An Introduction to International Relations

Introduction

This chapter offers an historical grounding in inter-war international relations. It tracks and analyses the progress of international relations in the period between World War I (1914–118) and World War II (1939–45), both of which are rightly seen as two major and formative conflicts in international history – and indeed for the study of International Relations (IR). It is sometimes assumed that the two World Wars were primarily European affairs, at least in their origins, and reflected the persistence of European predominance in a fast-changing world. Yet these were truly global and globalising wars, as reflected in their causes, courses and consequences, the technologies they employed and the ideas they helped to generate. This period foreshadowed European decline, witnessing the rise of the United States, the challenge of the Soviet Union, of the Far East and, more gradually, of peoples around the world subject to imperial rule. It saw the establishment of new borders for parts of Europe and the region that became the Middle East, giving rise to regional conflicts that persist today. It also saw the emergence of new international organisations, notably the League of Nations, the forefather of the United Nations, which sought to regulate the relations between states in novel ways. In short, the inter-war period provided the foundations for the international system that developed over the following decades. Many of its contours are still visible today.

International history and the study of International Relations

While offering an overview of some of the most important developments and events of the period between the wars (see Box 9.1), the chapter is also informed by the major IR theories and approaches introduced elsewhere in this volume. It demonstrates how the study of IR theory requires a parallel understanding of international history. Although it might seem obvious to state that good IR requires a good understanding of history, international history is not seen by all today as an essential accompaniment to the study of IR. Indeed, it has increasingly been neglected by the search for more parsimonious theoretical explanations and the use of new social science research methods, which sideline history or use historical evidence selectively (Schroeder 1997).