At Cold War's End: Complexity, Causes, and Counterfactuals
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Cuban Missile Crisis JCC: USSR
asdf PMUNC 2015 Cuban Missile Crisis JCC: USSR Chair: Jacob Sackett-Sanders JCC PMUNC 2015 Contents Chair Letter…………………………………………………………………...3 Introduction……………….………………………………………………….4 Topics of Concern………………………...………………….………………6 The Space Race…...……………………………....………………….....6 The Third World...…………………………………………......………7 The Eastern Bloc………………………………………………………9 The Chinese Communists…………………………………………….10 De-Stalinization and Domestic Reform………………………………11 Committee Members….……………………………………………………..13 2 JCC PMUNC 2015 Chair’s Letter Dear Delegates, It is my great pleasure to give you an early welcome to PMUNC 2015. My name is Jacob, and I’ll be your chair, helping to guide you as you take on the role of the Soviet political elites circa 1961. Originally from Wilmington, Delaware, at Princeton I study Slavic Languages and Literature. The Eastern Bloc, as well as Yugoslavia, have long been interests of mine. Our history classes and national consciousness often paints them as communist enemies, but in their own ways, they too helped to shape the modern world that we know today. While ultimately failed states, they had successes throughout their history, contributing their own shares to world science and culture, and that’s something I’ve always tried to appreciate. Things are rarely as black and white as the paper and ink of our textbooks. During the conference, you will take on the role of members of the fictional Soviet Advisory Committee on Centralization and Global Communism, a new semi-secret body intended to advise the Politburo and other major state organs. You will be given unmatched power but also faced with a variety of unique challenges, such as unrest in the satellite states, an economy over-reliant on heavy industry, and a geopolitical sphere of influence being challenged by both the USA and an emerging Communist China. -
The Cinema of Oliver Stone
Interviews Stone on Stone Between 2010 and 2014 we interviewed Oliver Stone on a number of occasions, either personally or in correspondence by email. He was always ready to engage with us, quite literally. Stone thrives on the cut- and- thrust of debate about his films, about himself and per- ceptions of him that have adorned media outlets around the world throughout his career – and, of course, about the state of America. What follows are transcripts from some of those interviews, with- out redaction. Stone is always at his most fascinating when a ques- tion leads him down a line of theory or thinking that can expound on almost any topic to do with his films, or with the issues in the world at large. Here, that line of thinking appears on the page as he spoke, and gives credence to the notion of a filmmaker who, whether loved or loathed, admired or admonished, is always ready to fight his corner and battle for what he believes is a worthwhile, even noble, cause. Oliver Stone’s career has been defined by battle and the will to overcome criticism and or adversity. The following reflections demonstrate why he remains the most talked about, and combative, filmmaker of his generation. Interview with Oliver Stone, 19 January 2010 In relation to the Classification and Ratings Administration Interviewer: How do you see the issue of cinematic censorship? Oliver Stone: The ratings thing is very much a limited game. If you talk to Joan Graves, you’ll get the facts. The rules are the rules. -
Analyzing Soviet Defense Programs, 1951-1990 (U)
http://www. csi .cia/studics/vol42no3/art7 .him I (b)[31 Unclassified [b)l1J Determining the Cost and the Burden Analyzing Soviet Defense Programs, 1951-1990 (U) From the early days of the Cold War, the economic potential of the Soviet Union was a prime intelligence question. In 1951, Max Millikan, the first director of the Office of Research and Reports (ORR) in CIA, identified five objectives for foreign economic intelligence in support of US national security: • Estimating the magnitude of potential military threats to the United States and its allies by calculating the level of military operations a potential enemy's economy could sustain . • Estimating the character and location of future military threats by examining how the potential enemy is allocating its resources. • Assisting in judging the intentions of a potential enemy by monitoring changes in its economic policies. • Helping policymakers to reduce possible military threats by telling them how economic measures could impair a potential enemy's economic capabilities. • Assisting in the estimation of probable development of the relative strength of the East and West blocs in the near term, assuming hostilities are avoided._!_ When Millikan formulated these objectives, the Korean war was on, and the possibility of conflict with the USSR was real. At the same time, knowledge of the Soviet economy was sketchy. As Millikan put it, his office in the first half of 1951 "was engaged in taking an inventory of its ignorance concerning the economy of the Soviet Bloc."1 Soviet economic statistics were of little help. Publication of detailed statistics had ceased for all practical purposes after World War II. -
From Old Thinking to New Thinking in Qualitative Research
