Showing papers in "Journal of Cold War Studies in 2013"
TL;DR: The authors surveys the activities and funding priorities of the Rockefeller Foundation during the first two decades of the Cold War, from the mid-1940s through the mid 1960s, focusing on the foundation's support for research in the social sciences and the humanities.
Abstract: This article surveys the activities and funding priorities of the Rockefeller Foundation (RF) during the first two decades of the Cold War, from the mid-1940s through the mid-1960s. Drawing on documents from the RF's own archive as well as Western government repositories, the article focuses on the foundation's support for research in the social sciences and the humanities. The article first gives an overview of RF policies and grants during the early Cold War and then discusses the political dimension of the foundation's philanthropic practices. The main part of the article looks in detail at two specific RF projects in the humanities and social sciences that exemplify the political and intellectual features of the early Cold War. The final section considers the nature of modernity, modernization, and the Cold War.
31 citations
TL;DR: For instance, this paper showed that during the Ford administration, the whole architecture of transatlantic relations was rearranged, creating structures and features that endured well after Ford and his secretary of state, Henry Kissinger, had left office.
Abstract: Little has been written about transatlantic relations during the presidency of Gerald R. Ford. This article shows that, contrary to what most of the recent historiography suggests, the brief period under Ford did make an important difference in U.S.–West European relations. During the Ford administration, the whole architecture of transatlantic relations was rearranged, creating structures and features that endured well after Ford and his secretary of state, Henry Kissinger, had left office. In particular, the Ford years witnessed the emergence of a pattern of quadripartite consultation between the United States, Britain, France, and West Germany on foreign policy issues; and the advent of multilateral economic summitry. Each of these innovations transformed the pattern of U.S.–West European dialogue.
20 citations
TL;DR: The first major analysis of the appearance of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in the James Bond novels of British spy fiction writer Ian Fleming is presented in this paper, showing that Fleming was remarkably influential during the early Cold War in establishing the public profile of the CIA.
Abstract: This article represents the first major analysis of the appearance of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in the James Bond novels of British spy fiction writer Ian Fleming. The article shows that Fleming was remarkably influential during the early Cold War in establishing the public profile of the CIA. The novels, which include manifold references to the agency and its staff, were published at a time when the CIA kept out of the public limelight and when other cultural forms, including Hollywood, refrained from making too much fanfare about intelligence matters. Drawing on recently declassified material, including the papers of fabled CIA Director Allen Dulles, the article demonstrates that the agency took a keen interest in Bond, even drawing inspiration from his adventures and the novels' depictions of technology.
19 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors put the emergence of one such opposition group, the Polish Workers' Defense Committee, in an international context, tracing how human rights ideas affected international and domestic politics.
Abstract: The historiography of the Cold War has witnessed a revived interest in non-material factors such as culture and ideology. Although this incipient cultural history of the Cold War has focused mainly on the period from 1945 until the early 1960s, the signing of the Helsinki Final Act in 1975 turned ideas into potent factors of international politics when East European opposition groups began to expose how their governments violated the accord's human rights provisions. By putting the emergence of one such opposition group, the Polish Workers' Defense Committee, in an international context, this article extends Cold War cultural history into the 1970s and 1980s, tracing how human rights ideas affected international and domestic politics. The Communist states' willingness to put up with the human rights provisions in the Helsinki Final Act was not sufficient to “shame” them internationally. Instead, what happened is that Western leftists, after encountering East European dissidents, increasingly perceived hum...
17 citations
TL;DR: This article examined the case of the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) during the Cold War and found that although ideas and external security concerns did play a role, economic concerns won out more often than not.
Abstract: Which major theory of international relations—neorealism, liberalism, or constructivism—best explains states' weapons procurement strategies? This article addresses that question by examining the case of the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) during the Cold War. Through an in-depth analysis of the FRG's armaments strategy from the time the country was admitted into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 1955 until the early 1970s, the article demonstrates that although ideas and external security concerns did play a role, economic concerns won out more often than not. IR scholars must therefore account for a variety of factors when attempting to explain the FRG's weapons procurement strategy during this period. Neorealism, liberalism, and constructivism are useful in thinking about West Germany's purchases of weapons, but none of the three theories is adequate on its own.
15 citations
TL;DR: An overview of TPBEDAMN, a large covert operation the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) carried out in Iran for several years in the early 1950s, is given in this article.
