scholarly journals ‘Pearl Harbor without Bombs’: A Critical Geopolitics of the US—Japan ‘FSX’ Debate

1992 ◽  
Vol 24 (7) ◽  
pp. 975-994 ◽  
Author(s):  
G Ó Tuathail
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
National Security ◽  
Reagan Administration ◽  
Bush Administration ◽  
World Order ◽  
Critical Geopolitics ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Definition Of

In the spring of 1989 a proposed fighter-aircraft codevelopment and coproduction deal between General Dynamics and Mitsubishi Heavy Industry presented the Bush administration with its first foreign policy crisis. The deal to construct a modified version of General Dynamic's F-16 called the FSX (fighter support experimental) for the Japanese government with use of US technology was first approved by the Reagan administration and subsequently revised and supported by the Bush administration. The submission of the deal to Congress for approval by the Bush administration on 1 May 1989 provided the occasion for a sustained and wide-ranging debate within the US political system over the role of the USA in a changing world order. For many the question of the FSX fighter was symbolic of a series of larger issues which confronted the USA. Could the USA continue to conceptualize national security in geopolitical terms when its leading ally was also its leading competitor in world markets? Was the most significant threat to the USA from an East-West struggle with the Soviet Union, or with Japan? This paper is a critical geopolitics of the FSX debate in which the conflicting geographical scripts of Japan as both ally and threat are investigated. The debate provides a window into a larger struggle within the USA between an emergent geo-economic definition of national security and an increasingly materially unsustainable geopolitical vision of the US role in the world.

Competing Images of the Soviet Union

1987 ◽  
Vol 39 (4) ◽  
pp. 579-597 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barry R. Posen
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
National Security ◽  
Reagan Administration ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Nazi Germany ◽  
Political Will ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Control Community

Two American debates on foreign policy and national security. The Reagan administration and those who share its ideology see today's Soviet Union as not much different from yesterday's, and yesterday's Soviet Union as not much different from Nazi Germany. Like its progenitors in the 1930s, the modern Soviet Union is a “totalitarian” state, and therefore by nature expansionist, armed to the teeth, disposed to violence, fond of diplomatic tests of political will, and—as a consequence of all these factors —hard to deter and harder to beat. A different view prevails among most of the arms control community, the NATO allies, and some American academics. In its foreign policy, the Soviet Union is seen as a fairly typical great power whose behavior in international politics can be explained by the mixture of fear, greed, and stupidity that has characterized most great powers in the past as they have tried to secure their borders and pursue their interests in a world without law. It does not like to take great risks, it fears war, and it is, at worst, opportunistically expansionist. In sharp contrast to Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union is more conservative than reckless; if anything, nuclear weapons have reinforced this conservatism.

scholarly journals “If the gas pipeline would be built, we lose”: transcript of Reagan's speech at the US National Security Council Meeting on the Sanctions against Soviet Union

2021 ◽  
pp. 160-179
Author(s):  
Roman Aleksandrovich Yakupov ◽  
Dar'ya Viktorovna Yakupova
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
National Security ◽  
Security Council ◽  
National Security Council ◽  
Council Meeting ◽  
Foreign Markets ◽  
Gas Main ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Gas Main Pipeline ◽  
The Us

The object of this research is the declassified transcript of the US National Security Council Meeting of July 9, 1981, dedicated to introduction of the economic and political restrictions on building of the Soviet gas main pipeline. The subject of this research is the analysis information-bearing capabilities of the office documentation of the US National Security Council Meetings for conducting the scientific assessment of sanctions policy of the US government against the Soviet Union in the 1980s as part of directives on restricting the access of the Soviet Union to foreign markets. The article examines the published protocol the US National Security Council Meeting and related documents that contain information on creating the regime to impede the construction of the gas main pipeline to Europe. The novelty of lies in the fact that this article is first within the framework of historiographical analysis to study the plans of the US President R. Reagan on interruption of the active efforts of the Soviet Union to supply Western Europe with energy. Publication of the document clearly demonstrates that the ideas of restarting the trade-economic development of the Soviet Union were later implemented in other countries in the XXI century, when the Russian Nord Stream pipeline became one of the crucial vanguards within the system of control of the US national security interests in Europe. Based on the newly introduced documents from the foreign archives of the CIA, Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, materials of the US periodical press, and memoirs, the author explores the options prepared by the US agencies aimed at complete shutdown, and restriction of access of the participants of the Soviet-German gas pipeline deal to foreign markets and resources, as well as the response of business community to trade embargo with the USSR.

