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Unipolarity
The collapse of the USSR lead to where there is currently only one dominant world super power, the United States. The U.S. and Britain are largely considered to be the only 2 states that have been the hegemon in a unipolar world. When one power dominates the rest of the minor powers it can cause conflict between them. Historically, unipolarity doesn't last long and usually ends with a major conflict.
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Two treaties that finally brought an end to the 30 Years War in Europe in 1648. The treaty was thought to be the beginning of the international nation-state system. This first global organization ended the era of religious war after the fall of the Holy Roman Empire. The great conflicts of the continent were from then on primarily over secular concerns such as territory. Some historians argue that it brought in a system where the countries of Europe punished other countries that violated the sovereignty of another. Others argue that the system was not as well organized.
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League of Nations
a system where countries joined together and acted as a team. An attack on one was an attack on all. Can be considered an early United Nations type system. It was also considered a weak organization that composed of the European countries that were involved in the WWI because it failed to keep the peace after the war. Many believed that the reason why it failed is because it had none of the major superpower at the time backing it. Another reason the League of Nations was weak was because it did not have a regular army to settle disputes. It was a loose organization that took a long time in reaching decisions, rendering it virtually ineffective. The US did not join the League of Nations, even though Woodrow Wilson had won a Nobel Peace Prize for creating it. The US Congress voted to not join because some politicians at the time believed that joining would erode some of the United States' power. This organization was created by the Treaty of Versailles in 1919.
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a mixture of the government and the people working together to govern. This is also when a group of pople who identified with each other based on shared history settled in a set territory and govern itself. A political unit consisting of an autonomous state inhabited predominantly by a people sharing the common culture of that nation. A nation consisting of one state. The United States is a melting pot of many different cultures and languages, although English is the national language.
- A nation-state is the joining together of two concepts - the nation (a group of people who see themselves as a unit) and the state (a political unit that can exercise governance and control over a territory). It is a fairly recent system in terms of world history, as it began to take a rudimentary form in 1648.
- While there is a trend towards realizing a world that matches the nation-state ideal and assigns one state to represent every individual nation, this ideal has never been fully realized most primarily with the Palestinians and Kurds in the contemporary world lacking a state of their own.
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The nickname of the Bush(43) Administrations foreign policy which proclaimed that the US would remove the Head of any foreign government deemed to be harboring or assisting terrorists organizations or were perceived as the threatening the US national security(the Taliban of Afghanistan). This also allowed the justification for preemptive war in Iraq, regardless of the lack of proof that President G.W. Bush had that 'Weapons of Mass Destruction' were in the country. It also called for spreading democracy around the world as a way to eliminate terrorism. The Bush Doctrine, for many years to come will shape US. policy.The Bush Doctrine gave the US a preemtive rigth to figth their enemies on their own territory,even before they openly declared their intention to the US. Many supporters of this policy atribute a lack of successful post-September 11 attacks on the American soil.
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Sovereignty
It can be found in a power to rule and make law that rests on a political fact for which no purely legal explanation can be provided. For a nation to be considered sovereign it must be acknowledged by another sovereign state. That a body of people can claim themselves independant from another ruling body. No government from outside of that particular self-proclaimed sovereign state can have control over the state in question's government. It is the quality of having supreme, independent authority over a territory and that territory exists as an independent country or state. However, is territorial sovereignty outdated- particularly over a nation governing territory outside its
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Helps to maintain a balance of power between the dominance of two powers. Both sides will have something to lose by going to war with one another. These two major powers are very threatening to each other. It is one of the four kinds of power classifications used to distinguish who or how many nations are dominant at any givin time. An example of this is during the Cold War, when the US and USSR were two balancing powers. Both nations would have something significant to lose by going to war with one another. They were both very powerful and like forces that had rather (arguably) equal militaries and the majority of influence. Another historic example of bipolarity is France and Great Britain during the colonial era. Both were major powers who held the majority of economic, cultural and military influence in the world.
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Cold War
the Unites States and former Soviet Union had a four decades conflict between themselves. People of both countries saw the other country as big evil and a direct threat. Generations were raised in hate and fear as a result of "propaganda" manopulation from their respective government. The conflict did not result in the open" hot " war between USSR and USA, however, these two super power were behind many global conflicts such as Afganistan.
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Anarchy
In reference to the realist they see anarchy as the central point of their argument affecting the way world politics works. In the realm of Political Science anarchy is defined by the absence of centralized government. It is because of anarchy within the world that realist believe that there will always be power and military conflicts. Without rules and an enforcer, war will remain the way to solve conflicts within the world.
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Cold War
occured after the end of WWII, when political and military tensions between the United States of America (capitalism) and the Soviet Union (communism) became very high and lasted until the fall of the Soviet Union (1980's). Though there was never any physical warfare involved, both sides felt threatened by the other, especially when it came to nuclear weapons. The parties involved in this war included The United States along with other countries of the Western world, against the Soviet Union and its satellite countries. However, they did indirectly attack each other during the Korean war, the Vietnam war, and when Afghanistan's freedom soldiers attacked the Soviet Union, the USA went as far providing the weapons that the freedom warriors used. The only major time the Cold War ever escalated between the United States and the Soviet Union was during the Cuban Missile Crisis. In 1972 President Nixon and Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev signed a SALT agreement which helped limit the number of neuclear weapons that each country could have. The Cold war was ironically one of the longest periods of peace between two great powers. The Cold War gave way to the American people's deterance from international politics given the unpopularity of the Vietnam War. But ironically enough it was at this time the US government self inserted itself as a policing power or balance power between the two communist countries; USSR and China. The Cold War also helped create the Space Race (with Sputnik) and as a result gave birth to NASA.
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