Political Science Test - 13

NAM (Non-Aligned Movement- NAM) 

• The concept of the Cold War went to laid held in Indonesia in the background (Cold War) 'Bandung Conference (Bandung Conference), 1955 during'.
• After World War II, during the Cold War, most of the world's countries were divided into two factions (led by the communist Soviet Union and capitalist America).  
• At the same time, colonial rule began to end in most parts of the world and many new countries emerged on the world map in Asia, Africa, South America, and other regions. 
• At such a time, NAM provided a strong basis for these countries to increase mutual cooperation while keeping an independent foreign policy by staying separate from both factions.  
• Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, Yugoslavian President Joseph Broz Tito, and Egypt's President Gamal Abdul Nasser played an important role in the establishment of this group, along with the then Prime Minister of Ghana Wamay Nkrumah and President of Indonesia Sukarno also adopted NAM. was supported. 
• The first conference of the Non-Aligned Movement was held in Belgrade (Yugoslavia) in the year 1961, 25 countries of the world participated in this conference.
• At present 120 countries of the world are active members of this group.

Thus, it is right to say that the first summit of the Non-Aligned Movement was held in Yugoslavia. 

The Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) was created and founded during the collapse of the colonial system and the independence struggles of the peoples of Africa, Asia, Latin America, and other regions of the world and at the height of the Cold War.

• During the early days of the Movement, its actions were a key factor in the decolonization process, which led later to the attainment of freedom and independence by many countries and peoples and to the founding of tens of new sovereign States.
• While some meetings with a third-world perspective were held before 1955, historians consider that the Bandung Asian-African Conference is the most immediate antecedent to the creation of the Non-Aligned Movement.
• This Conference was held in Bandung on April 18-24, 1955, and gathered 29 Heads of States belonging to the first post-colonial generation of leaders from the two continents with the aim of identifying and assessing world issues at the time and pursuing out joint policies in international relations.
• In 1960, in the light of the results achieved in Bandung, the creation of the Movement of Non-Aligned Countries was given a decisive boost during the Fifteenth Ordinary Session of the United Nations General Assembly, during which 17 new African and Asian countries were admitted.
• A key role was played in this process by the then Heads of State and Government Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt, Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, Shri Jawaharlal Nehru of India, Ahmed Sukarno of Indonesia, and Josip Broz Tito of Yugoslavia, who later became the founding fathers of the movement and its emblematic leaders.

Thus, we can say that Stalin was not the founder of the "Non-Aligned Movement".

Cold War:

• The first phase of the Cold War began in 1945 shortly after the end of World War II.
• The West was dominated by both the U.S. and the other Western Bloc First World nations that were predominantly liberal-democratic but attached to a network of oppressive regimes, most of which were their former colonies.
• The East was dominated by the Soviet Union and its Communist Party, which had control throughout the Second World.
• In 1949, in fear of a Soviet attack, the United States formed the NATO military alliance and called their global strategy toward Soviet containment of power.

• The first phase of the Cold War began shortly after the end of the Second World War in 1945.
• The United States created the NATO military alliance in 1949 in the apprehension of a Soviet attack and termed their global policy against Soviet influence containment.
• The Soviet Union formed the Warsaw Pact in 1955 in response to NATO. 

• The Truman Doctrine was an American foreign policy created to counter Soviet geopolitical spread during the Cold War.
• It was first announced to Congress by President Harry S. Truman on March 12, 1947, and further developed on July 12, 1948, when he pledged to contain Soviet threats to Greece and Turkey.
• American military force was usually not involved, but Congress appropriated free gifts of financial aid to support the economies and the military of Greece and Turkey.
• More generally, the Truman Doctrine implied American support for other nations threatened by Soviet communism.
• The Truman Doctrine became the foundation of American foreign policy and led in 1949 to the formation of NATO, a military alliance that is still in effect.
• Historians often use Truman’s speech to date the start of the Cold War.

Hence, the American decision to intervene in the Civil War of Greece marks the formal beginning of the Cold War.

The correct answer is Option 2.

Key Points

• In the above question , Option 2 is the wrong statement because America and USSR were not engaged in direct wars.
• As both, the countries were not in a state to handle the destructions caused by nuclear weapons therefore the intense form of rivalry between great powers remained cold.

The decision of the  Soviet Union to invade Hungary in 1956, whilst acknowledging the need to control events in Poland, came about through a myriad of complex reasons as well as the collapse of the old Hegemony, following Krushchev’s ‘secret speech’ (denouncing the policies adopted by Stalin, during his tenure).​

• On November 4, 1956, Soviet tanks rolled into Budapest to crush, once and for all, the national uprising.
• Vicious street fighting broke out, but the Soviets’ great power ensured victory.​
• Hungary’s fate was sealed on 31 October 1956, when the Soviet decision to launch a large-scale military intervention to quash the uprising and curtail Imre Nagy’s proposed reforms was made.
• However, the final decision in favor of military intervention was only made after considerable deliberation between key members of the Soviet leadership between 24 and 31 October.

Thus, 1957- Intervention of USSR in Hungary is the mismatched option. 

