POLS 170 Blog Post (1)
International Relations realism, International Relations Liberalism, and Constructivism were very apparent in the time leading up to World War I and the time period immediately succeeding it. There were many reasons for the outbreak of WWI, however, one of the major reasons was the European powers’ building up their respective militaries. As each nation saw another improving upon a facet of its military, it began looking for ways to counter it. This was very apparent in both Germany and England engaging in a massive build up of their navies, in order to ensure that in the event of war, they would have control over the oceans. Every nation saw a build up of forces in another as a threat to its own security, thus ultimately leading to the events of WWI. Also importantly during this time period, in terms of IR realism, was the colonization of territory across the world by European powers, significantly in Africa. European nations saw how resource rich many parts of Africa were and began to quickly colonize them. They saw these resources as instruments to help them beat their competition, both economically and militarily.
After the war ended in 1918, many nations wanted to prevent the bloodshed that occured during it. In this desire to prevent the outbreak of another war on this scale, these nations came together to create the League of Nations. This is a Liberal idea, consisting of cooperation between different nations and the idea that the institution is more important than the individual state. Unfortunately, it failed to prevent the start of an even deadlier conflict, WWII.
Finally, the United States found itself in a peculiar position with the conclusion of the war. It started the war as a more regional power, however, at the end of the war it found itself as more of a world power. The majority of American citizens saw their country as more isolationist and didn’t want to take an active role in world affairs, thus leading to the US never joining the League of Nations. This is a very Constructivist view due to the fact that because many American citizens viewed their place in the world as one of a much less active role, they believed that they should not be a leader in global affairs.
You bring up some really interesting points in this blog post, and I definetly would agree that liberalism and constructivism were highly present before, during, and after World War 1. The colonization of Africa by Europe is also a compelling topic within the evolution of imperialism. When one thinks of World War One Africa is definitely not the first aspect to come to mind, yet it provided so many resources and raw materials to certain European powers. Before the war even started countries such as France and Germany had an extremely imperialist mindset, and Africa was the ideal staging ground for this. This new facet of imperialism (through colonization) occurred all the way up until (roughly) the start of world war one, within European powers attempting to garner as much land, and influence as possible.
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