Post - War World And India

OPTION (b) is correct. The two superpowers were engaged in an indirect war which was an ideological war between the two with USA supporting capitalism and USSR supporting socialism. There was no physical war taking place between the two powers, no direct confrontation rather it was in their propaganda and ideas.

OPTION (a) is incorrect because there was a rivalry going on between the two powerful nations. Both wanted to gain the support of as many countries as possible in order to influence and expand their ideologies.

OPTION (c) is incorrect because, in order to prove their hegemony over the world, the two superpowers gained access to more and more developed arms and ammunition. The possession of arms was used as a means of threatening each other. The more arms, the more was the control and a sense of security.

OPTION (d) is incorrect because the two superpowers have different ideologies to be promoted. The USA supported capitalism and hence was known as Democratic-Capitalist block whereas the USSR supported the communism and hence was called Communist bloc. Both were trying to prove their ideologies superior to each other’s hence it was known as the ideological war between the two.

OPTION (b) is correct because Indonesia was not involved in the West Asian crisis as it is a country in South East Asia which neither have a population of Jews nor of Arabs. But it strongly stood up for the freedom and rights of the Palestinians.

OPTION (a) is incorrect because Egypt was involved in uniting Arabs. Its president caused explosions in public places in Israel. He adopted aggressive policies for both Britain and France. Israel attacked Egypt in 1956 with the support of western powers as it made efforts to unite Arabs against them.

OPTION (c) is incorrect. The West Asian crisis is between Arabs and Jews. This West Asian region was under the control of Britain which withdrew its control from Palestine region in 1948. Egypt wanted Britain to withdraw its control over the Suez Canal and therefore adopted aggressive policies towards Britain and France.

OPTION (d) is incorrect. Israel was created for Jews in 1948. The Arabs did not agree to give up their homeland. The Arabs refused to recognize Israel as a legitimate state. The policies pursued by the state of Israel increased the bitterness among the two due to which the Arabs migrated to other Arab regions.

The following were the effects on the shift of power after the Second World War:

•The end of the Second World War symbolized the emergence of the two superpowers at the center of the world, USA and USSR.

•The worst affected countries due to the Second World War were the USSR, Poland, Yugoslavia which lost about 20% of their population.

•In contrast, the USA suffered less as the war was not fought on its territories.

•All European empire declined due to the huge loss of their resources.

•There was also opposition from newly independent countries to not to join any of the bloc either the Soviet Union or the USA, capitalist bloc. Hence they followed the Non-Alignment Movement and maintained peaceful relations with the two superpowers.

As the time passed, the two superpowers entered into the Cold War which was basically an ideological war instead of direct involvement in the war.

The United Nations was established on 24^th October 1945 after the Second World War for the purpose of maintaining peace and security and developing friendly relations among nations and preventing another such war in the future. The role description of the United Nations in establishing peace in the world is as follows:

•There is an organ named “Security Council” in the United Nations which send peacekeepers to the regions where there is an armed conflict going on or is about to begin.

•United Nations passed a resolution in 1947 according to which Palestine was divided into two parts -Arab and Jewish States to resolve the issue of conflict between the Arabs and Jews.

•In addition to peacekeeping, UN is also active in encouraging disarmament. It encouraged limiting the use of human and economic resources for the creation of armaments.

•The UN has been involved with arms limitation treaties, such as the Outer Space Treaty (1967), Biological Weapons Convention (1972), the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (1971), Chemical Weapon Convention (1992).

•Example: In September 2013, the UN has peacekeeping soldiers deployed on 15 missions. The largest was the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

A report of the Rand Corporation says UN has been successful in the two out of three peacekeeping missions. The UN has also drawn criticisms for perceived failures. In many cases, member states have shown reluctance to achieve or enforce Security Council resolutions.

Democracy means equal participation in decision making. The idea of democracy says that every member of the society has an equal say in deciding the government which would rule over them.

In organizations like United Nations, if there are only a few countries which possess the power to take decisions which are binding on other nations as well then surely it is not going to be a democratic way of taking and implementing decisions.

The five countries, USA, China, Russia, France, and the United Kingdom, have been given special powers in the making decisions related to war and peace and these countries are called five permanent members in the Security Council. Any decision taken by Council can be made invalid or rejected by the intervention of even any one of these five countries. Sometimes they have also used their power to force the UN to bend to their dictates. Often the great powers can be seen imposing their decisions on the other developing and underdeveloped countries for their own sake. Hence the idea of democracy by these powers is left behind in order to pursue goals and policies meant for their development only.

