Explaining WWII with IR Theory
Aftermath of WWI
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•
•
•
•
Break-up of two empires
New states created – self-determination
Harsh restrictions/reparations on Germany
Global economic depression
Social and economic upheaval and
tension – several civil wars, riots, etc.
• US retreats, USSR banned from League
of Nations
Lessons Learned?
• Balance of Power caused WWI
• World needs reorientation of politics
• Realism failed, now try idealism/liberalism
Prescription for Peace?
• Self-determination – freedom, breakdown old empires (except France,
Britain)
• Democracy
• Collective Security – League of Nations
• Collective security is based on the principle that
any aggressive act by one state against another state,
is a transgression against all states.
• Collective security recognizes the realist principle
of sovereignty as legitimate but also idealist/liberal
non-aggression.
• To apply collective security would in the worst case
circumstances require a grand coalition of states to
force aggressors to retreat or be defeated through
war.
Origin of Aggression
• Germany harshly treated in Versailles
Treaty -- Hitler rises to power.
• Fascists rise to power in Italy: goal is to
create a new Roman Empire.
• Japan seeks empire and power to avoid
being exploited by western great powers
of USA, France, England, Russia, etc.
League is tested and fails
• Japan and Manchuria (1931). Later Japan
attempts to conquer all of East and Southeast
Asia
• Italy and Ethiopia (1935-36). Later Italy takes
Albania (1939) then attacks Greece, and tries to
take Tunisia from France and Egypt from Britain.
• Hitler takes back the demilitarized Rhineland
region (1936)
Japan expands
into Korea (1910)
Manchuria (1931)
and, and then
later in China and
Southeast Asia.
League fails to
act. Japan
leaves the
League.
Germany’s attempt to rectify
Versailles Treaty
• Uses principle of “self-determination”
against Allies to argue for reincorporation
of German-speaking peoples back into
Germany.
• 1938 – Occupies and annexes Austria
• 1939 – Occupies and Annexes
Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia, later
takes rest of Czechoslovakia
Why didn’t League of Nations
prevent WWII
• USA and USSR, two great powers, not members
of the League.
• War-weariness on part of England and France –
lacked resolve to confront aggression.
• Reemergence of Realist, balance of power
thinking – neither CS or BOP could work when
major powers think in terms of BOP in CS
system.
Aggression of Axis Powers
• War begins when Allies stand up to German aggression
against Poland in 1939.
• Japan had already begun its attempt to conquer China.
Japan grabs French, British, and Dutch colonies in Southeast
Asia in 1940-41.
• Using Blitzkrieg, Germany conquers France, Belgium,
Holland, Denmark, the mighty Luxembourg, and Norway in
1940.
• Italy attacks Greece and Egypt but nearly routed – Germany
helps conquer Greece and Yugoslavia. Axis powers
Mobilized strengths armed
services.
Country
Mobilized strengths
UK
5.000.000
India
2.150.000
USA
11.700.000
USSR
11.500.000
France
5.000.000
Germany
9.500.000
Italy
4.000.000
Japan
4.000.000
Aggression of Axis Powers
• Hitler makes biggest mistakes – attacks USSR and later
declares war on USA after Pearl Harbor.
• War with USSR particularly drains Germany, whereas Italy
is defeated by 1944 and only Germans are left fighting on
Italian peninsula against the Allies.
• Tide against Japanese turns at battle of Midway north-west
of Hawaii, Japan slowly pushed out of conquered islands of
Pacific.
• Germany falls in 1945, followed later by Japan.
Lives Lost in
WWII
Country
Soldiers
Civilians
Belgium
12.000
76.000
88.000
40.000
45%
Bulgaria
10.000
10.000
20.000
7.000
15%
Canada
37.000
-
37.000
--
3.500.000
6-10 million
9,5-13,5 mil.
--
Denmark
400
1.000
1.400
1.500
1%
Germany
3.000.000
3.000.000
6.000.000
170.000
85%
Finland
82.000
2.000
84.000
--
France
199.000
400.000
599.000
90.000
25%
Greece
20.000
140.000
160.000
60.000
80%
Britain
295.000
62.000
357.000
--
China
Total
Jews
-%
Hungary
180.000
280.000
460.000
200.000
70%
Italy
330.000
80.000
410.000
15.000
15%
1.700.000
360.000
2.060.000
--
300.000
1.400.000
1.700.000
55.000
75%
Luxembourg
4.000
1.000
5.000
3.000
80%
Netherlands
19.000
225.000
244.000
104.000
70%
Norway
6.000
4.000
10.000
1.500
40%
Austria
230.000
104.000
334.000
40.000
90%
Poland
125.000
5.800.000
5.925.000
Rumania
300.000
260.000
560.000
13.600.00
7.000.000
20.600.000
Czechoslovakia
250.000
330.000
580.000
260.000
United States
293.000
-
293.000
--
Japan
Yugoslavia
Russia
2.800.000 90%
425.000
20%
1.720.000 70%
90%
The table shows the probable number (Column 5) of Jews killed in various
countries and the approximate proportion (Column 6) of that figure to the
Jewish population in those countries at the beginning of the 'final solution'.
Aftermath
• Huge areas of China, Japan, USSR, Germany,
Italy, UK left in ruins
• United States and USSR emerge as dominant
military powers
• Nuclear age is born
• United States is half of world economy
On Theory
• Multipolarity of system
• Failure of BOP and collective security
• Individual level factors: Hitler and
Mussolini
• Domestic factors of German anger
• Economic-social issues in Germany, Italy,
France, USA isolation