The World: A Brief Introduction

by Richard Haass

  One influential history: See Clark, Sleepwalkers.

  “Fifty years were spent”: B. H. Liddell Hart, History of the First World War (London: Pan Books, 1970), 1.

  From World War I Through World War II (1914–1945)

  War came in the summer of 1914: One of the best histories of World War I is Michael Howard, The First World War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002).

  The leaders who plunged: The kaiser told German soldiers they would return home, victorious, before the autumn leaves fell. David Blackbourn, History of Germany, 1780–1918 (Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 2003), 349. The German crown prince anticipated “a jolly little war.” John Merriman, A History of Modern Europe: From the Renaissance to the Present (New York: W. W. Norton, 2010), 888.

  farewell address of 1796: President George Washington, “Washington’s Farewell Address 1796,” https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/washing.asp.

  Secretary of State explained: John Quincy Adams, “Speech to the U.S. House of Representatives on Foreign Policy,” July 4, 1821, https://millercenter.org/the-presidency/presidential-speeches/july-4-1821-speech-us-house-representatives-foreign-policy.

  What brought the Americans: Michael Beschloss, Presidents of War (New York: Crown, 2018), 310–14.

  It is possible: Barbara W. Tuchman, The Zimmermann Telegram: America Enters the War, 1917–1918 (New York: Macmillan, 1958). See also Beschloss, Presidents of War, 310–16.

  As many as 200,000: Merriman, History of Modern Europe, 902–4.

  “Men marched asleep”: Wilfred Owen, “Dulce et Decorum Est,” in The Collected Poems of Wilfred Owen, ed. C. Day Lewis (London: Chatto & Windus, 1963).

  nine million soldiers: Ian Kershaw, To Hell and Back: Europe, 1914–1949 (New York: Viking, 2015), 91.

  twenty-one million were wounded: Merriman, History of Modern Europe, 923.

  millions or even tens of millions: Merriman, History of Modern Europe, 923.

  the last of his Fourteen Points: The fourteenth point stated, “A general association of nations must be formed under specific covenants for the purpose of affording mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity to great and small states alike.” The full text of Wilson’s Fourteen Points address is available at avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/wilson14.asp.

  idealism over realism: For more on this school of thought, see Hans J. Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1948).

  Nationalism often gains momentum: For a lengthier discussion of nationalism, see E. J. Hobsbawm’s Nations and Nationalism Since 1780: Programme, Myth, Reality (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1990) and Ernest Gellner’s Nations and Nationalism (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1983).

  the League failed: For a history of the League of Nations, see Ruth B. Henig, ed., The League of Nations (Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, 1973).

  the Kellogg-Briand Pact: The signatories agreed to “condemn recourse to war for the solution of international controversies, and renounce it, as an instrument of national policy in their relations with one another.” The full text of the Kellogg-Briand Pact can be found at avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/kbpact.asp.

  seen by many observers: Mario J. Crucini and James A. Kahn, “Tariffs and the Great Depression Revisited,” FRB NY Staff Report No. 172 (September 2003); Douglas A. Irwin, “The Smoot-Hawley Tariff: A Quantitative Assessment,” Review of Economics and Statistics 80, no. 2 (May 1998): 326–34.

  One school of thought: Norman Angell, The Great Illusion: A Study of the Relation of Military Power in Nations to Their Economic and Social Advantage (New York: G. P. Putnam’s, 1912); Edward D. Mansfield, Power, Trade, and War (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1994).

  came to be known as appeasement: Tim Bouverie, Appeasement: Chamberlain, Hitler, Churchill, and the Road to War (New York: Tim Duggan Books, 2019).

  “lend-lease” program: On December 17, 1940, President Franklin D. Roosevelt introduced the idea of lend-lease in a press conference and followed it up with a “fireside chat” on December 29 in which he declared America “must be the great arsenal of democracy.” For more on lend-lease, including the text of the press conference and “fireside chat,” see www.fdrlibrary.org/lend-lease.

  Hitler turned on the Soviet Union: For a riveting recounting of this decision, see Stephen Kotkin, “When Stalin Faced Hitler: Who Fooled Whom?,” Foreign Affairs, November/December 2017.

  an act of folly: Barbara Tuchman, The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1984).

  a scathing book in 1919: John Maynard Keynes, The Economic Consequences of the Peace (London: Macmillan, 1919).

  clause that placed the responsibility: Article 231 of the Treaty of Versailles, often termed the “War Guilt Clause,” stated, “The Allied and Associated Governments affirm and Germany accepts the responsibility of Germany and her allies for causing all the loss and damage to which the Allied and Associated Governments and their nationals have been subjected as a consequence of the war imposed upon them by the aggression of Germany and her allies.” The full text of the Treaty of Versailles is available at www.loc.gov/law/help/us-treaties/bevans/m-ust000002-0043.pdf.

  isolationism, which gained traction: A February 1937 poll revealed 95 percent of Americans agreed that the United States should not participate in any future war. George C. Herring, From Colony to Superpower: U.S. Foreign Relations Since 1776 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 504. For more on this isolationist tradition in U.S. foreign policy and a history of U.S. foreign policy, see Robert Kagan, Dangerous Nation: America’s Foreign Policy from Its Earliest Days to the Dawn of the Twentieth Century (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006). Another worthwhile book that looks back on the various schools of thought running through U.S. foreign policy is Walter Russell Mead, Special Providence: American Foreign Policy and How It Changed the World (New York: Routledge, 2002).

  a decline in U.S. military readiness: Following World War I, the United States maintained a small regular army of 140,000. The U.S. Army grew to 174,000 in mid-1939 and ballooned to 1.5 million two years later. By 1945, more than 12.1 million men and women were members of the U.S. military. Herring, From Colony to Superpower, 439–541.

