Transcripts For CSPAN2 The Cold War 20170924

Cohair of the washington history seminar along with my colleague, christian, of the history and Public Policy program. Seminar for those of you who dont though is a collaborative east of the National History center which is part of the American History association and center for scholars. The traditionally meet on monday afternoons at 4 p. M. , though, today for our fall lunch weve made exception and chosen a beautiful pride afternoon to get this season started. Though, normally we meet on monday afternoons mark it down 4 p. M. If you vpght the goen schedule yet already please pick one up or go to the washington history seminars website, on the National History center to download a copy of all of the tacks for the rest of the fall season. Our programs is exciting mars dont happen like this for themselves and amanda perry of the National History center worked behind scenes to ensure that the seminars come off without a hitch. We also rely upon the generous Financial Support of a number of institutions particularly the society of historian of American Foreign relations which is help to underwrite semimar for a number of years now as well as the George Washington University Department of history and a number of anonymous donors whose ranks i koondly invite you to join at your convenience. One quick piece of business your cell phone is not already on, slengt or o vibrate if you could put it in that mode now we would very much appreciate it. Now introduce our speaker this afternoon. Thanks eric. Great to see so many of you despite the wonderful weather lots of familiar faces a lot of had new ones as well so also welcome you and history seminar it is a thrill and privilege and it a household name interNational History profession and beyond intellectual giant in the field of cold war history. Among arnie many books his global cold war third world intervention in making of our times published in 2005 is considered the Gold Standard in the field. And has been translated into 15 along wage and made economic rock star with a global following as todays standing room only crowd attest to as well. Global cold war has most important price, history price given many this country and many other awards. Aron nee served along with marvin coed tore for the past breaking three volume cambridge history of the cold war and of the world mow in the 6th edition his 2012 book china an the world since 1750 exemplify other area of expertise china it won book of art award for 2013. Arnie is the s. T. Lead professor of u. S. Relations at Harvard University teaches at the Kennedy School before coming to harvard in 2015 he was School Professor of interNational History at the l. S. C. There he codirected, corrected sc ideas diplomacy and strategy, of course, for many years prior to that, he was the Research Director of the Norwegian Institute where he hosted a terrific, terrific Fellowship Program that many of us many folks in the room benefited are from with his new book, the cold war World History about which he will speak today arnie returns once more to the conflict that shaped much of the 20th century and still reverberates powerful today. Congratulations arnie its great to have you here. Congratulations on this publication, you have the floor. Thank you. I think i shall speak from up here. [applause] thank you very much Christian Phillip wonderfully generous introduction isnt it . Ladies and gentlemen from sometimes quote when he was introduced in a wonderful fashion at some kind of gathering and said that if his father has been here he would have been very proud and if his mother would have been here she would have been too. So theres something to be said for good introductions so i think it would have made my parents very, very proud. The book by the way is dedicated to my parents so theres a connection here which was even outside the story telling mode. Mow, immaterial to thank the National History center, and the center for inviting me to give this hope. And i want to start up really where the bookends and bookends if acknowledgement. And here i want to start with some especially since were here at the center. So book like this in reality has have many orders, anyone who thinks that he or she could be ultimate judge of what goes on in up here many a very long time period more about that in a second. That i have described as the cold war on the world scale. Would be rather foolish. You have to build, you have to base yourself on the work of others. So this book with a few exceptions is a work of centers and the reason why ive been able to do that is because many people who worked in this field often on the very difficult circumstances in different places around the world made it possible to access the kind of information that most historians of my generation when we started many this profession could only dream about getting access to. And it is a very forefront of that process of two wonderful smiewtions here in washington, d. C. , cold War Institute project here at the Wilson Center and the National Security archive over at dw. Without institutions like that, and let me particularly underline the cold war interNational History project in christian, and history to bring this up i would never have been able to do the book in the form that ive done it now so much of what is most important in terms of research on the korld war of understanding it in a broad sense, its connected enterprise. And one who is brought it together more than anyone else as a collective have been cold war project here and not just grateful but committed to kind of project that this is not just because it collaborative but also because it underlines the need of Public Access to government sources of information that earlier have been closed. Thats the significance of this project and they have done a fantastic job. Let me talk a little bit about the book, and how i constructed it. So i started out thinking about this book maybe about six or seven years ago as as much of what yods it came out of teaches first and foremost so in teaching students first that mow for few years at hazard i started getting certain idea of how i wanted to present this complex topic to a brother audience. I was quite certain that the audience that i wases aiming for would be a general audience. There are lots and lots of books on cold war written for specialists some would say so many, and if i was going to do going to try very last told on this subject it would be for a progeneral deal so that was given, about and i i started struggling with how to get handle on it and i was joking with chris and eric that what was really difficult about this book was to conceptualize to write it where it wasnt about difficulty when i figured out how i was going to do it so how i have tried to conceptualize my approach. This is a history after cold war as logical conflict between capitalism and socialism is goes back more than 100 years in time it starts in the 1890s, with the first Global Market crisis, and the significant parts of the movement both in europe and in north herk, and the expansion of the United States and russia as transcontinentallal empire and it ends with the collapse of the soviet union. In the 1999 0z that covers 100 year span of interNational History. Now, some of you will immediately say, isnt that a little bit audacious . A lot of other things that happened during that hundred year period beside what i have defined as the cold war and they would undoubtedly be right. Two world wars, the great depression, economization