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Summer Intro: Why World War 3 Hasn't Happend · Diplomacy and International Relations

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  There were two world wars, an incredibly quick succession in
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  the first half of the 20th century.
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  I mean, between 1914 and 1945 the entire global system just
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  completely collapsed twice. Yeah, resulting in 10s of
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  millions of casualties. Just unparalleled destruction.
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  Exactly. And, you know, to anyone living
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  through the aftermath of the Second World War, 1/3, massive
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  conflict felt like, well, a historical inevitability.
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  So the ultimate question we really have to grapple with
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  today is why hasn't it happened? It is arguably the fundamental
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  mystery of the modern era, and the conventional wisdom usually
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  just defaults to pointing at the invention of nuclear weapons.
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  Right? Like assuming the sheer terror
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  of mutually assured destruction just single handedly froze great
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  power conflict. But the architecture that has
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  actually prevented World War 3 is it's vastly more complex than
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  just the existence of the atom bomb.
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  You really have to look at the very machinery of the state
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  system itself. Welcome to our summer series on
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  diplomacy and international relations.
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  Whether you are a student deep into your studies or just a
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  professional analyzing the shifting tectonic plates of
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  international politics, this series is designed to critically
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  examine the absolute foundational theories of IR.
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  And we are super excited to get into it.
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  Yes we are and a quick reminder, make sure to follow and
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  subscribe. Also you can join our Patreon
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  community to help keep the show running.
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  Plus that gets you access to extra episodes and are highly
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  requested weekly and monthly briefings on Danish politics.
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  The link for that is right in the description.
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  Highly recommend checking that out.
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  Definitely. So today we are tracing the
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  origin story of our modern global system, and we're using
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  Chapter 2 of Foundations of International Relations, which
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  is edited by Stephen Mcglinchey, as our source text.
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  Our mission today is to examine how the concept of the state was
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  actually forged, how it was weaponized, and how the
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  international community has desperately tried to build
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  guardrails around it. Yeah.
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  And to understand those guardrails, we actually have to
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  look at exactly when international relations became a
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  formalized academic discipline in the first place.
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  Right. Which wasn't actually that long
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  ago, historically speaking. No, not at all.
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  It was formalized in 1919 at Aberystwyth, which is the
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  University of Wales, and it was entirely A trauma response to
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  the First World War. Just sheer panic.
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  Exactly. The scholars who gathered there
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  weren't, you know, driven by abstract academic curiosity.
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  They were driven by an existential panic.
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  They were tasked with engineering a theoretical
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  framework that could explain the structural causes of warfare
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  and, well, theoretically prevent it from ever happening again.
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  But I mean, the framework they tried to build in 1919 clearly
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  failed, right? Because literally 2 decades
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  later, the Second World War resulted in roughly 75,000,000
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  deaths, which just to put that in perspective, was about 3% of
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  the entire global population at the time.
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  So the scholars realized that industrial scale warfare wasn't
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  just some like glitch in the global system.
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  Right, It was the system working exactly as it was historically
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  designed to work. Exactly.
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  So to fix it, they had to understand the primary actor
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  waging those wars, which is the sovereign nation state.
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  And to do that, that means rewinding past the World Wars
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  entirely, all the way back to the Peace of Westphalia in 1640.
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  Eight. Yeah, Westphalia.
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  It's often treated as just this historical trivia point, like a
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  treaty that ended the incredibly bloody 30 Years War in Europe,
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  but it's real legacy is that it fundamentally altered the locus
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  of authority in the world. How?
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  So well, before 1648, Europe basically operated under this
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  super messy overlapping web of feudal obligations.
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  Plus you had religious oversight from the Holy Roman Empire and
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  the Papacy, the borders were entirely fluid and authority was
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  just it was completely ambiguous.
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  So it's kind of like, imagine a massive chaotic house with no
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  assigned rooms, right? Everyone is just constantly
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  fighting over space because nobody knows whose stuff is
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  whose. That is a great way to look at
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  it, yeah. And then Westphalia basically
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  comes in, draws the floor plan and puts locks on all the doors.
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  It's stripped away that universal religious oversight
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  and replaced it with territorial exclusivity.
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  Whoever rules a specific territory has absolute authority
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  within those borders, free from outside interference, which
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  basically gives birth to sovereignty.
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  OK, let's unpack this, because having a legally defined border
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  on a map doesn't magically guarantee your survival.
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  No, it definitely is not. So how does a state actually
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  enforce and maintain that sovereign status in practice?
