President Kennedy and United States Policy in Laos, 1961–63

1971 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 87-99 ◽  
Author(s):  
Usha Mahajani
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Military Intervention ◽  
The United States ◽  
Eisenhower Administration ◽  
International Crisis ◽  
American Military ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
East West

In his short administration, President Kennedy was called upon to deal with several Southeast Asian developments but none that had reached such a high watermark of an international crisis as the question of Laos. As in Berlin, he inherited in Laos a situation aggravated by near-direct armed confrontation between the Soviet Union and the United States. Kennedy's response to that situation was a complex set of policy moves and measures that alternately raised a spectre of large-scale, direct American military intervention and prospects of East-West agreement on Laotian neutrality, only to end eventually on the same note of anti-communist crusade as in the preceding Eisenhower administration.

Utopias of One

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joshua Kotin
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
World War I ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Jim Crow ◽  
Personal Autonomy ◽  
The United States ◽  
Soviet Period ◽  
Original Research ◽  
The Soviet Union

This book is a new account of utopian writing. It examines how eight writers—Henry David Thoreau, W. E. B. Du Bois, Osip and Nadezhda Mandel'shtam, Anna Akhmatova, Wallace Stevens, Ezra Pound, and J. H. Prynne—construct utopias of one within and against modernity's two large-scale attempts to harmonize individual and collective interests: liberalism and communism. The book begins in the United States between the buildup to the Civil War and the end of Jim Crow; continues in the Soviet Union between Stalinism and the late Soviet period; and concludes in England and the United States between World War I and the end of the Cold War. In this way it captures how writers from disparate geopolitical contexts resist state and normative power to construct perfect worlds—for themselves alone. The book contributes to debates about literature and politics, presenting innovative arguments about aesthetic difficulty, personal autonomy, and complicity and dissent. It models a new approach to transnational and comparative scholarship, combining original research in English and Russian to illuminate more than a century and a half of literary and political history.

Trust, but Verify

2016 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Arms Control ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
East West

This book uses trust—with its emotional and predictive aspects—to explore international relations in the second half of the Cold War, beginning with the late 1960s. The détente of the 1970s led to the development of some limited trust between the United States and the Soviet Union, which lessened international tensions and enabled advances in areas such as arms control. However, it also created uncertainty in other areas, especially on the part of smaller states that depended on their alliance leaders for protection. The chapters in this volume look at how the “emotional” side of the conflict affected the dynamics of various Cold War relations: between the superpowers, within the two ideological blocs, and inside individual countries on the margins of the East–West confrontation.

15. The Return to Confrontation, 1979–80

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
John W. Young ◽  
John Kent
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
Short Range ◽  
The United States ◽  
Arms Race ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Slow Progress ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
East West

This chapter examines why the United States and the Soviet Union returned to confrontation during the period 1979–1980. Despite the slow progress of the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT II), there were at least some efforts to control strategic weapons. Short-range and intermediate-range nuclear weapons, in contrast, continued to grow in number and sophistication, particularly in Europe, where NATO and Warsaw Pact forces still prepared for war against each other, despite détente. The failure to control theatre nuclear weapons led to a new twist in the European arms race at the end of the 1970s which helped to undermine recent improvements in East–West relations. The chapter first considers NATO’s ‘dual track’ decision regarding theatre nuclear weapons before discussing the Iranian Revolution and the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan. It concludes with an assessment of the revival of the Cold War, focusing on the so-called Carter Doctrine.

Security Studies and Security Policy: An American Perspective

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harvey M. Sapolsky
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Security Policy ◽  
Security Analysis ◽  
The United States ◽  
Security Studies ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
American Military ◽  
Nation States ◽  
The Soviet Union

