Chad: Armed Presidents and Politics

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ketil Hansen
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
The United States ◽  
The State ◽  
Economic Opportunity ◽  
Coup D'etat ◽  
Military Equipment ◽  
Tactical Training ◽  
The Cold War

Politics in Chad was militarized at the time of colonial conquest and has remained so ever since. Except for the French-supported candidacy of François Tombalbaye for the presidency in 1960, all other presidents of Chad have been connected to a coup d’état. All presidents in independent Chad have relied heavily on armed support, creating ample armies, feared presidential guards, and terrifying secret services. Proxy wars, political mistrust, economic opportunity-seeking, and strategic ever-changing armed alliances characterize Chadian politics. Flexibility and fluidity have embodied the heart of armed resistance in Chad since the establishment of the first important politico-military rebel movement Frolinat in 1966. In fact, for rebels and powerholders alike, the state is at its best when it is most fragile (in a Western sense). With fragility comes blurriness and flexibility and thus predation opportunities. During the Cold War, most of the various armed fractions were supported militarily and economically by either the United States and France or Libyan Colonel Gaddafi and the regime in Khartoum. During Habré’s regime (1982–1990), the Cold War heated Chad. Fearing to lose Chad to the communists or “crazy” Colonel Gaddafi, the United States and France supported a brutal and ruthless Chadian president who ruled with terror and force. The current president, Déby, gained power in the wake of the Cold War and has managed to keep it ever since by cleverly changing his rhetoric from a hope for democracy to a fear of war, both internally and internationally. After starting to export oil in 2003, Chad has used petrodollars to upgrade its armed forces, both in numbers and in materiel. Since about 2010, Chad has been a prime EU- and US-financed antiterrorism force in the Sahel. With its courageous troops, especially the former Presidential Guard, transformed in 2005 to Direction Générale de Service de Sécurité des Institutions de l’État (DGSSIE) and from 2014 led by Mahamat Déby, son of President Déby, Chad’s army has gained international fame. The Chadian army has benefited largely from the tactical training and military equipment provided by the United States and France in the name of antiterrorism. Thus, by the end of the 2010s, Chad had one of the best-equipped and trained armies in Africa.

The Soviet Factor in the US-China Military-Technical Cooperation during the Cold War

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 12-47
Author(s):  
Yinan Li
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
Active Role ◽  
The United States ◽  
Technical Cooperation ◽  
Arms Sales ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Military

The development of the PRC’s armed forces included three phases when their modernization was carried out through an active introduction of foreign weapons and technologies. The first and the last of these phases (from 1949 to 1961, and from 1992 till present) received wide attention in both Chinese and Western academic literature, whereas the second one — from 1978 to 1989 —when the PRC actively purchased weapons and technologies from the Western countries remains somewhat understudied. This paper is intended to partially fill this gap. The author examines the logic of the military-technical cooperation between the PRC and the United States in the context of complex interactions within the United States — the USSR — China strategic triangle in the last years of the Cold War. The first section covers early contacts between the PRC and the United States in the security field — from the visit of R. Nixon to China till the inauguration of R. Reagan. The author shows that during this period Washington clearly subordinated the US-Chinese cooperation to the development of the US-Soviet relations out of fear to damage the fragile process of detente. The second section focuses on the evolution of the R. Reagan administration’s approaches regarding arms sales to China in the context of a new round of the Cold War. The Soviet factor significantly influenced the development of the US-Chinese military-technical cooperation during that period, which for both parties acquired not only practical, but, most importantly, political importance. It was their mutual desire to undermine strategic positions of the USSR that allowed these two countries to overcome successfully tensions over the US arms sales to Taiwan. However, this dependence of the US-China military-technical cooperation on the Soviet factor had its downside. As the third section shows, with the Soviet threat fading away, the main incentives for the military-technical cooperation between the PRC and the United States also disappeared. As a result, after the Tiananmen Square protests, this cooperation completely ceased. Thus, the author concludes that the US arms sales to China from the very beginning were conditioned by the dynamics of the Soviet-American relations and Beijing’s willingness to play an active role in the policy of containment. In that regard, the very fact of the US arms sales to China was more important than its practical effect, i.e. this cooperation was of political nature, rather than military one.

scholarly journals Superpower Ethics: An Introduction

1987 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 1-7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph S. Nye
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
The United States ◽  
The State ◽  
International Affairs ◽  
Playing Field ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Cold War

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.

