Showing papers on "Expansionism published in 1990"
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10 citations
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01 Nov 1990
TL;DR: The United States' intervention in the Chadian Civil War was due to the perceived Soviet threat that would increase from the Libyan intervention in Chad while the concern in Chad was Colonel Qadhafi's Soviet-equipped Libya, the United States saw Chad as a stepping stone for further Libyan aggression as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: : Motivation for United States intervention with military assistance in the Chadian Civil War is an intriguing question It is significant because the United States did not make this intervention until 1981, sixteen years after the Civil War began The reasons for the intervention do not seem to have much to do with Chad, but other factors did affect the United States' interests in Africa and the Middle East, and ultimately did involve Chad This thesis explores motives that may have been the reason(s) for United States intervention These motives include: (1) Libyan terrorism, destabilization policies, and expansionism; (2) Soviet expansionism and influence in the region; and (3) Chad's potential in mineral and oil reserves This study contends that the United States' intervention in the Chadian Civil War was due to the perceived Soviet threat that would increase from the Libyan intervention in Chad While the concern in Chad was Colonel Qadhafi's Soviet-equipped Libya, the United States saw Chad as a stepping stone for further Libyan aggression Truly Libyan aggression in Chad was viewed as Soviet aggression Qadhafi had to be stopped (emk)
5 citations
01 Jan 1990
TL;DR: In the case of nineteenth-century Madagascar the human factor, in the form of the Merina state, was the predominant demographic influence as discussed by the authors, and the impact of the state was felt through natural forces, and it varied over time.
Abstract: This paper analyses the demography of nineteenth-century Madagascar in the light of the debate generated by the demographic transition theory. Both supporters and critics of the theory hold to an intrinsic opposition between human and ‘natural’ factors, such as climate, famine and disease, influencing demography. They also suppose a sharp chronological divide between the pre-colonial and colonial eras, arguing that whereas ‘natural’ demographic influences were of greater importance in the former period, human factors predominated thereafter. This paper argues that in the case of nineteenth-century Madagascar the human factor, in the form of the Merina state, was the predominant demographic influence. However, the impact of the state was felt through natural forces, and it varied over time. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries Merina state policies stimulated agricultural production, which helped to create a larger and healthier population and laid the foundation for Merina military and economic expansion within Madagascar. From the 1820, the cost of such expansionism led the state to increase its exploitation of forced labour at the expense of agricultural production and thus transformed it into a negative demographic force. Infertility and infant mortality, which were probably more significant influences on overall population levels than the adult mortality rate, increased from 1820 due to disease, malnutrition and stress, all of which stemmed from state forced labour policies. Available estimates indicate little if any population growth for Madagascar between 1820 and 1895. The demographic ‘crisis’ in Africa, ascribed by critics of the demographic transition theory to the colonial era, stemmed in Madagascar from the policies of the imperial Merina regime which in this sense formed a link to the French regime of the colonial era. In sum, this paper questions the underlying assumptions governing the debate about historical demography in Africa and suggests that the demographic impact of political forces be re-evaluated in terms of their changing interaction with ‘natural’ demographic influences.
4 citations
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01 Jan 1990
TL;DR: Ronald Reagan, like his predecessor Jimmy Carter, came to the presidency with little, if any, foreign policy experience, and with strong convictions about what was wrong with United States foreign policy.
Abstract: Ronald Reagan, like his predecessor Jimmy Carter, came to the presidency with little, if any, foreign policy experience, and with strong convictions about what was wrong with United States foreign policy. Reagan was convinced that the US had grown weak under Carter, in spite of the fact that Carter himself had undertaken a defence buildup in his last two years. The new President was determined not only that the US should undertake a $1.5 trillion defence buildup over a five-year period to correct the imbalance with the USSR, but also that it would deal firmly with the ‘the Evil Empire’ and resist every Soviet effort to expand its influence. The supposed loss of elan and patriotism at home was to be replaced by a reborn pride in the US as a great and good nation which would provide renewed leadership in meeting the challenge of Communist ideology and Soviet expansionism.
