorship while others say that the reason
of the war ending was Hitler being a weak dictator. If you consider appeasement a failure, you don’t want to talk with the
dictator, today being Vladamir Putin.
‘The last days of Hitler’ shaped the first pillar of the origin story of WW2. Hitler had a plan for the war since 1933. This
book was written during the Cold War, somehow criticizing Stalin.
2nd of October
Foreign policy: political projection, activities, and relationships, of one player in its interactions with other players, inside
the international arena
International relations: interaction between different foreign policies in between different players.
Geopolitics and the return of the great power competition were absent in the international vocabulary of the past three
decades, which is now today the synonyms. International relations are composed of collaboration, institution, competition
while in geopolitics is more reduced and just a way to understand international relations.
Germany was the hometown of geopolitics: Friedrich Ratzel, 1844-1904, who was a German thinker and Rudolf
Kjellén, 1864-1922, a Swedish thinker. The start of geopolitics in Germany got shaped in the 1930’s, by the dangerous
ideology of Adolf Hitler.
In 1991, the collapse of Ussr, the lowering of the Soviet Flag, a change in the landscape inside the borders of geopolitics.
A debate of the condition of the international system has started, the unipolar age between the US and the USSR, where
the US was the only one remaining.
Francis Fukuyama, The end of history, was an optimistic viewer of the under course of after the war.
Charles Krauthammer, At the unipolar moment, believed that the problem is that the only super power left is the
US, and we have to be sure that the future is bright.
Samuel Huntington, The clash of civilizations, agreed on the fact that the US was the only player inside the
international system. He was scared of the rise of China and Islam.
Robert Kagan, The return of history, believed that the future is going to be darker, and the US is still the most
powerful one.
The narrative of victory, the US represented itself as the winner of the cold war. The cold war between 2 superpower
who fought and only one of them won in 1991.
The age of extreme, Eric Hobsbawn, who described the narrative from WW1 to today.
1914-1945, multipolar balance, with many powers.
1945-1991, bipolar balance of power with 2 superpowers.
1991-2008, when the US was described as an empire
After 2008, which we go back to the classis multipolar balance of power, a competition for world hegemony
In the eastern theater, Germany was able to destroy its biggest enemy, The Soviet Union, which was underlined in the 3rd
of March with Brets Agreement.
Western centrism, being the center of the world as europe with no Americans, the western culture is the most important
and influential in the world. It came from old roots, the idea of progress with Enlightenment.
The moment where europe and America was not being the center of power, where we can talk about the beauty of the west
which got misinterpreted as defining the ‘best’ way of civilization, mapping is creation as much as representation. They
defined the geographic projection of the map, as making europe and America huge while India is much bigger. These
instruments shape the ideals of Europeans, as being in the center.
In the Washington conference, 1884, the British power being the most important power of the world.
,The western society, claiming to be the heir of the Roman Empire or ancient Greece was shaped during the area of
imperialism. The scholar who discovered America, Colombo, being claimed as Italian is just a narrative, he was a
Genevese. The British, French, Canadian, and American empires defined the world's rules.
With the creation of imperial spaces in the 20th century, some thinkers started to challenge the West's idealism.
Edward Said, Orientalism, believed that the West developed its identity by constructing a stereotyped image of
the East.
Dipesh Chakrabarty, Provincializing Europe, the European traditions are not the key to understanding the
transformation of the current global reality. The West is not the source of all global change.
The reshaped vision of the Cold War also requires the reshaping of before the Cold War process. Talking about the Cold
War, only gave the perspective inside history, if it only disturbed the Western powers, not mentioning India, Myanmar,
Dominican Republic. The unipolar moment of shifting is not 1991, it's 1945, with the ending of WW2. Between 1945 and
1950, the US had the atomic bomb, 66% of the world's gold, %75 of the global capital, 3 times the USSR's GDP, and 5
times the British Empire's GDP.
In the 1970s, the rise of Japan, the economic European Union, and the beginning of the rise of China as the new players
rising in the international system.
The unipolar moment of the US in 1945 changed the historical narrative, the Cold War being the last process of
reconvergence. The us managed the rise of an international system, the new hegemon becoming China, and the rise of
Asia. We are just living in the Second World War world, which is crumbling with the rise of a new hegemony. The new
center rising as China.
