The Europeans played a major role in the creation of order in the disorderly world, especially during the age of war. The European societies as well as the states sought to establish order in the twentieth century after many of the societies in the world were disturbed and weakened by the warfare, conflicts, revolutions, and global epidemics that defined this period. The influence of the Europeans on the international society was essential and extensive throughout the period. The role of the Europeans was pronounced in the theoretical ideologies, the political ideologies, and the technological approaches that enabled the creation of an orderly society during the age of war.
The Europeans had political calculations and strategic choices that made them deeply involved in the international politics. The Europeans played a role in the shaping the international systems and their development. The interplay of the Europeans and the international world and society covered a wide range of aspects, including the trade, troop deployments, development of aids, regulations, sanctions, and the promotion of democracy and human rights. Some of the actions of the Europeans were publicized largely while others were implemented below the level of the news. Nevertheless, the level of publication or implementation, the actions of these Europeans reverberated in the international society and systems. With a variety of strategies, the Europeans through their administrative bodies acted in the response to the persistence, emergence or the worsening of the problems in the international policies. The European administrative bodies made the political calculations concerning the international affairs during the disorder in countries who were recovering from the effects of the European dominance. Since most of these Europeans had played a role in the existence of the age of war content with their dominance, they took the responsibility of assisting these states in recovering.
These administrative European bodies decided the objectives to select what to do in the world politics, seeking to balance the means to deal with the risks and uncertainties in the intentional relations. The Europeans, including the United Kingdom, France, and Germany among others shaped the strategic assessments, the styles, and the perceptions of decisions and policy-making. For instance, the differences in the worldviews underlay the divergence in the approaches of the European Nations to China, the United States, and Africa (Kent 32). Realist ideas encompassed the intersection of a variety of intellectual trends, some of which include the revival of the explanations based on the ideas in the international relations, and the rediscoveries of the realist theories of the foreign policies taking the understanding and assessment of the situation in the world of politics seriously. One of the most significant dimensions of the Europeans in assisting countries through the period of was the approaches of the officials to problem solving and policy in the region’s international action.
In order to give specific examples, prior to the formation of modern political and economic unions in Europe such as the European Union, Europe has been involved in a long history of a series of wars. In Hunt, Martin, and Smith’s book (765-766), they discussed the different effects of the staggering decreases in the population during the eighteenth century on public policy and society in general, noting that some government officials and concerned citizens have started to worry that declining birthrates would result in an ability to compete militarily with other European Powers. It is important to note that this came at a time when modern military warfare strategies and equipment that provide considerably higher levels of precision were not yet available. Majority of the sections in the 24th chapter of the book focused on the different aspects of modernism such as reforming marriage ; Sciences about the modern self which included discussions of the work of Viennese physician Sigmund Freud (Hunt, Martin and Smith 768-770), and concepts of modern art and how it affected the modernization of the western society (Hunt, Martin and Smith 773-774). These may be considered as symptoms of modernism. Modernism, as the author have argued, paved the way for countries to go to war, hence the term, the age of war. The birth of political ideas such as anti-Semitism, nationalism, and Zionism in mass politics have also played a role in leading European and other western nations to go to war during the First World War (Hunt, Martin and Smith 779-783). The road to war eventually got cemented when alliances were born. In the beginning of the 20th century, for example, the triple alliance between Austria-Hungary, Germany, and Italy were born as a form of counter-threat to the alliance forged by Russia and France (which was formed earlier during the 1890s) (Hunt, Martin and Smith 790-792). These alliances competed against each other, mostly because they differed in terms of political, economic, and military ambitions. The road to war, specifically the First World War, did not fully erupt until Bosnian nationalist Gavrilo Princip successfully assassinated Archduke Francis Ferdinand (who was heir to the Habsburg throne) and his wife, Sophie, when they were conducting a state visit (an official political business) to Bosnia (Hunt, Martin and Smith 793-794). According to the investigations, the assassin has been ordered by Serbian political officials, in an effort (by Serbia) to increase their chances of annexing Bosnia. After being made aware of that fact, Austria presented Serbia with a harsh ultimatum. Serbia, however, failed to fulfill all the details of the harsh ultimatum, which led to Austria-Hungary, which at the time was confident that it would be backed by Germany if ever a war indeed erupts, declared war on Serbia (Hunt, Martin and Smith 793-794). This sparked the birth of the First World War. After several war protests, and revolutions (i.e. in Russia), and after both sides have suffered huge casualties, the war finally ended in 1918 when an armistice was signed. The war left Europe with a lot of political, economic, and social problems. The aftermaths of the war included the establishment of treaties, increased responsibility of the governments to take care of their war veterans, and to rebuild their own economies after spending heavily on war tools and equipment and in sending their armed forces to different places across continental Europe. If there is one thing that Europe’s countries must have learned from the war, that would be the lesson to think about their decisions carefully first, especially if those decisions could lead to political, economic, and social problems, that in the end, would make the citizens suffer.