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  Right. So, in the modern international
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  system, achieving and maintaining recognized
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  sovereignty requires passing 2 continuous structural
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  benchmarks. 1st the state must maintain an internal monopoly on
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  legitimacy and authority. Meaning no one inside the house
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  is trying to overthrow you. Exactly.
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  There can't be any significant domestic competition actively
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  challenging who holds the reins of government.
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  And, you know, it doesn't actually matter if the
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  government is a liberal democracy where power transfers
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  peacefully, or if it's a brutal authoritarian regime.
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  The crucial factor is just that the internal question of command
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  is settled. Got it.
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  And the second benchmark is external autonomy, right?
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  Yes, the state has to be free from any outside power actively
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  claiming ownership or exerting direct administrative control
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  over its territory. You literally have to pass both
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  of those tests simultaneously. The source material actually
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  highlights South Sudan in 2011 as a textbook example of this
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  mechanism working legally and peacefully.
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  Yeah. That's a perfect example.
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  Because South Sudan formally seceded from the broader state
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  of Sudan, but crucially, the existing Sudanese government did
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  not contest the secession. They let them go.
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  Exactly. So.
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  There was no internal competition remaining and no
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  external power laid claim to the new borders.
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  South Sudan immediately met both benchmarks and boom, they became
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  the newest recognized sovereign state in the global system.
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  What's fascinating here is that the map is entirely fluid.
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  Right? Like sovereignty is frequently
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  violated. Just look at Russia's annexation
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  of Crimea in 2014. Oh, absolutely.
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  That is a direct external violation of Ukraine's territory
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  autonomy. Absorbing a region by force
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  fundamentally challenges that whole W failing norm that
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  borders are supposed to be inviolable.
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  And we also see sovereignty rewritten from the inside all
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  the time, right? Like successful revolutions, the
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  establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949, or
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  the Iranian Revolution in 1979, they demonstrate how an internal
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  competitor can completely dismantle the existing
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  leadership and forge an entirely new sovereign identity over the
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  exact same geographic territory. Yeah, and honestly, the sheer
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  scale of how much the map has fractured and expanded over the
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  last century is staggering. I mean, in 1945, at the end of
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  the Second World War, there were fewer than 70 recognized nation
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  states. Wow.
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  Only 70. Yeah.
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  And today, there are nearly 200. That's a massive jump.
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  It is, and this massive proliferation was driven
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  primarily by decolonization. As European empires collapsed,
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  the United Nations essentially oversaw the transition of former
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  colonies into independent entities.
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  But the catch is that the international system basically
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  forced these incredibly diverse regions to adopt the rigid
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  European Westphalian model of the nation state.
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  It was their only path to recognize independence.
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  Which explains so many ongoing territorial conflicts today
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  because the Westphalian model often forced arbitrary borders
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  over really complex ethnic, cultural and religious
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  realities. Exactly.
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  Consequently, there are numerous entities operating today in a
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  state of geopolitical limbo. Like Taiwan?
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  Right Taiwan, on Kosovo, the Republic of Somaliland.
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  These are territories that function like states in many
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  capacities, but they face severe internal or external
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  contestations that prevent them from achieving universal
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  sovereign recognition. They are living proof that
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  sovereignty is not a permanent guarantee, it's an ongoing
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  performance. OK, so we arrive at a highly
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  volatile scenario. By the mid 20th century, the
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  global system has expanded from 70 states to nearly 200, and
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  every single one of them is operating under this Westphalian
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  imperative of self preservation, a system that historically
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  basically guarantees violent competition.
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  Yep, it's a recipe for disaster. And then you have the two
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  dominant superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union,
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  locked in this intense ideological struggle for global
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  influence. If the system is literally
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  designed to produce conflict, why doesn't the Cold War go?
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  Hot because the underlying mathematics of warfare
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  fundamentally changed in August 1945.
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  The introduction of nuclear weapons shifted the entire
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  strategic paradigm from offensive victory to defensive
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  deterrence, right? Mutually assured destruction.
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  Exactly. The logic of deterrence dictates
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  that if a state possesses a weapon system capable of
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  entirely annihilating an adversary, particularly if that
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  system can survive an initial surprise attack and launch a
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  devastated stating second strike, well, the adversary is
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  forced to remain rational. The risk of total societal
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  collapse just completely outweighs any political or
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  territorial. Game.
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  But relying on the assumption that state leaders will always
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  remain perfectly rational is that is a massive gamble.
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  Oh, totally. And the mechanisms of deterrence
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  nearly failed during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, when the
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  Soviet Union position nuclear warheads just what, 150
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  kilometers off the American coast?
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  The strategic calculus completely broke down.
