6 - Centralization of Power and the Mastery of the International Order

Summary

Introduction

This chapter charts an interpretative path to the unfoldment of the international order in the 1950s. The role of ideology was crucial for centralizing power and achieving the mastery of the international order. In spite of the ideological differences that existed between the United States and the Soviet Union, both superpowers applied a managerial approach to the administration of domestic and international affairs, which was ultimately responsible for preventing the onset of disruptive conflict. Both superpowers labored under the assumption that the legacy of World War II demanded the type of management aimed at ensuring the creation of a new humanity, which could be devoid of the aggressive and militaristic instincts of the past. There are, therefore, three main elements that characterized the international order in the 1950s. First, the management of the international order took place as a result of the effective use of ideology as an instrument for order, which entailed limited geopolitical expansion informed by cultural commonality. Second, both superpowers deployed the means to centralize power through an effective bipolar alignment that was underpinned by a scheme of collective security within their respective spheres of influence. Third, the element of geopolitical legitimacy was entrenched by the notion that both the United States and the Soviet Union were working for the betterment of the human condition. This principle consolidated the notion of peaceful coexistence and a rather rigid adherence to the tenets endorsed by both superpowers.

Managing the International Order

The effective management of the international order required the use of ideology as a tool of order. American Exceptionalism and Eurasianism informed the ideological principles that propelled the geostrategic interests of the Soviet Union and the United States in the 1950s. The liberal connotations of American Exceptionalism, and the Communist elements attached to the Eurasianist foreign policy of the Soviet Union, enabled the superpowers to justify political and economic interventions in their respective spheres of influence in the postwar era. Ideology gave shape to the cultural and material scaffolding that sustained the management of the international order in the postwar period. The specific ideological formulation that guided the scheme of foreign policy of the superpowers in the 1950s gave an important measure of predictability to their actions.