The Europeans, especially through the formation of the European Union became a normative power in terms of the discourses and ideas in the dynamics of their foreign policy. With the renewal of their ideational explanations concerning their foreign policies, the Europeans through the European Union administered the foreign countries they had dominated by providing assistance in the political, social, and economic development. The approach of the European Nations encompassed a variety of notions, including the evaluations of countries especially those in Africa in terms of the norms, ideas, the culture, strategic cultures, belief systems, discourses, policy paradigms, cognitive maps, and social representations. It is conventional that in the international politics, the actors, which, in this case, were the European nations, do not have a similar propensity to the maximization of their relative power. The Europeans spent political capital and resources both domestically and internationally.
During the cold war, the competing images of the dominant Soviet Union and China today drove the preferences of the divergent policy. The worldviews of the Europeans was elemental because they formed the basis from which the policy-makers developed and used the symbolic, economic, and political power of the Europeans. This power together with the military power enabled the securing of the objectives of the Euro polity. The officials of these European Nations, including the administrations of France, Spain, Germany, and the United Kingdom had an agenda concerning the framing of the international politics. For instance, these admin administrative powers and bodies formulated a security strategy instead of a military strategy; they established allies instead of enemies with other regions outside the European Union, such as Asia, through its neighborhood policy.
The twentieth century was a period of the emergence of universal and institutionalized agreements between the great and the small powers concerning the employment of force in the operations in the international affairs. In addition, the great powers in the twentieth-century great powers, especially the Europeans, including Germany, France, Spain and the UK used their power to establish a world order, which made them privileged over the smaller powers and maintained their status. The start of the saw the European powers struggle for order and power. For instance, the influence of the Europeans was phenomenal in both the first and the second world wars, which led to the formation of the League of Nations and the United Nations respectively.
After the world wars, most of the states of the world were quick to create order in the international community and society. The aim of the establishment of the order was to prevent and eliminate further occurrences and instances of global wars. In addition, the order would also serve and take care of the interests of the states in the world in sufficient time. Nevertheless, for the founders of the international institutions such as the European Union, it was apparent that the world states could pursue their national security more sufficiently and effectively through the adoption of the international security strategies. In the mid of the twentieth century, the powerful parties in the League of Nations, including the members of the European Union, continued using war as a tool for sorting out the order of the international relations. At the same time, these powers and influential states in the European region tried to control the appropriate timing of the wars and when these wars would be fought.
The key players in the formation of the United Nations, including the United States, the European region, including Britain, the Soviet Union and the representatives instigated the composition of the systems to include six fundamental organs, including the international justice court, the Security Council, the Secretariat, the General Assembly, the social and economic council, and the trusteeship council. The international justice court would assist in the enacting of a system of international laws, which would bring regularities and predictabilities to the affairs of the interstates. The trusteeship council had the role of overseeing the end of the colonial rule and the transition of the colonized states to emergent sovereign states. The social and economic council would provide various agencies and programs tasked with analyzing the socio-welfare causes of the violent wars as well as the conflicts.
The secretariat had the role of providing international civil services dedicated to the execution of the agenda of the United Nations, blind to the differences in the nationalities. The general assembly was tasked with providing a forum for democracy in which multiple issues regarding the people in the world would be discussed and analyzed openly. In addition, through this forum, the member states would have the opportunity to exercise their democratic supervision on the other organs established by the United Nations. Last, the Security Council was the primal organ of the established United Nations, tasked with the maintenance and the restoration of the international security and peace. The European powers, especially Britain, had oversight of the Security Council. The design and formation of the council displayed the affection of the founders of the United Nations, including European Nations and the conservative embrace of the politics of the great powers, such as Germany, France, and Britain, especially after their role in colonization.
Origins of the Charter of the United Nations, which was greatly influenced by the Germans, were in multiple proclamations given during World War II. The proclamations dictated the need for peace, the desire to show respect to the sovereignty of the member states, the need to establish a system of discouraging the states from using armed forces on others, especially Germany, and the rights of the states of existing free from aggression. The United Nations charter created an international security system that would support the great powers spoils-of-war system as well as promote more idealistic commitment to enact Universal rules and regulations to governing the use of force. As expected after the war, most of the groups of powers that emerged victorious, especially the European powers gave themselves powers and the authority in the system of the United Nations, which was elemental in the creation of order because the acquisition of the authority ensured that the status would not be challenged by the emerging powers. The permanent members of the Security Council, including European powers such as Britain and France, acquired veto powers to facilitate the control of the order of the world and maintain the emergent order military. These veto powers gave Britain and France the capacity to stop actions of the substance of instances of war despite the opposition by other members of the formulated Security Council.
The age of wars led a lot of misery for individuals in societies, with many people being homeless as the poverty issues and levels rose. Several young and able individuals died in the age of war with some of them suffering injuries, paralysis, and impairments. Since the Europeans, especially Germany had played an essential role in the existence of the war, it was important to instigate measures that would end the conflicts through agreements and mutual understanding between the European Nations most of whom were responsible for the existence of the wars. As such, there was the formation of the United Nations to promote peace and order in regions across the world.
Works Cited
Hunt, L., T. Martin and B. Smith. "The Making of the West: Peoples and Culture." Bedfor/St. Martin's (2008).
Lualdi, K. "Sources of the Making of the West: Peoples and Cultures: A Concise History." Princeton (2004).
