Superpowers & Alliances

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Military Alliance - NATO

Alliances increase interdependence as they allow several different countries to work together to achieve common goals. Alliances can allow nations to maintain their global influence.

Military alliance

NATO is a military alliance.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation was formed in 1949 at the start of the Cold War.
The underlying principle is that an attack on one is an attack on all.
Currently, it has around 20,000 personnel on missions around the world. It is operating in Afghanistan, Kosovo and the Mediterranean.

Criteria

Part of the criteria for NATO is that you must spend 2% of your GDP on defence.
The USA spends 3.5% of GDP on defence, however, the median spend of NATO members was only 1.31% in 2017.

NATO's influence

Since the end of the Cold War NATO's influence had diminished and it did few international operations. However, the annexing of Crimea by Russia saw a renewed focus and purpose for NATO.
The future of NATO as a military alliance is uncertain. President Trump has publicly declared that the alliance is no longer relevant. He has threatened to withdraw from NATO- which would most likely see the whole alliance fall apart.
At the very least, he has asked all members to ensure they do meet the 2% spending agreement.

Other Global Alliances

Other military, economic and environmental alliances have emerged apart from NATO. All of these affect the global patterns of influence.

ANZUS - military alliance

The Australia, New Zealand, and the United States Security Treaty was set up in 1951.
It was set up to co-operate on military matters in the Pacific and to stop the spread of communism in this region.
In 2017 troops from the US and Australia took part in joint training exercises as tensions on the Korean peninsula saw the importance of ANZUS increase.
In 2011, President Obama announced that the US focus would ‘pivot' to Asia and this continues with ANZUS as an important part of that. It is the result of North Korea's nuclear testing.

EU - economic alliance

The European Union began as a free trade agreement in 1956.
However, over time, it has worked towards ever-increasing political union and is now much more than simply an economic alliance.
As a member of the EU, countries allow the free movement of people and 19 of its 28 members share a common currency.
The UK voted to leave the EU in 2016 and it remains to be seen whether any other countries will follow this path.
In 2018, it was unclear what the UK’s relationship with the EU will look like once it has left.

NAFTA - economic alliance

The North American Free Trade Agreement is an economic alliance between Canada, Mexico and the United States of America.
Unlike the EU, this trade bloc does not seek to move towards ever-increasing political union and so it does not allow the free movement of people.
In 2018 however, President Trump is calling for NAFTA to be renegotiated and calls NAFTA ‘the worst trade deal ever’.
Trump believes that NAFTA has wiped up manufacturing jobs in the US because it allowed companies to move factories to Mexico where labour is cheaper.
Arguably, this has benefited the US as it has meant that consumer goods are cheaper.

IPCC - environmental alliance

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was set up by the UN in 1988.
Every 5 years, scientists from all around the world meet and together, as part of the IPCC, they produce a report about the latest research on climate change.
The members of the IPCC represent over 120 countries.
To produce their report, they compile the evidence from peer-reviewed journal articles written over the past 5 years.

The UN is important for global geopolitical stability. The UN has several different divisions that include the Security Council, the International Court of Justice, its peacekeeping missions and its climate change conferences.

UN Security Council

This is the branch of the UN responsible for preventing conflict and keeping international peace.
The security council has 5 permanent members and these 5 have more influence than other members. They are the USA, the UK, France, China, and Russia.
- The 5 permanent members can veto any decision made by the council.
There are then another 10 members.
The UN Security Council is used by nations to defend their own interests. Russia vetoes any threat of action that could harm its global influence and status.
The UN Security Council decides when and where a UN peacekeeping operation should be deployed.

UN International Court of Justice

This is based in the Hague in the Netherlands.
It sorts out disputes between UN member countries and so does not deal with individual people or individual companies- it is for countries only.
It has 15 judges who represent the different global regions.

UN Peacekeeping missions

Currently, the UN has 14 peacekeeping operations in place across the globe.
These include locations such as Haiti, the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Middle East.
The idea is to help countries torn by conflict create conditions for lasting peace.

UN Climate Change conferences

These annual conferences aim to make progress with regards to tackling climate change.
They try to establish legally binding agreements for all developed countries to reduce carbon emissions.
The 2015 Paris Agreement was the result of several conferences and a large number of countries signed up.