“At War with Israel”: East Germany’s Key Role in Soviet Policy in the Middle East

2014 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 129-163 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey Herf
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Middle East ◽  
Arab World ◽  
East Germany ◽  
Trade Agreement ◽  
Communist Regime ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Terrorist Groups ◽  
Global Cold War ◽  
State Of Israel

The Middle East was one of the crucial battlefields of the global Cold War between the Soviet Union and the West; it was also a region in which East Germany played a salient role in the Soviet bloc’s antagonism toward Israel. From 1953, when the German Democratic Republic (GDR) signed its first trade agreement with Egypt, until 1989, when the Communist regime in the GDR collapsed, East Germany opposed the state of Israel and supported Israel’s enemies in the Arab world, providing arms, training, and other support to countries and terrorist groups that sought to destroy Israel. From the mid-1960s until 1989, but especially from 1967 to the mid-1980s, both the Soviet Union and the GDR were in an undeclared state of war against Israel.

The Arab World and Western Intelligence

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dina Rezk
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Middle East ◽  
Arab World ◽  
Recent History ◽  
Western World ◽  
Critical Question ◽  
Arab Nationalism ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Intelligence Services ◽  
Heated Debate

This book addresses a critical question embedded within a heated debate about the ‘failure’ of American intelligence in a post 9/11 age: have Western experts in some fundamental way failed to understand the dynamics, leaders and culture of the Middle East? Looking back in recent history through a series of seminal case studies culminating in Sadat’s dramatic assassination, this monograph explores whether, how and why the most knowledgeable and powerful intelligence agencies in the world have been so notoriously caught off guard in this region. The story begins after the tripartite invasion of the Suez Canal in 1956 which triggered a ripple of ideological and geopolitical transformations that continue to shape the politics and borders of the modern Middle East. Revolutions swept across Syria, Iraq and Yemen; the three devastating Arab-Israeli wars ravaged the holy lands; and finally, a fraught and contested bilateral treaty bound Egypt and Israel to uneasy peace. The West and the Soviet Union vied for control over the Middle East’s destiny through its political centre, Egypt. The transition from Gamal Abdel Nasser to Anwar el Sadat witnessed the decline of an ardently anti-imperialist Arab nationalism, supplanted by a radical quest to realign Egypt’s identity towards the Western world. As revolutionary turmoil and conflict continue to unfold throughout the Middle East today, The Arab World and Western Intelligence is the untold story of how the British and American intelligence services have anticipated and reacted to crisis and upheaval in the region’s recent history.

scholarly journals Stalin's German Policy After Stalin

Slavic Review ◽  
1978 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 259-267 ◽  
Author(s):  
Victor Baras
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
East Germany ◽  
West Germany ◽  
Communist Regime ◽  
Peace Treaty ◽  
German Reunification ◽  
German State ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
East German ◽  
The Stability

Stalin's “last word” on German reunification was contained in the Soviet diplomatic note of March 10, 1952, which proposed a peace treaty with Germany. Until the middle of 1953, Stalin's heirs continued to press for reunification on the basis of the 1952 note. The East German uprising of June 17, 1953 (which is commemorated in West Germany, with unintended irony, as the “Day of German Unity“) marked the de facto termination of the Soviet reunification initiative. As a result of the uprising, the rulers of the Soviet Union and East Germany were forced to place greater emphasis on the consolidation of the Communist regime in the GDR—that is, the stability of East Germany required policies explicitly directed toward the development of a separate, socialist East German state. Thus, the uprising and the subsequent Soviet intervention further undermined the credibility of an already questionable Soviet reunification initiative.

scholarly journals Saudi Arabia, the Soviet Union, and Modern Islam

ICR Journal ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-61
Author(s):  
Sean Foley
Keyword(s):  
Saudi Arabia ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Middle East ◽  
Interwar Period ◽  
Former Soviet Union ◽  
Arab World ◽  
Muslim World ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Us ◽  
Diplomatic Relationship