In history, there are no good or bad guys, every guy is a bad guy. Stalin being the bad guy, possible with new clashes with
the capitalists. The US’s share of the world economy is shrinking. During the Cold War, the US became richer and richer
while the Soviet Union stayed the same, a sort of decline in national income growth. The US knew that the USSR would
not be able to compare to the US, they were only strong in nuclear powers.
The world war became the last hegemonic conflict to define the cultural, competition impact. World War 2 became the
turning point of the century, a constitutional moment, this war changed everything even the cultural value. We are still
fighting against the consequences.
Tordesillas treaty, 1914, the first draft project of the global order. The dividend of Spanish and Portuguese speaking of
Latin America. Spaniards and Portuguese shared the world, even though they weren’t the main players in the international
system. The Westerners defined this global order without taking into consideration China, the idea of being universal by
the West.
1750, China 33% of global production
1913, China 4% of global production
1837, UK %25 of global production
1945, US 50% of global production
2008, China 50% of global production
The great divergence, the Industrial Revolution changed the face of the entire world starting from Scotland and
spreading to the Atlantic, to project the Western civilization onto others. The British and the other Westerners used to
claim their industrial power over others, and China was forced to buy opium from the British.
In the future Asia will be more powerful than the West, systemic reconverting.
, 9th of October
The Paris Peace Conference: the real problem of the world system after WW1, France and Britain. In theory, Western
civilization is only a good idea for our world as Westerners. The oppressed nations, what about their destiny? The West is
not the only place that has to be saved.
According to George Orwell, even the British ideology, the supposed Western ideals are hurtful as the Nazist Germany,
especially through the civilization in Africa and Asia. The British army mobilized 8 million soldiers, half from its
colonies. UK was relying on its colonies for its finances until WW1 became a turning point: India was the heart of the
empire for its population and raw materials. The Middle East, being central to the heart of warfare, London was dependent
on these areas to rage war. Canada, Australia, and New Zealand were recognized as states, and later South Africa as well
but they were the new part created on the British Commonwealth of Nations. Dominion, as states more or less equal to
Great Britain. To be able to create the Commonwealth, they were supposed to create a bounding identity, as all of them
were white states.
India, on the other hand, being greater than all other territories, nearly a million soldiers from the British raj, were
promised citizenship, which in the end was not given. The Communist population in Russia created the USSR, while
Britain wanted to create a communist revolution with the Indian identity. Communist Russia started to organize a lot of
reforms to organize the elitists, creating the communist university of the minorities, to shape the vision of the future ruling
of the communist regime. The geopolitical schools, one from earth land, being able to control the entire world, the other
one being from rimland, which the British empire controlled.
Edwin Montagu, the state secretary of India, signed the Montagu statement and the Government of India Act (1919) to be
able to self-rule the country which was never applied. However, with a new treaty, Britain was able to take power over
India once again while India was not able to participate in the peace conference and the Amritsar massacre, The
systematic massacre carried out by the British against the Indians under their colonial rule in 1919.
Gandhi established the no corporation movement, a protest against the repressive power of the British. They refused to
pay taxes, and self-subsistence on British goods while he also criticized the self-rule (sharaj) freed from Britain.
According to Nehru, the British were worse than the soviet Russia, which both led to an antagonist war.
The idea of appeasement, bowing to the dictator, according to Bush, does not work as we can see with Saddam Hussein.
The obsession of not being allowed to be tied with the dictators such as Stalin. Crime against peace, punished after WW2,
an outcome to face after the war. The division of Korea, the idea of British identity, the European Union, the idea of
decolonization came from WW2, the real shaping of politics.
In the origins of WW2, many historians say that Hitler had a great power of dictatorship while others say that the reason
of the war ending was Hitler being a weak dictator. If you consider appeasement a failure, you don’t want to talk with the
dictator, today being Vladamir Putin.
‘The last days of Hitler’ shaped the first pillar of the origin story of WW2. Hitler had a plan for the war since 1933. This
book was written during the Cold War, somehow criticizing Stalin.
