63 pages • 2 hours read
Peter FrankopanThe Silk Roads: A New History of the World
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2015A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapter 21-ConclusionChapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 21 Summary
Chapter 21, “The Road to Cold Warfare,” explores the realignment of world powers as Europe, the Soviet Union, and the United States fought for control over Asia and its resources after the Second World War. The 1940s saw an increased backlash against European colonialism and imperialism, with figures such as Mohammed Mossadegh—a popular member of parliament in Iran—calling for independence. The European empires, which “had long since started to erode” (388), went into a “retreat.” In the late 1940s, the British withdrew from India, Palestine, and Iraq, though their withdrawal was often no less destructive and problematic than their occupation. Meanwhile, the Soviet Union began growing more powerful, presenting Communism as a “viable alternative” (391) to capitalism. This ideology brought the Soviet Union into conflict with Western capitalist countries, especially the United States, and soon the two powers were fighting for control over important Asian countries such as Iran in the Cold War.
In the 1940s and 1950s, the United States invested heavily in a campaign to prevent Iran from falling under Soviet sway. The reason the United States lavished so much attention on Iran (and other neighboring nations, including Saudi Arabia) had to do with access to oil. American interest in oil brought them into conflict with Britain, which had long held sway in the region. By recognizing the inevitable drive for independence emerging in the region and renegotiating earlier agreements in good faith, the United States was able to generate massive revenues; on the other hand, the British, “who had failed to read the signs as clearly as their American counterparts” (397) and continued to follow the exploitative policies that had served them in the past, were less successful. In 1951, hatred of the British reached such a pitch that they were expelled from the country by Mossadegh, who was elected prime minister.
The United States, motivated by fears that Iran would become communist, came to Britain’s aid. Despite the failure of an elaborate coup spearheaded by the United States in 1953, Mossadegh soon fell out of favor, and the Western powers achieved their aims in Iran. But Arab animosity toward the West would only grow in the following decades.
Chapter 22 Summary
In their intervention in the Middle East, the United States consistently supported “unsavoury regimes and rulers” while “promoting national interests” (405) in the region. The United States encouraged a consortium of domestic oil producers to take over Anglo-Iranian Oil’s former position in Iran and formed the “Northern Tier” to combat the spread of Soviet Communism into the south.
Yet the United States was outmaneuvered by the Soviets in the region on a few occasions, sometimes with dangerous consequences. The rise of Gamal Abdel Nasser in Egypt in the 1950s (with Soviet support) encouraged Arab nationalism and anti-Western sentiment, a situation made worse by the failure of a joint attempt by Britain, France, and Israel to seize the Suez Canal in 1956.
The United States adopted what came to be known as the “Eisenhower Doctrine,” seeking to fill power vacuums in the Middle East before they could be filled by the Soviet Union. Meanwhile, Arab nationalism (and anti-Western sentiment) led to the rise of new Arab countries in the region, including the United Arab Emirates. Arab rhetoric against Israel, seen as a Western puppet, also increased during this period. The American desire to check Soviet influence in Asia was motivated by political as well as military and technological reasons, as new Soviet weapon testing sites were opened in Centra Asia.
Meanwhile, other world leaders began to realize that they could “play the two superpowers off against each other” (417) for their own gain. When the Iranian Shah Reza Pahlavi tried to play this game in the 1950s, political turmoil in the country only increased, with the Shī‘a scholar Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini—better known as Ayatollah Khomeini—gaining influence and popularity for his vocal criticism of the country’s leadership. Khomeini’s exile only exacerbated popular discontent in Iran. In 1960, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) was formed, showing that the major oil-producing countries of Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Venezuela were motivated to put their own interests before those of the West.
Chapter 23 Summary
In Chapter 23, “The Road of Superpower Rivalry,” Frankopan begins by discussing the Soviet Union’s attempt to exploit anti-Western sentiment in the Middle Eastin the mid-20th century. The Soviet Union made considerable inroads in Iraq and India, signing virtual treaties with both countries in the early 1970s.
