India and Russia

Author(s):  
Rajan Menon

Pragmatism defined the partnership between India and the Soviet Union. What sustained it was the overlap between India’s non-alignment strategy and the USSR’s objective of countering the American policy of containment. The Soviet leadership sold India substantial amounts of arms and helped build its state-run industrial sector; India’s leaders saw the Soviet connection as a counterbalance against Pakistan, China, and the United States. Pragmatism also defines the India–Russia relationship. Russia remains India’s largest arms supplier. Their views on sovereignty, the dangers of unilateral military intervention, and the threats posed by terrorism converge. But Russia’s salience for India’s trade and investment has been surpassed by the West, even China. India is diversifying its arms purchases; the West and Israel are eager to oblige. Russia’s relative power is declining as China’s is rising; in response, India has forged new security ties with East Asia and the United States.

Slavic Review ◽  
1989 ◽  
Vol 48 (3) ◽  
pp. 477-483 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elena S. Danielson

Conflicting accounts about the autobiographical writings of Soviet Foreign Minister Maksim Litvinov have circulated for decades. Some of the confusion can be clarified by an examination of the correspondence of his British wife Ivy Low Litvinov. On 7 December 1941, when Litvinov arrived in Washington, D.C., as the new Soviet ambassador, he was accompanied by Ivy. The American Left, which had lionized him during his previous United States visit to negotiate recognition of the Soviet Union in 1933, welcomed both Litvinovs with high enthusiasm in the 1940s. In the United States for the first time, she renewed acquaintance with various American intellectuals, whom she had met over the years in Moscow. Among them was the writer Joseph Freeman, one of the editors of the radical communist journal New Masses.Ivy wrote frequently from her embassy quarters in Washington to Freeman, her closest confidant, who lived in New York. Those letters that have been preserved provide a sense of Maksim Litvinov's tenuous position as a diplomat, indispensable for negotiating with the west but also unmanageable within the Soviet leadership.


1953 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 133-167
Author(s):  
S. Bernard

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.


Author(s):  
John W. Young ◽  
John Kent

This chapter considers challenges from Russia, North Korea, and China. The first section describes Vladimir Putin’s acquisition and retention of power, and his antagonistic approach towards former members of the Soviet Union. Russia’s rift with the West was exacerbated by its annexation of Crimea and military intervention in Syria. The second section discusses tensions arising from North Korea’s nuclear policy, and attempts by Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un to achieve a lasting peace agreement. The third section examines the economic growth of China, the development of its international role since joining the WTO, its increasing military strength, and its foreign policy. The chapter concludes with an assessment of the opportunities and the geopolitical risks for Asia and China while the influence of the United States, European Union, and Russia wanes.


1960 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 245-254 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frederick C. Barghoorn

InSpite of a continued gradual increase of American-Soviet contacts, the official Soviet image of the United States in 1959 was shaped, as before, largely by a combination of preconcert tion and contrivance. The massive Soviet machinery of communication continued to present to the peoples of the Soviet Union a picture of America based less on empirical judgment than on the application to changing circumstances of unchanging attitudes. As in the past, the Kremlin's image of America and of the West in general appeared to be as much an instrument for the manipulation of foreign and Soviet public opinion as it was a reflection of Moscow's appraisal of international political forces. The official doctrine of irreconcilable struggle between Soviet “socialism” and Western “capitalism” held undiminished significance for the rationalization and legitimization of Kremlin power and policy.


1984 ◽  
Vol 78 (4) ◽  
pp. 834-858 ◽  
Author(s):  
Boleslaw A. Boczek

Ever since the Antarctic regime began the third, crucial decade of its existence following the entry into effect of the Antarctic Treaty in 1961, interest in the frozen continent has escalated. This interest has spawned an immense social science literature, which analyzes the diverse legal, political and economic aspects of Antarctica and the surrounding oceans. The Antarctic regime has been universally and deservedly hailed both in the West and, especially, in the East as an unprecedented example of peaceful cooperation among states professing conflicting ideologies and, one might add, belonging to adversary alliances—as witnessed especially by the participation in the regime of the two superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union. Yet much of the pertinent scholarly writing devotes primary or exclusive attention to the position of the United States within this regime; except for incidental references in some works, not one study has appeared anywhere that deals with the position of the Soviet Union on major substantive issues arising within the context of the Antarctic regime. This study will attempt to fill this gap by comprehensively examining the topic of Soviet participation in the affairs of the southern continent.


