Rise Of The Super Powers Essay, Research Paper
Rise of Superpowers After WWII
It is often wondered how the superpowers achieved their position
of dominance. It seems that the maturing of the two superpowers,
Russia and the United States, can be traced to World War II. To be a
superpower, a nation needs to have a strong economy, an overpowering
military, immense international political power and, related to this,
a strong national ideology. It was this war, and its results, that
caused each of these superpowers to experience such a preponderance of
power. Before the war, both nations were fit to be described as great
powers, but it would be erroneous to say that they were superpowers at
that point.
To understand how the second World War impacted these nations so
greatly, we must examine the causes of the war. The United States
gained its strength in world affairs from its status as an economic
power. In the years before the war, America was the world s largest
producer. In the USSR at the same time, Stalin was implementing his
five year plans to modernise the Soviet economy. From these
situations, similar foreign policies resulted from widely divergent
origins.
Roosevelt s isolationism emerged from the wide and prevalent
domestic desire to remain neutral in any international conflicts. It
commonly widely believed that Americans entered the first World War
simply in order to save industry s capitalist investments in Europe.
Whether this is the case or not, Roosevelt was forced to work with an
inherently isolationist Congress, only expanding its horizons after
the bombing of Pearl Harbour. He signed the Neutrality Act of 1935,
making it illegal for the United States to ship arms to the
belligerents of any conflict. The act also stated that belligerents
could buy only non-armaments from the US, and even these were only to
be bought with cash.
In contrast, Stalin was by necessity interested in European
affairs, but only to the point of concern to the USSR. Russian
foreign policy was fundamentally Leninist in its concern to keep the
USSR out of war. Stalin wanted to consolidate Communist power and
modernise the country’s industry. The Soviet Union was committed to
collective action for peace, as long as that commitment did not mean
that the Soviet Union would take a brunt of a Nazi attack as a result.
Examples of this can be seen in the Soviet Unions attempts to achieve
a mutual assistance treaty with Britain and France. These treaties,
however, were designed more to create security for the West, as
opposed to keeping all three signatories from harm. At the same
time, Stalin was attempting to polarise both the Anglo-French, and the
Axis powers against each other. The important result of this was the
Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact, which partitioned Poland, and allowed
Hitler to start the war. Another side-effect of his policy of playing
both sides was that it caused incredible distrust towards the Soviets
from the Western powers after 1940. This was due in part to the fact
that Stalin made several demands for both influence in the
Dardanelles, and for Bulgaria to be recognised as a Soviet dependant.
The seeds of superpowerdom lie here however, in the late
thirties. R.J. Overy has written that stability in Europe might have
been achieved through the existence of powers so strong that they
could impose their will on the whole of the international system, as
has been the case since 1945 . At the time, there was no power in
the world that could achieve such a feat. Britain and France were in
imperial decline, and more concerned about colonial economics than the
stability of Europe. Both imperial powers assumed that empire-building
would necessarily be an inevitable feature of the world system.
German aggression could have been stifled early had the imperial
powers had acted in concert. The memories of World War One however,
were too powerful, and the general public would not condone a military
solution at that point. The aggression of Germany, and to a lesser
extent that of Italy, can be explained by this decline of imperial
power. They were simply attempting to fill the power vacuum in Europe
that Britain and France unwittingly left. After the economic crisis
of the 1930 s, Britain and France lost much of their former
international standing–as the world markets plummeted; so did their
relative power. The two nations were determined to maintain their
status as great powers however, without relying on the US or the USSR
for support of any kind. They went to war only because further
appeasement would have only served to remove from them their little
remaining world standing and prestige. The creation of a
non-aggression pact between the Soviet Union and Germany can be viewed
as an example of imperial decline as well. Stalin explained the fact
that he reached a rapprochement with Germany, and not one with Great
Britain by stating that the USSR and Germany had wanted to change the
old equilibrium England and France wanted to preserve it. Germany
also wanted to make a change in the equilibrium, and this common
desire to get rid of the old equilibrium had created the basis
for the rapprochement with Germany. The common desire of many of
the great European powers for a change in the world state system meant
that either a massive war would have to be fought; or that one of the
great powers would need to attempt to make the leap to superpower
status without reaping the advantages such a conflict could give to
the power making the attempt. Such benefits as wartime economic
gains, vastly increased internal markets from conquered territory, and
increased access to resources and the means of industrial production
would help fuel any nation s drive for superpowerdom.
