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1 RAFFLES INSTIUTION [JUNIOR COLLEGE] JC2 PRELIMINARY EXAMS 2009 ________________________________________________________________ PAPER 1: INTERNATIONAL HISTORY, 1945-2000 H2: HISTORY 9731/01 H1: HISTORY 8814 ________________________________________________________________ September 2009 Time allowed 3 Hours READ THESE INSTRUCTIONS FIRST Section A Answer Question 1 . Section B Answer any three questions. Candidates are advised to spend not more than 45 minutes in answering each question. Please attempt each question on a fresh sheet of paper. All questions in this paper carry equal marks. Start each answer on a fresh sheet of paper. At the end of the examination, fasten all your work and this cover sheet securely together. ________________________________________________________________________ This document consists of 4 printed pages.

2 Section A: The United Nations and Global Affairs, 1945-2000 You must answer Question 1 The UNITED NATIONS AND THE PERSIAN GULF WAR, 1990-91 1. Read the sources and then answer the question Source A In 1990, in the run-up to Desert Storm, George Bush Senior bribed and threatened and punished virtually every country on the Security Co uncil to force them to vote to authorize the U.S. war. The U.S. bribed poor countries with cheap Saudi oil. Washington dangled new arms packages before governments such as Ethiopia and Colombia whose access to U.S. military support had been cut becaus e of wars and human rights violations. U.S. diplomats went to China and said " name your price" to avert a veto -- and fulfilled Beijing's wish list for post-Tienanme n Square diplomatic rehabilitation (with announcement of a White House visit by the Chinese foreign minister) and new development aid (in the form of a $114 million World Bank assistance package). And when the ambassador from Yemen, the only Arab c ountry on the Council, voted against the U.S. war, there was a U.S. diplomat at his side in seconds, saying "that will be the most expensive 'no' vote you ever cast." And then Washington punished Yemen, poorest country in the Arab world, with a cut-off o f the entire $70 million U.S. aid package. Taken from an article in the left wing internet news magazine, Znet 2002. Source B The United States at that period was becoming the s ole superpower, the Soviet Union was at its weakest point and we knew very well that that was an American plan, because Kuwait could do the economic war.... We were expecting an Israeli aggression or an Ameri can aggression or both, during that period, regardless of whether we go to Kuwait or no t. That was our analysis, that was our conviction, that the United States, after the w eakening of the Soviet Union, when George Bush started to feel that he's the most powe rful leader in the world. He decided to take over this region. He decided to put his han d on the oil reserves. He couldn't do that successfully fully without destroying Iraq and destroying the military power of Iraq and removing this nationalist, patriotic leadership. Tariq Aziz former Iraqi Foreign Minister and close advisor to Saddam Hussein, interviewed on a US television programme in the later 1990s. Source C The war would go on, short of an immediate and unco nditional withdrawal, the U.S. President said. 'But there is another way for the b loodshed to stop, and that is for the Iraqi military and the Iraqi people to take matters into their own hands, to force Saddam Hussein, the dictator, to step aside and to comply with the UN resolutions. We have no

3 argument with the people of Iraq. Our differences a re with Iraq's brutal dictator. And the war, let me just assure you all, is going on schedule,' the President added. John Major closely echoed Mr. Bush's view, calling the affair a 'bogus sham'. The unequivocal rejection by President Francois Mit terrand of the Iraqi proposal as 'propaganda diplomacy' was greeted in London, as in Washington, with relief…Chancellor Kohl, who was in Paris yesterday, echoed Mr Mitterrand's view. The foreign ministers of eight Arab allies in the c oalition Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Qatar an d Oman said Iraq's proposal was not serious. 'It includes unacceptable terms... It is rejected in its entirety and in detail.' The Guardian, Saturday 16 February 1991. Source D The Security Council realised its potential and ach ieved the most when the United States decided to lead it. As a result, the war sol idified the American notion that the UN worked best when it did what the US wanted. America ns acted as if the UN were their UN. Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar tempe red some of this euphoric excitement. “It was not a United Nations war,” he t old the European Parliament in Strasbourg, “General Schwarzkopf was not wearing a blue helmet.” The White House wanted the anti-Iraq coalition’s fo rces to fly the UN flag, but Perez de Cuellar refused. He reportedly did not want a repeat of the Korean War model where the American-led troops invoked the name of the UN but tolerated no interference from the UN. Bush strengthened the perception when he told f our Arab journalists in a postwar interview that he might have pursued the war against Iraq even if he had failed to win UN blessing. The Los Angeles Times, 1995. Source E I do not think that you should put all in the West into one pile. There was a big difference in positions. President Mitterrand to the very end was fighting for a political solution. We were in very close contact with him. The majority o f the leaders preferred a non-military solution. Political and economic pressure to find p olitical settlement. It was very important to show that the most serious conflicts could be solved politically. I do not think President Bush was all for the military solution. He always emphasized that he would have been satisfied with the political settlement. I think it was the government of England and Margar et Thatcher that from the very beginning preferred the military action. That was t heir style. I do not want to condemn them, but I did not share that approach. Interview with Mikhail Gorbachev in the later 1990s. Now answer the following question: How far do sources A to E show that the Persian Gul f War of 1990-91 represented a US rather than a collective UN security action?

4 Section B You must answer three questions from this section. 2. The US bears the greatest responsibility for the outbreak of the Cold War in Europe. Discuss. 3. ‘The end of the Cold War was possible primarily because of one man – Mikhail Gorbachev’ [James Baker]. To what extent do you agree? 4. In the developed world between c.1970 and 2000, why did some economies fare better than others? 5. Why has the Arab world been so hostile to the st ate of Israel? Discuss with reference to the period 1947-2000. 6. To what extent did the causes and the nature of the Kashmir conflict change in the period 1947-2000? End of paper.