Author(s):  
Laurence R. Jurdem

One of the major concerns of writers for the publications of conservative opinion was the growth of leftist ideology that permeated much of the newly independent Third World. Many of the activist leaders who led their nations’ independence movements in Asia, Africa, and Latin America during the decades following World War II viewed the Soviet Union as an ally that was philosophically opposed to European imperialism. It was within the General Assembly of the United Nations that these new states began to exert their influence. Since the founding of the institution in 1945, the United States had been able to exert a large amount of influence in the major decisions taken up by the UN. The independent nations that now occupied the diplomatic chamber were determined to redress the economic injustices they believed had been committed against them by the West. Commentators who contributed to these publications were frustrated by the inability of American policy makers to stand up to the rampant criticism of the United States and its democratic values and believed that this represented another example of the decline of US foreign policy.


Author(s):  
Joseph Heller

This chapter shows the change in America’s attitude towards Israel, from opposition to de jure recognition of Israel’s military capabilities for the west during ther Korean war. While in 1948 secretary of state General Marshall warned against an enduring conflict with the Arabs, Truman recognized it de facto. However, the state department continued to treart Israel as a liability. Henry Byroade claimed that Israel should not be the homeland of the Jewish people. Israel was left outside of strategic western alliances because it was assumed that its membership might push the Arabs towards the Soviet Union. The notion that Truman’s administration was pro-Israel is a myth. Although Truman himself was sympathetic, the State Department and the Pentagon did not consider Israel an asset.


Author(s):  
Maryna Bessonova

The most widespread plots interpreted as the beginning of the Cold War are the events that took place in 1946: February 9 – J. Stalin’s speech to the electorate in Moscow; February 22 – the American charge d’Affaires in the Soviet Union G. Kennan’s “long telegram”; March 5 – W. Churchill’s speech in Fulton (the USA); September 27 – the Soviet Ambassador in the United States N. Novikov’s “long telegram”. But there was an earlier event, so called “Gouzenko affair”, which is almost unknown for the Ukrainian historiography. On September 5, 1945, Igor Gouzenko, a cipher clerk of the Soviet embassy to Canada, defected to the Canadian side with more than a hundred secret documents that proved the USSR’s espionage activities in the countries of North America. Information about the network of Soviet agents caused a real panic in the West and was perceived as a real start of the Cold War. In the article, there is made an attempt to review the main events related to the Gouzenko affair and to identify the dominant interpretations of this case in contemporary historical writings. One can find different interpretations of the reasons and the consequences of Gouzenko’s defection which dramatically affected the history of the world. One of the main vivid results was an anti-communist hysteria in the West which was caused by the investigation that Canadian, American and British public officials and eminent scientists were recruited by the Soviet Union as agents for the atomic espionage. For Canada, the Gouzenko affair had an unprecedented affect because on the one hand it led to the closer relations with the United States in the sphere of security and defense, and on the other hand Canada was involved into the international scandal and used this case as a moment to start more activities on the international arena. It has been also found that the Canadian and American studies about Gouzenko affair are focused on the fact that the Allies on the anti-Hitler coalition need to take a fresh look at security and further cooperation with the USSR, while the overwhelming majority of Russian publications is focused on the very fact of betrayal of Igor Gouzenko.


Author(s):  
Dianne Kirby

This chapter, which examines the place of religion during the Cold War years, suggests that there were conflicting attitudes toward religion in both the United States and the Soviet Union. It explains that Protestant suspicion of the Vatican complicated U.S.–Vatican relations while church leaders within the Soviet bloc were divided between those who advocated cooperation and those who preferred resistance and active opposition. The chapter also contends that religion provided the United States with a stick with which to beat the new communist regimes, and argues that the so-called religious Cold War influenced religion in the West and the developing world in a variety of ways.


Author(s):  
Beth A. Fischer

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.


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