POL208Y5 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Mutual Assured Destruction
26 Sep 2016
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Week 2: intro to ir; mearsheimer, fukuyama, huntington. Argument/thesis; we are likely to soon regret the passing of the cold war. We will miss this because we will miss the order that the cold war gave to the anarchy of international relations. We may look back on it as the long peace, not the cold war . Why: multipolar/ bipolar distribution, equal military power, nuclear weapons. The multipolar system was plagued with war since its beginning, and millions of people were killed. Multipolarism is bad because instead of having one power, it has multiple powerful nations fighting to be top dog which creates chaos, disaster and death. Bipolarity demands allegiance from smaller nations, therefore alliance-like relationships are built between countries. Power inequality invites war because it increases an aggressors prospects on the battlefield. More of a reason to fight, to try and dominate, or take control.
