Making states and breaking states: Kosovo and the Caucasus in 2008: Introduction

2012 ◽  
Vol 40 (5) ◽  
pp. 657-660
Author(s):  
Ronald Grigor Suny ◽  
Vicken Cheterian
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
The Political ◽  
The West ◽  
The Caucasus ◽  
Federal States ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Moment ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Rules Set

Two events in 2008 shaped the political map of the Caucasus: the West's decision on the independence of Kosovo and the Russo-Georgian War. First, on 17 February, Kosovo authorities unilaterally declared the independence of what was at the time a UN protectorate. This declaration enjoyed much support in the West, including near-immediate recognition by key states such as the US, Germany, France, the UK, and a dozen others. But it also faced strong opposition from Serbia and Russia and strong skepticism from prowestern countries such as Georgia. Russia opposed not only the Kosovo declaration itself but more importantly the western adoption of it. From the Russian perspective, by supporting Kosovo's accession to sovereignty western states were violating the rules set at the moment of collapse of the federal states of Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union: to invite the former union republics to join the international clubs of sovereign states, but not extend such invitation to any other sub-units. In other words, Azerbaijan, Croatia, Kazakhstan, and Russia became members of the United Nations, but sub-entities like Chechnya, Kosovo, or Tatarstan did not receive the same recognition.

In Afghanistan: Western and Soviet Methods of Counterinsurgency

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 22-40
Author(s):  
Lasha Tchantouridze
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Social Issues ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
Limited Success ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Us ◽  
Military Mission ◽  
Lasting Change

The two-decade-long U.S.-led military mission in Afghanistan ended in August 2021 after a chaotic departure of the NATO troops. Power in Kabul transferred back to the Taliban, the political force the United States and its allies tried to defeat. In its failure to achieve a lasting change, the Western mission in Afghanistan is similar to that of the Soviet Union in the 1980s. These two missions in Afghanistan had many things in common, specifically their unsuccessful counterinsurgency efforts. However, both managed to achieve limited success in their attempts to impose their style of governance on Afghanistan as well. The current study compares and contrasts some of the crucial aspects of counterinsurgency operations conducted by the Soviet and Western forces during their respective missions, such as special forces actions, propaganda activities, and dealing with crucial social issues. Interestingly, when the Soviets withdrew in 1988, they left Afghanistan worse off, but the US-backed opposition forces subsequently made the situation even worse. On the other hand, the Western mission left the country better off in 2021, and violence subsided when power in the country was captured by the Taliban, which the United States has opposed.

Choice in the West

1953 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 133-167
Author(s):  
S. Bernard
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
World War ◽  
The West ◽  
Political Situation ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Working Out

The advent of a new administration in the United States and the passage of seven years since the end of World War II make it appropriate to review the political situation which has developed in Europe during that period and to ask what choices now are open to the West in its relations with the Soviet Union.The end of World War II found Europe torn between conflicting conceptions of international politics and of the goals that its members should seek. The democratic powers, led by the United States, viewed the world in traditional, Western, terms. The major problem, as they saw it, was one of working out a moral and legal order to which all powers could subscribe, and in which they would live. Quite independently of the environment, they assumed that one political order was both more practicable and more desirable than some other, and that their policies should be directed toward its attainment.

The Communist Contest for Status

2019 ◽  
pp. 82-133
Author(s):  
Deborah Welch Larson ◽  
Alexei Shevchenko
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
The United States ◽  
Social Competition ◽  
The West ◽  
Republic Of China ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Economic Production ◽  
Communist Ideology ◽  
The Us ◽  
Catch Up

This chapter argues that both the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China (PRC) pursued social competition with the Western states while at the same time seeking recognition from the states they were trying to subvert. Stalin sought to increase the power and prestige of the Soviet state through coerced industrialization, and Khrushchev made an effort to “catch up and surpass” the West in economic production. The PRC sought to improve its status by allying with the Soviet Union, but the Chinese chafed under their status as “younger brothers” to their senior ally, and eventually Mao challenged the Soviets for leadership of the international communist movement. In the 1970s, China took advantage of the US need to balance Soviet military power by putting aside communist ideology to become a tacit ally of the United States, part of a “strategic triangle.”

scholarly journals How to boost the Western response to Russian hostile influence operations