european and right of china about a lot of things that happened during this time period and its not my book is not been attempt at trying to assume these developments. Under a framework of an ideological cold war it is rather to try to stipulate cold war within this broader history of the world in the 20th century. Because my contention in the book is that thats had the only way we can really understand the book. If we try to reduce it simply to an interstate system or a framework in which countries interacted with each other, then i think were losing great deal of what made had conflict so important but also made it very terrifying. I think without going deeper into the situation, that the cold war lived with in and created within, we cannot get, we cannot understand particularly the Younger Generation today cannot understand that kaition dedication that came through the cold war the reason why people are are good will on both sides, intelligent people who take this so seriously and so civil competition that theyre willing to sacrifice themselves and own country and family but possibly whole piewcht world based on what they believed in. Now, one thing thats important to me and this is thing is that helped explain the time perspective that im writing this within is how the cold war was experienced by the people who lived through it. So you have to understand it to some extent generation but that i think helps with getting to this issue of why it mattered so much this so many people in different settings. Across the world so if you were born in 1980s and a lot of people who came to cold war were born around that time, you will and they were born in the world with maybe a couple of exceptions you are bond to have a disit mall use and young adulthood. Right . Things are really not going very well in the early part of the 0th century. First world war the great depression, that was colonialism and anticolonialism lots of things in most countries that seem to go very, very wrong. I think this helps us in understanding why stakes are so high. If you have this kind of background, you were more likely i think to dedicate yourself to big ideals about how yowptsed to set world right. Not everyone during the cold war acted for a reason. But what i ponged and i was working on this book was that the reasonably high number of people did on all sides tharm involved. And that i think generational aspect tries to or attempts to tell us something about why this stakes requester so high. Why they took it so serious. Like all are dedicated to split the time period that im working on up into parts of possible for us to digest whats beginning on historians call it and absolutely dedicated that we avoid it so let me give you a certain sense for the sake of the discussion thats going to have in a minute. Of how i divide the cold war into different eras. So the first one goes roughly from the 1890s up to 1917 u to the Russian Revolution. You know not surprising i guess this is the creation of the ideological confrontation. This is when the framework of the new kinds of states which the United States already was compared to what existed in europe before, and soviet union became after 1917 how they were created ideological and practically. Then Second Period goes from 1917 to 1941 the development of the soviet union as a great power and a depression. The International Economic depression that contributed had in my view very significantly so soviet union ending up as alternative to have decisioned it internationally. Third period goes roughly from 1991 to early 1970s that is perhaps what most people would immediately associate with a cold war right . What i would argue is that this is the time period in which the ideological cold war the framing, the scooping, fundament that ive been talking about became an International System. And i want to talk more about that had in a little bit. And then finally the period from the early 1970s up to the early 1990s which was the slow demise of the cold war as the predominant International System. Which im also going to talk more about in a minute but before that, theres a couple of points about how the cold war figures if you think about very broad interNational History. The interNational History of the it [inaudible conversations] so one of the things thats striking and my Political Science friends have been pointing this out is how relatively rare bipolar International Systems of the cold war kind really are in human history. Most systems are either june polar or multipolar. Either have one great power at the center and china role in eastern asia you know for the two, or o they have a number of countrieses that compete for interest. Think europe, from 1500 up to 20 9 century so only a few examples i think, real examples of International Systems that are a little bit like the cold war. Rome and persia in the First Century bc and First Century ad is a little bit like this. A competition for power that involves most of the met mediterranean that had very strong ideological confrontation at its core. Best clarm is a chinese example conflict between them and United States in the 11th century. Which was states that also had a very strong ideological confrontation to compete for the same territory that did much of the fighting through allies, and then the most used example i guess in a way england and spain from the mid60s to early 17th century which was both just conflict and broad use for conflicts about the future of europe. But except these it is actually quite hard to find bipolar e International Systems that are are long lasting. Thats something that i found quite interest when i start ised working from this from this book. No i i talk about a difference of cold war as a ideological conflict and cold war as International System and it is important in order to understand my argument many this book to separate those two out. They are connected to each other but theyre not identical. Right. So in order to understand how the cold war became a global International System you have to understand where it came from. If you start by thinking about a world the way it look it is in the late 1940s and another historian writing on cold war do you dont get that. You dont understand why the confrontation was so and why ideology so clearly connected to the purpose. On both sides on the other hand you have to also understand the system and i dont think it is really all that hard to explain and as most big changes in history it was a product of some structural that pointed in this direction. Ideology that already pointed out but the access to resources that United States and soviet union had because of the continuous land mass that they controlled over other countries that competed within the International System. So in a way its not surprising that after 1945, its these two countries that are last ones standing in International System. So conflict has been moved through the ideological difference that existed before that didnt in itself produce International System. But when the outcome of the Second World War soviet union and United States became Privilege International powers that i think that ideological point in a clear direction of conflict. What i say in the book is i think that conflict was very likely that it was pushed in a direction that had qowld not be surprising wasnt surprising. I think for anyone who lived through that period but that the Cold War International system as a full fledged order that last for the year, that is perhaps the surprising even perhaps avoidable. And