Introduction : Geography of War and Peace

2004 ◽  
Author(s):  
colin flint
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Global Perspective ◽  
Western World ◽  
Collective Identities ◽  
War And Peace ◽  
Current Period ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
The One ◽  
The Cold War

According to many, we live in a time of war that was ushered in by the attacks of September 11, 2001. Paradoxically, in the prior three years, between 3.1 and 4.7 million people had been killed in conflict in the Congo alone. Numerous other wars raged across the globe. Clearly, to say that a time of war has emerged only since 9/11 is, on the one hand, ethnocentric and plain wrong. On the other hand, awareness of war among the general population of the Western world emerged after 9/11; perception rather than reality drives commentators to define the current period as one of conflict and not peace. It seems almost certain that the current generation of young adults will grow politically mature in a time when the whole world is aware of war. War has been a prevalent occurrence; in the last few decades one can cite Vietnam, the Falklands, Chechnya, Iran and Iraq, Sierra Leone, Nicaragua, and Kashmir, to name only a few. The attacks of 9/11 were, from a global perspective, just one more horrific instance of human carnage. However, geopolitically, targeting the United States on its own homeland has created significant changes. War, the “hot war” on terrorism rather than the Cold War, is dominating global geopolitical imperatives and the national debates of many countries (the United States, the United Kingdom, Iraq, Iran, North and South Korea, and others). As the sole superpower, the United States has set the agenda. The citizens of the West can no longer ignore and avoid war. Despite its associated horrors, this is also an opportunity: we can become knowledgeable about wars beyond our immediate experiences. Geography is a powerful tool to gain and organize such knowledge. What is war? War takes many forms, from terrorist attacks to interstate conflict. Its form, its scale, its victims, its motives, and its weaponry are varied. But one aspect of war is universal across space and time: war is tyranny. The power of this statement refers to the processes by which people who did not initiate war become cogs in a fighting machine mobilized to defend territory, values, and collective identities from aggression.

scholarly journals GEOSTRATEGIC SHIFTS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE

2017 ◽  
pp. 15-31
Author(s):  
UROŠ TOVORNIK
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
Cold War ◽  
The United States ◽  
Strategic Games ◽  
The European Union ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
The World ◽  
The One ◽  
The Cold War

POVZETEK Članek analizira geostrateške spremembe v današnji Evropi in svetu, ki smo jim priča od konca hladne vojne in predvsem od leta 2014 naprej. Klasična geopolitična dinamika se je vrnila in geopolitične teorije, kot sta osrčje in obrobje, so ponovno aktualne. Posledično se na svetovni oder vračajo tudi klasični geostrateški igralci. Članek analizira premike v treh evropskih državah in hkrati članicah Evropske unije, ki so v preteklih stoletjih krojile usodo Evrope, in sicer Francije, Nemčije in Združenega kraljestva. Geostrateške igre v Evropi so zmeraj imele globalne posledice, zato je bila v članku posebna pozornost namenjena tudi ZDA in Rusiji, njunim geopolitičnim interesom in geostrateškemu repozicioniranju. Sčasoma postaja jasno, da smo v tranziciji in na poti k oblikovanju nove evropske in svetovne strateške arhitekture. V tem smislu članek prepoznava nove porajajoče se geostrateške vektorje v Evropi. Ti lahko po eni strani opredeljujejo novo prihajajoče ravnotežje sil, po drugi strani pa možnost kolizije teh vektorjev. Pri slednjem smo lahko priče nepredvidljivim varnostnim posledicam tako za Evropo kakor tudi za ves svet. Ključne besede: geopolitika, geostrategija, Francija, Nemčija, Združeno kraljestvo, ZDA, Rusija. ABSTRACT This article shows how Europe and the world we are living in have changed drastically since the end of the Cold War, and especially since 2014. Classical geopolitical dynamics have resurfaced; theories, such as Heartland and Rimland, apply time and again. Consequently, classical players on the Europe and world stages are back in the game. The article analyses shifts in the following three traditional European powers and members of the European Union which have shaped the destiny of Europe during the last centuries: France, Germany and the United Kingdom. As strategic games in Europe have always had global dimensions, the United States and Russia’s influence and their geostrategic repositioning in Europe is also duly considered. The trend of a transition towards a new strategic architecture in Europe and in the world is ever more evident; the article thus also indicates the new emerging geostrategic vectors in Europe. On the one hand, they may indicate that a new balance is emerging, and on the other hand, that these vectors might collide. In case of the latter, we may face unprecedented security ramifications for Europe as well as for the entire world. Key words: geopolitics, geostrategy, France, Germany, United Kingdom, United States, Russia

John Leighton Stuart and U.S.-Chinese Communist Rapprochement in 1949: Was There Another “Lost Chance in China”?

