Sport Under Communism

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Edelman ◽  
Anke Hilbrenner ◽  
Susan Brownell
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
High Performance ◽  
Olympic Games ◽  
West Germany ◽  
Physical Culture ◽  
Competitive Sport ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Military

This article examines sport in the Soviet Union, East Germany, and China. Despite the early Soviet emphasis on mass physical culture, high-performance sport was the priority of these regimes and all three notionally used ‘amateurism’ to enhance national prestige. Having started out as opponents of Olympism, all three at different times came to prioritize winning medals at the Olympic Games. Despite similarities in the organization of sport—the state played a significant role and ties to the military and police were strong in all three countries—there were significant differences between them: China rejected competitive sport for much of the Mao era, whereas sport was one arena in which the GDR outshone West Germany. The article shows that during the Cold War sport was as much an arena of competition between socialist states as it was between the capitalist and communist worlds.

Cold War Exiles and the CIA

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin Tromly
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
The United States ◽  
West Germany ◽  
United States Government ◽  
Home Base ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Secret War

During the height of the Cold War in the 1950s, the United States government unleashed covert operations intended to weaken the Soviet Union. As part of these efforts, the CIA undertook support of Russian exiles, populations uprooted either during World War II or by the Russian Revolution decades before. No one seemed better prepared to fight in the American secret war against communism than the uprooted Russians, whom the CIA directed to carry out propaganda, espionage, and subversion operations from their home base in West Germany. Yet the American engagement of Russian exiles had unpredictable outcomes. Drawing on recently declassified and previously untapped sources, Cold War Exiles and the CIA examines how the CIA’s Russian operations became entangled with the internal struggles of Russia abroad and also the espionage wars of the superpowers in divided Germany. What resulted was a transnational political sphere involving different groups of Russian exiles, American and German anti-communists, and spies operating on both sides of the Iron Curtain. Inadvertently, CIA’s patronage of Russian exiles forged a complex sub-front in the wider Cold War, demonstrating the ways in which the hostilities of the Cold War played out in ancillary conflicts involving proxies and non-state actors.

Defining–Redefining Security

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barry Buzan ◽  
Lene Hansen
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Use Of Force ◽  
Military Technology ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Us ◽  
Political Rivalry ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Military ◽  
Strategic Studies

International security studies (ISS) has significantly evolved from its founding core of “golden age” strategic studies. From the onset of the Cold War in the late 1940s through to the 1970s, strategic studies virtually was ISS, and remains a very large part of it. The fact that it continues to stand as the “mainstream” attacked by widening/deepening approaches further speaks to its status as a “core.” This core consists of those literatures whose principal concern is external military threats to the state, and the whole agenda of the use of force which arises from that. This core was originally focused on nuclear weapons and the military-political rivalry between the US and the Soviet Union, but has since adapted its focus to changes in the salience and nature of military threats caused by the end of the Cold War and 9/11. It includes literatures on deterrence, arms racing, arms control and disarmament, grand strategy, wars (and “new wars”), the use of force, nuclear proliferation, military technology, and terrorism. Debates within ISS are structured, either implicitly or explicitly, by five questions: (1) which referent object to adopt, (2) whether to understand security as internally or externally driven, (3) whether to limit it to the military sector or to expand it, (4) what fundamental thinking about (international) politics to adopt, and (5) which epistemology and methodology to choose.

scholarly journals Types of military presence of USSR during the cold war

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
Aleksandr Yur'evich Karasev
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
National Security ◽  
The United States ◽  
Modern World ◽  
National Interests ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Military Presence ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Military

In modern world, different aspects of military science are of crucial significance in the questions related to ensuring national security and protection of national interests of the countries. The activity of separate entities, groups or units of the state militarized formations implemented abroad for solution of tasks within the framework of ensuring national security is defined as “military presence”. The author determines the types of military presence used by the Soviet Union during the cold war in different geographical areas; formulates conclusions based on the analysis of usage of each type of military presence and their impact upon international situation; as well as notes the priorities of realization of USSR military-land and naval presence. The research methodology contains the methods of politological and historical studies, historiography, and systemic approach. The main conclusions consist in the thesis that during the cold war period all types of military presence operated as a universal mechanism in the context of military policy of the Soviet Union: the entire palette of forms of military presence, from fly-over and call at the allies’ ports to placement of the land military objects. At the same time, international relations during the indicated period were viewed through the prism of opposition between the Soviet Union and the United States due to the military presence policy that allowed influencing global processes.

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.