i discussed it at some length in the book that we can talk more about it, more about it later on. Part of the im so preoccupied with the early part of the 20th century try to link that to it later is that i think its necessary and written today with the general audience in mind and students in mind as well in a way to redistrict the soviet union as a real eternity of international that has to do a lot with how cold war end and more about that a little bit later on but it also has to do i think with some fairly trends among historian among social scientist who is worked on this who tend to read cold war backwards we know theout come. We know that United States is did win the cold war, and reading more that counts the soviet union becomes sort of early day of russia today that satisfied power on the outside of the International System that this really been excluded from it. Pushed to edges of it. Which is complainings in frame arework i dont agree with. Soviet union acted throughout the cold war for its own reason. It was not set up as a kind of foil for what was happening in american politic it is had had its own significance, its own anticapitalist logic, which for a very long period of time or it was three generations seem to work reasonably well. Problem ideological perspective of the people who pursued it but i think its important because if we dont get into that understanding, the whole idea about why this conflicts was so serious very easily gets lost. Let met talk a little bit about what i see as turning points. In the cold war many turning point but i think particularly point and interesting to discuss with with you today or one of the very early splits in the 20 century even before the Russian Revolution between different groups on the global left, particularly between the democratic socialist on within hand and commonnist among on the other i think that cold war would have ended very differently if it hadnt been for that split for two reasons first reason was that after the global collapse of collapse in the depression it was possible for people on the left to cooperate in order to set up new forms of well first aid new forms of systems of integration of larger numbers of the pomtion population that could be alternative within market setting to the kind of that have developed in soviet union and very post on Eastern Europe after 1945. But also in pure because in significant parts of the world in latter half had of the 20th century, the conflicts were not just between people who believed in the liberal democratic market or space on the one with hand and commonness on the other very often did conflict as intense between people who believed in democratic form of socialism and their commonnist opponents and, of course, broad sense could say that weakened the left. But in another sense this was the rescue at least not in europe after the possibilities of developing alternative practices that became more inclusive. And in the end, of course, ended up influencing all of the continent. So social and second turning point which i think is really important is the korean war. Not just because the korean war was first big hot war of the cold war with devastating consequences for korea. But living with today, but also bauds the korean war led to a military station of the cold war on the global scale. And i think this is gene something thats very often forgotten. And intense conflict between the United States and the soviet union and between the western european states and the soviet union prior to the summer of 1950, but i think very few people who have imaginedded this International System that would last forked next 40 years if it hadnt been for the outbreak of war in korea. It didnt change everything but it changed a lot of things in terms of how the cold war developed and then part of it in terms of turning points, the 1970s and economic change that took place during that decade on the first spot of the 1980s. I think plan to go into this much many the presentation today we can talk about it afterwards but basically my view of what happened is that from 1970s on after a period of what was in a tremendous weakness for the west i mean think the system think that the challenge can to american Political Institutions to the water gait crisis thing inflation in materials of how economy developed in the mid and late 19th things that think oil and Energy Crisis right this seem to be a period of immense weakness for the west and especially for the United States. Instead it became by the late 70s and early 80s a period of globalization of market. A temporary weakening of the position of the United States actually turned out to oversimplify this to become enormous advantage for the United States less than a decade later. Made it possible for this country to invest and to buy into market practices that was spreading globally to area that would never been imagined it could happen in just a few years before. Think about that. So very few people in early 1970s or in mid1970s could have foreseen direction that china took in the late 70s and early 1980s. Right, it had had a tremendous impact on u how the world changed and tremendous impact on how the cold war ended. One of the things that i want to do in this book is to people have been joking about this in the global cold war i try to broaden it geographically and many this this book i try to broaden it chronologically simply to write about the subtext of this thats not entirely true that i. Although that might be might be some element many it a longish book afterall weve had page pane page, but the publishers [laughter] but my attempt in this book is really to try to look at some of the issues that i brought up in the global cold war which which have to do with how the cold war became a global system right. With influence not just europe the soviet union, and north america but influence by late 1950s almost every corner of the world and thats reason why great moral in this book than you would have seen in most discussions of the cold war about latin america and maybe especially about about india. Gradually became more dead dated dedicated to different forms of planning, of centralization. Guest terms of the economy to an extent that it think surprised a lot of people in the late 20th century. Indiana emphasized normal i think used that term in the world in the book, i think india could be seen almost as a kind of anticause. In terms of the Domestic Development plans, india stuck for a very long tomb to a form of centralized planning that had a hot do do with the experience of the soviet union. I thought that writing this book, believing that indian planning was muchmore about the british experience and the soviet experience, that it was more lse than moscow, more and i was wrong. When you look at the indian outcome, one of the few places where did research for the book, its clear what kind of impact the soviet experiment had on indias planning for its longterm future. So, these aspects of the cold war is also something that is very important for me to try to cover in this book, and i guess explains in part why it became as lengthy as it has ended up being. Let me talk about the end of the cold war. What i described so far is the system that inspired of the different contradictions that is built into it, deemed for a long time to be pretty safe. I think that was the impression that most of us had probably as late as the early 1980s, that the cold war was here to stay for quite a long time. What was it, then, that undyed the cold war system. Its