After the Cold War: Wilsonianism Resurgent?

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tony Smith
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
National Security ◽  
World Order ◽  
The United States ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Selective Approach ◽  
The Cold War

This chapter examines the United States's Wilsonianism in the post-Cold War era, first under George H. W. Bush and then under Bill Clinton. It considers how Bush, who became president as the Soviet Union was disintegrating and its leaders were looking for a new framework of understanding with the West, used Wilsonianism to address the question of establishing a world order favorable to American national security. It also discusses various Bush initiatives that were designed to establish a new world order after the cold war, Clinton's selective approach to liberal democratic internationalism, the effects of liberal economic practices on American national security, and the link between nationalism and liberal democracy. Finally, it assesses some of the challenges involved in the United States' efforts to bring about stable constitutional governance in many parts of the world.

The ‘New Cold War’ in ‘critical International Relations studies’

1986 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 163-185 ◽  
Author(s):  
V. Kubalkova ◽  
A. A. Cruickshank
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
International Relations ◽  
New Left ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Usa ◽  
The Cold War

In the historiography of the Cold War a small but active group of American historians influenced by New Left radicalism rejected the view prevailing in the USA at the time in regard to the assignation of responsibility for the beginning and continuation of the Cold War.1 Although their reasoning took them along different routes and via different perceptions as to key dates and events, there were certain features all US revisionists had in common (some more generally recognized than others). Heavily involved as they were in the analysis of the US socio-economic system, the Soviet Union was largely left out of their concerns and it was the United States who had been found the ‘guilty’ party. The revisionists, of course inadvertently, corroborated Soviet conclusions, a fact gratefully acknowledged by Soviet writers.2

Cinema Studies/Jewish Studies, 2011–2013

AJS Review ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 143-160
Author(s):  
Naomi Sokoloff
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Jewish Identity ◽  
Jewish Studies ◽  
Cinema Studies ◽  
Holocaust Studies ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Many ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Year 2000

In an era of massive university budget cuts and pervasive malaise regarding the future of the humanities, cinema and media studies continue to be a growth industry. Many academic fields have been paying increasing attention to film, in terms of both curriculum development and research. Jewish studies is no exception. Since 2011, a boom in publications has included a range of new books that deal with Jews on screen, Jewish themes in cinema, and the construction of Jewish identity through film. To assess what these recent titles contribute to Jewish cinema studies, though, requires assessing the parameters of the field—and that is no easy task. The definition of what belongs is as elastic as the boundaries of Jewish identity and as perplexing as the perennial question, who is a Jew? Consequently, the field is wildly expansive, potentially encompassing the many geographical locales where films on Jewish topics have been produced as well as the multiple languages and cinematic traditions within which such films have emerged. At issue are not just numerous national cinemas, but also transnational productions and international histories. Yiddish film, for instance, was produced in Poland, the Soviet Union, the US, Argentina, and other places as well. Compounding the challenge of assessing the field of Jewish film is the fact that Jewish studies overlaps with Holocaust studies, itself a vast enterprise that has grown dramatically over the past two decades. A simple WorldCat search, restricted to scholarly books from respectable academic presses, turns up dozens of titles on cinema and the Holocaust published since the year 2000. Not surprisingly, the long-standing debates on “what is Jewish literature?” have morphed into controversy over “what is Jewish cinema”?

scholarly journals The Reagan Administration and the Origins of the War on Terror: Lebanon and Libya as Case Studies

2012 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mattia Toaldo
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Reagan Administration ◽  
War On Terror ◽  
Terrorist Attack ◽  
Military Force ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Us ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Two Factors ◽  
Global Cold War

This article uses recently declassified records to analyze the American intervention in Lebanon between 1982 and 1984 and the confrontation with Libya between 1981 and 1986. In both cases, the US responded to a terrorist attack with military force. Especially after the attacks in Lebanon, members of the administration started to elaborate a comprehensive strategy to fight terrorism which focused on pre-emptive strikes against states deemed to be supporters of terrorism. The strike on Libya in April 1986 was the first implementation of this strategy and, furthermore, regime change had been attempted both before and after this strike. The article argues that the policy of the Reagan administration in the fight against terrorism was a combination of two factors: the global Cold War mindset and the first elaboration of concepts that would later become part of the Bush administration’s War on Terror. Rather than being the beginning of the War on Terror, however, Reagan’s policy should be considered as a source of inspiration for it, albeit one that was deeply influenced by the bipolar confrontation with the Soviet Union.