One of two ways war could have been avoided was for the United
States or Russia to have taken powerful and vigorous action against
Germany in 1939. Robert A. Divine, holds that superpowerdom gives a
nation the framework by which a nation is able to extend globally the
reach of its power and influence. This can be seen especially as
the ability to make other nations (especially in the Third World) act
in ways that the superpower prefers, even if this is not in the weaker
nation s self interest. The question must then be raised, were the
United States and Russia superpowers even then, could coercive,
unilateral actions taken by them have had such significant
ramifications for the international order? It must be concluded that,
while they were not yet superpowers, they certainly were great powers,
with the incredible amount of influence that accompanies such status.
Neither the United States nor the Soviet Union possessed the
international framework necessary to be a super power at this time.
It is likely that frameworks similar to Nato or the Warsaw Pact could
have been developed, but such infrastructures would have necessarily
been on a much smaller scale, and without influence as the proposed
Anglo-American (English speaking world) pact was. At this time,
neither the United States nor Russia had developed the overwhelming
advantages that they possessed at the end of the war. There are
several factors that allowed them to become superpowers: a
preponderance of military force, growing economies, and the creation
of ideology-backed blocs of power.
The United States, it seems, did not become a superpower by
accident. Indeed, Roosevelt had a definite European policy that was
designed from the start to secure a leading role for the United
States. The US non-policy which ignored Eastern Europe in the late
thirties and forties, while strongly supported domestically, was
another means to Roosevelt s plans to achieve US world supremacy.
After the war, Roosevelt perceived that the way to dominate world
affairs was to reduce Europe s international role (vis- -vis the
United States, as the safest way of preventing future world conflict),
the creation of a permanent superpower rivalry with the USSR to ensure
world stability. Roosevelt sought to reduce Europe s geopolitical
role by ensuring the fragmentation of the continent into small,
relatively powerless, and ethnically homogenous states. When viewed
in light of these goals Roosevelt appears very similar to Stalin who,
in Churchill s words, Wanted a Europe composed of little states,
disjointed, separate, and weak. Roosevelt was certain that World
War Two would destroy continental Europe as a military and economic
force, removing Germany and France from the stage of world powers.
This would leave the United States, Great Britain, and the USSR as the
last remaining European world powers.
In order to make it nearly impossible for France to reclaim her
former world position, Roosevelt objected to De Gaul taking power
immediately after the war. Roosevelt defended the Allies right [to]
hold the political situation in trust for the French people. He
presented General Eisenhower control of France and Italy for up to a
year, in order to restore civil order. As British foreign minister
Anthony Eden stated, … Roosevelt wanted to hold the strings of
France s future in his hands, so that he could decide that country s
fate. It seems inexcusable that Roosevelt desired to hold an ally s
nation in trust, comparable to Italy, who was a belligerent. It could
be argued, however that they were taking the reigns of power, not from
the resistance, but from the hands of the Vichy French.
It might be asked why Roosevelt did not plot the fall of the
British Empire as well. A cynical answer to this is that Roosevelt
understood that the United States was not powerful enough to check the
Soviet Union s power in Europe by itself. It made sense that because
the United States and Britain are cultural cousins, the most
commodious solution would be to continue the tradition of
friendliness, set out in the Atlantic Charter earlier. As far as
economic or military competition, Roosevelt knew that if he could open
the British Empire to free trade it would not be able to effectively
compete with the United States. This is because an imperial paradigm
allows one to sell goods in a projectionist manner, finding markets
within the Empire. This allows a nation to have restrictive tariffs
on imports, which precludes foreign competition. A nation, that is
primarily concerned with finding markets on the other hand, is in a
much better position for global economic expansion, as it is in its
interest to pursue free trade.
The more generous, and likely the correct interpretation is that
Roosevelt originally planned to have a system of three superpowers,
including only the US, the UK, and the USSR. This was modified from
the original position which was formed before the USSR joined the
allies, that held for Great Britain to take a primary role in Europe,
and the United States to act as a custodial in Asia. Later, after it
was seen that either the Germans or the Russians would dominate
Eastern Europe, the plan was forced to change. The plan shifted from
one where the US and Great Britain would keep order in Europe, to one
where Great Britain and the USSR would keep order in Europe as local
superpowers, and the US would act as an impartial, world wide
mediator. Roosevelt hoped for the creation of an Anglo-American-Russo
world police force.