Abstract: This article gives an overview of TPBEDAMN, a large covert operation the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) carried out in Iran for several years in the early 1950s. TPBEDAMN was a psychological warfare operation intended to undermine the influence of the Soviet Union and its Iranian ally, the Communist Tudeh Party, through covert propaganda and political action activities. When U.S. officials decided in early 1953 to overthrow Iran's prime minister, Mohammad Mosaddeq, they relied heavily on TPBEDAMN's large network of Iranian agents and subagents to plan and implement a coup d'etat. The overview of TPBEDAMN presented here helps to clarify both the nature of the organizational apparatus the CIA used against Mosaddeq and the broader context within which the coup occurred, especially the intense Cold War climate that prevailed and the prevalence of psychological warfare in this era.
13 citations
TL;DR: The involvement of the Soviet bloc in the Greek Civil War, especially the weapons and other aid provided by the Communist states to the Greek Communist Party (KKE), could not be studied in any serious way until very recently as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: The involvement of the Soviet bloc in the Greek Civil War, especially the weapons and other aid provided by the Communist states to the Greek Communist Party (KKE), could not be studied in any serious way until very recently. Only a small number of historians addressed this question prior to the collapse of the Communist regimes in Europe and the opening of East European archives. The newly available documentary evidence shows that throughout the conflict the KKE acted in close cooperation with the Soviet bloc, particularly through permanent representatives who were responsible for coordinating the aid supplied to the KKE and ensuring maximal use of it. The Democratic Army of Greece (DAG) was completely dependent on weaponry, equipment, and training from the Soviet bloc. The insurgency in Greece would have been impossible without the external support of the Communist states.
11 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, Satter accepts at face value the statements of the spy's Central Intelligence Agency handlers, who unsurprisingly portray him as a heroic opponent of the Soviet regime, and this story does not really reveal any unique Soviet depravity if we bear in mind that all governments in the world deal harshly with those who spy against them.
Abstract: and choices of his father, a Soviet state security double agent who was exposed by Aldrich Ames and later executed. Satter accepts at face value the statements of the spy’s Central Intelligence Agency handlers, who unsurprisingly—and not disinterestedly— portray him as a heroic opponent of the Soviet regime. Leaving aside the absence of any evidence about Poleshchuk’s motives, this story does not really reveal any unique Soviet depravity if we bear in mind that all governments in the world deal harshly with those who spy against them. Curiously, Satter overlooks several important developments of recent years. On 30 October 2009, Russian President Dmitri Medvedev released a video blog bluntly denouncing the killing of millions of innocent people at Stalin’s behest and rebuking those who would justify this horror in the name of goals of the state. In July 2010 Sergei Karaganov, an inouential political commentator with ties to the Kremlin, published an article calling for a fuller recognition of the scope of Stalin’s murderous acts and describing Russia as “strewn with Katyns.” His allusion to Katyn followed several ceremonies commemorating the massacre with joint participation by Russian and Polish ofacials, both before and after the shocking death of Polish President Lech Kaczynski and his entourage in a plane crash on 10 April 2010. Perhaps Satter chose not to discuss these events because they suggest the Russian government’s position toward acknowledging Soviet-era crimes is more complicated than he maintains. Satter also ignores important scholarship relevant to the Russian case. Recent studies of Stalin’s crimes, the Gulag, and Russians’ recollections of the Soviet period by Norman Naimark, Timothy Snyder, Anne Applebaum, Adam Hochschild, Alexei Miller, and Thomas Sherlock receive no mention. Nor does the growing interdisciplinary literature on “historical memory,” which demonstrates that Russia is hardly the only country struggling with how to confront shameful elements of its recent past and that connections between views of history and political developments in the present are complex, controversial, and difacult to untangle. Bold, hyperbolic claims that “the failure to acknowledge and atone for the mass crimes of Communism has contributed to a situation in which the average Russian is as powerless before the apparatus of the state as was a citizen of the Soviet Union” (p. 300) may make for good sound bites, but they do not provide insight.
9 citations
TL;DR: This paper used evidence from the former archive of the Ministry of State Security (Stasi) of the German Democratic Republic to show that important intelligence was gathered by Western intelligence agencies, above all those of the United States, from well-placed human sources in the GDR's economy during the first twenty years of the Cold War.