Additional Information

• The Truman Doctrine arose from a speech delivered by President Truman before a joint session of Congress on March 12, 1947.
• In September of 1954, the United States, France, Great Britain, New Zealand, Australia, the Philippines, Thailand and Pakistan formed the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization, or SEATO. The purpose of the organization was to prevent communism from gaining ground in the region.
• In February 1955, Iraq and Turkey signed a "pact of mutual cooperation" in Baghdad to resist outside aggression, and they opened it to other countries in the region as well. In April, the United Kingdom announced its intention to adhere to the Pact, and it was followed by Pakistan and finally, Iran.

​The correct answer is Finland.

Key Points

• Finland was not a part of the former USSR.
• In 1991, the Soviet Union included present-day Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan.
• It also included the disputed territories of Transnistria, Artkash (Nagorno-Karabakh), South Ossetia, Abkhazia, Donetsk, and Luhansk. It also included some disputed border regions (such as Tabarov Island and Bolshoy Ussuriyski Island) which have been transferred to China after the fall of the USSR.
• The territories which were part of the Russian Empire but were not part of the Soviet Union are Poland, Finland, Alaska (a state of the USA), Kars and Ardahan (parts of Turkey), and some additional slices of territories in China and Iran.
• The capital of the USSR was Moscow, which is also modern Russia's capital city.

Additional Information

• The USSR was founded in 1922, five years after the Russian Revolution overthrew the monarchy of Czar Nicholas II.
• During its existence, the USSR was the largest country by area in the world. It included more than 8.6 million square miles (22.4 million square kilometers) and stretched 6,800 miles (10,900 kilometres) from the Baltic Sea in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east.
• USSR decades after it was established, the Russian-dominated Soviet Union grew into one of the world's most powerful and influential states and eventually encompassed 15 republics–Russia, Ukraine, Georgia, Belorussia, Uzbekistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia.

The correct answer is Option 2.

Key Points

• The collapse of the Soviet Union, sequence of events that led to the dissolution of the Soviet Union on December 31, 1991.
• The former superpower was replaced by 15 independent countries: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan.
• This disintegration marked the end of a bi-polar world and therefore the cold war.

The correct answer is NATO.

Key Points

• Disarmament is the act of reducing, limiting, or abolishing weapons.
• Disarmament generally refers to a country's military or a specific type of weaponry.
• Unlike NPT, SALT, and CTBT, NATO is not related to disarmament.
• Its main purpose is to safeguard the freedom and securities of its member countries.

Additional Information

•  NATO:
  • NATO stands for The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation.
  • It was established in the year 1949.
  • Its headquarter is located in Brussels, Belgium.
  • It is an intergovernmental military alliance between 28 European countries and 2 North American countries.
• SALT:
  • SALT stands for Strategic Arms Limitation Talks.
  • It is negotiations between the United States and the Soviet Union that were aimed at curtailing the manufacture of strategic missiles capable of carrying nuclear weapons.
  • The first agreements, known as SALT I and SALT II, were signed by the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in 1972 and 1979, respectively.
• NPT:
  • NPT st    ands for Non-Proliferation treaty.
  • The NPT is a landmark international treaty whose objective is to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and weapons technology.
  • To promote cooperation in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy.
  • Signed: 1 July 1968
  • Effective: 5 March 1970.
• CTBT:
  • CTBT stands for Compr ehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty.
  •  It is a multilateral treaty that bans nuclear weapons test explosions and any other nuclear explosions, for both civilian and military purposes.
  • Signed: 10 September 1996
  • Location: New York City.     

The correct answer is Neutrality towards power blocks.

Key Points

• The Non-Alignment Movement (NAM) is an international forum of 120 developing countries that believe in the idea of non-alignment with the major power blocs.
• It was established in 1961 in Belgrade, former Yugoslavia under the leadership of the then Indian Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, President of Egypt Gamal Abdel Nasser, and the President of Yugoslavia Josip Broz Tito.
• Non-alignment was a policy fashioned during the Cold War, to retain the autonomy of policy between two politico-military blocs. i.e USA and USSR.
• Most of these countries felt the need for mutual cooperation and coordination with respect to not formally aligned with or against any of the power blocs.
• Functioning of NAM:
  • NAM does not have a permanent secretariat or a formal hierarchy. 
  • Its administration is rotational and non-hierarchy. 
  • It takes decisions by consensus, which need not be universal, but only requires substantial agreement.
  • It has a Coordinating Bureau which is based at the UN in New York City.
  • It meets every three years at the NAM Summit Conference of Heads of State.
  • At the Summit, a chair is chosen, which is a post held for three years.
  • In NAM, every member country has equal weight.
  • The current chairperson of NAM is Ilham Aliyev, the President of Azerbaijan. He holds the post till 2022.
  • Headquarters: Centra Jakarta, Indonesia.

Great Leap Forward campaign was initiated by China in the year 1958

• It was aimed at industrialising the country on a massive scale.
• People were encouraged to set up industries in their backyards.
• Great Leap Forward campaign met with many problems. Such as - the lack of central planning by the Chinese government and a severe drought killed 30 million people in China