INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

Origin, evolution & present scenario

Human beings as the time itself presents the case cannot exist in isolation to the whole, that is
the society in the larger context. Social interactions that are inter-knitted intricately into our
daily lives signify the importance of social relations. With the evolution of man, various
identities also came into being from religious to ethnic and to even racial. Nation state is
quite a recent development in the history of man with it’s origins dating back to the 18th
century, hence with such modern day states as we see today coming into being a whole new
paradigm of interaction came into play, interaction based on national identities as a whole
that is, between the nation states of our modern times as just like an individual a nation
cannot exist in limbo hence the term ‘International Relations’, becoming ever more
meaningful.
With the French Revolution of 1789, collateral processes unknown to anyone were also set
into motion which ended up bringing an ever-greater demand among people to organise
themselves into nations and hence acted as a proxy actor against the British colonialism of
that time. As more and more colonies started organizing themselves into nation states with
the United States of America being one of the most powerful and prominent ones, the British
naval might which was unparalleled was soon encountered with other powers that could well
rival their own as the Americans and Germans presented a great challenge to their might,
with America, Germany and USSR(Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) becoming one of the
most feared powers of the sea. Towards the end of the second world war it was clearly
evident as most of Europe was in shambles with only two nations that could well be called
the strongest, USA and USSR later came to be known as the two superpowers. The two
nuclear capable superpowers were poised against each other on various occasions but both
the powers had recognised the fact that there would be no absolute winner in the event of a
nuclear war and hence they began competing each other on other fronts such as space
technology, economic development, better standard of living etc which came to be known as
the ‘Cold War’. This was a fight to prove which system of socio-economic organisation was
better, the Capitalist(USA) or Communist(USSR), but with the sudden crackdown of USSR
due to the dissatisfaction of many Baltic states reaching a saturation point the world was now
left with only one superpower that could well claim the title of the most powerful and hence
the realm of international politics changed forever.
This overbearing might of the only superpower that is USA came not through military
advances or strategic positioning but through such processes that captured the idealisation of
people into accepting the US as the sole hegemon hence through cultural and social
engineering that is the use of ‘Soft Power’.
Hence international relations as we see them today emerged out of such tussles in history,
with the main aim of individual nations still being achieving greatest possible benefit for their
people with effective alliance building and cross border interaction but they do not exist just
in the context of the countries involved directly as parties as any and every action taken up by
a nation with respect to any other nation or group of nations produces consequences that
affect the global community as a whole, as organizations such as the UN or the WTO exist to
regulate such international relations hence even a country which may not directly involved
still is affected.
The system of international relations followed today that is through dialogue and cross border
interaction and intelligence sharing does seem to be fair to all, the developed and developing
nations but what may go unnoticed prima facie is that the major powers even today continue
to manage to tilt such international relations into their favour of which the ‘Bretton Woods’
system that is World Bank and IMF continues to serve as a primal example as this system
was established by US which every nation is bound to. Hence majorly the less powerful
nations are left with mostly two options which experts have coined as the ‘Hide Strategy’, to
stay aloof or the ‘Bandwagon Strategy’ that is to ride on the agenda of those powerful. But
these inundated strategies have certainly been refuted pertaining as the nature of international
relations today is changing on a fast pace as countries such as Russia, China and India have
come up on the world map as powerful figures while organizations such as EU and ASEAN
also help lubricate such relations hence making the UN a platform not just for those who are
developed but also for those who are still undergoing development, a stage to rally their
needs and hence further moulds the international relations as we know them today.
The story of International Relations is not all bad as such strong international relations forged
through active dialogue and cross national and cross cultural interaction hence projecting
‘soft power’ has helped in creating a greater sensitisation towards human rights among the
global community and has also welcomed steadily growing African nations as diplomatic ties
are strengthened through greater fluidity in their international relations, hence projecting a
more equitably represented global community.