Abstract: This article uses new evidence from the former archive of the Ministry of State Security (Stasi) of the German Democratic Republic to show that important intelligence was gathered by Western intelligence agencies, above all those of the United States, from well-placed human sources in the GDR's economy during the first twenty years of the Cold War. This intelligence influenced policymakers' understanding of the GDR's economy and informed debates about weapons procurement and the best trade, credit, information, and aid policies to pursue vis-a-vis the GDR and the Soviet bloc. The intelligence obtained from spies in the GDR's economic bureaucracy and industrial enterprises declined in quality from the 1960s on because of effective counterintelligence measures adopted by the Stasi. The loss of this information contributed to Western policymakers' failure in the 1980s to grasp the full extent of the economic crisis in the GDR that helped to precipitate the Communist regime's collapse.
7 citations
[...]
TL;DR: The authors revisited the creation of NSC 68, a landmark in Cold War history, in the light of continuing historical debates and with the assistance of archival material recently made available.
Abstract: This article revisits the creation of NSC 68, a landmark in Cold War history, in the light of continuing historical debates and with the assistance of archival material recently made available. The article reviews the historiography of NSC 68, including controversies over the language adopted, together with recent writings that stress a broader political economy analysis of U.S. foreign policy. The article revisits the contested issue of whether NSC 68 represented continuity with past policy or a sharp departure from it. In addressing this issue, the article looks closely at the style and tone of the document as well as its impact on the U.S. defense budget and finally its convergence with the other transformative decision of the time, the commitment of resources to the development of the hydrogen bomb.
6 citations
TL;DR: In the early 1970s, South Africa's apartheid regime took the momentous step of intervening in the Angolan civil war to counter the Marxist Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola and its backers in Havana and Moscow as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: In 1975–1976, South Africa's apartheid regime took the momentous step of intervening in the Angolan civil war to counter the Marxist Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola and its backers in Havana and Moscow. The failure of this intervention and the subsequent ignominious withdrawal had major repercussions for the evolution of the regime and the history of the Cold War in southern Africa. This article is the first comprehensive study of how and why Pretoria became involved. Drawing on a wide variety of primary sources from South African archives as well as interviews with key protagonists, the article shows that the South African Defence Force and Defence Minister P. W. Botha pushed vigorously and successfully for deeper engagement to cope with security threats perceived through the prism of the emerging doctrine of “total onslaught.” South Africa's intervention in Angola was first and foremost the product of strategic calculations derived from a sense of threat perception expressed and experience...
TL;DR: The authors examines the development and demise of one of the least studied elements of U.S. homeland defense efforts in the 1950s: the Ground Observer Corps (GOC) and concludes that it never came close to achieving its goals for recruitment and effectiveness.
Abstract: This essay examines the development and demise of one of the least studied elements of U.S. homeland defense efforts in the 1950s: the Ground Observer Corps (GOC). The article recounts the history of the GOC from its founding in the mid-1950s until its deactivation in 1959 and concludes that it never came close to achieving its goals for recruitment and effectiveness. Yet, despite the major shortcomings of the GOC, the U.S. Air Force continued to support it, primarily because it was seen as helpful for the public relations interests of the Air Force, continental air defense, and, more generally, U.S. Cold War policies. The lack of widespread public support for the GOC raises questions about the view that Americans were deeply fearful of an imminent Soviet nuclear strike in the 1950s.
TL;DR: The authors examines how defeated and demoralized Japanese, faced with Soviet detention and repatriation policies, were embroiled in Cold War antagonism that originated with the division of Europe and examines how the Japanese government sought to facilitate the return of Japanese from the Soviet-occupied zone and how negotiations over Japanese repatriation intersect with U.S.-Soviet relations.
Abstract: This article examines how the defeated and demoralized Japanese, faced with Soviet detention and repatriation policies, were embroiled in Cold War antagonism that originated with the division of Europe. The article addresses three main questions. First, how did the Japanese government seek to facilitate the return of Japanese from the Soviet-occupied zone? Second, how did negotiations over Japanese repatriation intersect with U.S.-Soviet relations? Third, how did Soviet repatriation policy effect Japanese foreign policy in the initial stage of the Cold War? This episode brings out important aspects of U.S.-Soviet-Japanese interactions during the early Cold War.
TL;DR: The authors analyzed the evolution, content, and fate of the back-channel negotiations between senior Soviet and Japanese officials in 1989-1990, a time of radical changes in most aspects of Soviet foreign policy.
Abstract: This article analyzes the evolution, content, and fate of the back-channel negotiations between senior Soviet and Japanese officials in 1989–1990, a time of radical changes in most aspects of Soviet foreign policy. Sources that have recently become available—especially the private papers of Aleksandr Yakovlev and Anatolii Chernyaev and several recently published collections of documents—not only confirm what has long been suspected about this critical channel of negotiation but shed valuable light on motives and complications in Moscow that precipitated the channel's ultimate failure. Because Japanese documents on the matter have not yet been declassified, the article cannot offer a full account of these talks, but the Soviet documents are sufficient to indicate why a bilateral rapprochement has been so elusive.