3 citations
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TL;DR: It was difficult to be an American citizen during the first half of the nineteenth century and not be caught up in the swelling tides of American mission and Manifest Destiny as discussed by the authors, as newspaper editorials waxed prophetic as they predicted ever increasing incidents of revolutions in Europe.
Abstract: It was difficult to be an American citizen during the first half of the nineteenth century and not be caught up in the swelling tides of American mission and Manifest Destiny. Newspaper editorials waxed prophetic as they predicted ever increasing incidents of revolutions in Europe. Expansionist sentiment suggested the United States assist in the birth of revolutions wherever monarchial reactionaries sought to destroy them. American liberty and republicanism might even be extended to Canada, Cuba, and all the West Indies. "Asia had her day"; said the New York Evening Post, "Europe has had hers: and it remains to be seen whether the diadem must not first be worn by the new world before it reverts again to the old" (Merk 1966:199). Others said we should remain aloof from the actual struggles of Europe, standing aside as "the reserve corps to consummate the triumphs of freedom," ready to serve if liberty called us to arms. In 1848 "the fulfillment of Destiny was delayed by Mexican stubbornness and Whig treason. But why worry?... Europe [had] seen the light, the fire, the polestar, from the depth of her darkness, and [was] successfully shaking off her chains" (Merk:201). American expansionism was really a form of "continentalism"-"a vision of future greatness born of expectations bred by a contemplation of a vast continent to be settled and nourished by the millennial hopes of evangelical religion" (Hudson:56). The people of the earth would be regenerated by the attraction of freedom, Christian piety, and virtue. The revolutions in Europe were themselves evidence of a stirring of the liberty and equality that American represented. Drawing upon Montesquieu's model of republicanism, Robert Bellah has suggested that the principle of social life for a republic is virtue (Bellah 1975:23). Presumably every society is constituted by a set of ideas, values, beliefs, and practices that reflect its perception of reality. As the poet Wallace Ste-
2 citations
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01 Jan 1990
TL;DR: The authors assesses writers' relations to British expansionism and the alternative of a growing Europeanism in the period from the impact of reform to the rise of Disraelian imperialism, discussing the reevaluation of Romantic responses to foreign travel; the search abroad for 'civic images' to oppose to industrialism; fiction and expansionism; the Europeanness of mid-Victorian poetry; the rise in middle-class tourism; the fascination of Italy and the Levant; and relations with America and Ireland.
Abstract: Discussing the period from the impact of Reform to the rise of Disraelian imperialism, this volume assesses writers' relations to British expansionism and the alternative of a growing Europeanism. Among the topics considered are the re-evaluation of Romantic responses to foreign travel; the search abroad for 'civic images' to oppose to industrialism; fiction and expansionism; the Europeanness of mid-Victorian poetry; the rise of middle-class tourism; the fascination of Italy and the Levant; and relations with America and Ireland.
1 citations
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01 Mar 1990TL;DR: For decades, the process of competition has been conducted without opening up Soviet society or its economy to any great extent to international life as discussed by the authors, and internal constraints have had but a feeble influence on foreign policy.
Abstract: Like the Russia of the tsars, the USSR locates its identity in opposition to the West. The dynamic of Soviet foreign policy lies in a competition, even if peaceful, against a Western rival that is at one and the same time enemy and model. For decades, the process of competition has been conducted without opening up Soviet society or its economy lo any great extent to international life. At the same time, internal constraints have had but a feeble influence on foreign policy. Analytical schemes that are founded on the hypothesis of an ultimate objective of the Soviet regime, be it revolutionary or state expansionism, now reveal their inadequacy. But the interpretation around the concept of convergence with Western societies is not more convincing. The Gorbachev experience certainly affects the traditional approach to Russia's relations with the outside world and confronts the Soviet system with increasing challenges, both at home and in power relations. The search of a new identity, freed of old communist ...
1 citations