Middle Eastern countries began to use their production of oil to gain independence from the West, following the lead of Mu‘ammar Gaddafi, who rose to power in Libya in 1970. This increased economic pressure on Europe and the United States while enriching the Arab powers of the Middle East. In 1973, Egypt and Syria even launched a combined attack against Israel, “the totemic symbol of outside influence in the Middle East as a whole” (429). Though the attack—known as the Yom Kippur War—failed, the Arab powers promptly turned to using oil as a weapon against the West, cutting back production and creating price rises in the West. The United States responded by seeking to curb dependence on foreign oil. While the oil-producing countries of the Middle East boomed during this period, they also become more autocratic.
The Middle East became a major market for the sale of arms and nuclear technology in the 1970s. Iran, Iraq, and Israel in particular invested heavily in building nuclear facilities, encouraged by the United States, Europe, and the Soviet Union. In Iran, growing discontent finally led to the return of Ayatollah Khomeini and the expulsion of the Shah in 1979—a major blow to United States influence in the Middle East.
Chapter 24 Summary
Chapter 24, “The Road to Catastrophe,” explores the breakdown of American influence in the Middle East following the Iranian Revolution in 1979. Beyond the economic implications, the loss of important intelligence facilities in Iran put the United States in a compromising position in their Cold War with the Soviet Union. By the end of 1979, the Soviet Union launched a military intervention in Afghanistan, making even clearer “the full extent of American weakness across the region” (450). The situation only grew more precarious when around 60 diplomats were taken hostage at the US embassy in Tehran.
In 1980, Saddam Hussein led Iraq in a surprise invasion of Iran. Despite initial successes, Saddam’s invasion soon began to suffer setbacks as the Soviets withheld necessary arms. But in 1982 and 1983, the United States began to support Saddam as they realized that their position in Iran had no chance of improving. The United States even ignored the human-rights violations practiced by Saddam, including his use of biological and chemical warfare. During the same period, the United States began to back the rebels in Afghanistan, who were growing more and more successful in resisting the Soviets.
By the middle of the 1980s, the United States was improving relations with Iran, and soon even began shipping the Iranians weapons for their war with Iraq. American double-dealing enraged Saddam, who became increasingly paranoid and distrustful of his allies. His attempt to strengthen his position led to his “catastrophic” invasion of Kuwait in 1989—an invasion the United States had initially condoned in an ill-advised effort to mend relations with Iraq.
Chapter 25 Summary
The global fallout initiated by Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait led the United States to intervene, quickly driving the Iraqis from the country in Operation Desert Storm in 1991. With the fall of the Soviet Union that same year, the United States assumed the mantle of the world’s sole superpower. In a policy that was “ambiguous and ambitious,” the United States sought to consolidate its position in the Middle East. In particular, there was growing American concern about militant terrorism in Afghanistan, where the Taliban had gained control in 1996. Early discussions, however, had limited success, with the Taliban refusing to turn over the al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden. The terrorist attacks of 1998 on the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar-es-Salaam only escalated the situation and soured the relationship between the United States and the Taliban.
The terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 elicited a fierce response from the United States. Though al-Qaida and bin Laden were implicated in the attacks, early efforts to track down the culprits met with little success. But the 2001 attacks also sparked a shift in United States policy toward the Middle East, soon leading the United States to move against Afghanistan and Iraq. Both invasions, however, “proved lengthy and expensive” (487), with mixed results at best. American attempts to intervene in Iran also had limited success. Ultimately, Frankopan argues that modern American intervention in the Middle East has damaged the reputation of “the West in general and […] the United States in particular” (489), displaying a short-sighted pragmatism but little regard for “international law and justice” (489).
Conclusion Summary
In a conclusion titled “The New Silk Roads,” Frankopan points out the recent failures of the United States and other Western powers in the Middle East. Now, writes Frankopan, “the Silk Roads are rising up once more” (493). There are several reasons for the resurgence of the East, including the region’s natural resources. Frankopan discusses some of the pipelines, transport links, and trade agreements linking Eastern countries such as Russia, Iran, and China, putting pressure on “the political, military, and economic dominance of the west” (504).