TL;DR: The response of three U.S. geneticists to the anti-genetics campaign launched by the Soviet agronomist Trofim Lysenko is outlined, revealing the challenges scientists faced at an important moment in the field of biology, with the recent synthesis of genetics and Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection.
Abstract: This article outlines the response of three U.S. geneticists—Hermann Muller, Theodosius Dobzhansky, and Leslie Dunn—to the anti-genetics campaign launched by the Soviet agronomist Trofim Lysenko. The Cold War provided a hospitable environment for Lysenko's argument that genetics was racist, fascist science. In 1948, at a session of the Lenin All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Lysenko succeeded in banning genetics in the USSR. The movement against genetics soon spread to Soviet-allied states around the globe. Efforts to rebut Lysenkoism were launched in the United States, Great Britain, and other Western countries by scientists who saw Lysenko as a pseudo-scientific charlatan. Muller, Dobzhansky, and Dunn were among the biologists most active in this counter-campaign. The history of their campaign reveals the challenges scientists faced at an important moment in the field of biology, with the recent synthesis of genetics and Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection, as well as the difficulties...
TL;DR: The role of religion in the East-West standoff has been extensively studied by scholars of the Cold War as mentioned in this paper, focusing on events, institutions, and strategies in the United States.
Abstract: Until recently, scholars of the Cold War had devoted little attention to the role of religion in the East-West standoff—its impact on events, institutions, and strategies. In recent years, however, this lacuna has begun to be filled by a burgeoning literature on different aspects of religion and the Cold War. The outpouring of scholarship has given a much more nuanced picture of how religion influenced U.S. foreign policy after 1945 both domestically and internationally. This article evaluates four recent books about the topic, distilling from them some of the key questions to be answered about the religious dimension of the Cold War.
TL;DR: This article examined the experience of Phat Diem, a predominantly Catholic enclave in northern Vietnam, during the First IndochinaWar, to highlight the dynamics of these cross-currents of regionalism, nationalism, and religion.
Abstract: The wars of postcolonial Asia, although often viewed by U.S. officials as struggles between Communist and non-Communist forces or between colonial powers and independence movements, were in fact far more complex and ambiguous in nature. The conflicts displayed some of the characteristics of civil war, brigandage, and ethnic, regional, and religious warfare. This article exams the experience of Phat Diem, a predominantly Catholic enclave in northern Vietnam, during the First IndochinaWar, to highlight the dynamics of these cross-currents of regionalism, nationalism, and religion. Ultimately Phat Diem's attempts to steer a middle course between Communism and French colonialism ended disastrously, but its story highlights several important but little recognized aspects of the war in Indochina and the nature of Asia's wars in the first decade after the end of World War II.
TL;DR: The authors showed that Japan was central to Iosif Stalin's postwar policy in Northeast Asia and examined how the emphasis on Japan led to actions in and with North Korea (and China), first to try to block and then to compensate for the separate peace and military alliance between the United States and Japan.
Abstract: This article begins by showing that Japan was central to Iosif Stalin's postwar policy in Northeast Asia. The article then examines how the emphasis on Japan led to actions in and with North Korea (and China), first to try to block and then to try to compensate for the separate peace and military alliance between the United States and Japan. The penultimate section recounts meetings between Stalin and leaders of the Japanese Communist Party (JCP) in the spring and summer of 1951. The article concludes by explaining how Stalin's meetings with the JCP fit into his policies in Northeast Asia as they evolved largely in step with U.S.-Soviet relations.
TL;DR: This article investigated the Roman Catholic Church's role in the process of European integration from the first Hallstein Commission in 1958 to the failure of the Holy See's application to establish a diplomatic representation at the European Economic Community in 1964.
Abstract: This article investigates the Roman Catholic Church's role in the process of European integration from the first Hallstein Commission in 1958 to the failure of the Holy See's application to establish a diplomatic representation at the European Economic Community in 1964. The article focuses on the Church's response toward emerging European institutions and shows that local mobilization in Luxembourg, Strasbourg, and Brussels was instrumental in shaping relations between the Catholic Church and the European Communities (EC). The Church's position toward the EC, placing local communities as prime actors in dialogue with European institutions, reflected the sensitive nature of religion during the Cold War.
