POLI2508 · Political Science

Cold Wars, Old and New

Morrissey College of Arts & Sciences

This course investigates how International Relations (IR) theory can illuminate key episodes in the great power politics of the Cold War period, paying close attention to how lessons from this period can inform contemporary debates on the return of great power politics and U.S. foreign policy. Why did hopes for a spheres of influence peace between the two superpowers after World War II come to naught? Why did the United States end up on a collision course with communist China during the early Cold War despite initial interest on both sides for cordial relations? What accounts for the failure of U.S.-led plans to build an integrated European army as a counterweight to Soviet power during the early 1950s? And why did the United States and the Soviet Union continue to engage in costly military competition after the early 1960s despite the emergence of strategic stability? We will analyze these and other important questions through the lens of IR theory, distilling lessons in each session for 21st-century great-power relations. The problems implicated in todays great-power politics are very difficult, but we can get a handle on them by appreciating how they are not entirely new--people and governments had to tackle similar problems in a relatively recent past.