Europe: The Lost Peace

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-44
Author(s):  
Michael Mandelbaum
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
The United States ◽  
The State ◽  
Popular Support ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Vladimir Putin ◽  
Do So

In the wake of the Cold War, both the United States and Western Europe had an unprecedentedly peaceful relationship with Russia. That relationship eventually ended, however, to be replaced by conflict, for two reasons. First was the unwise Western decision to expand the Western alliance, also known as NATO, to Russia’s borders despite having promised not to do so. Second were aggressive Russian policies toward its neighbouring countries. These measures were undertaken by President Vladimir Putin as a way of winning popular support for his dictatorial rule, which had begun to lose favor across the state due to its economic shortcomings.

scholarly journals Ou ficar a pátria livre ou morrer pelo brasil: a ALN e sua natureza “anti-estadunidense”

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 272-297
Author(s):  
Carolina de Castro Palhares ◽  
Pedro Henrique de Moraes Cicero
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Latin America ◽  
Cold War ◽  
The United States ◽  
Armed Struggle ◽  
Coup D'etat ◽  
Us Hegemony ◽  
America Latina ◽  
The Cold War

Na segunda metade do século XX, no contexto da política de poder bipolar decorrente da Guerra Fria, a América Latina vivenciou o surgimento de ditaduras civil-militares as quais, em parte, estruturam-se com a finalidade de manter a hegemonia estadunidense na região. Como resposta armada aos regimes de exceção, grupos guerrilheiros foram fundados tanto para reverter o cenário político interno quanto para denunciar a subordinação daqueles regimes aos interesses econômicos e geopolíticos estadunidenses. Partindo dessa conjuntura e apoiado nos documentos originais que tratam do tema, o artigo analisa a maneira pela qual a Ação Libertadora Nacional (ALN) denunciou, interpretou e reagiu à participação dos Estados Unidos tanto no golpe de Estado de 1964 quanto na consolidação da ditadura brasileira.     Abstract: In the second half of the twentieth century, in the context of the bipolar power policy resulting from the Cold War, Latin America experienced the emergence of civil-military dictatorships which, in part, were structured with the purpose of maintaining US´ hegemony in the region. As an armed response to the regimes of exception, guerrilla groups were founded both to reverse the internal political scenario and to denounce the subordination of those regimes to US economic and geopolitical interests. Within this conjuncture and guided by the original documents that illustrate the theme, the article analyzes the way in which the Ação Libertadora Nacional (ALN) denounced, interpreted and reacted to the participation of the United States both in the 1964 coup d'état and in the maintenance of the Brazilian Dictatorship . Keywords: Inter-American Relations; Civic-Military Dictatorships; Armed Struggle; Ação Libertadora Nacional.     Recebido em: abril/2020. Aprovado em:  setembro/2020.

scholarly journals Why Bother? The Importance of Russian History on the Canadian Campus

2015 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 299-307
Author(s):  
David Schimmelpenninck van der Oye
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
The United States ◽  
The State ◽  
Russian History ◽  
Academic Administrators ◽  
History Department ◽  
The Cold War

What is the state of Russian history on the Canadian campus today? This article addresses the question by discussing the subject’s challenges in the wake of the Soviet Union’s collapse. Much as in the United States, the Cold War made it de rigueur to “know the enemy,” but since the “evil empire’s” collapse over 20 years ago, the field has appeared to be less important to academic administrators. Nevertheless, no serious history department in Canada can claim to be comprehensive without counting in its midst at least one Russianist.

Co-Optation: The Moroccan Cold War, Israel, and Human Rights

2020 ◽  
pp. 176-223
Author(s):  
Alma Rachel Heckman
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Cold War ◽  
The United States ◽  
The State ◽  
Political Prisoners ◽  
International Human Rights ◽  
Human Rights Organizations ◽  
International Human ◽  
The Cold War

Chapter 5 analyzes the infamous Years of Lead and how Moroccan Jewish Communists diverged in their responses. Morocco began to publicly embrace its Jewish past while imprisoning its most well-known Jewish Communists in horrendous conditions. Some prominent Moroccan Jewish Communists worked with the state, notably supporting the 1975 Green March. Others supported Sahrawi independence and faced decades of imprisonment. This chapter examines the development of the state’s narrative of Moroccan Jewish tolerance alongside King Hassan II’s relationship with Israel and the United States. Meanwhile, international human rights organizations militated on behalf of prominent Moroccan political prisoners, among them Jews, pressuring the monarchy to release them. With the end of the Cold War and the death of King Hassan II, the state embraced the previously marginalized and reviled Moroccan Jewish Communists as national heroes, upheld as symbols of Moroccan Jewish exceptionalism within the region.

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.

Ballet in the Cold War

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne Searcy
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Cultural Exchange ◽  
The United States ◽  
Performing Artists ◽  
Exchange Programs ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Cold War

During the Cold War, the governments of the United States and the Soviet Union developed cultural exchange programs, in which they sent performing artists abroad in order to generate goodwill for their countries. Ballet companies were frequently called on to serve in these programs, particularly in the direct Soviet-American exchange. This book analyzes four of the early ballet exchange tours, demonstrating how this series of encounters changed both geopolitical relations and the history of dance. The ballet tours were enormously popular. Performances functioned as an important symbolic meeting point for Soviet and American officials, creating goodwill and normalizing relations between the two countries in an era when nuclear conflict was a real threat. At the same time, Soviet and American audiences did not understand ballet in the same way. As American companies toured in the Soviet Union and vice versa, audiences saw the performances through the lens of their own local aesthetics. Ballet in the Cold War introduces the concept of transliteration to understand this process, showing how much power viewers wielded in the exchange and explaining how the dynamics of the Cold War continue to shape ballet today.

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