Dartmouth College Dartmouth Digital Commons Open Dartmouth: Published works by Dartmouth faculty Faculty Work Spring 2002 From Old Thinking to New Thinking in Qualitative Research Stephen G. Brooks Dartmouth College, [email protected] William C. Wohlforth Dartmouth College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.dartmouth.edu/facoa Part of the International Relations Commons Dartmouth Digital Commons Citation Brooks, Stephen G. and Wohlforth, William C., "From Old Thinking to New Thinking in Qualitative Research" (2002). Open Dartmouth: Published works by Dartmouth faculty. 2641. https://digitalcommons.dartmouth.edu/facoa/2641 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Faculty Work at Dartmouth Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Open Dartmouth: Published works by Dartmouth faculty by an authorized administrator of Dartmouth Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. New versus Old Thinking in Qualitative Research From Old Thinking Stephen G. Brooks and William C. to New Thinking in Wohlforth Qualitative Research Robert English has provided a strongly written critique of our article “Power, Globalization, and the End of the Cold War.”1 Unfortunately, his reply may have the unintended consequence of reinforcing a pernicious but popular view among political sci- entists that qualitative research—especially on single cases—cannot generate progress. Here we have a case of seminal importance that has attracted the sus- tained attention of dozens of international relations scholars for more than a decade, and yet it appears that scholars are still involved in what looks like an interminable historians’ debate over causes. -
Soviet Counterinsurgency
Calhoun: The NPS Institutional Archive Theses and Dissertations Thesis Collection 1990-06 Soviet counterinsurgency Johnson, David Ray Monterey, California. Naval Postgraduate School http://hdl.handle.net/10945/37523 NAVAL POSTGRADUATE SCHOOL Monterey, California THESIS SOVIET COUNTERZNSE'GENCY by David Ray Johnson June 1990 Thesis Advisor: ~ikhailTsypkin Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited UNCLASSIFIED CURlTY CLASSIFICATION OF ThlS *AGE REPORT-. DOCUMENTATION PAGE 3. REPORT SECURITY CLASSIF8CATION I 1 b RESTRICTIVE MARKINGS UN a SECURITY cLAmuoRITY 3 DlsTRlBuTloN /AVAILABILITY OF REPORT Approved for public release; D DECLASSIFICATIONI DOWNGRADING SCHEDLYE distribution is unlinited I PERFORMING ORGANIZATION REPORT NUMBEVS) 5 MONITORING ORGANIZATION REPORT NUMBER6) I a NAME OF PERFORMING ORGANIZATION 6b OFF!CE SYMBOL 7a NAME OF MONITORING ORGANIZATION (Ifapplicable) onterey, California 93943-5000 I Monterey, California 93943-5000 I PROCUREMENT INSTRUMENT IDENTIFICATION NUMBER a. NAME OF FUNDING 1 SPONSORING 8b OFFICE SYMBOL 9. ORGANIZATION (If apphcable) 1 r ADDRESS (C8ty. State, and ZIP Code) 10 SOURCE OF FUNDING NUMBERS PROGRAM TASK NO ACCESSION NO 1 TITLE (Include Securlry Classrf~afronJ SOVIET COUNTERINSURGENCY 2. PERSONAL AUTHOR(5) (Year, Month, DayJ 15 PAGE COUNT 135 6 SUPPLEMENTARYNOTA-IOI rhe views exuressed in this thesis are those of the author and do not reflect the officidl rdentrf~by blwk number) FIELD ( GROUP I SUB-GROUP Soviet Counterinsurgency; Anti-Soviet Insurgency I I I I I 19 ABSTRACT (Confmue on reverse rf necessary and ~dennfyby block number) The aim of this paper is to determine the presence or absence of a Soviet doctrine of counterinsurgency and to identify the historical patterns of Soviet counterinsurgency. The thesis examines the place of counterinsurgency in Soviet military thought and compares the Swiet counterinsurgent campaigns in Soviet Central Asia, the Ukraine, Lithuania, and Afghanistan. -
China's Fear of Contagion
China’s Fear of Contagion China’s Fear of M.E. Sarotte Contagion Tiananmen Square and the Power of the European Example For the leaders of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), erasing the memory of the June 4, 1989, Tiananmen Square massacre remains a full-time job. The party aggressively monitors and restricts media and internet commentary about the event. As Sinologist Jean-Philippe Béja has put it, during the last two decades it has not been possible “even so much as to mention the conjoined Chinese characters for 6 and 4” in web searches, so dissident postings refer instead to the imagi- nary date of May 35.1 Party censors make it “inconceivable for scholars to ac- cess Chinese archival sources” on Tiananmen, according to historian Chen Jian, and do not permit schoolchildren to study the topic; 1989 remains a “‘for- bidden zone’ in the press, scholarship, and classroom teaching.”2 The party still detains some of those who took part in the protest and does not allow oth- ers to leave the country.3 And every June 4, the CCP seeks to prevent any form of remembrance with detentions and a show of force by the pervasive Chinese security apparatus. The result, according to expert Perry Link, is that in to- M.E. Sarotte, the author of 1989: The Struggle to Create Post–Cold War Europe, is Professor of History and of International Relations at the University of Southern California. The author wishes to thank Harvard University’s Center for European Studies, the Humboldt Foundation, the Institute for Advanced Study, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the University of Southern California for ªnancial and institutional support; Joseph Torigian for invaluable criticism, research assistance, and Chinese translation; Qian Qichen for a conversation on PRC-U.S. -