1982 ◽  
Vol 89 ◽  
pp. 74-96 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yu-ming Shaw
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
The United States ◽  
Mao Zedong ◽  
Working Relationship ◽  
Republic Of China ◽  
The Many ◽  
The One ◽  
June July ◽  
The Cold War

Reverend John Leighton Stuart (1876–1962) served as U.S. ambassador to China from July 1946 until August 1949. In the many discussions of his ambassadorship the one diplomatic mission that has aroused the most speculation and debate was his abortive trip to Beijing, contemplated in June–July 1949, to meet with Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai. Some students of Sino-American relations have claimed that had this trip been made the misunderstanding and subsequent hostility between the United States and the People's Republic of China in the post-1949 period could have been avoided; therefore, the unmaking of this trip constituted another “lost chance in China” in establishing a working relationship between the two countries. But others have thought that given the realities of the Cold War in 1949 and the internal political constraints existing in each country, no substantial result could have been gained from such a trip. Therefore, the thesis of a “lost chance in China” was more an unfounded speculation than a credible affirmation.

Leading Works in Religion and Law

2021 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 26-33
Author(s):  
Jacob Barrett
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Religious Studies ◽  
Legal Studies ◽  
Editorial Assistant ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Contemporary Issue ◽  
Religion And Law ◽  
Model Set ◽  
The One

“The Experiment” presents scholars of religion with an opportunity to draw upon their training to reflect upon a contemporary issue. Editorial assistant Jacob Barrett engages with a recent edited volume from Routledge titled Leading Works in Law and Religion that, while focusing on the identity of the subfield of law and religion within the discipline of legal studies in the United Kingdom and Ireland, provides many sites for comparison with the religion and law subfield of religious studies in the United States context. Drawing upon the model set by the volume, Barrett imagines what a volume titled Leading Works in Religion and Law could look like and what the subfield of religion and law stands to gain from engaging in a project like the one done by its law and religion counterpart.

scholarly journals Politicizing Religion

2021 ◽  
pp. 73-99
Author(s):  
Uta A. Balbier
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New York ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Cold War ◽  
The United States ◽  
World War ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
The Media ◽  
Media Discourses ◽  
The Cold War

This chapter defines Graham’s crusades in the United States, Germany, and the United Kingdom in the 1950s as powerful cultural orchestrations of Cold War culture. It explores the reasons of leading political figures to support Graham, the media discourses that constructed Graham’s image as a cold warrior, and the religious and political worldviews of the religious organizers of the crusades in London, Washington, New York, and Berlin. In doing so, the chapter shows how hopes for genuine re-Christianization, in response to looming secularization, anticommunist fears, and post–World War II national anxieties, as well as spiritual legitimizations for the Cold War conflict, blended in Graham’s campaign work. These anxieties, hopes, and worldviews crisscrossed the Atlantic, allowing Graham and his campaign teams to make a significant contribution to creating an imagined transnational “spiritual Free World.”

An Ordinary Soviet Death

2019 ◽  
pp. 127-149
Author(s):  
Victoria Smolkin
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Other ◽  
Modern State ◽  
Christian Tradition ◽  
The West ◽  
Rational Argument ◽  
The One ◽  
The Cold War

This chapter describes the timing and motivations of the USSR's promotion of atheist doctrine. At the outset, it seems, the Soviets expected Orthodoxy to wither away, invalidated by rational argument and the regime's own record of socialist achievement. This did not happen, but Soviet officialdom did not take full cognizance of the fact until the 1950s and 1960s at the height of the Cold War. Then it was that the Soviet Union's confrontation with the West came to be recast in religious terms as an epic battle between atheist communism on the one hand and on the other that self-styled standard-bearer of the Judeo-Christian tradition, the United States. So, here indeed, in Soviet atheism, is a secular church militant—doctrinally armed, fortified by the concentrated power of the modern state, and, as many believed, with the wind of history at its back. It speaks the language of liberation, but what it delivers is something much darker. The chapter then considers the place of ritual in the Soviet secularist project.