Fighting Religious Persecution behind the Iron Curtain

2020 ◽  
pp. 95-123
Author(s):  
Lauren Frances Turek
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Interest Groups ◽  
Reagan Administration ◽  
Bush Administration ◽  
Soviet Bloc ◽  
Iron Curtain ◽  
Religious Persecution ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Network Building

This chapter examines evangelical interest groups on behalf of persecuted Soviet Pentecostals and Baptists during the Reagan administration. It shows how evangelicals combined human rights activism at home with focused network building in the Soviet bloc in order to support their suffering brethren and lay the foundation for expanded evangelistic opportunities in the communist world. It also describes the evangelical organizations and missionary groups that ensured the postcommunist states would guarantee religious liberty for their citizens and allow foreigners to evangelize as the Soviet Union began to collapse during the Bush administration. The chapter discusses how effective were Christian efforts to attain foreign aid for favoured regimes and to impose economic and diplomatic sanctions on those nations that persecuted Christians and stifled evangelism. It also investigates why U.S. evangelicals lend support to repressive authoritarian regimes in the name of human rights.

scholarly journals The US policy toward the Islamic Republic of Iran during the Reagan administration

2016 ◽  
pp. 176-191
Author(s):  
Olesya Pavlyuk
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Middle East ◽  
Reagan Administration ◽  
Iraq War ◽  
Middle Eastern ◽  
Peace Treaty ◽  
Gulf Region ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Us

The foreign policy approaches and methods of establishing bilateral relations between Washington and Tehran and the actual implementation of the US “containment” policy towards Iran are analyzed in the article. The author argues that the Middle Eastern vector of US foreign policy was formed according to the three security challenges in the region and Iranian involvement in them: the Iran-Iraq War 1980-1988, the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982 and the kidnapping of American hostages in Beirut 1982. Background and progress of Iran-Iraq war were the result of striking contradictions between regional and world leaders in the Middle East. In fact, since the early 1980s. this military confrontation substantially affect the US relationship with IRI. In this context, the key point was the blatant US support of the Iraq and its government. Reagan administration continued the foreign policy of J. Carter and considered the Soviet Union as the greatest threat to the Gulf region, including through military intervention in Afghanistan and its close ties with radical countries like Libya and Syria. In the Middle East, the White House has focused its efforts on negotiations on a peace treaty between Israel and Egypt in 1978. Before the revolution in 1979, Iran was crucial to US interests in the Middle East. First, as a frontline state with an extended 2000-km border with the Soviet Union, as well as a springboard for American intelligence. In addition, Iran was one of the few Muslim countries to recognize Israel, and exported oil to it. However, the after the Islamic revolution, Iran became the periphery to US priorities in the region.

scholarly journals „Neue Weltordnung“

2001 ◽  
Vol 31 (125) ◽  
pp. 523-539 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brigitte Young ◽  
Simon Hegelich
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Military Policy ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Us ◽  
Current Belief ◽  
Popular View ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Comprehensive Test ◽  
Test Ban

The attacks on 11th September are – according to the current belief – a turning point in the US-foreign policy. The authors contest this popular view and suggest that a new military policy was already designed in the aftermath of the collaps of the Soviet Union in 1990. Focussing on the Gulf War and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty the authors argue, that the USA has relied on both unilateralism and mulitlateralism to further its particular foreign policy intersts.

scholarly journals Justifying Jihad: US politics, propaganda and the Afghan Mujahedeen, 1979-1989

2011 ◽  
pp. 62-65
Author(s):  
Jacqueline Fitzgibbon
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Reagan Administration ◽  
Public Diplomacy ◽  
Ronald Reagan ◽  
Soviet Occupation ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Us ◽  
The World ◽  
Freedom Fighters ◽  
History Of

‘I believe that our public diplomacy represents a powerful force, perhaps the most powerful force at our disposal, for shaping the history of the world.’ (Ronald Reagan) The Afghan resistance to the Soviet occupation began in 1979 and culminated in the withdrawal of Soviet forces a decade later and was, many believe, instrumental in the disintegration of the Soviet Union shortly after. The administration of President Ronald Reagan (1981-1989), many influential members of Congress and vocal right-wing groups, wholeheartedly supported the anti-government and anti-Soviet resistance efforts of the Afghan mujahedeen. These insurgents were recast as ‘freedom fighters’ and supplied with military hardware, training and economic aid by the US, Pakistan, China, Iran and Saudi Arabia. Furthermore, the Reagan administration undertook a major public diplomacy programme to promote this view of the mujahedeen to justify American support and ensure that the rest of the world, including Afghanis, saw the rebels in ...

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