20th-century international relations

Table of Contents

Introduction
The roots of World War I, 1871–1914
- The Bismarckian system, 1871–90
  - The era of the great powers
  - The nature of the German state
- The impact of industrialism and imperialism
  - Patterns of population
  - Industry, technology, and trade
  - The New Imperialism
- Completing the alliance systems, 1890–1907
  - Germany’s new course
  - The threats to Britain’s empire
  - The Triple Entente
- Militarism and pacifism before 1914
  - Anxiety and the arms race
  - The peace movements
- The Balkan crises and the outbreak of war, 1907–14
  - Growing tensions and German isolation
  - The final crisis
- The war-guilt question
  - The search for causes
  - The centrality of the Habsburg monarchy
World War I, 1914–18
- Military stalemate and new belligerents
  - From grand plans to the trenches
  - The war at sea and abroad
  - Efforts to break the stalemate
- War mobilization at home and abroad
  - The invention of total war
  - The weapon of morale
- War aims and peace feelers
  - War aims of the belligerents
  - Attitude of the United States
- The crises of 1917
  - War-weariness and diplomacy
  - The Russian Revolution
- Last battles and armistice
  - Russia’s withdrawal from the war
  - The eastern minorities
  - Germany’s final battles
- The collapse of the old order
Peacemaking, 1919–22
- Competing visions of stability
  - The idealist vision
  - The realist vision
- The Versailles Diktat
  - Hammering out the treaty
  - Reaction to the treaty
- The West and the Russian Civil War
  - Bolshevik diplomacy
  - Allied approaches to the Bolsheviks
  - Consolidation of the Revolution
- Central Europe and the Middle East
  - The reorganization of central Europe
  - The reorganization of the Middle East
- The new balance in East Asia
  - The three Pacific powers
  - The organization of power in the Pacific
- The postwar guilt question
A fragile stability, 1922–29
- A broken world
  - The failure of democratic consensus
  - The search for a new stability
- Reparations, security, and the German question
  - The continuing problem of Germany
  - German politics and reparations
  - Allied politics and reparations
- The agreements of mid-decade
  - Reparations agreements
  - Security and the League of Nations
- Italy and east-central Europe
  - Fascism and Italian reality
  - Fascist diplomacy
- The invention of Soviet foreign policy
  - Lenin’s diplomacy
  - Stalin’s diplomacy
- The United States, Britain, and world markets
  - U.S. leverage in world markets
  - U.S. leverage in Latin-American affairs
- The Locarno era and the dream of disarmament
The origins of World War II, 1929–39
- The economic blizzard
  - Political consequences of the Depression
  - Failures of the League
- The rise of Hitler and fall of Versailles
  - Failure of the German Republic
  - European responses to Nazism
  - Italian aggression
  - The first German move
- British appeasement and American isolationism
  - The rationale of appeasement
  - The civil war in Spain
  - The return of U.S. isolationism
  - Japan’s aggression in China
- Anschluss and the Munich Pact
  - The German-Austrian union
  - The taking of Czechoslovakia
- Technology, strategy, and the outbreak of war
  - Rearmament and tactical planning
  - Poland and Soviet anxiety
- Hitler’s war or Chamberlain’s?
World War II, 1939–45
- The last European war, 1939–41
  - Poland and the northern war
  - The Western front
  - The Eastern front
- Origins of American belligerence
  - From neutrality to active aid
  - Japan’s challenge
- The turning point, 1942
- The economic and scientific wars
  - The German economy and the Jews
  - Strategic bombing
  - Allied economic management
  - Science and technology in wartime
- Strategy and diplomacy of the Grand Alliance
  - Allied strategy to the fall of Italy
  - Early war-aims agreement
- The defeat of Nazi Germany
  - The Allied invasion of Europe
  - Soviet advances in the east
  - The final Allied agreements
- The defeat of Japan
  - The encirclement of Japan
  - The atomic decision
The coming of the Cold War, 1945–57
- The Cold War guilt question
- Wasteland: the world after 1945
  - The ruin of Europe and Japan
  - U.S. vision of reconstruction
  - The end of East–West cooperation
- The Cold War in Europe
  - Peace treaties and territorial agreements
  - Atomic energy
  - The economic battle with Communism
  - The division of Europe
- The Cold War in the Middle East and Asia
  - The creation of Israel
  - South Asia
  - The Chinese civil war
  - The Korean War
  - Asian wars and the deterrence strategy
- The pace of European integration
  - The nature and role of Germany
  - Postwar European recovery
  - The Suez Crisis
- Nuclear weapons and the balance of terror
  - The race for nuclear arms
  - Arms control and defense
Total Cold War and the diffusion of power, 1957–72
- The world after Sputnik
  - Soviet progress and American reaction
  - The Sino-Soviet split
  - Soviet diplomatic offensive
  - Decolonization and development
  - Latin-American problems
- Superpower relations in the 1960s
  - Policies of the Kennedy administration
  - The Cuban missile crisis
  - Renewed U.S.–Soviet cooperation
- The Europe of the fatherlands
  - Great Britain and decolonization
  - France’s independent course
- Asia beneath the superpowers
  - The Six-Day War
  - China, India, and Pakistan
- The war in Southeast Asia
  - Cold War assumptions and the quagmire
  - The conduct and cost of the war
- Nixon, Kissinger, and the détente experiment
  - Détente as realism
  - Scaling back U.S. commitments
  - The opening to China and Ostpolitik
  - Arms-limitation negotiations
  - End of the Vietnam War
Dependence and disintegration in the global village, 1973–87
- The decline of détente
  - The distraction of Watergate
  - Events in Southeast Asia and Africa
  - American uncertainty
  - Postmortem
- The “arc of crisis”
  - Palestinian terrorism and diplomacy
  - The Iranian revolution
  - The Soviets in Afghanistan
- Rhetorical cold war revived
  - The Reagan administration
  - Renewal of arms control
  - Regional crises
- Latin-American upheavals
  - Marxism and the Cuban role
  - Nicaragua and El Salvador
- The world political economy
The end of the Cold War
- Gorbachev and the Soviet “new thinking”
- 1989: annus mirabilis
  - Liberalization and struggle in Communist countries
  - Aftermath of the breakup
- The reunification of Germany
  - From skepticism to reality
  - Why the Soviet retreat?
- Disengagement in the Third World
  - The Philippines and Central America
  - Afghanistan
  - The Middle East
- The first post-Cold War crisis: war in the Persian Gulf
  - UN coalition and ultimatum
  - Soviet unrest at home and diplomacy abroad
  - The ground war
- The collapse of the Soviet Union
The quest for a new world order, 1991–95
- Prospects for peace
  - The Middle East
  - South Africa
- Assertive multilateralism in theory and practice
  - Three tests
  - Developments in free trade
- Europe adrift after the Cold War
  - Relations with Russia
  - The role of NATO
  - The Balkans
Toward a new millennium
- Conflict and peacemaking, 1996–2000
- Tension and cooperation at the turn of the century

