Writing in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Francis Fukuyama, John Mearsheimer, and Samuel Huntington reflected on the end of the Cold War and what this change might mean for world politics. Their arguments, provocative and controversial at the time, provide excellent examples of critical thinking and writing (but also give some insight into the weaknesses of different IR concepts and the dangers of attempting to predict the future). In reviewing these three important articles, you should:
outline the articles’ key questions and central arguments; identify their underlying assumptions and key concepts; locate their place in the IR field (i.e. their theoretical and conceptual approaches) review the evidence they put forward to support their claims; and evaluate how well their arguments have explained the subsequent two decades of world politics
Articles Under Review
Fukuyama, Francis. 1989. “The End of History?” Reproduced in Conflict after the Cold War: Arguments and Causes of War and Peace, 3rd ed., edited by Richard K. Betts, 6–17. New York: Pearson Longman, 2008.
Mearsheimer, John J. 1990. “Why We Will Soon Miss the Cold War.” Atlantic 266 (2): 35–42.
Huntington, Samuel P. 1993. “The Clash of Civilizations?” Foreign Affairs 72 (3): 22–49.
Introduction
This study is based on the critical analysis of the articles written on the concept of cold war era by three eminent authors. The articles reviewed are The End of History?” Reproduced in Conflict after the Cold War: Arguments and Causes of War and Peace by Francis Fukuyama (Betts 2008), Why We Will Soon Miss the Cold War by John J. Mearsheimer (Mearsheimer 1990) and The Clash of Civilizations? by Samuel P Huntington (Huntington 1993). As stated by Samuel Huntington, when the cold war was going on, it was observed that the world was split into three different worlds. Namely, the first, second and the third worlds. However, these divisions are not prevalent any more.
In contemporary times, the countries are not grouped in accordance to the political or economic systems and are instead grouped according to their levels of culture and civilization. John J. Mearsheimer, on the other hand lays stress on the reasons on why people would actually miss the cold war after it has ended (Mearsheimer 1990). Finally the third author Francis Fukuyama bases his article on the question as to whether the end of the cold war meant the end of history. In this study the researcher examines and analyses the different aspects of the arguments put forward by the different scholars.
Scholar Huntington discusses in this paper that when the cold war had began the Iron curtain had divided the country of Europe both in political as well as in ideological manner. When the Cold War ended this ideological division also disappeared and what emerged was the cultural division of Europe dividing it in Orthodox Christianity and Islam.
The articles of Huntington make a framework on the future and divide the culture in the world into seven different and contemporary civilizations (Huntington 1993). These civilizations are Japanese, Slavic-Orthodox, Latin American, Confucian, Western, Hindu and Latin American (Burgan 2001). Additionally, he also judged that the country of Africa to be one such country that comprises of a possible civilization which depends on the development that this country has made in terms of consciousness. Most of the divisions made by Huntington were mainly keeping in mind the cultural and religious differences.
The other controversial article by John J. Mearsheimer primarily states that after quite a number of years it might be so that people would consider the cold war period to be a long peace period instead. It was considered that the manner in which the military and the power of the government would be distributed and characterized would actually define the actual reasons behind war and peace. During the cold war it is known that the world was bipolar and according to the author there was peace during this period due to this bipolarity (Magesa 2001). The distribution of power as roughly divided into two parts and both the militaries were of a more or less capable size (von Soest and Wahman). Additionally both the super powers had very large nuclear weapon that could destroy countries.
The controversial article on the end of history by Francis Fukuyama covered the issue that the end of the Cold War meant the end of world history. With the end of the Cold War the limits of the alternatives of the liberalism such as the concepts of the fascism or monarchy or communism fell all over in the internal disagreements. During these times capitalism and democracy won over the points of communism in order to achieve human ideology as well as institution.
The three articles even though have covered the same area of cold war the approach of the authors have been quite different.
For instance the in the article by Fukuyama, the analysis can be divided into two folds. The first being the philosophical investigation done on human nature and the normal logic of Universal history and the second is the description given by the author of the world politics of the post cold war era. Nevertheless, it must also be noted that these two elements of philosophical and empirical and political elements have been so well mixed and that they blend with each other in such a manner that when these two elements are argued and conversed singularly they tend to act against each other (Matlock 2010). In this thesis by the author the extremely complex and artificial framework is brought forward along with other great scholars. The author Fukuyama also pledges on the idealism by scholar Hegel and moral philosophy by scholar Kant and finally argues that his writing is extremely idealistic and normative (Appelqvist 2008).
Author Huntington in his article discusses that at the micro level, with regard to the ideological disagreements between the broadminded democracy and communism there are chances of a number of future conflicts that might occur in the borders between the civilizations. At the macro level he states that in future there might be clashes taking place between the different states having different civilizations in order to control the international institutions and for the economic and military powers (Wesscholar.wesleyan.edu 2010). The author further considers these future predictions on a mixture of the conflicts to be normal and further asserts that arrival of the nations states would actually be an event in the world that is dominated in most of the times by the conflicting histories between different civilizations. Nevertheless, this would rather be a doubtful consideration since these conflicts between two or more civilizations are primarily driven by the geographical and teh political elements instead of the cultural differences and this can be stated as an equally influential method to view the history.