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  It really did. The standoff between Kennedy and
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  Khrushchev wasn't resolved by the threat of mutually assured
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  destruction. The threat is what caused the
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  crisis in the first place. Right, it was resolved through
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  frantic back channel diplomacy. The Soviets eventually agreed to
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  remove their missiles from Cuba, the US quietly agreed to remove
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  its Jupiter missiles from Turkey, and they actually had to
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  utilize the United Nations to independently verify compliance
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  because the baseline of trust was literally 0.
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  Which is terrifying. It was a terrifying brush with
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  total annihilation and it forced the international community to
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  institutionalized safeguards which led to the 1970 Treaty on
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  the Non Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, or the MPT.
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  The architecture of the MPT is widely considered this triumph
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  of pragmatic diplomacy precisely because it accepted the harsh
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  reality of global power dynamics rather than just, you know,
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  striving for utopian disarmament.
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  OK, but I have to challenge the premise that the MPT is a pure
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  diplomatic triumph because when you look at the actual structure
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  of the treaty, it's inherently hypocritical.
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  Well, sure. It essentially institutionalized
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  a permanent nuclear aristocracy. It legally permitted 5 states,
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  the US, the Soviet Union, the UK, France, and China to retain
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  their apocalyptic arsenals while permanently forbidding every
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  other sovereign state on Earth from acquiring that same
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  defensive capability. That is true in a Westphalian
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  system where all sovereign states are supposedly legally
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  equal. The NPT explicitly codified
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  inequality. It absolutely codified
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  inequality, but the architects of the Treaty understood that
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  absolute equality would lead to catastrophic proliferation.
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  The grand bargain of the NPT was an exchange of capabilities.
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  Meaning they traded tech for compliance.
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  Exactly. The recognized nuclear states
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  promised to share peaceful non military nuclear technology.
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  So for energy grids and medical research with any state that
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  agreed to forgo weapons development.
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  It was a highly calculated trade off surrender, the ultimate
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  military deterrent in exchange for guaranteed technological and
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  economic advancement. And I guess strategically it
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  worked. It did.
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  Rather than the dozens of nuclear armed states that mid
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  century analysts predicted we'd have by now, we have fewer than
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  10 today. The NPT succeeded in
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  establishing nonproliferation as a binding international norm.
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  The NPT also perfectly illustrates this concept of
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  polarity, right? Like how power is structurally
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  distributed within the global system.
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  Right polarity is key here. Because the Cold War was defined
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  by strict by polarity, 2 massive gravitational centers dictating
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  the alignment of almost every other state.
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  But when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, power
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  consolidated into a political scientist called the unipolar
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  moment. Yeah, with the United States
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  acting as the sole unchallenged hegemon.
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  But unipolarity is inherently unstable, and the text
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  highlights how we have transitioned into a much more
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  fragmented reality. Scholar Amitavacharya describes
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  our current era not just as multipolar, but as multiplexity.
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  Multiplexity is such a vital concept for understanding
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  contemporary international relations.
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  It moves beyond the idea of just having 3 or 4 dominant military
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  superpowers competing for territory.
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  A Multiplex order operates like, well, a massive Multiplex
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  cinema. With lots of different screens
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  playing different movies, yes. You have multiple distinctly
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  different systems of governance, trade and diplomacy running
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  simultaneously under one global roof.
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  Power is dispersed across state governments, but also across
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  transnational corporations, regional alliances like the
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  European Union or ASEAN, and vast networks of non
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  governmental organizations. Here's where it gets really
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  interesting, because the primary mechanism connecting these
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  disparate theaters in the Multiplex is economic
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  globalization. The integration of global supply
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  chains serves as this incredibly powerful friction point against
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  state aggression. It's a huge deterrent.
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  Going to war in a Multiplex system doesn't just mean risking
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  military defeat anymore, it means initiating your own
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  immediate economic collapse. And we saw the fragility of
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  these networks during the COVID-19 pandemic when borders
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  slam shut, the manufacturing of necessary medical supplies,
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  electronics and basic commodities just ground to a
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  halt because the components were sourced from dozens of different
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  countries. Yeah, modern states are
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  fundamentally reliant on their adversaries for their own
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  economic survival. Which is wild to think about.
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  And in addition to that complex economic interdependence, the
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  Multiplex era is defined by the democratization of
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  communication. The proliferation of digital
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  media and instant global connectivity makes it
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  significantly harder for state apparatuses to control
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  narratives and dehumanize foreign populations.