European View ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 181-188
Author(s):  
Jakub Janda
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Russian Federation ◽  
The Political ◽  
Southern Europe ◽  
The West ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Russian Federation ◽  
Points Of View ◽  
The Baltic ◽  
The Uk

The Russian Federation has become a rogue state in international relations, invading and occupying the territories of three European countries (Moldova, Georgia and Ukraine), waging war in the Ukrainian territory, producing massive disinformation campaigns against the West, threatening the Baltic republics, and interfering in various elections and referendums. Despite Russia’s aggressive behaviour, the West’s response to it has been significantly limited, particularly when it comes to non-military deterrence by Continental Europe. The US and the UK are leading the punishment of Russia’s aggression, while many countries, mainly in Western and Southern Europe, are hesitant to respond to this threat. This article makes recommendations as to what should be done in practical terms to boost the European portion of the Western response to Russian aggression from the political and policy points of view.

scholarly journals Mor Rusland - tur retur: mellem husmødre og kannibaler

1998 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mette Bryld
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Prime Minister ◽  
Homeless Women ◽  
The Political ◽  
The West ◽  
Fallen Woman ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
New Mother ◽  
Gender Specific

The belief in women's "natural" predisposition to motherhood and domesticity was drastically strenghtened during the period of perestrojka, which has been characterized by Russian democratic feminists as "basically a male project". After the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the proclamation of a new Russia, the ongoing search for a national identity continued to nourish what was imagined to be a stable identity, i.e. a female body with a gender-specific mission. So magically promising did this bonding appear that, in 1995, it even influenced the naming of the political party of Prime Minister Chernomyrdin: "Our Home is Russia" ("Nash dom - Rossija"), which clearly links the vision of national identity to the femininity of mothering, nuturing and caring. Behind this image hovers the representation of the Soviet Union as a fallen woman. The article shows how some women internalize the paradigm of the new "mother nation" by constructing prostitutes, homeless women, lesbians, or even unfaithful wives as Soviet "others"; sometimes this deviant is so explicitly ostracized that she is situated beyond the borders, i.e. in the West (or simply in "Europe", i.e. non-Russia). However, this discourse of pathetic and nostalgic womanhood does not stand alone; it is countered by subversive self-representations of domesticity and maternity such as cannibalistic chaos and death (e.g. L. Petrushevskaya's The time - night.) I suggest that both strategies, each in their own way, mirror the collapsing cultural identities which make up the present period of "transition".

Conflicting Perceptions: Russia, the West and Kosovo

2009 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 491-518
Author(s):  
Benedikt Harz Feldbrugge
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Fairy Tale ◽  
The West ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Economically Marginalized ◽  
The Us ◽  
International Diplomacy ◽  
Long Time ◽  
The Cold War

AbstractThe confrontation between the West and Russia over conflict resolution in breakaway states (Kosovo, Abkhazia, South Ossetia, etc.) has been, by and large, the result of dangerous geopolitical moves on the part of both sides after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The US tried to translate the unexpectedly quick victory in the Cold War into a policy aimed at making political use of this tectonic shift in world affairs. On the other hand, Russia—economically marginalized and fully dependent on foreign aid—was forced to stand by and swallow the bitter pill of being excluded from geopolitical decision making. This applies to international diplomacy in the Balkans in the 1990S and, especially, to the Kosovo question, which had already become heated by 1999. However, times have changed in this respect, and things have gotten worse. The Georgian-Ossetian conflict in the summer of 2008 shows that neither side is really interested in an irreversible settlement process in the regions concerned: Russia—for a long time humiliated by the West—acts with a hint of satisfaction in its voice and the West still denies reality by referring to the fairy tale of Kosovo as a sui generis case.