The third author Mearsheimer in his article considers this cold war period to be a more peaceful period since this bipolar world demanded loyalty from the other minor powers which then can be secured from the other minor powers and they are also protected from any attack from the other rival major powers. He states that when there are a number of big powers and there exists a multi-polar system, it becomes difficult to avoid the powers since when irregularities between the powers the stronger powers can be extremely difficult to avoid. The bigger powers will get a chance to bully the weaker powers whereas in the bipolar system of world there will be no chance of such a thing (Olesen 2008) (Schlesinger 1992). Further in a multi-polar system it would be difficult to calculate the size and strength of the countries and would mainly be due to the reason that the international order would never be constant and would always be subject to changes. In order to determine the stability of the powers it is necessary to determine the size of the vacuum that exists between the military powers of the two leading countries. Huntington states that when the gaps are small it promotes peace and when there are larger gaps it tends to promote war. He further states that nuclear weapons would actually be more a powerful force for peace.
The author in his article “The Clash of Civilizations” seemed to have rejected the other author Fukuyama’s article on end of history. This was primarily because according to Huntington Fukuyama’s article was more of a delusion of harmony (Wesscholar.wesleyan.edu 2010). Huntington, on the other hand, considered with the end of the cold war the conflicts existing with the Western civilizations would also end and a new era of conflicts between civilizations would begin in return. Nevertheless, it must be noted that both the authors attempted to draw a historical implication from the result of the Cold War and also tried to figure out a huge theory of history.
Considering the entire scenario, for Huntington the post cold war time was representing a watershed and for Fukuyama this view was tempered with different qualifications. Mearsheimer, who is usually called a realist but with offensive views held that international relations can be best conquered by the bipolar world as it will also avoid the indulgence with nuclear powers. Mearsheimer, further had predicted that with the end of the Cold War most probably the continent of Europe would again become a very unstable multi-polar system (Theatlantic.com 2015) (Saull 2013). In order to avoid this, the author suggested that there should be an increase in the nuclear proliferation in the continent (Theatlantic.com 2015). Mearsheimer, had also predicted that there would be some structural and powerful imperatives of the international systems.
Conclusion
For Huntington, the end of the Cold War era implies that there was a watershed in the history and for Fukuyama there tends to be shift in the patterns of international relations. However, it has been observed that as a result of the ambitions of these authors both the patterns have been criticized by most scholars and has also been generally misunderstood individually as well as when compared together. With regard to Mearsheimer, it must be noted that he did not study the Middle East and it may be understood that these authors were trying to solve a problem that was more or less imaginary.
References
Appelqvist, Orjan. 2008. ‘Rediscovering Uncertainty: Early Attempts At A Pan-European Post-War Recovery’. Cold War History 8 (3): 327-352. doi:10.1080/14682740802222130.
Betts, Richard K. 2008. ‘The End Of History?” Reproduced In Conflict After The Cold War: Arguments And Causes Of War And Peace’. Muni. https://is.muni.cz/do/fss/57816/40125114/Betts_-_Conflict_After_the_Cold_War_1-167.pdf.
Burgan, Michael. 2001. Cold War. Austin, TX: Raintree Steck-Vaughn.
Clark, Ian. 2001. The Post Cold War Order. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Clark, Ian. 2001. The Post Cold War Order. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Huntington, Samuel P. 1993. ‘The Clash Of Civilizations?’. Foreign Affairs 72 (3): 22–49.
Magesa, Laurenti. 2001. ‘Mission In The Post Cold War Era Considerations For The 21St Century’.Exchange 30 (1): 197-217. doi:10.1163/157254301×00129.
Matlock, Jack. 2010. ‘1989: The Struggle To Create Post-Cold War Europe’. Cold War History 10 (4): 575-578. doi:10.1080/14682745.2010.513512.
Mearsheimer, John J. 1990. ‘Why We Will Soon Miss The Cold War’. Atlantic 266 (2): 35–42.
Olesen, Thorsten. 2008. ‘Under The National Paradigm: Cold War Studies And Cold War Politics In Post-Cold War Norden’. Cold War History 8 (2): 189-211. doi:10.1080/14682740802018686.
Saull, Richard. 2013. ‘Constructing A Post–War Order: The Rise Of US Hegemony And The Origins Of The Cold War (London: I.B. Tauris, 2011), 327 Pp.’. Cold War History 13 (4): 566-567. doi:10.1080/14682745.2013.849022.
Schlesinger, James. 1992. ‘Quest For A Post-Cold War Foreign Policy’. Foreign Affairs 72 (1): 17. doi:10.2307/20045494.
Theatlantic.com,. 2015. ‘Why We Will Soon Miss The Cold War – 90.08’. Accessed February 25. https://www.theatlantic.com/past/politics/foreign/mearsh.htm.
von Soest, Christian, and Michael Wahman. ‘Sanctions And Democratization In The Post-Cold War Era’. SSRN Journal. doi:10.2139/ssrn.2206849.
Wesscholar.wesleyan.edu,. 2010. ‘Revisiting Fukuyama: The End Of History, The Clash Of Civilizations, And The Age Of Empire’. https://wesscholar.wesleyan.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1405&context=etd_hon_theses.
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