Security studies in the United States is marred by a lack of status. Opportunities within American universities are limited by the fact that the work deals with war and the use of force. Another reason for the isolation of security studies is its inherent interdisciplinary nature. It is nearly impossible to separate military technology from security policy, and there is the constant requirement in doing security analysis to understand weapons and their operational effects. However, the most serious limitation of security studies is its narrowness. Nearly all of its ranks are international relations specialists concerned primarily with relationships among and between nation-states. Absent from serious analysis are international environmental, economic, and health issues that may precede and produce political upheaval and that have their own academic specialists. The collapse of the Soviet Union raised questions about the opportunities and dangers of the United States' globally dominant position. The efforts to specify America’s new grand strategy produced a variety of expressions which fall into four main categories. The first is Primacy. Its advocates are primarily the neo-conservatives who relished America’s post-Cold War global dominance and sought to thwart any attempts to challenge this dominance. The second strategy is usually labeled Liberal Interventionism, which is also based on the dominance of American military might and urges US intervention abroad. The third strategy is the Selective Engagement. Under this strategy the United States should intervene only where vital interests are at stake. The fourth strategy focused on Restraint.

Conflict and Cooperation in Intra-Alliance Nuclear Politics: Western Europe, the United States, and the Genesis of NATO's Dual-Track Decision, 1977–1979

2011 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 39-89 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristina Spohr Readman
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
North Atlantic ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
The United States ◽  
Conflict And Cooperation ◽  
The North ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Nuclear Missiles ◽  
East West

On the basis of recently released archival sources from several member-states of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), this article revisits the making of NATO's landmark 1979 dual-track decision. The article examines the intersecting processes of personal, bureaucratic, national, and alliance high politics in the broader Cold War context of increasingly adversarial East-West relations. The discussion sheds new light on how NATO tried to augment its deterrent capability via the deployment of long-range theater nuclear missiles and why ultimately an arms control proposal to the Soviet Union was included as an equal strand. The 1979 decision owed most to West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt's political thought and initiative. Intra-alliance decision-making, marked by transatlantic conflict and cooperation, benefitted from the creativity and agency of West German, British, and Norwegian officials. Contrary to popular impressions, the United States did not truly lead the process.

The United States and World War II in Europe

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steve R. Waddell
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
The United States ◽  
Nazi Germany ◽  
World War ◽  
American Military ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The World ◽  
Imperial Japan

With the outbreak of war in Europe, a growing fear of and ultimately a concerted effort to defeat Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany defined American involvement. Competing Allied national and strategic interests resulted in serious debates, but the common desire to defeat the enemy proved stronger than any disagreements. President Franklin Roosevelt, understanding the isolationist sentiments of the American public and the dangers of Nazism and Imperial Japan perhaps better than most, carefully led the nation through the difficult period of 1939–1941, overseeing a gradual increase in American military preparedness and support for those standing up to Nazi Germany, as the German military forces achieved victory after victory. Following American entry into the war, strategic discussions in 1942–1943 often involved ambitious American military plans countered by British voices of moderation. The forces and supplies available made a direct invasion of northern France unfeasible. The American desire to launch an immediate invasion across the English Channel gave way to the Allied invasion of North Africa and subsequent assault on Sicily and the Italian peninsula. The Tehran Conference in November 1943 marked a transition, as the buildup of American forces in Europe and the overwhelming contribution of war materials enabled the United States to determine American-British strategy from late 1943 to the end of the war. The final year and a half of the war in Europe saw a major shift in strategic leadership, as the United States along with the Soviet Union assumed greater control over the final steps toward victory over Nazi Germany. By the end of World War II (May 1945 in Europe and September 1945 in Asia), the United States had not only assumed the leadership of the Western Allies, it had achieved superpower status with the greatest air force and navy in the world. It was also the sole possessor of the atomic bomb. Even with the tensions with the Soviet Union and beginnings of a Cold War, most Americans felt the United States was the leader as the world entered the post-war era.

