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In [[West Asia]], only the Arabian Peninsula, and in [[East Asia]], only [[Japan]] remained completely [[independent]]. Japan soon emulated Europe’s [[imperialist]] powers by building its own overseas empire, seizing the Chinese province of [[Taiwan]] in 1895, subjugating the Empire of [[Korea]] in 1905, and annexing it in 1910.
In [[West Asia]], only the Arabian Peninsula, and in [[East Asia]], only [[Japan]] remained completely [[independent]]. Japan soon emulated Europe’s [[imperialist]] powers by building its own overseas empire, seizing the Chinese province of [[Taiwan]] in 1895, subjugating the Empire of [[Korea]] in 1905, and annexing it in 1910.
==Cold War (1947 – 1989)==
By 1947, rival blocs led by [[Soviet]] and [[American]] overlords had begun to confront each other over both [[geopolitical]] and [[ideological]] issues. Both sources of contention were evident in the 1947 [[Truman Doctrine]]'s support for [[Greece]] and [[Turkey]] against Soviet pressure, the 1948 -1949 [[Berlin Airlift]], and the appallingly bloody [[Korean War]] of 1950 – 1953. These events put in place a quasi-[[feudal]] [[bipolar]] world order that lasted until 1989, when the [[Soviet Union]]'s [[eastern European]] [[empire]] disintegrated, and it ceased to contend for [[Eurasia]]n or global [[hegemony]].
During the four decades of the [[Cold War]], the relationship – or lack of relationship – of [[nation state]]s with one or the other [[superpower]] determined their geopolitical positions, [[freedom]] of maneuver, level of access to public goods, and degree of immunity from foreign-instigated [[regime change]] operations. Meanwhile, the contending superpowers came to expect automatic followership from those aligned with them for their positions on each and every aspect of world affairs.
The [[U.S.]] and the Soviet Union took care to prevent [[state]]s in their respective [[spheres of influence]] from slipping away or defecting to the other, but both were conscious of the danger of mutual annihilation in a [[nuclear war|nuclear exchange]], and neither was prepared to risk this by engaging in direct [[combat]] with the other. Both saw newly independent states that attempted to remain nonaligned – separate from either bloc – as weak-minded and up for grabs, and each sought to sustain or expand its sphere of influence through [[proxy war]]s, regime change operations, the manipulation of [[election]]s, and [[economic]] blandishments and deprivations.
[[Ideology]] was a much more prominent feature of the Cold War than it had been in previous world orders. The US-led bloc – the so-called "free world" – was [[political]]ly heterogeneous. It was composed of a mixture of [[democracies]], [[dictatorship]]s, [[monarchies]], and [[imperial]] outposts with little in common other than a desire to remain unsubjugated by godless [[communism]] and to derive material benefits through alignment with the [[United States]]. Its member states practiced multiple versions of [[capitalism]], [[social democracy]], and [[religious]] [[faith]].
The members of the Soviet bloc, by contrast, were relatively homogeneous. They modeled their [[politics]] on [[Marxism-Leninism]], the ruthless [[elitism|elitist]] [[dictatorship]], [[atheist ideology]], and [[statist]] [[political]] [[economic]] system championed by [[Moscow]].
[[Diplomacy]] in the Cold War resembled nothing so much as [[trench warfare]]. Its object was less to [[roll back]] the spheres of influence of the other side than to avoid giving the other a reason to attack it. Despite the efforts of each side to subvert the other, the two blocs remained remarkably stable over the course of their four-decade-long confrontation. Both [[superpower]]s kept garrisons on the territories of those members of their blocs they termed "allies," by which each meant subordinate states they had committed to secure against attack or ideological conversion by the other. Each restrained such "allies" from actions against the other that might [[escalate]] into [[bilateral]] [[war]]fare between them. The end of the Cold War order removed Soviet constraints on countries like [[Iraq]], which then felt free to launch a [[war]] of expansion in [[Arabia]] it would never have dared to risk when subject to Soviet supervision.
The greatest shock to the boring stability of the Cold War order was the 1971 – 1979 U.S. enlistment of [[China]] in the [[containment]] of the [[Soviet Union]]. China's shift to the so-called "free world" rebalanced but did not alter the fundamental nature of the world order of the time. This remained defined by adversarial interactions of the [[United States]] and its bloc and the [[Soviet Union]] and its satrapies. Aside from the U.S. entente with China and an earlier shift to neutrality by [[Yugoslavia]], there were few defections from either bloc. Only one — [[Cuba]]'s turn to Soviet protection – catalyzed the near-death experience of a [[nuclear]] standoff between the two superpowers. Deft [[diplomacy]] kept disaster at bay.
[[Category:International Relations]]
[[Category:International Relations]]