The second consensus

The nuclear age that emerged from secrecy in the late summer of 1945 transformed the nature of world politics. The usual new configuration of powers that follows wars differed this time in that there were now two giant states engaged almost at once in a confrontation. There was a second attempt at world organisation, this time embracing all the victorious Powers. Just as the 1919 peace settlement and the early promise of the League produced a literature dominated by international organisation, nuclear weapons would give rise to strategic studies. ¹ Now the Cold War would take precedence, with its politico-strategic orientation serving to affect nearly every aspect of the study of international relations. Although it became more disciplined in terms of recognition of the need for more of what Thompson termed “rigor of analysis,” ² it was also dominated more by power than by balance.