The Cold War As a System - Michael Cox
The Cold War as a System - Michael Cox Many leftists saw the Cold War as a genuine clash between Soviet 'Socialism' and Western capitalism. Michael Cox, however, shows how Soviet Stalinism and the Cold War helped stabilise global capitalism for 40 years. Introduction: Stalinism and the New Left Until the fifties, the influence of Stalinism upon the left was clear and unambiguous. Destalinization, followed by the process of youth radicalization in the sixties however, began to reduce the political hold of Stalinism upon the left, and it seemed that a new marxism was going to emerge. However, things were never quite that simple. For although the new left challenged Stalinism, it never fully broke with it theoretically. Indeed, often without thinking, it frequently took up positions which were, to all intents and purposes, supportive of Stalinism. For instance, the majority of the new left gave almost total support to Ho Chi Minh and the NLF in Vietnam, while many were nearly religious in their adoration of Mao and China during the cultural revolution. Moreover, the new left, again almost without thinking, uncritically endorsed nationalist movements in the Third World, little realizing that they were simply repeating Soviet and Chinese anti-imperialist rhetoric. Furthermore, much of the economic theory of the new left, notably on development, bore a distinct Stalinist imprint as well.1 Finally, even those influenced by Trotsky, accepted the argument that the left had a 'duty' to defend the Soviet Union from its enemies. In spite of its greater radicalism therefore, it was evident that the new left never really came to terms with Stalinism intellectually, nor broke completely with its assumptions. -
Ronald Reagan and the Northern Ireland Conflict Abstract. A
‘The situation over there really bothers me’: Ronald Reagan and the Northern Ireland conflict Abstract. A neglected area of transatlantic history is the relationship between the Reagan administration and the Northern Ireland conflict. This article will seek to address this situation by charting the extent of Ronald Reagan’s interest in the Northern Irish conflict and the ways and means that other protagonists sought to secure or prevent his involvement. It will examine the president’s approach in the context of different views within his administration, the State Department’s wish to maintain American neutrality on the issue, and the desire of leading Irish-American politicians for the American government to be much more interventionist. These debates coincided with significant developments in Northern Ireland. Therefore, Reagan’s contribution to the Anglo-Irish process encapsulates a variety of issues: the ‘Troubles’ in Northern Ireland during the 1980s; the 1985 Anglo-Irish Agreement; and the internationalisation of the conflict before the election of President Bill Clinton in 1993. The contribution of President Bill Clinton (1993-2001) to the Northern Irish peace process has been the subject of considerable discussion, both journalistic and scholarly. In contrast, the role of President Ronald Reagan (1981-9) and his administration in the Anglo-Irish process has received comparatively little attention.1 1 Journalistic accounts include: Conor O’Clery, The Greening of the White House (Dublin, 1996), and Daring Diplomacy: Clinton’s Secret Search for Peace in Ireland (Boulder, CO., 1997); Eamonn Mallie and David McKittrick, Endgame in Ireland (London, 2001); and, Eamonn Mallie and David 1 As a result, scholarship relating to U.S. -
Murder, Arrogance of Power, and the Struggle for Social Dominance in the US
Murder, Arrogance of Power, and the Struggle for Social Dominance in the US The moral cesspool of National Politics Introduction Since leaving a start-up company as a result of the dot-com bust, I have engaged in, among other things, reviewing the literature to try to understand the controversy regarding various, potentially linked, events, including: the murders of John Kennedy, Martin Luther King, and Robert Kennedy; Iran-Contra; the PROMIS affair; the October surprise; domestic call-boy—corruption rings; the Panama invasion, and the two Iraq wars. Note: Most people who read the following will find it extremely disturbing, since it shakes our confidence in our basic institutions and leaders. However, I believe that the material below is accurate. It represents a distillation of many books and web references which, though written independently by credible researchers, corroborate each other. Although I have footnoted many of the statements, I chose not to be even more comprehensive to make the document shorter and more readable. It is not enough to just document excesses, though. I plan another white paper to deal with correcting those excesses.1 Initially, two key remedies appear to be: Almost complete transparency in government, and declassification of almost everything over, say, 10 years old. Setting up independent review panels of any federal operations that have the capacity to commit, or allow, significant crimes. Decriminalization of drug possession and distribution. Drug money is funding almost all the illicit activities, and maintaining a web of corruption that is so pervasive that the entire government is dysfunctional2. 1 The revelations in this document are less than a few percent of that convincingly presented in the literature. -
