The Making of the 1976 Canada Cup: Power Plays, Hockey Diplomacy, and the Rise of Alan Eagleson

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-29
Author(s):  
Jay Scherer

In 1976, amidst a period of détente in the Cold War, the Government of Canada officially hosted an inaugural open-play invitational ice hockey tournament. A detailed narration of these events, pieced together from archival sources, allows scholars to understand the negotiations to prepare the political terrain for the event, including efforts to secure the official endorsement of the International Ice Hockey Federation for a tournament sponsored by the Government of Canada in exchange for Canada’s return to international competition in 1977; the participation of various countries and their respective hockey governing bodies, especially the Soviet Union, in an international tournament featuring professional players; and an agreement with the North American professional hockey cartels, especially the National Hockey League, to allow star players to participate in the event. The success of the 1976 Canada Cup accelerated the commodification and commercialization of hockey both in North America and globally—a process that was increasingly driven by the interests and aspirations of the National Hockey League. At the center of this history is one increasingly powerful—and avaricious—character: Alan Eagleson.

Author(s):  
James Hershberg

One of the most iconic intersections of sports and the Cold War came in September 1972, when Canada and the Soviet Union met in the “Summit Series,” pitting the world’s two top ice hockey superpowers. This essay reveals the importance of an October 1971 trip to Canada by Soviet premier Alexei Kosygin. His conversations and experiences during that week—especially a National Hockey League game in Vancouver that almost fell off his schedule—paved the way for a breakthrough to surmount the ingrained dispute over “professional” versus “amateur” players that had long blocked direct competition.


2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey Herf

Israel's Moment is a major new account of how a Jewish state came to be forged in the shadow of World War Two and the Holocaust and the onset of the Cold War. Drawing on new research in government, public and private archives, Jeffrey Herf exposes the political realities that underpinned support for and opposition to Zionist aspirations in Palestine. In an unprecedented international account, he explores the role of the United States, the Arab States, the Palestine Arabs, the Zionists, and key European governments from Britain and France to the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia and Poland. His findings reveal a spectrum of support and opposition that stood in sharp contrast to the political coordinates that emerged during the Cold War, shedding new light on how and why the state of Israel was established in 1948 and challenging conventional associations of left and right, imperialism and anti-imperialism, and racism and anti-racism.


Author(s):  
Peter Rutland ◽  
Gregory Dubinsky

This chapter examines U.S. foreign policy in Russia. The end of the Cold War lifted the threat of nuclear annihilation and transformed the international security landscape. The United States interpreted the collapse of the Soviet Union as evidence that it had ‘won’ the Cold War, and that its values and interests would prevail in the future world order. The chapter first provides an overview of the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 before discussing U.S.–Russian relations under Bill Clinton and Boris Yeltsin, respectively. It then turns to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and its enlargement, the Kosovo crisis, and the ‘Great Game’ in Eurasia. It also analyses the rise of Vladimir Putin as president of Russia and the deterioration of U.S.–Russian relations and concludes with an assessment of the cautious partnership between the two countries.


Author(s):  
Hafner Gerhard

This contribution discusses the intervention of five member states of the Warsaw Pact Organization under the leading role of the Soviet Union in the CSSR in August 1968, which terminated the “Prague Spring” in a forceful manner. After presenting the facts of this intervention and its reasons, it describes the legal positions of the protagonists of this intervention as well as that of the states condemning it, as presented in particular in the Security Council. It then examines the legality of this intervention against general international law and the particular views of the Soviet doctrine existing at that time, defending some sort of socialist (regional) international law. This case stresses the requirement of valid consent for the presence of foreign troops in a country and denies the legality of any justification solely based on the necessity to maintain the political system within a state.


1995 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 103-128 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chris Alden

The signing of the General Peace Agreement in Rome in October 1992 marked the formal cessation of 17 years of intermittent warfare in the former Portuguese colony of Mozambique.1 The bitter struggle by the guerrilla movement known as the Resistência Nacional Moçambicana (Renamo) to topple the avowedly Marxist–Leninist régime established by the leaders of the Frente de Libertção de Moçambique (Frelimo) was in many respects a regional expression of the cold war politics which dominated the international environment. The transformations in the Soviet Union and South Africa, blunting the ideological and logistical support which had fuelled the conflict, provoked a crisis for the protagonists. With over a million casualties, a greater number of refugees in neighbouring countries, and an economy devastated by war and mismanagement, the Government and Renamo at last sued for peace.2


2002 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 23-54 ◽  
Author(s):  
Geoffrey Roberts

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.


2020 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 8-14
Author(s):  
Lars-Otto Reiersen ◽  
Ramon Guardans ◽  
Leiv K. Sydnes

AbstractAfter World War II, the Cold War generated significant barriers between the East and the West, and this affected all sorts of cooperation, including research and scientific collaboration. However, as the political situation in the Soviet Union started to change in the 1980s under the leadership of Mikael Gorbachev, the environment for international collaboration in many areas gradually improved.


2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (02) ◽  
pp. 212-231
Author(s):  
Theofilus Jose Setiawan ◽  
Maria Sukmaniara ◽  
Jain Komboy ◽  
Darynaufal Mulyaman

The purpose of the paper is to analyze North Korea's efforts to obtain economic capital through the enrichment of nuclear weapons amid the various sanctions imposed on it. This paper uses a constructivism approach in accordance in term of give arguments regarding North Korea's struggle to gain economic capital is an all-out struggle. Since the communist regime took control of North Korea, North and South Korea have continued to conflict to this day. Supported by the Soviet Union and aided by China during the Cold War era, North Korea was still able to survive. However, after the collapse of the Soviet Union and China's lack initiatives from helping North Korea, the North Korean economy worsened. In this paper, we found that North Korea used its nuclear capability as a bargaining chip to get what it wanted, especially for economic reasons.


Author(s):  
Damion L. Thomas

Throughout the Cold War, the Soviet Union deplored the treatment of African Americans by the U.S. government as proof of hypocrisy in the American promises of freedom and equality. This probing history examines government attempts to manipulate international perceptions of U.S. race relations during the Cold War by sending African American athletes abroad on goodwill tours and in international competitions as cultural ambassadors and visible symbols of American values. The book follows the State Department's efforts from 1945 to 1968 to showcase prosperous African American athletes including Jackie Robinson, Jesse Owens, and the Harlem Globetrotters as the preeminent citizens of the African Diaspora rather than as victims of racial oppression. With athletes in baseball, track and field, and basketball, the government relied on figures whose fame carried the desired message to countries where English was little understood. However, eventually African American athletes began to provide counter-narratives to State Department claims of American exceptionalism, most notably with Tommie Smith and John Carlos's famous black power salute at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics.


2020 ◽  
Vol 02 (02) ◽  
pp. 2050008
Author(s):  
Guo Shuyong ◽  
Li Boran

With the changes of international order and the deterioration of China–US relations, it has been argued that a new Cold War is approaching. However, this view does not comprehensively consider the differences between the current world and the world during the Cold War era. In fact, the political and economic basis of a new Cold War is far from mature, and China and America have gained abundant experiences of risk management. In addition, China is also very different from the Soviet Union. All of these elements determined that China and US will not necessarily have a new Cold War. However, some potential risks that may push China and US crash with each other should be carefully considered.


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