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  Right, because when citizens can witness the lived reality of
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  people on the other side of the planet in real time through
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  their smartphones, empathy actually begins to act as a soft
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  deterrent against the state's traditional monopoly on
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  violence. But all of these macro level
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  systems, the nuclear nonproliferation treaties,
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  globalized supply chains, the Multiplex dispersal of power,
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  they all still fundamentally rely on the sovereign state as
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  the primary unit of international relations.
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  Which exposes the most dangerous flaw in the Westphalian
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  architecture. What happens with a threat to a
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  population isn't a foreign army, but their own sovereign
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  government. If a state possesses absolute
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  authority within its borders, how does the international
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  system respond when that state turns its monopoly on violence
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  against its own citizens? And that tension forced the most
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  profound evolution in modern international relations, the
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  elevation of the individual human being as a recognized
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  actor on the global stage. So we've talked about the state,
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  we've talked about the international system.
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  Let's do a little simulated interview segment here.
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  Let's look at the individual. I'll play the inquisitive
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  student and you put on the hat of an IR educator.
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  Sounds good, I am ready. All right, question one.
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  How did the horrors of World War 2 actually change the rules for
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  individual humans? The catalyst was again the
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  unprecedented trauma of the Second World War, the revelation
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  of the Holocaust, the systematic industrialized extermination of
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  6,000,000 Jewish people and millions of other minorities by
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  the Nazi regime. It completely shattered the
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  illusion that sovereign authority could be morally
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  absolute. It necessitated A fundamental
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  shift in international law, which culminated in the United
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  Nations adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human
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  Rights in 1948. And that 1948 Declaration was
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  philosophically revolutionary. It established for the very
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  first time an international benchmark stating that all human
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  beings are born with inherent rights and dignity, completely
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  independent of their citizenship or the state they happen to
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  reside in. But here's question 2.
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  If states hold absolute sovereignty, isn't the UN
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  essentially powerless to enforce human rights?
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  Because declaring a right on paper is entirely different from
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  enforcing it. The UN is not a global
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  government, it doesn't have a standing army.
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  If a state just ignores the declaration and commits
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  atrocities behind locked borders, the UN is structurally
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  powerless to physically stop them without violating
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  Westphalian sovereignty. This raises an important
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  question because that exact contradiction paralyzed the
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  international community for decades.
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  How do you intervene to stop a genocide without destroying the
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  legal foundation of state sovereignty that prevents larger
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  wars, right? The theoretical breakthrough
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  came in 2005 when the UN endorsed the doctrine of the
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  Responsibility to Protect, which is commonly known as R2PR2P
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  fundamentally redefines the nature of sovereignty.
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  The source text uses this brilliant practical analogy.
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  It asks us to view sovereignty not as an inherent divine right
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  of the state, but as a mortgage issued by the international
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  community. I love this analogy.
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  So if sovereignty is a mortgage, then the state is the homeowner,
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  and the international community represented by the UN is the
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  bank. As long as the state maintains
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  its property and protects the citizens living inside it, it's
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  effectively making its moral repayments.
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  The bank respects the state's autonomy and leaves them alone.
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  But if the state begins systematically abusing its
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  population, committing war crimes, or engaging in ethnic
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  cleansing, the state goes into moral default.
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  Exactly. Under R2P, when a state defaults
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  on its responsibility to protect its citizens, the international
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  community has the legal and moral authority to step in and
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  effectively foreclose on that state's sovereignty.
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  This intervention can escalate from diplomatic sanctions all
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  the way to authorized military force.
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  The goal is to neutralize the internal threat and protect the
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  vulnerable population. It asserts that human rights
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  actually supersede territorial rights when the abuses reach a
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  critical threshold. OK, question 3 then.
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  Do people actually use this in the real world or is it just
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  academic theory? It's very real.
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  We've seen this norm penetrate far beyond academic theory.
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  During the 2021 military coup in Myanmar, for example, everyday
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  citizens protesting the Shinto were literally photographed
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  holding up cardboard signs specifically pleading for R2P
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  intervention. They understood the mechanisms
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  of international law, and we're actively demanding that the
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  global community honor its stated responsibilities.
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  But the operational reality of R2P is intensely complicated,
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  isn't it, because authorized military intervention requires
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  approval from the UN Security Council?
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  Yeah, that's the catch. And any of the five permit
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  members, who, not coincidentally, are the five
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  recognized nuclear powers from the NPT, can just veto the
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  intervention to protect their own geopolitical interests,
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  regardless of the humanitarian crisis on the ground.
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  Which perfectly illustrates why studying international relations
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  requires looking at both the lofty theoretical frameworks and
• 18:52
  the grim, pragmatic realities of how power is actually wielded.