important to understand that the cold war didnt just end in one place at one point. It depended gifts ways in different plays. At lot of different ending for the cold war, some structurally driven, some leadership driven in some areas the relevance of the cold war had become lesssel significant by the late 1970s. Think about the impact of the Islamic Revolution in iran, for instance. The cry, neither west, nor west, nor god, the challenge in terms of religious, nationalist, what i challenges that broke with the patterns of cold war polarity. In other areas it lasted much longer. For europe, for instance, it is quite clear that without Mikhail Gorbachev coming to the power and the changes he allowed to happen in Eastern Europe, much of that transformation would have taken much longer than what it did. Already mentioned the chinese influence. Want to dwell on that a little bit now. I think china understand understanding chinas part is essential to understand how the cold war ended. Not just because of the changes that happened within china and certainly not just because of the breakthroughs that United States had in the 19 70s under nixon and kissinger to enlist china as a de facto ally in the global struggle against the soviet union. But more, i think, because of the changes that took place within china itself. When china defected from the concept that socialist Central Planning what the wave of the future in the early 190s, you could see some of the idea that social jim would somehow rule the world in the next century was already going away. What is interesting to me is that this didnt just happen in china. China is the most interesting example. The biggest. It happened in other parts of the world that has chosen a socialist orientation paragraphly. It happened before Mikhail Gorbachev came to power. It is interesting. Had a thereto do with the economic changes that it talked about earlier on and we can discuss a little bit more in the q a later on. Let me now conclude with talking about what remains. I argue the book that the cold war created the contemporary world. You cannot understand the world that we live in today, in particular some of its main challenges, without understanding the cold war. Without understanding the kind of format that the cold war left us with. What is striking, though, when you think that how the cold war is seen today and mobilized for political purposes, is how many misapprehensions exist in this country, mass other countries, about how the cold war really came to an end. I think the emphasis that you often find in the general public discourse, after 1980, the reagan era, where a sudden soviet buildup in u. S. Military strength, brought the soviet union to its knees is something that is not held up by the record. What is clear what ended the cold war in a bilateral sense between the United States and the soviet union was remarkable willingness that the Reagan Administration after the first couple of years in the white house, showed to negotiate with the soviet union. An interest that started again before gorbachev became the soviet leader and could only be fulfilled after he became the soviet president in 1985. What is most interesting to me in terms of how the cold war end, what that it ended through negotiations. And negotiations was set up by both sides, and were in no way preordained. Very few people would have thought this is how the cold war would end. Gorbachev, as is shown in my friend and colleague, big tobins biography, what the central figure and was important to have a u. S. Administration that was willing to negotiate when the opportunities arose and that was in in way a given. There had been moments before, during the cold war whether where there had been opportunities to negotiate which were for various reasons squandered by beth sides. This came together in a way that worked in the late 198s, so very important part of the story how the cold war ended. The result of the other aspects to it, which i think is not much misunderstood, so i said earlier the United States won the cold war ask thats true in the sense that the other side collapsed. Right . The soviet union was not capable of continuing the kind of process that it had been set on in 1917. But in some accounts of the cold war, if victory is taken much too far. The direction that there is a belief that it was the specific form of ideology that came up during the 1980s in the United States, neoliberal approach, if you like to social affairs and economic affairs, that was what predominated and pet put pressure on the soviet union and led to the end of to the cold war. Adopt think thats true. I think much of the ideological rigidity in this country and in western europe, was not part of that. It held up some of the opportunities that would have been there in order to deal more successfully with the contradictions between the two sides. What is clear, though, was this was a moment in which a lot of people believed that United States had strengthened itself during the reagan years to a point that made it the envy of the world. So, that ideological aspect of the way the cold war ended is, i think, truly important. It was moment, not a longterm story. Just like the u. S. Economic was a moment rather than a longterm story. But it was important for what happened then. It was important for what was seen as being successful in 1980s. The problem is when we look back at that era as historians, not be taken over by the same belief that exited at the time and trying to understand the other factors at work that pushed us in the direction of ending the cold war. The cold war ended on a global scale. Just like it had been born in my view, on the global scale. And if we dont take that into consideration, think the biggest risk that the iran is repeat many of the mistakes that had been made during the cold war. Think in terms of absolutes. Think in terms of military solutions and other kinds of solutions that would have been much better, even under very dangerous and very, very difficult circumstances. This they can is what can learn if we apply ourselves to studying in. Thats what ive been trying to do through writing this book. Thank you very much. [applause] happily we have time for questions and discussions. We ask that you wait for the microphone to reach you before you start to speak, and if you would identify yourself and finally if you could keep your questions relatively brief so we can get as many of them in as we can. So, we have a hand up right here on the end in the second row. The microphone is coming. Thank you. Thank you for a stimulating revisionist approach to the cold war. Im Diana Negroponte and here the Woodrow Wilson economic center. My question is coloniality. The 100 years you have chosen can be characterized and priority given to the colonial and the postcolonial period. How do you integrate that . Let me try to answer very briefly. To me, its a very important question because if we look at these other factors that were at play during the 20th century, the long 20th century, as some people call it. Decolonialization, the anticolonial movements, and the processes of interaction between the Imperial Centers and the new economized space, is one of the most important aspects of it all. To me, to put it very bluntly, decolonization was not born of the cold war. Even though the cold war stimulated it in various forms. Neither the United States nor the soviet union saw its interests served through the continuation of the european colonial freedom nation in the world that developed in