Chapter 21-Conclusion Analysis
The final chapters of the book turn to the growth of modern Silk Roads in the wake of the World Wars, as the United States and the Soviet Union emerged as the two global superpowers. The relationship between politics, economics, and ideology is particularly obvious in the power struggles between the United States, the Soviet Union, and their proxy states around the world. The Cold War, indeed, has its roots in the ideological tension that arose between the Soviet Union and the West as Stalin aggressively presented Communism as an alternative to Western capitalism—“a logical reaction to a political system that had proved itself to be flawed and dangerous” (391). During the Cold War, much of American policy both in the East and in Latin America was motivated by fear of a “domino effect” that would supposedly occur if countries began succumbing to Soviet influence. America courted Iran, established intelligence bases on Iranian soil, and created of blocs such as the Northern Tier in the hope of tracking and resisting Soviet expansion, while the Eisenhower Doctrine that emerged in the 1950s aimed to fill power vacuums in Asia before the Soviets had the chance to do so.
The Importance of Trade in Global History is evident here, as both American and Soviet interest in the Middle East was driven by the massive commercial importance of the region. In particular, countries such as Iran, Iraq, and many of their neighbors were major producers of oil, on which the world was growing increasingly reliant during the 20th century (a reliance well reflected in the measures taken by Nixon during the oil crisis of 1973). Oil had become the most important commodity of the modern Silk Roads:
The spider’s web of pipelines that criss-crossed the region and connected East with West marked a new chapter in the history of this region. This time, it was not spices or silks, slaves or silver that traversed the globe, but oil (397).
With the retreat of the British Empire from Asia, a power vacuum emerged that both the United States and the Soviet Union sought to fill, often employing the same imperial policies that the Europeans had used for centuries. Much of the Cold War, then, played out in the heart of Asia, a region central to global history ever since antiquity. As Frankopan remarks:
The Cold War often prompts thought of the Berlin Wall and eastern Europe as the principal arena for confrontation between the superpowers. But it was the swathe of territory within the Soviet Union’s underbelly where the real game of Cold War chess was played out (416).
The countries of the Middle East also became increasingly aware of their own importance, leading to conflict over Power Dynamics Between East and West. The drive for Arab independence and nationalism became more and more pronounced in the second half of the 20th century: “Oil was the fuel behind much of this movement to escape from the overbearing influence of outside powers, setting off a chain reaction that had profound long-term implications” (428). Middle Eastern countries now began “flexing their muscles and turning against the west” (391), motivated by centuries of exploitation at the hands of Western imperialism and colonization but also by ambition and a desire to build their own power, as Frankopan argues:
In truth, the issue was not that the United States and to a lesser extent Britain were reviled for their supposed interference in the affairs of the countries sprawling from the Mediterranean eastwards and for being willing to line the pockets of a corrupt elite. Rather, the rhetoric masked the imperatives of a new reality where a region that had become peripheral over the course of several centuries was re-emerging as a result of the natural resources lying in its soil, the plentiful supply of customers willing to pay for them and rising demand. This fuelled ambitions, and in particular the demand not to be circumscribed by outside interests and influences (425).
The creation of OPEC by Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Venezuela in 1968 was just one early effort to combat the interests of the West. The Arab nationalism championed by Mossadegh and Nasser was another. These movements gained momentum in large part thanks to the failure of Western imperial-style policies in the Middle East, as the United States increasingly acquired a reputation for double-dealing and for placing their commercial interests before human rights or even ideological values of democracy and freedom. In his conclusion, Frankopan reflects on the implications of these failures, chiding “the west’s lack of perspective about global history—about the bigger picture, the wider themes and the larger patterns playing out in the [Middle East]” (492). What we are currently seeing, in Frankopan’s view, is the reemergence of the East and “the world’s centre of gravity shifting—back to where it lay for millennia” (493).