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  We have transitioned from a world where states fought over
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  territory with impunity to this complex Multiplex system bound
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  by economic interdependence, the terror of nuclear weapons and
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  the rising normative power of human rights.
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  So what does this all mean? Let's synthesize the core
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  mechanics we have analyzed today into three essential takeaways
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  for your own continued study of the global system.
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  First, while the sovereign nation state remains the
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  dominant actor in international politics, it's absolute
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  supremacy is steadily eroding. Yeah, the rigid Westphalian
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  model is being squeezed from above by transnational
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  organizations and global supply chains, and from below by the
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  universal assertion of individual human rights.
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  The state is just no longer the sole variable in the
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  geopolitical equation. Right second take away.
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  Sovereignty is never permanently secured.
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  It requires passing 2 tests, constantly defeating internal
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  competition, and retelling external control.
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  It is a precarious condition. The map of the world is
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  perpetually drafted in pencil, constantly subjected to internal
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  revolutions and external contestations.
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  And 3rd, the long piece we have experienced regarding major
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  great power conflict since 1945 is not a natural byproduct of
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  human progress. Definitely not.
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  It is an actively engineered, highly artificial architecture.
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  It's maintained daily by a delicate web of nuclear
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  deterrence, formalized treaties, the economic friction of
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  Multiplex globalization, and the evolving moral parameters of
• 20:23
  international law. Understanding those macro level
• 20:26
  frameworks is absolutely crucial, but applying them to
• 20:29
  specific regional realities is where the the actual work of
• 20:31
  diplomacy happens. And if you want to actively
• 20:34
  apply these analytical frameworks to specific dynamic
• 20:36
  environments, make sure you explore our Patreon community.
• 20:39
  Yes, your support directly sustains this series.
• 20:42
  And it grants you access to our exclusive weekly and monthly
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  briefings that dissect how these exact international pressures
• 20:50
  influence Danish politics and regional European strategies.
• 20:54
  The link to join is right in the description.
• 20:56
  Because applying these theories to the real world reveals just
• 20:59
  how fragile that artificial architecture actually is.
• 21:02
  The systems we rely on to prevent a Third World War are
• 21:05
  currently undergoing unprecedented stress tests.
• 21:08
  Like the systemic shocks of the post COVID era, they really
• 21:11
  expose the vulnerabilities in our Multiplex network.
• 21:13
  They absolutely have. When the pandemic threatened the
• 21:16
  fundamental survival of populations, we witnessed how
• 21:19
  rapidly the sophisticated web of global cooperation can just
• 21:23
  disintegrate. States instantly reverted to raw
• 21:26
  Westphalian self-interest. Borders slam shut.
• 21:28
  Supply chains were weaponized. We saw fierce vaccine
• 21:32
  nationalism where powerful states hoarded life saving
• 21:35
  resources for their own citizens, completely undermining
• 21:39
  international distribution initiatives and leaving less
• 21:42
  developed states to basically fend for themselves.
• 21:45
  It was a stark reminder that when the chips are down, the
• 21:47
  instinct for sovereign self preservation overrides the
• 21:51
  commitment to global governance. Which leaves us with a critical,
• 21:54
  unsettling question as we navigate the coming decades.
• 21:57
  If a severe cascading global crisis, whether it be another
• 22:01
  pandemic, critical resource scarcity, or the accelerating
• 22:04
  impacts of climate change, forces states to instinctively
• 22:07
  retreat back toward rigid isolationism and 0 sum
• 22:10
  competition, will the intricate web of diplomacy, Multiplex
• 22:13
  trade, and human rights actually be strong enough to hold them
• 22:15
  back? Or is the international system
• 22:17
  standing on the precipice, ready to slide back into a volatile
• 22:21
  era of pure, unconstrained state conflict?
• 22:24
  It is the defining challenge for the next generation of
• 22:27
  diplomats, policymakers and citizens.
• 22:30
  The mechanisms that prevented war in the 20th century may not
• 22:33
  be sufficient for the crises of the 21st.
• 22:35
  A vital warning to keep at the forefront of our analysis.
• 22:38
  That concludes today's discussion on the foundations of
• 22:41
  International relations. If you found this exploration
• 22:44
  valuable, please make sure to follow the series on your
• 22:47
  preferred platform and leave us a five star rating.
• 22:50
  It is the most effective way to help these discussions reach a
• 22:53
  wider audience. Join us next time as we continue
• 22:56
  our summer series, where we will take the conventional origin
• 22:58
  story we built today and actively deconstruct it,
• 23:01
  examining the critical blind spots and voices ignored by the
• 23:05
  traditional Westphalian narrative.
• 23:07
  Until then, keep questioning the map.