the 19th century or before in some cases. Its quite clear it was influenced by the interests of the two states to move away from colonialism and towards new forms of states which were built on local national sovereignty. That is where the agreement ends. Right . I think the sudden existence of or see sudden coming into between of between 60 and and 7w states, more than the number of states that existed in total in the early part of the 20th 20th century in the 1950s and 1960s had a tremendous impact on the cold war. It created new battlegrounds. Not just new battling ground battlegrounds when the United States and the soviet union. And this i think showed the cold war in an ideal sense at it most destructive because there were only two alternatives that could be used. Right . I used the example in the book very much based on my own experience when i wrote it, so i was in the process when i wrote the final chapter on buying a new car. I went around looking for cars and i know nothing about cars. And i thought what i really would have wanted is something that was a little bit of a volvo and a little bit of toyota and certainly a little bit of a bmw, but i couldnt get that. You have to buy one car unless youre an expert at an expert mechanic that can take these apart and put it together again. In ideological terms in the third world, there were very few people who could operate that way. You had to choose. It became prepackaged and some of the biggest crimes and real tragedies of the cold war came out of that. Trying to superimpose ideologically based forms of development on countries nat reality had no basis for that, and that is as true in terms of those who chose the capitalist form of development as those who chose the soviet form. Thank you. Over here. Yes. Thank you very much. Im from georgetown university. Thank you for a great contribution to the history of the cold war. Really a great and innovative, i believe, particularly the point that you made at the beginning which is that basically it is a ideological conflict. And here is my point and my question. What would you say to people who would make the point, well, the whole cold war is just a classical power conflict, and ideology more or less grafted upon the basic power structures that evolve basically from the time you started to begin to tell us where the cold war began, because you could make up some Power Developments that would point in the same direction that you take the geopolitical strategies that include that, too, you could see the emerges power strucks that point in the statement direction. Thats the question i have for you. Thats one over to central questions. In rate you can take any conflict under the sun and say its national interest, stupid. You just have to look at the builtin overall realist mode of thinking. Have to look at the builtin interests that are there for states to grab more for themselves to be more powerful than their neighbors. I dont knee nye that dont deny that most States Development in a direct that clearly is something that is incumbent honest the leaders to do better than what they had done before, very often at the expense of others. History is rife with examples. I would venture to say that if it had just been about national interests, probably wouldnt have happened in the first place, right . Because there would be so many contradicts going into the relationship. Think about the soviet union. The United States is an example. The country had more than enough with its own problems during the 20th century. From the very beginning, from the revolution, certainly through the devastation of the Second World War in russia, but still held on to its ideological principles, voluntarily insulating itself, isolating itself, from developments that could be enormously beneficial for the russian people that were taking place elsewhere. Its very hard to explain that if you dont use the ideologyol motive. And on the same time with regard to the United States i was just writing about the u. S. Relationship with latin america. Some people whoa that as an example to point in the direction you mentioned. What is special about the u. S. Relationship with lat latin america, always about economic preponderance and u. S. Political influence of the southern neighbors. So the latter is most definitely true. What is specific, what it special, is the form this took during the cold war, which in many ways was entirely counterproductive in terms of the overall u. S. Aims of interacting with latin american countries. Think about the u. S. Support for various military dictators and the legacy that left behind in latin america. Think about the complete failure of the country to try to develop during the cold war era, in the direction of a genuine economic and social cooperation with the countries to the south. Many of these best motives were defeated in this very strange hunt for communist conspiracies against the United States to the south of its border. So, i mean, that i think is how you understand how ideology came to play a role. I appreciate your remarks but two questions. One, preworld war, two on british history and influence, reading the recent economist review, largely favorable of the book, but with some doubts i would expand on. To wonder about this bipolar disposition that in the british case, if we could trace that back to the napoleonic experience and the way that is recalled again, in the 30s in in britain with the german threat arising and how much that might have been passed on to many of that American Group of the 1890s generation who were in fact drawing on the british perspective. So thats prewar. Post war our former Wilson Center colleague, working on the nonaligned movement. Wonder if some comment on how nonalignment as an alternative between the two how you really see that playing out over the various conferences. There was a last sad meeting they tried to organize in beligrad in 1989 that was mistimed. More than miss timed. Mistimed. It was late in all possible ways. On britain, ive seen in a couple of british reviews which have been generally favorable, that the point has been made, why is there not more about britain in it . And it does remind me a little bit about maybe that influenced this book about reviews of my 2005 cold war book, the global cold war in india. They said why isnt there more about india in that . When it comes to britain there is a great deal about britain in the early part of the book. So, leading up to 1941. The degree of perceptions, many concepts and ideas were taken over by the United States from british examples, and particularly on the line that the degree to which the United States, to the surprise of the british and everyone else, decided when it had become the most powerful country in the world to keep a lot of approaches and institutions that had developed during the british hegemony of the 19th and 20th century. What is striking now in terms of britains role i think this what a couple of the reviews referred to they do not agree with me on is how rapidly the british influence waned in the middle part of the 20th 20th century. How even during the Second World War, as britain was fighting for its life, and british troops, the british navy was engaged on all contents in political terms there was not three great powers as was often presented. There were two to put it mildly two and a half, britain never had the kind of status, the kind of position, the kind of opportunities for reasons i referred to any talk, that the soviet union and the United States had at that