The Cold War and the Trumanization of US Foreign Policy in the Middle East

Author(s):  
Bledar Prifti
2003 ◽  
Vol 4 (9) ◽  
pp. 963-969
Author(s):  
Olaf Dilling

In recent years it has become a truism that after the Cold War Europe no longer plays the important role it used to play. The focus of US foreign policy seemed to shift away from Europe towards other regions like the Middle East or Asia. This process is even accelerated by the recent disagreement of European politicians with respect to the U.S. led military action against Iraq. The climax of this development was Chancellor Schröder's strict and explicit rejection of a German role in any form of military action against Iraq, be it sanctioned by a UN Security Council resolution or not. German Federal Minister of Justice Herta Däubler-Gmelin was axed in the wake of the tensions and replaced by Brigitte Zypries after she compared Bush's war against terrorism with Hitler's strategy to concentrate on foreign policy in order to distract attention from domestic problems (thereby, as the Economist put it, giving a fine example of “the pot calling the kettle black.”).


Author(s):  
Daniel Deudney

The end of the Cold War left the USA as uncontested hegemon and shaper of the globalization and international order. Yet the international order has been unintentionally but repeatedly shaken by American interventionism and affronts to both allies and rivals. This is particularly the case in the Middle East as the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as well as the nuclear negotiations with Iran show. Therefore, the once unquestioned authority and power of the USA have been challenged at home as well as abroad. By bringing disorder rather than order to the world, US behavior in these conflicts has also caused domestic exhaustion and division. This, in turn, has led to a more restrained and as of late isolationist foreign policy from the USA, leaving the role as shaper of the international order increasingly to others.


2006 ◽  
Vol 58 (4) ◽  
pp. 469-491
Author(s):  
Aleksandra Joksimovic

In searching for various opportunities to act in pursuing its foreign policy and endeavors to achieve a dominant role in the global processes USA has developed a broad range of instruments including a financial assistance as a way to be given support for its positions, intelligence activities, its public diplomacy, unilateral implementation of sanctions and even military interventions. The paper devotes special attention to one of these instruments - sanctions, which USA implemented in the last decade of the 20th century more than ever before. The author explores the forms and mechanisms for implementation of sanctions, the impact and effects they produce on the countries they are directed against, but also on the third parties or the countries that have been involved in the process by concurrence of events and finally on USA as the very initiator of imposing them.


Author(s):  
Richard Saull

This chapter examines US foreign policy during the Cold War, beginning with an overview of the main historical developments in US policy. It first considers the origins of the Cold War and containment, focusing on the breakdown of the wartime alliance between the United States and the USSR, the emergence of US–Soviet diplomatic hostility and geopolitical confrontation, and how the Cold War spread beyond Europe. It then explains how the communist revolution in China in 1949 and the outbreak of the Korean War in June 1950 propelled the US towards a much bolder and more ambitious containment policy. It also looks at US military interventions in the third world, the US role in the ending of the Cold War, and the geopolitical, ideational, and/or socio-economic factors that influenced American foreign policy during the Cold War. The chapter concludes with an assessment of the dual concerns of US foreign policy.


1996 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 229-246 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark N. Katz

AbstractSince the breakup of the USSR in 1991, there has been significant change in Moscow's Middle East policy. During much of the Cold War, Moscow sought to project Soviet influence throughout even the far off Arab region of the Middle East. In the post-Cold War era, though, Russian foreign policy has focused on that part of the Middle East closest to the former USSR-the Northern Tier. This article will examine the major aspects of post-Cold War Russian foreign policy toward the Middle East in order to identify Moscow's multiple goals in the region and discuss Moscow's capacity for achieving them. First, though, a brief review of the different stages of Imperial and Soviet foreign policy toward the region is necessary in order to show the extent to which post-Cold War Russian foreign policy toward the Middle East has and has not changed.


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