The Cold War in the Schools

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Victoria M. Grieve
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
School Experiences ◽  
Civil Defense ◽  
Voluntary Programs ◽  
Exchange Programs ◽  
Science And Art ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
War Experiences ◽  
The Cold War

The Cold War experiences of America’s schoolchildren are often summed up by quick references to “duck and cover,” a problematic simplification that reduces children to victims in need of government protection. By looking at a variety of school experiences—classroom instruction, federal and voluntary programs, civil defense and opposition to it, as well as world friendship outreach—it is clear that children experienced the Cold War in their schools in many ways. Although civil defense was ingrained in the daily school experiences of Cold War kids, so, too, were fitness tests, atomic science, and art exchange programs. Global competition with the Soviet Union changed the way children learned, from science and math classes to history and citizenship training. Understanding the complexity of American students’ experiences strengthens our ability to decipher the meaning of the Cold War for American youth and its impact on the politics of the 1960s.

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.

The Handbook of European Defence Policies and Armed Forces

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
National Security ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
Blind Spot ◽  
Military Operations ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Security Challenges ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
National Defence

The armed forces of Europe have undergone a dramatic transformation since the collapse of the Soviet Union. The Handbook of European Defence Policies and Armed Forces provides the first comprehensive analysis of national security and defence policies, strategies, doctrines, capabilities, and military operations, as well as the alliances and partnerships of European armed forces in response to the security challenges Europe has faced since the end of the cold war. A truly cross-European comparison of the evolution of national defence policies and armed forces remains a notable blind spot in the existing literature. This Handbook aims to fill this gap with fifty-one contributions on European defence and international security from around the world. The six parts focus on: country-based assessments of the evolution of the national defence policies of Europe’s major, medium, and lesser powers since the end of the cold war; the alliances and security partnerships developed by European states to cooperate in the provision of national security; the security challenges faced by European states and their armed forces, ranging from interstate through intra-state and transnational; the national security strategies and doctrines developed in response to these challenges; the military capabilities, and the underlying defence and technological industrial base, brought to bear to support national strategies and doctrines; and, finally, the national or multilateral military operations by European armed forces. The contributions to The Handbook collectively demonstrate the fruitfulness of giving analytical precedence back to the comparative study of national defence policies and armed forces across Europe.

Christian Radicalism in the Church of England and the Invention of the British Sixties, 1957-1970

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sam Brewitt-Taylor
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Church Of England ◽  
Social Revolution ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Moral Arguments ◽  
Cultural Origins ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
First Time ◽  
The Church

Like all transformative revolutions, Britain’s Sixties was an episode of highly influential myth-making. This book delves behind the mythology of inexorable ‘secularization’ to recover, for the first time, the cultural origins of Britain’s moral revolution. In a radical departure from conventional teleologies, it argues that British secularity is a specific cultural invention of the late 1950s and early 1960s, which was introduced most influentially by radical utopian Christians during this most desperate episode of the Cold War. In the 1950s, Britain’s predominantly Christian moral culture had marginalized ‘secular’ moral arguments by arguing that they created societies like the Soviet Union; but the rapid acceptance of ‘secularization’ teleologies in the early 1960s abruptly normalized ‘secular’ attitudes and behaviours, thus prompting the slow social revolution that unfolded during the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. By tracing the evolving thought of radical Anglicans—uniquely positioned in the late 1950s and early 1960s as simultaneously moral radicals and authoritative moral insiders—this book reveals crucial and unexpected intellectual links between radical Christianity and the wider invention of Britain’s new secular morality, in areas as diverse as globalism, anti-authoritarianism, sexual liberation, and revolutionary egalitarianism. From the mid-1960s, British secularity began to be developed by a much wider range of groups, and radical Anglicans faded into the cultural background. Yet by disseminating the deeply ideological metanarrative of ‘secularization’ in the early 1960s, and by influentially discussing its implications, they had made crucial contributions to the nature and existence of Britain’s secular revolution.

scholarly journals Why Arms Control?

Daedalus ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 149 (2) ◽  
pp. 101-115
Author(s):  
Jon Brook Wolfsthal
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Arms Control ◽  
Good Deal ◽  
The United States ◽  
Nuclear War ◽  
Nuclear Age ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Cold War

America survived the nuclear age through a complex combination of diplomatic and military decisions, and a good deal of luck. One of the tools that proved its value in both reducing the risks of nuclear use and setting rules for the ongoing nuclear competition were negotiated, legally binding, and verified arms control agreements. Such pacts between the United States and the Soviet Union arguably prevented the nuclear arms racing from getting worse and helped both sides climb off the Cold War nuclear precipice. Several important agreements remain in place between the United States and Russia, to the benefit of both states. Arms control is under threat, however, from domestic forces in the United States and from Russian actions that range from treaty violations to the broader weaponization of risk. But arms control can and should play a useful role in reducing the risk of nuclear war and forging a new agreement between Moscow and Washington on the new rules of the nuclear road.

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