THE POST-COLD WAR

ERA
HISTORY
■ An era ended when the Soviet Union collapsed on Dec. 31, 1991

■ not an active war but rather a period of geopolitical tension between the United
States and the Soviet Union

■ Some scholars claim the Cold War ended when the world’s first treaty on nuclear
disarmament was signed in 1987, the end of the Soviet Union as a superpower
amid the Revolutions of 1989 or when the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991; Despite
this ambiguity, the end of the Cold War symbolized a victory of democracy and
capitalism, giving a boost to the rising world powers of the United States and China

■ 1991 was an extraordinary and defining year. The Japanese economic miracle
ended. China after Tiananmen Square inherited Japan's place as a rapidly growing,
export-based economy, one defined by the continued pre-eminence of the Chinese
Communist Party

■ The end of the Cold War intensified hopes for increasing international cooperation
and strengthened international organizations focused on approaching global issues
Three things that defined it:
■ U.S. power

■ The rise of China as the centre of global industrial growth based on

low wages

■ Re-emergence of Europe as a massive, integrated economic power

Phases of the Post Cold War Era
■ The first phase was that the United States was the dominant political
and military power but that such power was less significant than
before, since economics was the new focus

■ The second phase still revolved around the three Great Powers — the
United States, China and Europe — but involved a major shift in the
worldview of the United States, which then assumed that pre-
eminence included the power to reshape the Islamic world through
military action while China and Europe single-mindedly focused on
economic matters
 SECURITY
CHALLENGES
The Rise of Nuclear Power
■ With the end of Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), the simple bipolarity of
the Cold War world was replaced by a multipolar world

Bipolarity - a system of world order in which the majority of global economic,

military and cultural influence is held between two states

Multipolar - distribution of power in which more than two nation-states have

nearly equal amounts of military, cultural, and economic influence.

■ The advance of nuclear and biological weapons challenged the stability of the
mutual deterrence principle

Mutual deterrence principle - a military theory that was developed to deter the
use of nuclear weapons
War and Terrorism
■ The implications of the unprecedented terrorist activities on the
global stage are enormous, as both internal and international
peace and security have been elusive

■ The number of casualties resulting to terrorist attacks in the post cold

war world is alarming and very difficult to imagine
1993 World Trade Center bombing

• The first noted incident of

terrorism after the cold war

• Planned by a group of terrorists

that used cyanide gas

• The bomb caused smoke to rise

to the 93rd floor of both towers
and led to many smoke
inhalation injuries

• Hundreds were trapped in

elevators in the towers when the
power was cut, including a group
of 17 kindergartners
The September 11, 2001 attacks
on the United States (9/11)

• A series of four coordinated

terrorist attacks by the Islamic
terrorist group al-Qaeda
against the United States

• The attacks killed 2,977

people (not counting the 19
hijackers who also died),
injured over 6,000 others, and
caused at least $10 billion in
infrastructure and property
damage
2004 Madrid train bombings
• Simultaneous, coordinated
bombings against the
Cercanías commuter train
system of Madrid, Spain –
three days before Spain's
general elections
• 193 people were killed and
injured around 2,000
 POLITICAL
CHALLENGES
The commercialization of:
• Internet
• Mobile phone system
■ The end of the Cold War allowed many
technologies that were formerly off
limits to the public to be declassified.
■ The most important of these was
the Internet, which was created
as ARPANET by the Pentagon as a
system to keep in touch following an
impending nuclear war.
APRANET: was the network that became
the basis for the Internet. Based on a
concept first published in
1967, ARPANET was developed under the
direction of the U.S.
Pentagon: the headquarters building of
the United States Department of Defense
The immense decentralization afforded
by digital platforms might have made it
harder to act strategically, even if it has
allowed to spread awareness about
particular causes

This brings the world to another

problematic issues linked to digital
activism

Digital activisms lead to the evolving of

nationalism
 The nuclear crisis of
the Cold War

■ Necessary to discuss a whole new form of

international order and internationalism

■ Countries cooperated with one another instead of

using nuclear scare tactics

■ With the end of Cold War and the elimination of the

enmity between the US and the states of the
former Soviet Union, it become clear that nuclear
weapon stocks of the US were grossly excessive
 United States as the
Global Superpower

■ Able to use this ideological victory to

reinforce its leadership position in the
new world order

■ The US also became the most dominant

influence over the newly connecting
global economy
IMPLICATIONS
Proxy War (Perang Saraf)
Disagreement on official ending

There are 2 dates;

■ 1987
■ 1991
The Rise of Democracy and Capitalism
■ President Richard Nixon

■ US and China, 1972

■ President Ronald Reagan

Democracy and Capitalism
■ What is it?

■ Autocracy and Anocracy

Nationalism
■ Good or Bad?

■ Ideology characterized by the promotion of a particular

nation

■ Maintain the nations sovereignty

■ No outside interference
Internationalism
■ Total opposite of nationalism

■ Advocate a greater political economic cooperation amongst

nations and people
THANK YOU