Question of New Aggressive Acts by the United States Air Force Against the Soviet Union

1960 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 578-579

From its 880th through its 883d meetings the Security Council considered the charge by the Soviet Union that the United States had, through aggressive acts committed by its Air Force against the Soviet Union, created a threat to universal peace. Mr. Kuznetsov (Soviet Union) was the first speaker. Noting that it had been a mere two months since the Council had last debated the aggressive actions of the United States in a similar situation, he indicated that members of the Council were aware of the fact that on July 1, 1960, an RB–47 six-engined armed bomber reconnaissance aircraft of the United States Air Force had violated the state border of the Soviet Union, whereupon it had been shot down, two of the crew members subsequently being picked up in Soviet territorial waters. It seemed clear, he continued, that there had been no substance to the promise of the United States President to suspend flights of United States aircraft over Soviet territory; moreover, those allies of the United States which allowed the latter to use bases on their territory “for aggressive purposes against the Soviet Union" must be considered accomplices of the United States in these aggressive acts. Believing it necessary for the Security Council to take measures to make the United States stop provocative actions against other countries, Mr. Kuznetsov presented a draft resolution” to the Council, whereby it would condemn the violations of the sovereign rights of other states by the United States Air Force and regard them as aggressive acts, and would, further, insist that the government of the United States take immediate steps to put an end to such acts and to prevent their recurrence.

1960 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 591-593

From its 893d through its 895th meetings the Security Council considered, with a view to determining its own course of action in that connection, the decision of the Organization of American States (OAS) taken on August 26, 1960, to apply limited sanctions against the Dominican Republic for acts of aggression in Venezuela. In addition to the Final Act of the OAS meeting communicating the decision, the Council had before it the following items: I) a letter from the First Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Soviet Union requesting consideration of the decision by the Council; 2) a draft resolution, sponsored by Argentina, Ecuador, and the United States, taking note of the report and resolution of OAS; and 3) a draft resolution submitted by the Soviet Union approving the decision of OAS. In pointing out that Article 53 of the UN Charter provided for the authorization of the Security Council as a prerequisite to enforcement action by regional agencies, Mr. Kuznetsov (Soviet Union), the opening speaker, declared it to be the duty of the Council to approve the decision of OAS, thereby imparting legal force to it. In reply, the Argentine delegate, Mr. Amadeo, expressed doubts concerning the Soviet interpretation of Article 53, pointing to arguments in support of the idea that measures taken on a regional basis were subject to ratification by the Security Council only if they entailed the actual use of armed force. Mr. Wadsworth (United States) concurred in rejection of the Soviet contention, and the following speaker, Mr. Correa (Ecuador), in discussing the possibilities of interpretation of Article 53, urged the retention of flexibility in relations between the Security Council and regional agencies, in order to allow effective action for the maintenance of international peace and security without the necessity of bringing all such questions of a regional nature before the world forum.


1955 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 532-533

ApplicationsAerial Incident of October y, 1952 (United States v. Soviet Union): On June 2, 1955, the United States filed with the International Court of Justice an application instituting proceedings against the Soviet Union, on the grounds of certain willful acts said to have been committed by Soviet fighter aircraft against a United States Air Force B-29 aircraft andits crew off Hokkaido, Japan, on October 7, 1952. The United States claimed that a Soviet fighter aircraft, unlawfully overflying the territory of Japan at the instigation of the Soviet government, had without any provocation attacked and destroyed the United States Air Force B-29, causing it to crashinto the sea at a point between Yuri Island and Akiyuri Island in territory rightfully belonging to Japan; that the crew of eight, all members of the United States Air Force and nationals ofthe United States, had failed to return, and that the Soviet government had concealed from the United States government information as to the fate of the crew, and had notmade provision for the prompt return of any crew members whom it might still be holding or of whose whereabouts itwas informed. The United States application stated that the Court's jurisdiction for the purposes of this case was accepted by the United States. The damages the United States claimed to have suffered and for which it claimed the Soviet Union to beliable were specified in a note annexed to the application; the United States claimed that the actions withwhich it charged the Soviet government constituted serious violations of international obligation for which it demanded monetary and other reparation.


1963 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 226-230

The Security Council discussed this question at its 1022nd–1025th meetings, on October 23–25, 1962. It had before it a letter dated October 22, 1962, from the permanent representative of the United States, in which it was stated that the establishment of missile bases in Cuba constituted a grave threat to the peace and security of the world; a letter of the same date from the permanent representative of Cuba, claiming that the United States naval blockade of Cuba constituted an act of war; and a letter also dated October 22 from the deputy permanent representative of the Soviet Union, emphasizing that Soviet assistance to Cuba was exclusively designed to improve Cuba's defensive capacity and that the United States government had committed a provocative act and an unprecedented violation of international law in its blockade.


Proxy War ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 182-200
Author(s):  
Tyrone L. Groh

This chapter presents a case study for how India initially supported the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) covertly to protect ethnic Tamils in Sri Lanka and then later had to overtly intervene to stop LTTE’s operations during efforts to broker peace. For the duration of the conflict, India’s support remained covert and plausibly deniable. Inside Sri Lanka, the character of the conflict was almost exclusively ethnic and involved the government in Colombo trying to prevent the emergence of an independent Tamil state. Internationally, the United States, the Soviet Union, and most other global powers, for the most part, remained sidelined. Domestically, India’s government had to balance its foreign policy with concerns about its sympathetic Tamil population and the threat of several different secessionist movements inside its own borders. The India-LTTE case reflects history’s most costly proxy war policy.