Litvinov's Lost Peace, 1941–1946

2002 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 23-54 ◽  
Author(s):  
Geoffrey Roberts
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
The United States ◽  
Foreign Affairs ◽  
The Political ◽  
The West ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Grand Alliance ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Realist Conception

The German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 and the ensuing conflict witnessed the political rehabilitation of the former People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs, Maksim Litvinov. After serving as ambassador to the United States from 1941 to 1943, Litvinov returned to the Soviet Union and played a key role in charting Moscow's wartime Grand Alliance strategy. He urged So-viet leaders to convene a joint Anglo-Soviet-American commission to discuss military-political questions, and he helped organize the October 1943 foreign ministers'conference in Moscow. As the war drew to a close, Litvinov argued for a postwar settlement dividing the world into security zones. His realist conception of foreign policy suggested a more moderate alternative o Josif Stalin's reliance on confrontation with the West. Although Litvinov faded again from public view after his retirement in 1946, his belief that the Grand Alliance could continue suggests that the rapid, postwar descent into the Cold War might have been averted had it not been for Stalin.

Moscow Calls Off the Arms Race

2019 ◽  
pp. 102-128
Author(s):  
Beth A. Fischer
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
The United States ◽  
Arms Race ◽  
Negligible Effect ◽  
The West ◽  
Military Buildup ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Us

Told from the Kremlin’s perspective, this chapter debunks the myth that Reagan’s military buildup—and SDI in particular—compelled the Soviets to agree to arms reductions and then to collapse. In reality, the US buildup had a negligible effect on the USSR. By the 1980s Soviet reformers believed nuclear arsenals were of little value: they were costly, could not be used, and incited fear in the West, which prompted the United States to increase its arsenal. The USSR would be more secure, they reasoned, if arsenals were greatly reduced, if not eliminated. Moreover, although some Soviet scientists were initially worried about SDI, this concern dissipated as scientists determined Reagan’s plan was not feasible. In short, for a variety of strategic, financial, and ethical reasons Moscow sought to end the arms race. It therefore did not build its own SDI-style system, nor did it match increases in US defense expenditures, as triumphalistsassume. The Reagan administration’s policies did not compel the Soviet Union to disarm and then collapse.

Uneven Geographical Developments

2005 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Harvey
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
San Francisco ◽  
Capital Accumulation ◽  
Open Systems ◽  
Business Climate ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Us ◽  
Class Power ◽  
The Pearl River ◽  
The Uk

A moving map of the progress of neoliberalization on the world stage since 1970 would be hard to construct. To begin with, most states that have taken the neoliberal turn have done so only partially–– the introduction of greater flexibility into labour markets here, a deregulation of financial operations and embrace of monetarism there, a move towards privatization of state-owned sectors somewhere else. Wholesale changes in the wake of crises (such as the collapse of the Soviet Union) can be followed by slow reversals as the unpalatable aspects of neoliberalism become more evident. And in the struggle to restore or establish a distinctive upper-class power all manner of twists and turns occur as political powers change hands and as the instruments of influence are weakened here or strengthened there. Any moving map would therefore feature turbulent currents of uneven geographical development that need to be tracked in order to understand how local transformations relate to broader trends. Competition between territories (states, regions, or cities) as to who had the best model for economic development or the best business climate was relatively insignificant in the 1950s and 1960s. Competition of this sort heightened in the more fluid and open systems of trading relations established after 1970. The general progress of neoliberalization has therefore been increasingly impelled through mechanisms of uneven geographical developments. Successful states or regions put pressure on everyone else to follow their lead. Leapfrogging innovations put this or that state (Japan, Germany, Taiwan, the US, or China), region (Silicon Valley, Bavaria, Third Italy, Bangalore, the Pearl River delta, or Botswana), or even city (Boston, San Francisco, Shanghai, or Munich) in the vanguard of capital accumulation. But the competitive advantages all too often prove ephemeral, introducing an extraordinary volatility into global capitalism. Yet it is also true that powerful impulses of neoliberalization have emanated, and even been orchestrated, from a few major epicentres. Clearly, the UK and the US led the way. But in neither country was the turn unproblematic. While Thatcher could successfully privatize social housing and the public utilities, core public services such as the national health-care system and public education remained largely immune.

Dictatorship Over the Proletariat

Worldview ◽  
1978 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 36-38
Author(s):  
Vladimir Bukovsky
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Political System ◽  
Concentration Camps ◽  
The Political ◽  
The West ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Insane Asylums

Tens of thousands of books have been written about the Soviet Union–about its industry, agriculture, the political system, and its history. Even about prisons, concentration camps, and insane asylums there is a lot of literature. And yet, in talking with various persons in the West, I have realized how little is known here about Soviet life.

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