  More than 15 million soldiers: Merriman, History of Modern Europe, 1102.

  far larger number of civilians: Of the estimated sixty million people who were killed in World War II, forty-five million were civilians. Herring, From Colony to Superpower, 595.

  6 million Jews in the Holocaust: For this statistic and additional information on the Holocaust, visit the Holocaust Encyclopedia maintained by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, available at encyclopedia.ushmm.org/en.

  Germany lost around 7 million people: Kershaw, To Hell and Back, 346.

  Japan almost 3 million: Herring, From Colony to Superpower, 596.

  The Soviet Union lost as many: Herring, From Colony to Superpower, 595–96.

  400,000 soldiers killed: Nese F. DeBruyne, “American War and Military Operations Casualties: Lists and Statistics,” Congressional Research Service, September 14, 2018, 2.

  Both were transformed into robust democracies: The best book on Japan’s transformation is John Dower, Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II (New York: W. W. Norton, 1999).

  The Cold War (1945–1989)

  The Cold War: For an accessible history of the Cold War, see John Lewis Gaddis, The Cold War: A New History (New York: Penguin Books, 2005). For a slightly lengthier treatment with more emphasis on the global dimension of the Cold War, see Odd Arne Westad, The Cold War: A World History (New York: Basic Books, 2017).

  momentum that brought about the Cold War: The best study of the Cold War’s origins is John Lewis Gaddis, The United States and the Origins of the Cold War, 1941–1947 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1972). Few political memoirs are worth reading, but one excepti
on to this rule is Dean Acheson’s Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department, in which he discusses the formation of the post–World War II world order and the opening of the Cold War. For the revisionist perspective on the origins of the Cold War that places more of the blame on the United States—not a view I subscribe to—see William Appleman Williams, The Tragedy of American Diplomacy (Cleveland: World, 1959).

  The Truman Doctrine: President Truman articulated what would become known as the Truman Doctrine in a speech before a joint session of Congress on March 12, 1947. The full text of the speech is available at https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/trudoc.asp.

  The Marshall Plan: For a riveting history of the Marshall Plan, see Benn Steil, The Marshall Plan: Dawn of the Cold War (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2018).

  “long-term, patient but firm”: Kennan proposed this approach in an eight-thousand-word telegram—that became known as the “long telegram”—sent from the U.S. embassy in Moscow, where he was posted as the deputy chief of mission, to Washington. He later published his analysis anonymously as “X” in a famous article in the July 1947 issue of Foreign Affairs titled “The Sources of Soviet Conduct.”

  “iron curtain”: Winston Churchill delivered the speech, titled “The Sinews of Peace,” on March 5, 1946. He stated, “From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia, all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere, and all are subject in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high and, in many cases, increasing measure of control from Moscow.” The full text can be found at winstonchurchill.org/resources/speeches/1946-1963-elder-statesman/the-sinews-of-peace/.

  invaded South Korea: For a history of the Korean War, see David Halberstam, The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War (New York: Hyperion, 2007).

  outside the U.S. defense perimeter: Acheson made this comment in a speech at the National Press Club on January 12, 1950. In the speech, he defined the U.S. “defensive perimeter” as running through Japan, the Ryukyus, and the Philippines—thereby excluding South Korea and the Republic of China (Taiwan). The full speech can be found at www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/1950-01-12.pdf.

  in particular Vietnam: The best single-volume histories of the conflict are Stanley Karnow, Vietnam: A History (New York: Viking, 1983); and Fredrik Logevall, Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America’s Vietnam (New York: Random House, 2012).

  bought time for several of Vietnam’s neighbors: Michael Lind made this argument in his book The Necessary War: A Reinterpretation of America’s Most Disastrous Military Conflict (New York: Touchstone, 2002), xv. After listening to scholars condemn President Lyndon Johnson for escalating the conflict in Vietnam at a dinner party in 1968, Singapore’s prime minister and founding father, Lee Kuan Yew, explained that countries such as Singapore would have fallen without America’s intervention in Vietnam. Michael J. Green, By More Than Providence: Grand Strategy and American Power in the Asia Pacific Since 1783 (New York: Columbia University Press, 2017), 317.

  thirteen days of the crisis: Transcripts of the meetings between President John F. Kennedy and his senior advisers during these thirteen days when the world literally could have ended can be found at microsites.jfklibrary.org/cmc/oct16/index.html. The best academic study of the Cuban Missile Crisis, and also great reading, is Graham Allison and Philip Zelikow’s Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis (New York: Longman, 1999).