TL;DR: In the Netherlands, the U.S. effort to reach Dutch women with rearmament was reported to have failed as discussed by the authors, highlighting the limits of American cultural influence in other countries.
Abstract: By the early 1950s, Western rearmament had emerged as a central U.S. foreign policy goal. However, many West European governments were reluctant to bear the costs of rearmament at a time when economic reconstruction and social welfare were still urgently needed. Perhaps nowhere was this resistance as entrenched as in the Netherlands, where concern over defense expenditure was most pronounced among Dutch housewives, a traditionally prominent part of Dutch society. For U.S. diplomats in The Hague, the Dutch housewife therefore became the greatest obstacle they needed to overcome in generating Dutch support for rearmament. When U.S. officials encouraged Dutch women to take a more prominent stand on international affairs, these efforts posed a challenge to local cultural conventions. Yet with few usable cultural tropes on which to draw amid continued economic austerity, the U.S. effort to reach Dutch women fell short. An analysis of this failed effort underscores the limits of U.S. cultural influence in other...
TL;DR: The authors examines the impact of Japan on U.S.-Soviet relations during Richard Nixon's first term as U. S. president and explains why no Soviet-Japanese rapprochement proved feasible even during the height of East-West detente.
Abstract: This article examines the impact of Japan on U.S.-Soviet relations during Richard Nixon's first term as U.S. president. Drawing heavily on recently declassified documents pertaining to back-channel negotiations between Nixon's national security adviser, Henry Kissinger, and Soviet Ambassador Anatolii Dobrynin, the article explains why no Soviet-Japanese rapprochement proved feasible even during the height of East-West detente. The enduring hostility was in contrast to the realignments of the other major powers during this period.
TL;DR: In this paper, Risch conducted interviews with a wide array of residents of Lviv and found that Lviv was not unlike these Baltic capitals and, as Risch notes, for many of the same historical reasons.
Abstract: hand interviews with a wide array of residents of Lviv. These interviews impart a unique quality to the narrative. That said, no text is perfect, and there are some things here that are unconvincing. Risch is inclined to make sweeping statements and then to walk them back bit by bit. Also, Ukraine did not declare “state sovereignty” on 24 August 1991 (p. 252): it declared its “independence” (from the Soviet Union and symbolically from Russia), something the Russian republic has not yet managed to do. (Both Ukraine and Russia had declared “sovereignty” in 1990.) Words matter. I also wanted to know more about Lviv during perestroika and its contribution to the Soviet Union’s collapse. But these are sideline observations that do not detract from the overall quality of the research and analysis. Whenever Western journalists based in Moscow in the 1970s and most of the 1980s would on rare occasions venture into places like Vilnius, Riga, or Tallinn and marvel at the cobblestone streets, odd-looking lampposts, and cafes that actually served coffee, they would express their amazement at the strange feeling that they had somehow left the Soviet Union. Lviv was not unlike these Baltic capitals and, as Risch notes, for many of the same historical reasons. But hardly anyone from the outside visited. That has now changed. About ave years ago both The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times advised prospective tourists what to see, what to do, and where to dine in Lviv, which can be taken to mean that the city has “arrived.” Risch’s book demonstrates that Lviv has also arrived in the world of U.S. scholarship.
TL;DR: In this article, nine experts on Cold War history offer commentaries about John Lewis Gaddis's Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of George F. Kennan, the first head of the U.S. State Department's Policy Planning Staff.
Abstract: Nine experts on Cold War history offer commentaries about John Lewis Gaddis's Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of George F. Kennan, the first head of the U.S. State Department's Policy Planning Staff. The commentators come from several countries and offer a wide range of perspectives about Gaddis's George F. Kennan: An American Life, published by Penguin Books in 2011. Although most of the commentators express highly favorable assessments of the book, they also raise numerous points of criticism. Two of the commentators, Barton J. Bernstein and Anders Stephanson, present extended critiques of Gaddis's biography. The forum concludes with a reply by Gaddis to all the commentaries, especially those by Bernstein and Stephanson.