References & Edit History

Images & Videos

What were the consequences of the Treaty of Versailles?

Track the League of Nations' continual failure to check via diplomacy the Axis powers' pre-World War II rise

Examine the effects of U.S. Neutrality Acts on pre-World War II international relations

Hitler's final days in Berlin, April 1945

Adolf Hitler's death and its impact on Nazi Germany

Deciding Germany's future: The Potsdam Conference

Postwar Germany: Surviving and rebuilding after 1945

East and West German armies during the Cold War

Cuban missile crisis: The world on the brink of war

For Students

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20th-century international relations: Media

Videos

What were the consequences of the Treaty of Versailles?

Learn about the 1919 Treaty of Versailles and its aftereffects.

Video: Contunico © ZDF Studios GmbH, Mainz; Thumbnail Auckland Museum; Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

Track the League of Nations' continual failure to check via diplomacy the Axis powers' pre-World War II rise

The 1930s consisted of many individual but significant events that bound the Axis...

Video: Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

Examine the effects of U.S. Neutrality Acts on pre-World War II international relations

Simply by having to amend its own Neutrality Acts of 1935–37, the United States began...

Video: Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

Hitler's final days in Berlin, April 1945

As Soviet troops entered Berlin and the Battle of Berlin raged on, Adolf Hitler committed...