1965 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 81-96

The Security Council held two meetings (1140th and 1141st) on August 5 and 7, 1964, to discuss a complaint of the United States government against the government of North Vietnam, which was expressed in a letter dated August 4, 1964, from the permanent representative of the United States addressed to the President of the Security Council. At the outset of the 1140th meeting on August 5, 1964, Mr. Morozov (Soviet Union) explained that he had requested the postponement of the meeting until August 6 to permit his delegation to receive necessary instructions from its government. With regard to this request, Mr. Stevenson (United States) pointed out that the UN Charter explicitly called for immediate reporting to the Council of measures taken by Members in the exercise of their right of self-defense. If the Council wished to adjourn after hearing the statement of the United States delegation, Mr. Stevenson had no objection. Mr. Hajek (Czechoslovakia) also opposed convening the meeting on August 5 on the grounds that Council members did not possess all the facts and views of the parties. To deliberate on the question on the basis of one version would not, he felt, serve the interests of the Council. Moreover, he did not feel that the circumstances constituted an emergency: The United States did not appear to be immediately threatened.


1987 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 1-7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph S. Nye

The first issue of Ethics & International Affairs was published in 1987, when the Cold War still dominated international affairs. It was appropriate at that time to launch the journal with an issue devoted in part to the theme “superpower ethics.” In his introduction to the topic Nye argues that the challenge of establishing an ethics for the United States and the Soviet Union is not met by any traditional Western system. Aristotle's “virtue,” Kant's “good intent,” and the “good result” of the consequentialists are inadequate to the task of determining right on the superpower playing field. In reference to this insufficiency, Nye sketches the arguments of the subsequent articles by Mazrui, Hassner, and Hoffman, each of whom offers an instructive picture of the state of superpower ethics.


1989 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 307-326 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fred H. Lawson

Diplomatic historians of all persuasions agree that the Iranian Crisis of 1945–1946 played a considerable part in initiating the Cold War. For revisionist writers, the confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union that took place during these months resulted from American efforts to carve out a sphere of influence in the oil-producing areas of the Middle East. By the autumn of 1945, according to this view, U.S. firms had gained controlling interests in the consortia holding exclusive rights to work the extensive petroleum deposits located in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain; more importantly, Iranian officials were making repeated overtures to American concerns in an effort to counterbalance established British interests with more dynamic ones based in the United States. When the Red Army prevented the government in Tehran from suppressing separatist movements in Azerbaijan and Kurdistan in December 1945, the Truman Administration manipulated the Security Council of the United Nations into mandating a Soviet withdrawal from northern Iran.


Author(s):  
Joseph Heller

This chapter shows the change in America’s attitude towards Israel, from opposition to de jure recognition of Israel’s military capabilities for the west during ther Korean war. While in 1948 secretary of state General Marshall warned against an enduring conflict with the Arabs, Truman recognized it de facto. However, the state department continued to treart Israel as a liability. Henry Byroade claimed that Israel should not be the homeland of the Jewish people. Israel was left outside of strategic western alliances because it was assumed that its membership might push the Arabs towards the Soviet Union. The notion that Truman’s administration was pro-Israel is a myth. Although Truman himself was sympathetic, the State Department and the Pentagon did not consider Israel an asset.


1971 ◽  
Vol 47 ◽  
pp. 439-470 ◽  
Author(s):  
John H. Weakland

It is clear that the Government of the Chinese People's Republic is very concerned about national defence and possible foreign attack – especially from the United States, but increasingly from the Soviet Union also. Obviously, such concerns are largely relatable to both historical and current political and military realities – such as 100-odd years of western and Japanese encroachments on China, the Vietnam war, American military bases around China, Chinese-Soviet border clashes, and both ideological and practical political conflicts between China and the United States, and China and the Soviet Union. At the same time, however, these practical realities alone cannot provide a full basis for understanding the nature and strength of Chinese concerns about potential invasion. In the first place, such attitudes are both too deep and too wide. Traditionally, from long before the West became powerful in Asia, China has been concerned to keep foreigners out or at least carefully restricted, and long before the bitter attacks by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) on “cultural imperialism” this concern extended to economic and cultural as well as direct military or political influence. Second – more generally, but more fundamentally – political behaviour and attitudes are never so neatly and completely rational and compartmentalized as to depend only on the “real” political circumstances. As with anyone else, both what the Chinese perceive as “real” and as “political,” and the significance attributed to these perceptions, depends also on the lenses they use to view the world. And the nature of the lenses used to view international affairs may be shaped by matters that at first seem remote from international relations, and by unconscious and emotional as well as conscious and rational calculations.


1988 ◽  
Vol 40 (4) ◽  
pp. 452-475 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miroslav Nincic

The notion that the attitudes of the American public vis-a-vis the Soviet Union are driven essentially by emotion, and that they are more extreme and volatile than those of the government itself, is widely believed but may not be valid. While the public typically desires a combination of tough and conciliatory policies, it also tends to express, at any given moment, particular concern about whichever of the two it feels is most slighted in U.S. policy. Thus, the public will tend to seek conciliatory behavior from hawkish administrations while preferring a tough stance from administrations it deems dovish. By so doing, the public is likely to have a moderating effect on official behavior toward Moscow. The proposition is tested with reference to shifts in public approval of presidential Soviet policy, and certain implications are suggested for the manner in which political leadership perceives of its mandate.


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