TL;DR: Angleton, who served as chief of counterintelligence for the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) from 1954 to 1974, was an important figure in the Cold War and, in a sense, the first line of defense against clandestine Soviet intelligence operations directed against the United States and its allies as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: James J. Angleton, who served as chief of counterintelligence for the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) from 1954 to 1974, was an important figure in the Cold War and, in a sense, the first line of defense against clandestine Soviet intelligence operations directed against the United States and its allies. In 1975 a U.S. Senate investigative committee—informally known as the Church Committee and led by Senator Frank Church—called Angleton to testify in public on his approach to counterintelligence, especially how he had become involved in illegal domestic operations in the United States. His testimony to committee staff investigators preceding the hearing, along with his public statements to senators during the hearing, displayed an extreme view of the global Communist threat. Amid ongoing revelations in the mid-1970s of illegal CIA actions, Angleton proved unable to mount an effective public defense of his approach.
Journal Article•
TL;DR: The authors of as mentioned in this paper argue that crises have strengthened European integration, and that there has never been more European integration than in the context or aftermath of crisis, and they make a compelling reason for hope in the future.
Abstract: The theme of this short collection of essays is stated early and plainly: “In the end, crises have strengthened European integration” (p. 3), and “There has never been more European integration than in the context or aftermath of crisis” (p. 6). These statements are true but are hardly new. The same point has been made by many in the past. This is perhaps why the process “causes both fascination and frustration” (p. 79), resulting in too much crisis talk that, Jurgen Elvert notes, is “inspired by staunch euroskeptics to back up their respective points of view” (p. 53). “Of all the international bodies I have known,” Belgium’s Paul-Henry Spaak once thundered, “I have never found any more timorous and more impotent.” This was when the European project was small and rather modest, not yet even a Common Market. Even so, the theme is worth repeating, especially now when an existential crisis threatens Europe’s capacity to sustain its past achievements, let alone proceed with new steps toward institutional anality. The case studies presented by the authors of this volume, who are all Germans, paradoxically make of each crisis a compelling reason for hope in the future. They take the analyst away from fashionable predictions of an imminent collapse of European institutions, an outcome that has often been announced but has never actually materialized. No surprise that the relance européenne to which this pattern refers escapes translation: Europe, too, has a logic that is difacult to comprehend—even in French. What Mathias Jopp and Udo Diedrichs conclude from the Yugoslav crisis is meant speciacally for the foreign, security, and defense policy of the European Union (EU), but it applies equally to the entire EU process: “It is more promising to analyze [Europe] in a long term perspective” and compare what the EU can do now to what it (in its earlier incarnations) was able to do many years or decades before (p. 105). These essays were written at a time when two negative referenda on the European Constitutional Treaty, in France and the Netherlands, looked especially damaging and potentially fatal. To guide the “time of reoection” ahead, Ludger Kuhnhardt, an able scholar but also a past policy practitioner, helped organize a series of seminars at St Antony’s College, Oxford. From the European Defense Community to the failed ratiacation of the Constitutional Treaty, we are reminded of past crossroads when Europe was seemingly about to go astray: the identity crises of the 1960s, the “empty
Journal Article•
TL;DR: In the crucial period from 1978 to 1975, Japan jettisoned its "omnidirectional" foreign policy and embraced a closer and more integrated defense alliance with the United States as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: In the crucial period from 1978 to 1975, Japan jettisoned its “omnidirectional” foreign policy and embraced a closer and more integrated defense alliance with the United States. Concern about the Soviet threat was the chief motive for this shift. The deployment of Soviet troops in the Northern Territories (Southern Kuriles), the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and the deployment of Soviet Backfire bombers and SS-20 nuclear missiles in the Far East all provided impetus toward closer U.S.-Japanese defense cooperation. As Japan closely aligned its defense policy with the United States, Soviet-Japanese relations correspondingly deteriorated. Normal channels of communication were broken off. As the Japanese government elevated the Northern Territories issue to the forefront of Soviet-Japanese relations, Soviet criticism of Japan escalated. By the time Mikhail Gorbachev took power in 1985, Soviet-Japanese relations had sunk to their lowest point.
TL;DR: In this article, nine experts on Cold War history offer commentaries about John Lewis Gaddis's Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of George F. Kennan, the first head of the U.S. State Department's Policy Planning Staff.
Abstract: Nine experts on Cold War history offer commentaries about John Lewis Gaddis's Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of George F. Kennan, the first head of the U.S. State Department's Policy Planning Staff. The commentators come from several countries and offer a wide range of perspectives about Gaddis's George F. Kennan: An American Life, published by Penguin Books in 2011. Although most of the commentators express highly favorable assessments of the book, they also raise numerous points of criticism. Two of the commentators, Barton J. Bernstein and Anders Stephanson, present extended critiques of Gaddis's biography. The forum concludes with a reply by Gaddis to all the commentaries, especially those by Bernstein and Stephanson.