point. The reason for that are quite obvious. Its about the inability of britain to provide either the resources in material terms, but also the kind of stark ideology choices that the United States and the soviet union could be seen as offering on a global scale during and after the Second World War. I think its important to understand that. This is not writing britain out of the story. Not at all. Its something that is sometimes difficult to get how quickly the british power waned in the century. On the alignment issue, very briefly i. Believe alignment played a significant role in the cold war, but the little bit like what i have discussed in other contexts with the third world movement, which was in a way social and economic aspect of what some would say participants, not ever in total with alignment but involve something of the same participants as lina and others have pointed out. The problem is that its very hard to oppose, even though you tried to do it for the best of ropes, what already has been said as a bipolar International System. What you see is the gradual defeat of these attempts at nonalignment. So 89 was not the end of it. Ly would argue by the late 1960s, nonalignment got into trouble. It was a great project but under the cold war circumstances it was incredibly difficult to realize. Take a cochair prerogative here to slip in two i hope straightforward questions. This is a book that is written for a general audience, and trade publishers discourage academics from going on and on and on about historyogyoffy and where their work fits into the broad literature that preceded them. If you would put this book in that historical field and this one you could forgive a student reading the book from thinking, ah, its all been done. You have 639 pages and you cover almost every conceivable topic. Presumably you would you want to discourage that student from thinking every is done and theres more to be done. What would you identify as the area you would want them to explore. Good questions and difficult to answer very briefly. Historically, i think there is a very significant break which happens at the at the time when we start actually to get access to source materials, to archives, outside the United States and britain. Its not just about soviet or former communist state archived, its archives on a broad scale. Im not at all, as you may have guess, what you could call a positivist historian if dont think the archives tell us what we ought to think about this or that or anything, but its almost inpossible to do the kind of history im trying to do here without relying on archives. So, on cold war history theres a rather sharp break in the early 1990s that come into being. That said, its very clear that im influenced by people in this country and elsewhere who have looked at the cold war structurally, more than simply to a state centered kind of analysis. I did my ph. D in at unc chapel hill work with michael hump, and michael is one of those who influenced me very much in terms of my own think about the framework of u. S. Power, which he has dealt with so eloquently. Ive been influenced by people who want to think about the cold war in a broad systemic sense, what is perhaps a little bit surprising maybe an advantage i have as a nonu. S. Historian is that they come from various sides of the political spectrum. Very influenced by williams, this think about the fundments of u. S. Power. Im also influenced by people like john getis who try to think from a different position, about other aspects of u. S. Policy, first and foremost, political and strategic. Overall i probably have more disagreements with those two come out of the post revisionist, as its called school of cold war history but thats not the same thing that is cited im not influenced by. I am. Anyone who reads the book will see where that influence actually comes in. Now, not all are done. But im done in terms of dealing with the cold war in a broader sense, but for other people who are going to pick this up, think there are lots of things to work on. It would be different for the past. In america, perhaps the hottest field i know of for people working on the cold war now is latin america and a broad sense, and not just dealing with 1940s and 5s and 60s but going back to early part of the 20th century and very often looking at internal domestic cold war conflicts within capitalism in collectivist development in latin america. By myself, and quite a number of others are fascinated by the study of science and technology and its relationship to cold war developments. More has been done on that already, but particularly when you link that social development theres a lot still that needs to be done. I think i have two questions. The first question is about the title. The cold will ward, World History. If i want to change the table to the title with the cold war with global history that works here. The other question i have is toward the end of the book you mentioned that gorbachev did not like the Eastern European communist party. In 1989 when things got nasty over there there if used intervene. My question is, if you go around 89 or 91 with communists collapse in Eastern Europe . Or would soviet union. [inaudible] hello. A fulbright scholar, im going to ask you about the role of global institutions. Im wondering how you would respond to the criticism that even if you call this book of World History, is still a history of east versus west. Still history of the global north. If we look at the role of global institutions before the Global Society what we see is a very dynamic discussion about the experiences some of socialism and the ideas of regimes versus global socialist regimes. We also see a dynamism and evolution of ideas of the systems coming from global countries themselves. I wonder how you would respond to that criticism and where these actors in your story . So the questions do me a great honor by coming to listen to me. Your own work has influenced my understanding of the cold war. If we had change, in a way it wouldve been a different book, it depends on how you employ the true terms. The reason why called my 2005 is built into the cold war the book as you know is best understood as a full essay, attempting to write the third world, thats what that book was about, the reason i prefer the term World History here is because of what it talks about the lecture. An attempt to situate the cold war within a broader spectrum of things that are happening at the same time. In a way what made the books so incredibly difficult to write is that kind of is not one that their suited for. But historians are generally pushed to the particular in the specific and therefore we dont really see the rest of the force. Thats what i was trying to do there. Very interesting, would communism i dont know. But i was strongly argued against people who are saying that it wouldve necessarily come up with different situations thing gorbachev did. Im really struck with how a number of other soviet leaders in the early 80s started feeling that the burden of in Eastern Europe was too much of the soviet union to bear, if there were domestic challenges in poland is a of course the key at this point, that would make the price of soviet intervention too high. In the discussions held in the soviet years before martial law was introduced that the all sick circumstances under which a soviet intervention would not be forthcoming even if they did not succeed in introducing martial law. I think you have to think about it systemically. One of the biggest