Russia says no: Power, status, and emotions in foreign policy

2014 ◽  
Vol 47 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 269-279 ◽  
Author(s):  
Deborah Welch Larson ◽  
Alexei Shevchenko
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Missile Defense ◽  
Social Psychological ◽  
The West ◽  
The Status ◽  
Ukrainian Crisis ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The U.S

Since 2003, Russian foreign behavior has become much more assertive and volatile toward the West, often rejecting U.S. diplomatic initiatives and overreacting to perceived slights. This essay explains Russia’s new assertiveness using social psychological hypotheses on the relationship between power, status, and emotions. Denial of respect to a state is humiliating. When a state loses status, the emotions experienced depend on the perceived cause of this loss. When a state perceives that others are responsible for its loss, it shows anger. The belief that others have unjustly used their power to deny the state its appropriate position arouses vengefulness. If a state believes that its loss of status is due to its own failure to live up to expectations, the elites will express shame. Since the end of the Cold War, Russia has displayed anger at the U.S. unwillingness to grant it the status to which it believes it is entitled, especially during the 2008 Russo-Georgian War, and most recently Russia’s takeover of Crimea and the 2014 Ukrainian Crisis. We can also see elements of vengefulness in Russia’s reaction to recognition of Kosovo, U.S. missile defense plans, the Magnitsky act, and the Snowden affair.

scholarly journals Russia living from its past

2019 ◽  
pp. 171-183
Author(s):  
Isabela de Andrade Gama
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Great Power ◽  
Ontological Security ◽  
The West ◽  
Western Countries ◽  
Inferior Status ◽  
The Cold War

Since the end of the Cold War Russia has been treated as a defeated state. Western countries usually perceive Russia not only as a defeated state but also relating it to Soviet Union. Beyond that the West has Orientalized Russia, segregating it from the “western club” of developed states. But Russia’s recovery from the collapse of the 90’s made it more assertive towards the West. It’s proposed here that this assertiveness is due to it’s orientalization, it’s inferior status perceived by the West. The inferior perception by the West has triggered a process of identity’s reconstruction which will be analyzed through a perspective of ontological security. The more Russia has it’s great power status denied, the more aggressive it becomes regarding it’s foreign policy. As the international hierarchy continues to treat Russia as that of “behind” the modern states, and the more it feels marginalized, it will double down on efforts to regain its great power status it will have to dispose power. Russia’s ontological insecurity might lead it to a path of aggressiveness.

Sociology in Place of Socialism: On West German Cultural Radio

2014 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 30-42
Author(s):  
Monika Boll
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Federal Republic ◽  
Free Space ◽  
The West ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Sociological Discourse ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
East West

This article delves into the relationship between cultural radio and the Cold War. After 1945, culural radio took on a central role in the intellectual self-understanding of the early Federal Republic. From the very beginning, there was much less censorship than with political editorial departments. Thus, it was possible for cultrual radio to offer an intellectual forum in which socialism was not simply dismissed due to the official anticommunist political doctrine. This article shows the ways in which the East-West conflict was present in the cultrual departments of radio broadcasters. It argues that socialism appeared less as an ideological restraint or taboo, but rather as a productive challenge, which in the end was part of the modernization of West Germany's intellectual self-understanding. Two prominent examples buttress this argument: the free space that cultrual radio conquered in a kind of leftist integration with the West, and the rapid advancement of sociological discourse.

Conclusion

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Toby C. Rider
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
The Political ◽  
The West ◽  
White House ◽  
The Public ◽  
Psychological Warfare ◽  
The Government ◽  
War Propaganda ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The U.S

This concluding chapter considers the scope of the U.S. Cold War propaganda efforts during the late 1950s. In many ways, the 1950s had set the stage for the remainder of the Cold War. The superpower sporting rivalry continued to elevate the political significance of athletic exchanges, track meets, and a range of other competitions and interactions between sportsmen and sportswomen from the East and the West. For the U.S. public, the Olympics were still the source of much debate as each festival arrived on its quadrennial orbit. Victory or defeat at the Olympics clearly remained important to the public and to the White House. Declassified documents also suggest that in the post-Eisenhower years the government was still deploying the Olympics in the service of psychological warfare.