Each and every country has its own issues which should be solved on every cost and democratically. Those countries, developing or underdeveloped, should be considered before imposing the decision on it so that the problem and obstacles can be solved to the maximum extent possible.

Hence only a few countries should not have to say in decision making for the democratic functioning of the institution.

The two superpowers, USSR and USA, made military and strategic alliances with other smaller countries to get benefits in various forms be it political, economic, geographical and social. The west formalized its alliances in an organization known as North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in April 1949 and established a regional military, and strategic alliances like South East Asian Treaty Organization (SEATO) and Central Treaty Organization (CENTO) and USSR formed similar alliances and signed the Warsaw Pact in 1955.

The smaller states were helpful for the superpowers in gaining access to:

1) Vital resources, such as oil and minerals for their sustenance.

2) Territory, from where the superpowers could launch their weapons and troops.

3) Economic support, such as meeting their huge military expenses including the food, clothing, living, and armaments of the soldiers.

4) Locations from where they could spy on each other’s actions to prevent any attack.

5) Markets for their products and places to safely invest their capital.

6) To spread their ideologies to every corner of the world. The USA wanted to spread democratic and capitalist system while the USSR wanted to expand its ideology of communism.

The loyalty of the allies suggested that the two superpowers were successful in establishing their control and winning the war of ideas as well, that liberal democracy and capitalism was better than socialism or vice versa.

The Cold War between USA and USSR remained cold and did not turn to a direct war. Both the countries possessed nuclear weapons and were well aware of the consequences they might have suffered due to break out of the war between the two.

Both knew that in the event of a nuclear war, both the sides would be harmed so badly that it will be impossible for them to recover and declare any one of them to be the winner. This is called "The Logic of Deterrence." It means that both the sides have the capacity to fight against each other causing so much destruction, but none of them can afford to initiate war. Thus the cold war remained cold and not hot or shooting war.

Both the superpowers wanted to threaten each other and therefore increased its weapons of war like nuclear armaments. They went on increasing their possession of such weapons of mass destruction crossing every limit set by the United Nations. It appeared that there was a race going on in between the two superpowers that who will amount huge mass of such weapons.

As both the nuclear powers were aware of the severe consequences of using weapons over each other and on themselves, there was no physical use of military and direct war. However, progress and research were promoted in every field to become more powerful.

In this way, the cold war through the logic of deterrence prevented war and produced arms race as well as arms control.

The region between Asia and Europe is described as West Asia or the Middle East. The conflict between Arabs and Jews is mainly on the occupation of Palestine region.

1. The Arabs inhabited the Palestine region which was under the control of Britain after the Second World War.

2. Jerusalem the holy city for Jews, Christians, and Muslims is situated here. Jews considered Palestine as their promised city from which they were exiled in the past.

3. When the conflict came to a head in Germany under the Nazis, the Jews were killed and jailed.

4. In 1947, the United Nations passed a resolution according to which Palestine was divided into two parts - Arab and Jewish States. But Arabs did not accept Israel as a legitimate state and refused to leave their homeland.

5. When the policies of Israel increased bitterness, the Arabs were forced to leave their properties and homeland.

6. Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser tried to unite Arabs and hence adopted aggressive policies. Israel attacked Egypt in 1956 with the support of western powers. Both USA and USSR wanted a ceasefire due to which Israel had to withdraw its army.

The region has been constantly in a state of war and terrorist attacks as a result of retaliation and counter-retaliation. Hence it became a center of tensions in the world.

After the Second World War the two superpowers, USA and USSR, emerged on the scene. There was an ideological war going between the two. Due to the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991, the cold war ended, and the USA was left as a single power to dominate over the world.

When the cold war was going on, there were newly independent countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America which emerged due to decolonization. These countries did not want to join either the Soviet Union or the USA. The leaders of these newly independent nations wanted to end insecurity, and other social problems of their countries and hence in 1955, Bandung Conference was held in Indonesia which was attended by 29 nations. It paved the way for the Non-Alignment Movement.

The role of NAM in this context can be summarised as:

1. The NAM helped countries like India to take an independent stand when the two superpowers fell apart and pulled countries to their side.

2. It also helped the newly emerging countries to bargain for space and assistance from the superpowers by playing one against the other.