surprises ahead in the research was looking at how deep the sense of unease and weakness was in the soviet union in the very early which was often not seen in the west. First team to the floor when gorbachev came. The last question, youre right in a sense that the book doesnt center on global institutions because it really tries to look at the biological divides that on many occasions broke them apart. Just as they are starting to have an international significance. The Un Institution was the most striking one when you can see from a promising starting point in the 40s coming out of much earlier experience, how much of this was pushed to the side because of the cold war process. The United States by the way is just as guilty of this in terms of the active sabotaging of the broad institutions as a soviet union. It would it be possible to write the history from the perspective i have in the book. As you know one of the things im interested in is to see not in terms of the intellectual framework, how the concept actually spread in the 20th century. I do get to that toward the end of my story. How ideas of the global helped overcome some of the cold war challenges. I think i would argue that until that happens, the National Institutional approach in most cases left out of the cold war logic that existed. To keep those suppressed until opportunities opened up to challenge those concepts. Thank you. You kind of answer my questions when he said the science and technology and impact on the cold war something that had to be worked on. I like to ask about the chronology in 1970s the people of when the atomic, Nuclear Power and weapons were going to determine everything. By the d. C. Get information and communication and, so this change in the background of what defines power and wealth occurs during the peak and where does that play a marty with the Wilson Center, little bit with the followup, i wanted to it surprised me because it would seem to me that there are two great times in this 100 years. The 1890s to august 1945 in august 1945 onward. That is the impact of the nuclear issue. Understand this is ideology, but it seems to me ideology is folded in very, very tightly in the context of the nuclear age. I would just like you to comment on where you situated the influence of the nuclear weapo weapons. Them a deal with those i think Nuclear Weapons do not create the cold war but it would not have been the same without and their weapons. In other words, this is something i spend time on discussing in the book part of the reason why the cold war settles as an International System is because of the development of ever more powerful weapons of mass destruction. First and foremost strategic weapons what has to be careful were thinking qualitatively in terms of the system as such came to determine the directions that the system would take. To may be exaggerated but if the cold war had ended the way many people thought it would and most of these systems that i referred to and it that way. But then obviously the innovations that went on wouldve been the cold war wouldve changed everything. So i contributed to the relationship between the two sides particularly the dont think it changed everything in terms of the approaches to the cold war in the same way as many of the broader social political structures that weve been talking about. From the Broad Technology one of the things i tried to do in the book is to deal both with technology as Weapons Technology and also in terms of the transformation that happens for instance the development of radio on the global scale which was very significant. The real breakthrough in technological coming together that influenced in my view was this remarkable marrying of Computing Power to Communications Technology that took place gradually. Much of the globalization of markets that i talked about earlier wouldve been impossible without that. Its very interesting when you look at it that when you get to the 70s its not that the soviet union are so much behind in terms of technology, there behind in some fields in terms of implementation, but could they have competed on this . The most are likud. They didnt want to do it. They had other purposes for their technology. It was put to other purposes. Could the soviet union have made use of global satellite technology, you bet they could. Its just something they didnt do except in the military because it was not the weather system had been developed. To me these two sides are equally important. The technological breakthrough itself that made this possible also this striking difference in terms of how the two sides employ technology. Think in those are some things you need to look at in my comments. Gave the gentleman over here. Im sir. Stephen sure, did sums to, place the first observation that people were ceasing to believe in communism. I first encountered this imprint and John Gunthers inside your today in 1962. The people stop believing in communism because was feeling . Or was it feeling because people stop believing that . Was a soviet union the worlds last colonial empire . Good afternoon. Thank you for your presentation. Im a student in International Relations and Political Science. I wanted to know since your specialist in cold war, how do you apply the concept of nobility today and talking about in the use of Nuclear Weapons, how would you qualifier International System today . My name is paul from George Washington university, this is a followup on the question just asked. How would you, and on the prevailing narrative . It seems to me the end of the cold war was a victory not just for United States but the rules based order which incidentally chinas now perceived as the emerging challenger. And like you to address how you see the validity of that historic moment. When it comes to liberal order today, i think there are many opportunities lost in developing this institutionalized liberal economic and political order of the cold war. I talk about it to quite some extent. Much more could have been done, should have been done to integrate russia. Different ways into the order that had existed during the latter part of the cold war some people would say that wouldve been impossible, but not so sure about that, at least in the case of russia, i think one main reason why authoritarian like Vladimir Putin had a chance to come back was a sentiment that Many Russians had of being excluded of the possibility of cooperating. Its as much of a my believe is that more should be done, today of course some people would say that if you think an institutional terms of the liberal order you do not have to say its the biggest threat, rather than china. And i would to some extent agree. Its interesting commenting on it to see how the United States now under the Current Administration has moved in a direction that a lot of people presumed would happen when the cold war came to him but didnt happen. The United States would give up on International Obligations and concentrate more on its own narrow selfinterest. It took a long time in coming, i was interested in thinking about it because you seen another cases Similar Development it always lacks until the new form of what is in place catches up with you. Do not take this as an endorsement of current policies. It is a reflection the liberal order the people thought which wasnt on the global scale caught up with was equally likely to happen which is development of a new form of american nationalism that made the United States more selfinterested unless systemically oriented. So part response to