World Geography Study Guide I Bifurcation refers to the split of countries following World War Two They fell into two groups those associated with U S and Western Europe and those associated with Eastern Europe and Asia This split stems from colonization By the late 19th Century there was nowhere left to expand Everywhere that could be claimed had been claimed By the early 20th Century even the North and South Pole would even be claimed It had become a Zero Sum Game meaning in order to expand your possessions you must take from another state This situation was a first in world history Of course there had been peoples spread across the globe for thousands of years but territory was not claimed as property the same way we do now which is the Nation State model Friedrich Ratzel a 19th Century German geographer developed a theory about how the world worked The concept of which is similar to Darwinism His Theory states that a state is born it matures it reaches its peak and finally it grows old and shrivels to some degree Three stages are youth maturity and old age A state reaches its peak when it has an efficiently run state and territorial expansion As well II as a stable population It is natural for powerful states to expand However it will eventually decline at the same time as other states arise Colonial Expansion mixed with industrialization and Ratzel s concepts leads to the outbreak of WWI III World Wars WWI was history s first modern war meaning it was the first industrial conflict The level of industry applied to the war and the amount of states involved led to unimaginable death and destruction This was the world s first total war Massive amounts of collateral damage civilian casualties People came back shell shocked The war ended the Imperial Powers in Europe as well as the end of feudalism in Austria and Russia In the end it was a power struggle to set how the world would operate in the future and changed much of how the world operated WWII was in a way a continuation of WWI It involved even higher levels of industrialization and production which in turn led to more casualties o Fordist Production belt and more efficient application of labor leading to an increase in production taking its name from Henry Ford it refers to the use of the conveyor o Entire industries were now dedicated to killing and there was not one industry that did not contribute to the war o Many innovations came about due to the increased levels of industry These wars came about due to the zero sum game Conflict with neighbors begins because there is nowhere to expand without taking from another IV An effort was made after WWII to end interstate conflict for good Bretton Woods Agreement This was the meeting between the victorious countries at the end of the war They met to establish a way the world would operate mostly focusing on monetary policy General Rules created by the conference 1 System of fixed exchange rates was tied to the U S dollar which at the time was based on the gold standard a Fiat Currency When a country could more or less manipulate their currency This had been an issue between countries in the past 2 The only country to maintain a military large enough to enforce the rules was and would remain the U S It became our responsibility to enforce the rules established here and intervene if necessary NATO would later be set up an extension to enforce the rules Holding these ideas together were three institutions 1 UN a place where countries people could voice their grievances This was the political side of the tree institutions 2 World Bank This was made along with the IMF to prevent stagflation and lend money to countries if warranted These two were the economic institutions established International Monetary Fund IMF see world bank 3 Prior to WWII there was not as much of an effort to manage political rivalries between countries or keep expansion in check The economic system was set up to prevent stagflation on the levels of Weimar Germany The National State was held up as a means to officiate the new social order It needs to ensure the well being of its people Now that wars were over countries could begin to help their people states intervened in the industrial process and fiscal and monetary policies were established Keynesian Economics the government spends money and puts people to work when money is tight This is the creation of the welfare system V Embedded Liberalism this is what this period 1945 roughly 1980 became known as It refers to when a state is very active in the market and social systems Occurred as a result of Bretton Woods Embedded Liberalism only occurred in the west and referred to how things ran within a state not between them At the end of WWII there was an effort by the allies on both sides of the iron curtain to prevent a return to the events that led to the cataclysmic levels of violence in the wars Of the three institutions created at Bretton Woods two only applied to the U S side IMF and the World Bank The U S was able to meet the goal of setting fixed exchange rates through the gold standard as well as establishing the military dominance necessary to protect our sphere of influence Following WWII most developed states devoted much of their resources to expansion and colonialism Following WWII states began to step in during tough times and put people to work This was the creation of the welfare system Sometimes countries even intervened in industrial industries at times even controlling them Ex Coal in Britain VI The Breakdown of Embedded Liberalism 1970s There was a simultaneous rise in unemployment and inflation creating stagflation These two normally did not occur together Inflation made money less valuable and with high unemployment less revenue came in through taxes In 1971 the U S under Nixon dropped the gold standard European banks had been trading large sums of U S dollars in for gold depleting our gold supply Oil Shocks became another huge problem Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries OPEC was dominated by Arab countries that did not like the U S following the Israeli Arab war In response they began limiting the amount of available oil to us The 1973 and 1976 oil strikes crippled industrial production This combined with the end of the gold standard and stagflation to bring about the end of Embedded Liberalism In short the 70s were a rough decade for U S and Western Europe The system began to change and people believed that the problem