The Evolution of Russian Grand Strategy - Implications for Europe’S North
THE EVOLUTION OF RUSSIAN GRAND STRATEGY - IMPLICATIONS FOR EUROPE’S NORTH Henrikki Heikka POLSIS, University of Birmingham Programme on the Northern Dimension of the CFSP, Ulkopoliittinen Instituutti & Institut für Europäische Politik 2 The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribblers of a few years back. I am sure that the power of vested interests is vastly exaggerated compared with the gradual encroachments of ideas. - John Maynard Keynes Without a theory, the facts are silent. - F.A. Hayek 3 1 Introduction A study about Russian grand strategy is certain to raise more than a few eyebrows among observers of Russian foreign policy. How can one possibly assume that in a country with constantly changing prime ministers and an economy on the verge of bankruptcy there could be a commonly accepted Grand Plan about anything? Moreover, the record of post-cold war Russian foreign policy is so full of reckless moves and unpredictable u-turns, that it seems rather far-fetched to suggest that there could be, even in theory, a common logic behind it. Judging by the steady flow of publications on the role of self-interested politicians, parties, business elites, and organizational and bureaucratic actors in the formation of Russian foreign policy, it does indeed seem that most scholars see Russia’s external policy driven by the day- to-day power struggles of various groups within the Russian political elite rather than by a common national strategy. -
A Stakeholder Analysis of the Soviet Second Economy by CHOI, Jae
A Stakeholder Analysis of the Soviet Second Economy By CHOI, Jae-hyoung THESIS Submitted to KDI School of Public Policy and Management in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF PUBLIC POLICY 2015 A Stakeholder Analysis of the Soviet Second Economy By CHOI, Jae-hyoung THESIS Submitted to KDI School of Public Policy and Management in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF PUBLIC POLICY 2015 Professor Chang-Yong Choi A Stakeholder Analysis of the Soviet Second Economy By CHOI, Jae-hyoung THESIS Submitted to KDI School of Public Policy and Management in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF PUBLIC POLICY Committee in charge: Professor Chang Yong CHOI, Supervisor Professor Jung Ho YOO Professor June Soo LEE Approval as of April, 2015 Abstract This research aims to demonstrate, through a stakeholder analysis, that the institutionalization of the second economy in the Soviet Union was a natural byproduct of the interaction among three major stakeholders of Soviet society: the state, the bureaucracy, and the people. The three stakeholders responded to the incentive structure of the socialist economic system, interacting with each other in order to enhance their own interests. This research argues that their interaction was the internal necessity or dynamics that formed this informal market mechanism and elevated it to a characteristic feature of Soviet society. i Table of Contents Abstract ...................................................................................................................................... -
THE LAND WARFARE PAPERS Perestroika and Soviet Military
THE LAND WARFARE PAPERS No.5 OCTOBER 1990 Perestroika and Soviet Military Personnel By Robert B. Davis A National Security Affairs Paper Published on Occasion by THE INSTITUTE OF LAND WARFARE ASSOCIATION OF THE UNITED STATES ARMY Arlington, Virginia PERESTROIKA AND SOVIET MILITARY PERSONNEL by Robert B. Davis THE INSTITUTE OF LAND WARFARE ASSOCIATION OF THE UNITED STATES ARMY AN AUSA INSTITUTE OF LAND WARFARE PAPER In 1988 the Association of the United States Army (AUSA) established within its existing organization a new entity known as the Institute of Land Warfare. Its purpose is to extend the educational work of AUSA by sponsoring scholarly publications, to include books, monographs and essays on key defense issues, as well as workshops and symposia. A work selected for publication as a Land Warfare Paper represents research by the author which, in the opinion of the editorial board, will contribute to a better understanding of a particular defense or national security issue. Publication as an AUSA Institute of Land Warfare Paper does not indicate that the Association of the United States Army agrees with everything in the paper, but does suggest that AUSA believes the paper will stimulate the thinking of AUSA members and others concerned about important defense issues. LAND WARFARE PAPER NO. S, OCTOBER 1990 Perestroika and Soviet Military Personnel by Robert B. Davis Mr. Robert B. Davis is a research psychologist with the U.S. Army Foreign Science and Technology Center in Charlottesville, Virginia. Mr. Davis received his undergraduate degree from Arkansas College and his advanced degree from Troy State University, Alabama.