Video: Contunico © ZDF Studios GmbH, Mainz; Thumbnail © Romannerud/Dreamstime.com; German Federal Archives (Bundesarchiv), Bild 183-18483-0001

Adolf Hitler's death and its impact on Nazi Germany

War in Europe ending with Germany's unconditional surrender, May 1945.

Video: Contunico © ZDF Studios GmbH, Mainz; Thumbnail Department of Defense/National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

Deciding Germany's future: The Potsdam Conference

Learn about the Potsdam Conference, attended by Winston Churchill, Harry Truman,...

Video: Contunico © ZDF Studios GmbH, Mainz; Thumbnail Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

Postwar Germany: Surviving and rebuilding after 1945

In the aftermath of World War II, many Europeans lacked adequate food, shelter, and...

Video: Contunico © ZDF Studios GmbH, Mainz; Thumbnail Lieut. Michael M. Dean/Canada. Dept. of National Defence Library and Archives Canada/PA-140126

East and West German armies during the Cold War

Tensions between East and West Germany leading to rearmament.

Video: Contunico © ZDF Studios GmbH, Mainz; Thumbnail Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc; Horst Tappe/Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.; Jwnabd; © Sarayutoat/Dreamstime.com

Cuban missile crisis: The world on the brink of war

Overview of the Cuban missile crisis and its effect on Germany, 1962.

Video: Contunico © ZDF Studios GmbH, Mainz; Thumbnail National Archives and Records Administration; United States. Department of Defense. Department of Defense Cuban Missile Crisis Briefing Materials. John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston

Know about Australia's involvement in the Vietnam War and the Battle of Long Tan

Learn about Australia's involvement in the Vietnam War.

Video: © Behind the News (A Britannica Publishing Partner)

European Union: Its purpose and significance

In the 1980s West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl worked to create a united Europe...

Video: Contunico © ZDF Studios GmbH, Mainz; Thumbnail © European Communities, 1996; SPC 5 James Cavalier/U.S. Department of Defense; Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

Hungary's historic removal of the iron border

East German visitors fleeing over the border of Hungary to Austria during the Pan-European...

Video: Contunico © ZDF Studios GmbH, Mainz; Thumbnail © Fritz Hiersche/Dreamstime.com

Reunification of Germany: How it happened

Learn about the first free parliamentary elections in East Germany in 1990, which...

Video: Contunico © ZDF Studios GmbH, Mainz; Thumbnail © oxinoxi/stock.adobe.com; German Federal Archives (Bundesarchiv), Bild 183-1990-0318-046

Introduction of the deutsche mark in East Germany

Learn why the deutsche mark's becoming the official currency of East Germany in 1990...

Video: Contunico © ZDF Studios GmbH, Mainz; Thumbnail © Convisum/Dreamstime.com; © oxinoxi/stock.adobe.com

The journey to Germany's reunification

Learn about the introduction of the deutsche mark as the official currency of East...

Video: Contunico © ZDF Studios GmbH, Mainz

Images

Alfred Thayer Mahan

American naval scholar Alfred Thayer Mahan, undated photo.

U.S. Naval Academy Museum

Mikhail Gorbachev

Mikhail Gorbachev, 1991.

Boris Yurchenko/AP Images

Reagan, Ronald; Gorbachev, Mikhail

Ronald Reagan (left) and Mikhail Gorbachev shaking hands during a summit in Reykjavík,...

Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty

U.S. Pres. Ronald Reagan (right) and Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev signing...

Courtesy Ronald Reagan Library/National Archives and Records Administration

George Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev

U.S. President George Bush shaking hands with Mikhail Gorbachev of the Soviet Union.

Dave Valdez/White House photo

Berlin Wall opening

People from East and West Berlin gathering at the Berlin Wall on November 10, 1989,...

AP Images

Helmut Kohl

Helmut Kohl, 1996.

NATO photos

Ruhollah Khomeini

Ruhollah Khomeini (at open window) greeting supporters after returning to Tehrān...

AP Images

Javier Pérez de Cuéllar

Javier Pérez de Cuéllar, 1981.

Bachrach/UN Photo

Persian Gulf War: burning oil wells

Oil wells set afire by Iraqi troops fleeing Kuwait during the Persian Gulf War, April...

Sgt. Dick Moreno/U.S. Department of Defense

George Bush

U.S. Pres. George Bush, undated photograph.

Dave Valdez/White House photo