Anglo-American Nuclear Weapons Cooperation After the Nassau Conference: The British Policy of Interdependence

2000 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 69-96 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Middeke
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
The United States ◽  
Great Power ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Political Value ◽  
East West

The Anglo-American summit at Nassau in December 1962 did not strictly separate Britain's deterrent from the proposed Multilateral Force (MLF). As a result, Conservative governments in the 1960s tried to safeguard maximum British independence in nuclear relations with the United States. The British tried to thwart American initiatives on the mixed-manned MLF; some British officials even hoped to preserve an “independent British deterrent” through nuclear cooperation with France. For the United States, the British deterrent had political value in an intra-alliance or East-West context, but no military or political significance in itself. The MLF idea of bilateral nuclear cooperation with Britain and France was a means to contain French and German nuclear ambitions and to settle Cold War disputes with the Soviet Union. In London, however, leading officials believed that Britain's future as a great power was inextricably linked to the possession of an independent nuclear deterrent. When nuclear independence was lost, the appearance of independence became more important.

scholarly journals Bill Gertz: Deceiving The Sky: Inside Communist Chinaʼs Drive for Global Supremacy.

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
Jan Železný
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
World Order ◽  
The United States ◽  
Communist Regime ◽  
Strategic Objective ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Democratic State ◽  
Massive Scale

The United States' approach to China since the Communist regime in Beijing began the period of reform and opening in the 1980s was based on a promise that trade and engagement with China would result in a peaceful, democratic state. Forty years later the hope of producing a benign People's Republic of China utterly failed. The Communist Party of China deceived the West into believing that the its system and the Party-ruled People's Liberation Army were peaceful and posed no threat. In fact, these misguided policies produced the emergence of a 21st Century Evil Empire even more dangerous than a Cold War version in the Soviet Union. Successive American presidential administrations were fooled by ill-advised pro-China policymakers, intelligence analysts and business leaders who facilitated the rise not of a peaceful China but a threatening and expansionist nuclear-armed communist dictatorship not focused on a single overriding strategic objective: Weakening and destroying the United States of America. Defeating the United States is the first step for China's current rulers in achieving global supremacy under a new world order based an ideology of Communism with Chinese characteristics. The process included technology theft of American companies that took place on a massive scale through cyber theft and unfair trade practices. The losses directly supported in the largest and most significant buildup of the Chinese military that now directly threatens American and allied interests around the world. The military threat is only half the danger as China aggressively pursues regional and international control using a variety of non-military forces, including economic, cyber and space warfare and large-scale influence operations.

scholarly journals The Northern Front in the Technological Cold War: Finland and East-West Trade in the 1970s and 1980s

2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 150-174 ◽  
Author(s):  
Niklas Jensen-Eriksen
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Small Countries ◽  
Important Player ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
East West ◽  
The U.S

This article shows how the United States and the Soviet Union competed technologically in northern Europe during the final decades of the Cold War. The article highlights the U.S. government's ability to enlist neutral countries, and even vulnerable neutral states like Finland, into Western technology embargoes against the Soviet Union. Yet, the Finnish case also demonstrates that determined small countries and their companies were not simply helpless actors and could protect their political and commercial interests. Finland exported high-technology goods such as electronics and telecommunications equipment to the Soviet Union, even though Finland itself was dependent on technology flows from the United States. In fact, the Finns managed to get the best of both worlds: their country was an important player in East-West trade, but at the same time it was able to modernize its economy and strengthen trading links with the U.S.-led Western alliance.

The United States and Latin America’s Armed Forces: A Troubled Relationship

1997 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 121-136 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard L. Millett
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
The United States ◽  
Bottom Line ◽  
National Interests ◽  
American Military ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Us

When Commodore David Porter resigned from the US Navy to accept the post of commander-in-chief of Mexico’s nascent naval forces, he began a tradition of US involvement with Latin American armed forces that has endured to the present day. Porter’s decision was supported by President John Quincy Adams, who hoped that it would both strengthen the US influence in Mexico and act as a curb on possible Mexican efforts to seize Cuba, a prize which the president coveted himself (for details, see Long, 1970). These objectives signaled another enduring heritage: efforts by the United States to use ties with Latin American military institutions to promote agendas that were frequently unrelated to, or even at variance with, national interests in Latin America. This would be especially true whenever the United States perceived itself as competing with other nations for influence in the region. In 1826, the rival was Great Britain; in this century, it was first Germany and then the Soviet Union, but, in all cases, the bottom line was the same: a determination to make Washington’s influence paramount.

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