3. To some extent, it has also helped to ease tensions amongst the NAM countries.

4. The cooperation between NAM countries helped them to fight the serious problems like poverty, hunger, unemployment, diseases, social inequalities, etc.

5. It was aimed at cultural and economic cooperation among the NAM countries.

But NAM has faced severe criticisms from the developed countries as they view it as both neutral and isolationist policy.

Non-Aligned Movement was aimed at establishing peaceful relations among the members of the movement as well as with the other powerful and developed countries. Its formation was not merely in the context of military alliances but also in the context of economic policies as:

•In the context of military alliances: All the newly independent nations formed military alliances with each other and helped to resolve the internal conflicts of the member countries through peaceful measurements. The movement was not about neutrality because the states were involved in various wars for some of the other reason. Example of their involvement in wars is that of India and Pakistan after the partition and the war between Iraq and Iran. They also worked to prevent wars and tried to end wars that had broken out.

They formed such alliances to show their strength which was based on their unity and their resolve to remain non-aligned despite the attempt by the two superpowers to bring them into their alliances.

•In the context of economic policies: The NAM countries covered the following principles in their economic policies :

1. The movement espouses policies and practices of cooperation and provides mutual benefit to those involved.

2. The movement is committed to the tenets of sustainable development and the attainment of Millennium Development Goals.

3. The movement accepts the universality of human rights and social justice and resists cultural homogenization.

4. It tried to solve the severe problems of poverty, hunger, malnutrition, the outbreak of fatal diseases, infrastructure, health facilities, education, etc.

5. It promoted free development of the individual as well as economic and social progress of society and of nations and emancipation of people from all forms of exploitations.

6. Promotion of better trade relations and framing rules and regulations based on peaceful measures.

Hence the Non-Alignment Movement was not formed for military purposes but also for economic upliftment.

India is located on the Asian continent. The neighbors who share the border with Indian territory are Pakistan, China, Nepal, Myanmar, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka. The following table shows issues of conflict and events of help and cooperation among India and its neighbors.

Both the countries, India and Sri Lanka, became independent almost at the same time and remained democratic till date. Since time immemorial, both countries have cultural, economic and ethnic ties. The ethnic conflict between majority Sinhala and Tamil speaking minority went as follows:

1) The conflict aroused when the Tamil speaking minorities were treated unequally by the Sri Lankan government. The neglect of Tamil concerns led to militant Tamil nationalism.

2) The Sri Lankan problem involved people of Tamil origin hence the government of India felt pressure from the Tamil people in India to protect the interests of Tamils in Sri Lanka.

3) In 1987, the government of India got directly involved in the Sri Lankan Tamil question. India signed an accord with Sri Lanka and sent troops to normalize the situation.

4) The presence of Indian troops was not liked by the Sri Lankans. They saw it as an attempt to interfere in the internal affairs of Sri Lanka.

5) Eventually, India decided not to interfere when the Sri Lankan government ceased all wars due to mass killings and bloodshed.

Hence the relations between India and Sri Lanka were affected due to the ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka and India’s interference in their civil matter which was not liked by Sri Lankans.

A- Poland

B-USSR

C-Vietnam

D-Spain

E-Latin America (area marked in yellow)

F-Afghanistan

i) India has higher military expenditure from 1988 till 2011. There is not a single point where the military expenditure of Pakistan goes up than that of India's. There has been a surge in the military expenditure of India right from the year 2003, and then a drastic increase can be seen from 2007 onwards.

ii) When we compare the military expenditure of the countries, we find that the contribution of military expenditure in the GDP in percentage is higher in case of Pakistan. India is a vast country and has higher GDP than Pakistan. Pakistan spends a lot of money in developing its military and research associated hence its percentage contribution is greater than India.

There are many troubles and issues over which India and Pakistan have been fighting since independence when both the countries were formed like water sharing disputes, religious issues, border-related issues, infiltration in the Indian territory, etc. Since then both the countries are behaving as USA and USSR were behaving at the time of cold war. The same logic of deterrence is working to prevent a full-fledged war between India and Pakistan. Both the countries are pilling stalks of military weapons and armaments to threaten each other. India has accused Pakistan of fomenting trouble in its territories by sending trained religious extremists. On the other hand, Pakistan has accused India of destabilizing it and constantly threatening it with military action and stockpiling of nuclear arms and missiles.