OCR GCSE History: International Relations – the changing international order, 1918–2001

The focus of the period study is on the unfolding narrative of international relations from 1918–2001. Learners will study the substantial developments and issues associated with this period, in order to understand the forces and events which shaped the 20th- and the early 21st-century world and how these forces and events have come to shape our world.

• Conflict and co-operation 1918–1939
  • The Versailles Peace Settlement; the League of Nations in the 1920s; international agreements in the 1920s (Dawes Plan 1924, Locarno 1925, Kellogg-Briand 1928, Young Plan 1929)
  • Attempts at disarmament.
  • The impact of the worldwide economic depression.
  • Tension in Europe in the 1930s, including the failure of the League of Nations, the policy of Appeasement and outbreak of war in 1939.
• The Cold War 1945–c.1989
  • Emerging super-power rivalry 1945–1949 
  • Actions of the USSR in Eastern Europe 1945–1948 and response of the US and its allies.
  • Cold War confrontations: Berlin Wall 1961 and the Cuban Missile Crisis 1962
  • Cold War conflicts: Vietnam War, the Soviet war in Afghanistan.
• From the end of the Cold War to 9/11
  • Gorbachev and the end of the Cold War
  • Consequences of the Soviet war in Afghanistan: the rise of the Taliban and the origins of Al-Qaeda 
  • Al-Qaeda activity from the 1990s culminating in 9/11.

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