International Relations: A basic overview

Human beings, as the time itself presents the case, cannot exist in isolation as a whole. Social interactions that are 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 even racial ones.

The western 'Nation state' is quite a recent development in the history of mankind with it’s origins dating back to the 16th century, hence with such modern day states as we see today coming into being, a whole new paradigm of interaction coming 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’, becomes ever more meaningful.

The sensitization towards organizing the societal system into that of nations can also be found in ancient period around 4th century BCE as Magadha being the largest kingdom at that time already brought majority of the subcontinent under one umbrella rule hence sharing a national identity, whereas India has had a rich history of international trade which culminated into stronger political relations with other nations. It can be corroborated with the fact that Megasthenes was sent to the court of Chandragupta Maurya, by the then ruler of the Greek kingdom Seleucus Nicator.

The process of such organization was no different in the modern era as the French Revolution of 1789, collateral processes unknown to anyone were also set into motion which ended upbringing 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, which did had a stiff competition from other European powers such as the French and the Dutch, but ultimately emerged as the one with the largest number of colonies held by any power of that time hence the mightiest. 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 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. However, they do not exist merely 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 which China serves as a classic example , or the ‘Bandwagon Strategy’ that is to ride on the agenda of those powerful a parallel could be drawn with the international relations of the NATO(North Atlantic Treaty Organization)countries which ride on America’s agenda and rally their interest on the same lines.

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 altogether a bad one, 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 sensitization 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

[Author Mayank Pratham is a first year Law student at USLLS, GGSIPU]