  The basic bargain of membership: Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, concluded on April 4, 1949, states, “The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognised by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.” The full text of the treaty is available at www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/official_texts_17120.htm.

  A sphere of influence: For more on U.S. strategy during the Cold War, see John Lewis Gaddis, Strategies of Containment: A Critical Appraisal of American National Security Policy During the Cold War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005).

  arguing that a principal reason: Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000 (New York: Random House, 1987).

  Bush has been criticized: President George H. W. Bush and his national security adviser, Brent Scowcroft, write about this criticism in their memoir, A World Transformed (New York: Vintage Books, 1998).

  The Post–Cold War Era (1989–Present)

  an additional fourteen countries: In addition to Russia, the Soviet Union dissolved into Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan.

  from sixteen countries in 1989 to twenty-nine: In 1989, the following countries were members of NATO: Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States. There are currently twenty-nine members of NATO, with the following thirteen countries having joined the organization since 1989: Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Montenegro, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia.

  The rationale was to preserve: For instance, Deputy Secretary of State—and Russia expert—Strobe Talbott listed these reasons in a 1995 article and concluded, “Freezing NATO in its cold war configuration would itself be a huge mistake, a major setback both for the democratic nations that hope to join the Alliance and for the American interest in supporting democratic institutions. By contrast, enlarging NATO in a way that encourages European integration and enhances European security—the policy the administration is determined to pursue—will benefit all the peoples of the continent, and the larger transatlantic community as well.” Strobe Talbott, “Why NATO Should Grow,” New York Review of Books, August 10, 1995, www.nybooks.com/articles/1995/08/10/why-nato-should-grow/#fn-2.

  The downside of this adaptation: At the time, George Kennan, Michael Mandelbaum, and Thomas L. Friedman were among the prominent intellectuals and commentators who advised against NATO enlargement. Michael Mandelbaum, “Preserving the New Peace,” Foreign Affairs, May/June 1995; Thomas L. Friedman, “Foreign Affairs; Now a Word from X,” New York Times, May 2, 1998.

  subsequent alienation of Russia: For instance, in his famous 2007 speech before the Munich Conference on Security Policy, the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, stated, “I think it is obvious that NATO expansion does not have any relation with the modernization of the Alliance itself or with ensuring security in Europe. On the contrary, it represents a serious provocation that reduces the level of mutual trust. And we have the right to ask: against whom is this expansion intended? And what happened to the assurances our western partners made after the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact? Where are those declarations today?” Vladimir Putin, “Speech and the Following Discussion at the Munich Conference on Security Policy,” February 10, 2007, en.kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/24034.

  Some predicted or hoped: Francis Fukuyama, “The End of History?,” National Interest (Summer 1989).

  Others were more skeptical: Samuel P. Huntington, “The Clash of Civilizations?,” Foreign Affairs (Summer 1993).

  met President George H. W. Bush on the South Lawn: I recount this scene in greater detail in m
y book War of Necessity, War of Choice (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2009), 60–72.

  “This will not stand”: George H. W. Bush, “Remarks and an Exchange with Reporters on the Iraqi Invasion of Kuwait,” August 5, 1990, bushlibrary.tamu.edu/research/papers/1990/90080502.html.

  the Rwandan genocide: For more on the Rwandan genocide and an examination of the conundrum such genocides faced U.S. policy makers with, see Samantha Power, “A Problem from Hell”: America and the Age of Genocide (New York: Harper Perennial, 2007).

  800,000 men, women, and children lost their lives: United Nations, “Report of the Independent Inquiry into the Actions of the United Nations During the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda,” December 15, 1999, 3, www.securitycouncilreport.org/atf/cf/%7B65BFCF9B-6D27-4E9C-8CD3-CF6E4FF96FF9%7D/POC%20S19991257.pdf.

  R2P doctrine was discredited: The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, argued NATO forces “frankly violated the UN Security Council resolution on Libya, when instead of imposing the so-called no-fly zone over it they started bombing it too.” The Russian foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, explained that as a result, in Syria, Russia “would never allow the Security Council to authorize anything similar to what happened in Libya.” Alan J. Kuperman, “Obama’s Libya Debacle: How a Well-Meaning Intervention Ended in Failure,” Foreign Affairs, March/April 2015.

  grew warier of the costs: An excellent discussion of the decision to intervene in Libya and the spillover effects the intervention had on other issues, mainly Syria, can be found in Evan Osnos’s profile of Samantha Power, President Obama’s ambassador to the United Nations. Osnos quotes a senior Obama administration official as stating, “For many in the government—including the President—Libya didn’t go so well. If Libya had been a great success, that would’ve created more momentum on the Syria debate. And it wasn’t.” Evan Osnos, “In the Land of the Possible: Samantha Power Has the President’s Ear. To What End?,” New Yorker, December 15, 2014.

  September 11, 2001: For those interested in learning more on the background of the September 11, 2001, attacks, see Lawrence Wright, The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006).