Inside the Asian Cold War Intrigues: Revisiting the Taiwan Strait crises

2018 ◽  
Vol 52 (6) ◽  
pp. 2109-2136
Author(s):  
RUPING XIAO ◽  
HSIAO-TING LIN
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
The United States ◽  
Taiwan Strait ◽  
Communist China ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Taiwan Strait ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Foreign Ministry ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractThis article revisits the issue of the offshore islands in the Taiwan Strait during the Cold War. Benefitting from archival materials only recently made available, specifically Chiang Kai-shek's personal diaries, CIA declassified materials, Taiwanese Foreign Ministry files, and rare publications from the Contemporary Taiwan Collection at the Library of the Institute of Oriental Culture, University of Tokyo, this research examines the cloud of suspicion surrounding the secret contacts between Taipei and Beijing leading up to and during the 1958 offshore islands crisis, elucidating how such a political tête-à-tête, and the resultant tacit consensus over the status of the islands, gradually brought about an end to the conflict between Taiwan and Communist China. In hindsight, the crises over the offshore islands along China's southeast coast momentarily brought the United States closer to war with Communist China, while putting the relationship between Taipei and Washington to a serious test. The end result, however, was that, while these isles were technically embedded in the unfinished civil war between the Chinese Nationalists and Communists, they provided, ironically, an opportunity for secret communications and, ultimately, a kind of détente between the two supposedly deadly enemies across the Taiwan Strait. A close examination of the details of these crises, along with their attendant military, political, and diplomatic complexities, reveals an amazing amount of political intrigue at both the local and international levels that has not been fully realized until now.

scholarly journals International Slavic Studies: Concepts, History and Evolution

2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Wenfei Liu
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
The West ◽  
The Status ◽  
History Of ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Formal Establishment ◽  
Slavic Studies

Abstract This paper departs from the definition of Slavistics and reviews the history of international Slavic studies, from its prehistory to its formal establishment as an independent discipline in the mid-18th century, and from the Pan-Slavic movement in the mid-19th century to the confrontation of Slavistics between the East and the West in the mid-20th century during the Cold War. The paper highlights the status quo of international Slavic studies and envisions the future development of Slavic studies in China.

scholarly journals “Disoriented Superpower”: U.S. Foreign Policy in the Post-Bipolar World

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 19-37
Author(s):  
O. I. Rebro ◽  
M. A. Suchkov
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Cold War ◽  
International Relations ◽  
International Institutions ◽  
Focal Point ◽  
Strategic Thinking ◽  
Global Events ◽  
American Society ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The U.S

This article seeks to fi ll the gap between well theorized upon constants of the U.S. strategic thinking and the divergent approaches of various administrations to practical actions on the international arena. Grounded in the concept developed by Christopher Hammer, the analysis presents the U.S. foreign policy as the product of a never-ending internal debate about the most optimal ways of promoting values, dealing with international institutions and prioritizing threats within a security perimeter. Taking stock of the choices made by consecutive presidents in each of the three areas the authors study the roots of foreign policy inertia of the sole superpower that resulted in unforced mistakes undermining its own political cohesion as well as hindering the emergence of lasting international architecture to replace the cold-war order. Thus, the article argues that the key feature of the last thirty years – the absence of an enemy as an organizing principle for the U.S. foreign policy – prompted the American public to pay less attention to global events which became the area of opportunistic decisions. Overall, the authors conclude that the mistakes were made precisely when the domestic debates in the U.S. about international relations were absent and note that the current divisions in the American society as an impetus for self-scrutiny and the emergence of China as a focal point for the American elites may result in a more coherent foreign policy and make the U.S. a more responsible international actor.