However, Roosevelt, underestimated the power of the Russian
ideology. He believed that the Russians would back away from communism
for the sake of greater stability and union with the West. Roosevelt
saw the Soviet Union as a country like any other, except for her
preoccupation with security (the safety corridor in Eastern Europe
that Stalin insisted on), but he thought that that this could be
explained by the cultural and historical background of Russia. It was
not thought unreasonable to request a barrier of satellite states to
provide a sense of security, given that Russia and the USSR had been
invaded at least four times since 1904. It was felt that granting the
Soviet Union some territory in Eastern and Central Europe would
satisfy their political desires for territory. It was only after
experiencing post World War II Soviet expansion, that the Soviet quest
for territory was seen to be inherently unlimited. Roosevelt felt
that the position in Eastern Europe, vis- -vis the Soviet Union, was
analogous to that of Latin America, vis- -vis the United States. He
felt that there should be definite spheres of influence, as long as it
was clear that the Soviet Union was not to interfere with the
governments of the affected nations. The reason that Roosevelt did
not object to a large portion of Eastern Europe coming under the
totalitarian control of the Soviet Union was that he believed the
weakness in the Soviet economy caused by the war would require Stalin
to seek Western aid, and open the Russians to Western influence.
Many historians feel that Roosevelt was simply naive to believe that
the Soviet Union would act in such a way. Arthur Schlesinger saw the
geopolitical and ideological differences between the United States and
the Soviet Union. He stressed however, the ideological differences as
being most important. The two nations were constructed on opposite
and profoundly antagonistic principles. They were divided by the most
significant and fundamental disagreements over human rights,
individual liberties, cultural freedom, the role of civil society, the
direction of history, and the destiny of man. Stalin s views
regarding the possibility of rapprochement between the USSR and the
West were similar. He thought that the Russian Revolution created two
antipodal camps: Anglo-America and Soviet Russia. Stalin felt that
the best way to ensure the continuation of communist world revolution
was to continually annex the countries bordering the Soviet Union,
instead of attempting to foster revolution in the more advanced
industrial societies. This is the underlying reason behind the
Soviet Union s annexation of much of Eastern Europe, and the
subjugation of the rest.
The creation of the Soviet bloc in Eastern Europe did not come
as a total surprise. Roosevelt thought that America s position after
the war, vis- -vis the rest of the world, would put him in a very good
position to impose his view of the post-war world order. The Joint
Chiefs of Staff however, predicted that after the German defeat, the
Russians would be able to impose whatever territorial settlement they
wanted in Central Europe and the Balkans.
World War II caused the USSR to rapidly evolve from a military
farce, to a military superpower. In 1940 it was hoped that if the
Soviet Union was attacked, that they could hold off the Germans long
enough for the West to help fight them off with reinforcements. In
1945 the Soviet Army was marching triumphantly through Berlin. Was
this planned by Stalin in the same way that Roosevelt seems to have
planned to achieve world supremacy? The answer to this question must
be a somewhat ambivalent no. While Stalin desired to see Russian
dominance in Europe and Asia if possible, he did not have a systematic
plan to achieve it. Stalin was an opportunist, and a skilful one. He
demanded that Britain and America recognise territory gained by the
Soviet Union in pacts and treaties that it had signed with Germany,
for instance. Stalin s main plan seemed to be to conquer all the
territory that his armies could reach, and create to socialist states
within it. From this it can be seen that one of the primary reasons
for the superpower rivalry was Roosevelt s misunderstanding of the
Soviet system. Roosevelt and his advisors thought that giving the
Soviet Union control of Central and Eastern Europe, would result in
the creation of states controlled somewhat similar to the way in which
the United States controlled Cuba after the Platt Amendment. The
State Department assumed that the USSR would simply control the
foreign policy of the satellite nations, leaving the individual
countries open to Western trade. This idea was alien to Soviet
leaders. To be controlled by the Soviet Union at all was to become a
socialist state; freedom to decide the domestic structure, or how to
interact with the world markets was denied to such states. Stalin
assumed that his form of control over these states would mean the