the question about the system we had today. The best point to describe this is that we are now in the end of the postcold war era. But we are having i believe towards multi polarity. Were not quite there yet because of the preponderance of military power and also economic power. Wendy people in Eastern Europe and soviet union stop believing in communism . In a way then youd have two groups of people and how they are thinking then how they thought the thinking differently. Although the view that i hold in the book is that the collapse of the faith in communism as a system to live by and ideal, and the soviet union it happened quite late. Much of what gorbachev tried to do in the early phase and this is going fantastically well was not to dismantle communism but to rescue it. Many people who believe likewise the minority of the population somewhere quite late in giving up your fate in communism, one, it takes a long time tom learned what you had taken up over a lifetime. In Eastern Europe there is a fear that if you admitted defeat your population would really turn on you. Thats understandable. The soviet union was more internalized than that. Theres a wonderful book that describes some of this. Some of those are fantastically good in describing how some of these even survived the collapse of the soviet union. So i think be careful in saying that believe in communism had collapsed and that was the reason for the undoing of the system. Not so sure thats true. The other practice i discussed earlier is equally important. The soviet union is less global empire, surly not the last,s china is still around even though it is very different than the soviet union was also more or less the same today as in the early part of the 20th century. Which is not an argument that theyre going to collapse it certainly is an empire in that sense. I dont think imperialistic of the soviet break was all that important. In many countries this is some my discussed a lot of colleagues who disagree with me, in most parts of the soviet union with exception of the ukraine and Baltic States and some parts of the the experiment of socialism and the experience that people have under socialism was not necessarily seen as being negative. Why not negative certainly in a direct nationalist or religious current of direction. When you look at the record what happens is the soviet union starts getting into serious trouble. And then quickly theres new forms of identity develop in the central republic and other parts of the soviet union. Remember what i said, one has to be careful leaving this is a type of anti colonial rebellion from the nonmetropolitan areas. Thank you. Were just about out of time. Maybe one more question. Guess this would the question that would end it all. The grand finale, korea. You started your talk with. With the beginning of the militarization of the cold war. In its current form, in your own thoughts would you say that this is the most miserable reduce manifestation of the cold war and the cream peninsula now . A severe stalinist regime in the north and for those for you and done experience cold war, this is what those who live for have on a larger scale. Your thoughts. Creates not only the most dangerous remnant of the cold war, its also in many ways the one that you can see most directly where the cold war came from in a microcosm of conflict. The reason why worry so much about korea, everybody worries about. But i worry more about it than any other conflict that exists at the moment is not just because of north koreas development of Nuclear Weapons, it is because of the intractability of the conflict that is there. The creators many of you know was divided in part as a result of the cold war. I can patients by the soviet union and the United States. It was also divided because of too strong and oppose National Projects within korea itself. They oriented very much as you indicated along the Division Lines of the cold war on a world scale. It is these things coming together which makes the conflict so incredibly difficult to solve. It is also the reason that why i believe negotiations is feeling possible solution. A lot of people would say you cannot talk to a state or regime like north korea which is guilty of keeping its own population enslaved which has developed against the will of the International Community weapons of mass distraction. I think with the cold war shows as those are exactly the kind of situations in which you need to talk. The consequences of not doing so could be terrible. Thats not granting something to the north korean regime that they ought not to have, it is about avoiding the worst kind of scenarios which could happen in the north korean case not because of the capabilities of the north, because the northern leadership actually believe in what theyre doing. They think based on their logic which we may say is warped, theyre the last best hope of cree nationalism that is there. If you dont understand the terrible century they had in part as a result of the cold war, you can never arrive at an understanding that in spite of the enormitys theyve committed, they may be better talking to than trying to isolate. Im not among ones who believe you can draw immediate lessons from the past, i teach a course this semester which deals with power ships and we saw in 400 d. C. And works its way slowly, very slowly my students would say, to today. Im entirely aware of the obvious the people will interpret things in different ways dependent on what position they take in todays politics. When i think we can do is look at the past in terms of parallels and differences. We should ask ourselves, have you been in a situation before that looks a little bit like what were trying to deal with today . What can we learn from what we did wellington do so well . On the current korean situation theres a lot that can be learned from the cold war. I wish that policy makers would take that to heart. Unfortunately on that note we have to draw this to a close. [applause] you can find copies of the cold war outside for purchase and for signing. I can say that the book is not just an outstanding scholarly work absolutely readable as well. Please join us on monday when jeremys here to talk about his new book on the presidency. Thank you tour participants and thank you to our guest. [applause] heres a look at some of the current bestselling nonfiction books. According to powells books in portland, oregon. Topping list is Hillary Clinton on with her thoughts on the 2016 president ial election what happened. After that, the 2015 recipient of the american book award and indigenous history of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar cheese. Fourth is the hidden life of trees followed by thoughts on love and modern society, all on love. I look at the bestselling nonfiction books continues with the lifechanging magic of tidying up by marie condo. After that, comes a member from Sherman Alexi about his relationship with his mother, you dont have to say you love me. Then Robert Wright argues that buddhism holds the key to enduring happiness in why buddhism is true followed by how not to be wrong about how mathematics can be applied in daytoday life. Wrapping up the look at the bestselling nonfiction books according to portland oregons books is the genius of birds. Some of these authors have or will be appearing on book tv. You watch them on the website, booktv. Org. Next, on afterwards New York Times magazine contributor susie hansen reflects on her travels abroad and looks at the world powers and influence