scholarly journals ASSESSING INDONESIA-RUSSIA FOREIGN POLICY DURING SUSILO BAMBANG YUDHOYONO ADMINISTRATION

2018 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Marten Hanura
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
New Order ◽  
Diplomatic Relations ◽  
Theoretical Concepts ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Policy Making Process ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Relationship

Russia or formerly known as the Soviet Union has a historically unique cooperation and diplomatic relations with Indonesia. This is because the relationship between Indonesia and Russia has a long history and experiencing ups and downs. The closeness of the two countries was influenced ideologically in the early days of Indonesian independence, and later the rise of the New Order regime influenced the dynamics of Indonesian foreign policy. During the New Order period, the Indonesian government began to freeze all forms of cooperative relations with the Soviet Union. The collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War era began to change the map of international politics to affect the situation in Indonesia. In the Post-Reformation era, the normalization of relations between the two countries recovered and lasted until the administration of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. The purpose of this article is to find out how the changes in the implementation of the foreign policy of Indonesia-Russia during the administration of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono with the previous era and what factors underlie Indonesia's foreign policy towards Russia. This research uses the descriptive-analytical method and using some theoretical concepts in the foreign policy-making process. The results of this study concluded that foreign policy between Indonesia and Russia increased significantly in the Post-Reformation era which no longer saw Russia as a threat as in the New Order era. The cooperation between Indonesia and Russia is implemented in various main areas, prominently is the cooperation in the field of military, social, economic and political.

The Misanthropy Diaries

2021 ◽  
pp. 254-271
Author(s):  
David Greenberg
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Significant Role ◽  
Us Foreign Policy ◽  
Political Ideas ◽  
American Diplomacy ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter studies George Frost Kennan's diaries that the historian Frank Costigliola published in 2014. Kennan has long been renowned for having formulated the containment doctrine that guided American policymakers as they lurched through the Cold War, as well as for his significant role in shaping US foreign policy as both a diplomat and thinker. Over many decades, biographers, foreign policy hands, politicians, intellectuals, and journalists have showered Kennan with praise and hailed him as the prime example of a grand strategist. For all the scholarly disputes about Kennan, there is general agreement that he was correct about many of the most vital issues of his time, and his “realism” has often been treated as a model from which subsequent American policymakers departed at their peril. Still, as Kennanologists have long known, there is more to the story. His acclaimed 1951 study, American Diplomacy, included disparaging statements about democracy, and his writing exhibited nasty, misanthropic, and aristocratic currents. The chapter then considers the relationship between Kennan's personal prejudices and his political ideas.

The Roots and Rationalizations of U.S. Torture in Vietnam

2021 ◽  
pp. 89-124
Author(s):  
William L. d'Ambruoso
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Vietnam War ◽  
Behavioral Control ◽  
Sensory Deprivation ◽  
Control Techniques ◽  
The Vietnam War ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Policy Elites ◽  
The U.S

This chapter traces the twin tales of the CIA’s and the U.S. military’s use of torture during the Vietnam War. The CIA’s interrogation program was rooted in the early days of the Cold War, when the agency was founded. U.S. foreign policy elites like Dwight Eisenhower and Allen Dulles were convinced that the Soviet Union’s freedom from norms and laws gave it an edge. As a result, the CIA began researching and practicing behavioral control techniques, using drugs and sensory deprivation to compete with Soviet programs. The agency’s KUBARK interrogation manual (1963) considered physical torture off-limits and ineffective, but recommended “maxim[izing] mental discomfort.” Likewise, CIA interrogators in Vietnam such as Frank Snepp believed isolation and sensory deprivation were both ethically and efficaciously superior to harsher alternatives. While racism and exasperation explain much of the U.S. military’s use of torture, soldiers also used water and electricity because the techniques were “unpleasant” but not “injurious.”

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