Catalonian Trademarks and the Development of Marketing Knowledge in Spain, 1850–1946

2012 ◽  
Vol 86 (2) ◽  
pp. 239-260 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patricio Sáiz ◽  
Paloma Fernández Pérez
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
The United States ◽  
Western World ◽  
Food And Beverages ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Historical Role

Trademarks have traditionally been viewed as assets that, although intangible, nevertheless contribute to the success of firms. This study, based on a compilation of national trademark data, corrects existing distortions of the historical role of brands and their—often unsuccessful—use as business tools by countries, sectors, or firms. Legislation on, and the profuse use of, trademarks in the Western world was pioneered by Spain, rather than by France, the United States, or the United Kingdom, and was initiated in unusual sectors, such as papermaking and textiles, rather than in the more usual ones of food and beverages. Analysis of the applicants of Catalan trademarks, across sectors, during almost a century, reveals that the legal possession of a brand cannot in itself guarantee a firm's success.

Cold War

2019 ◽  
pp. 82-117
Author(s):  
Geoffrey B. Robinson
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
Cold War ◽  
The United States ◽  
International Context ◽  
Major Powers ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Political Conditions ◽  
The Cold War

This chapter examines the role of foreign powers in the October 1, 1965 incident. It argues that the wider international context, in particular the rhetoric and logic of the Cold War and anticolonial nationalism, affected the contours of Indonesian politics, making it more militant and polarized. In addition, that general atmosphere, together with the actions of major powers elsewhere in the region and beyond, contributed to political conditions inside Indonesia in which a seizure of power by the army was much more likely to occur. In creating this atmosphere of polarization and crisis, several major powers played some part, including China. Yet it was overwhelmingly the United States, the United Kingdom, and their closest allies that played the central roles.

Mythologies Without End

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jerome Slater
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War I ◽  
The United States ◽  
Early Years ◽  
War And Peace ◽  
World War ◽  
History Of ◽  
Entire History ◽  
Historical Truth ◽  
The Cold War

Every nation has narratives or stories it tells itself about its history but which typically contain factually false or misleading mythologies that often result in devastating consequences for itself and for others. In the case of Israel and its indispensable ally, the United States, the central mythology is “the Arabs never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity,” as the Israeli diplomat Abba Eban famously said in a 1973 statement that has been widely quoted ever since. However, the historical truth is very nearly the converse: it is Israel and the United States that have repeatedly lost or deliberately dismissed many opportunities to reach fair compromise settlements of the Arab-Israeli and Israeli-Palestinian conflicts. The book reexamines the entire history of the conflict from its onset at the end of World War I through today. Part I begins with a reconsideration of Zionism and then examines the origins and early years of the Arab-Israeli state conflict. One chapter is devoted to the question of what accounts for the nearly unconditional US support of Israel throughout the entire conflict. Part II focuses on war and peace in the Arab-Israeli state conflict from 1948 through today, arguing that all the major wars—in 1948, 1956, 1967, 1973—could and should have been avoided. This section also includes an examination of the Cold War and its impact on the Arab-Israeli conflict. Part III covers the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from 1917 through today, and examines the prospects for a two-state or other settlement of the conflict.

Historical Background

2018 ◽  
pp. 59-88
Author(s):  
Catherine Gegout
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Economic Benefit ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
The United States ◽  
Historical Background ◽  
Colonial History ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Second Wave ◽  
Political Decisions

Chapter two places European intervention in its historical context, as current political decisions are taken by leaders situated within colonial history. It analyses the first two waves of intervention by European actors. Motivated by security and greed, European states colonized and enslaved African people and exploited resources. The second wave took place after decolonization, and the move of African states to independence. Britain and France, operating in the wider context of the Cold War, had different motives. The United Kingdom made sure its former colonies did not turn to communism, and then it withdrew from Africa. France remained active in African states for motives of security and economic benefit, and to gain or retain prestige with Africa, the United States and the international community.

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