A World In Disarray

A World In Disarray will open your mind to new ways of making the world a more peaceful place by guiding you through the major changes in global affairs since World War II.

It seems like not much conflict came up once World War II was over. That wasn’t an accident though. A harmony between global leaders and balance of their powers was the start of it.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), for example established an alliance between European nations and North American countries. The purpose for this was to unify military efforts. It set the standard that if any of the nations involved were attacked, they all considered themselves attacked. This made other countries less likely to go to war with any NATO nation.

What’s more, the US set up the Marshall Plan to support Western Europe to help them against the growing Soviet Union. When West Berlin was blockaded by the Soviets, no fights broke out. Instead, Western nations sent supply drops into the city.

As economic interests increased after the war, countries also wanted a way to unite on this also. The Bretton Woods system was born to unite world currency, setting the dollar as the standard by which they would measure everything else. It also set in motion a plan so gold would back up all paper money.

Possibly the best deterrent against war though is nuclear weapons. The nations that had them knew the destructive power they had and didn’t want to lay waste to much of the world. This made them a lot less likely to engage in any sort of altercation.

All seemed well within the allied nations, but outside there was still work to do. The African nation of Rwanda, for example, saw some rough times without any help from the outside. The Hutu and Tutsi tribes’ conflict came to a head in 1994 when almost a million Tutsi were killed. Sadly, the world’s superpowers sat idly by, failing to help out. The power to save hundreds of thousands of people with little military effort was in the hands of other nations who did nothing. This tragedy led to a dramatic change in international relations. The United Nations establishment of the responsibility to protect is just one example. This creed states that sovereign countries are responsible for safety from war crimes and genocide. If a nation fails to protect its citizens or commits these crimes itself, others can intervene to help. And with military power, if necessary. This innovative new idea changed things. It made it possible for a country to invade another, even in cases where that nation hadn’t committed crimes against others. Such a power is helpful, but the…