This paper examines Saudi-Soviet diplomacy in the interwar period, which has received little scholarly coverage but has had an important impact on the Middle East and the Muslim World. In the 1920s and the 1930s, Saudi Arabia and the Soviet Union cooperated closely in a number of areas, and Western governments recognised that an alliance would have transformed politics in the Middle East. The failure of the diplomatic relationship to last was a missed opportunity for both states and for the wider Muslim world. Not only did it limit Soviet diplomacy in the Arab World and cement the US-Saudi alliance, but it also cut off Soviet Muslims from Arabia. After the Soviet Union collapsed, the legacy Saudi-Soviet relations in the interwar period remained important. Al-Qaeda used Riyadh’s historic ties with Washington to justify its violence, while millions of Muslims in the former Soviet Union re-embraced their faith and forged closer ties with Saudi Arabia than ever before.

Breaking Away Towards Peace in the Middle East

1995 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 81-101
Author(s):  
Frans A.M. Alting von Geusau
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Middle East ◽  
The United States ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
Sovereign State ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Un Security Council ◽  
Lasting Peace ◽  
The Creation ◽  
State Of Israel

For many years after the creation of the state of Israel in 1948, peace in the Middle East has been an elusive goal, despite the continuous attention given to it by the United Nations and the (mainly American)efforts to promote negotiations between the parties concerned. The affirmation by the UN Security Council “that the fulfilment of Charter principles requires the establishment of a just and lasting peace in the Middle East” failed to break the threefold deadlock barring the way towards peace. The Arab states and the PLO refused to recognise Israel's right to exist as a sovereign state in the Middle East. Their goal of a ‘comprehensive peace’ was peace without Israel. Israel refused to recognise the existence of a Palestinian people as defined by the PLO, entitled to exercise its right of self-determination. Its goal was to conclude peace treaties with neighbouring states, without the creation of a Palestinian state, however. In the context of the global conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union (from 1945–1989) neither side could achieve peace on its own terms.

Onto the Slippery Slope: East Germany and East-West Détente under Ulbricht and Honecker, 1965–1975

2016 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 60-94 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oliver Bange
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Early Stage ◽  
East Germany ◽  
Communist Regime ◽  
East Berlin ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
East German ◽  
Fundamental Shift ◽  
East West

This article identifies and explains the fundamental shift of political and ideological paradigms that drew the Soviet Union's close ally, East Germany, into the détente process. Although economic and political influences and pressures, including from the Soviet Union itself, pushed the East German Communist regime to participate in this era of “peaceful coexistence,” officials in East Berlin were well aware of the dangers this posed to the Communist society in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) in the long term. Even at this early stage of East-West interaction, détente left the GDR with the unenviable task of squaring ideology with realpolitik—a task that East German leaders found increasingly hard to cope with.

Design Theory and Methodology in Eastern Europe

1990 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tomasz Arciszewski
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Engineering Design ◽  
Design Theory ◽  
Design Research ◽  
East Germany ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Research Environments ◽  
Design Theories ◽  
Design Theory And Methodology

Abstract The paper provides a brief review of general tendencies and interesting developments in the area of engineering design theory and methodology in Eastern Europe. This review is limited to East Germany, Poland, and the Soviet Union. Particular attention was given to the design research environments in individual countries, and to developed design theories and methods in the context of these environments.

Waiting for Balancing: Why the World Is Not Pushing Back

2005 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 109-139 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keir A. Lieber ◽  
Gerard Alexander
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
The United States ◽  
Grand Strategy ◽  
War On Terrorism ◽  
Much Ado About Nothing ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Soft Balancing ◽  
Terrorist Groups ◽  
Invasion Of Iraq

Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, many observers predicted a rise in balancing against the United States. More recently, the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 has generated renewed warnings of an incipient global backlash. Indeed, some analysts claim that signs of traditional hard balancing can already be detected, while others argue that in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, U.S. grand strategy has generated a new phenomenon known as soft balancing, in which states seek to undermine and restrain U.S. power in ways that fall short of classic measures. There is little credible evidence, however, that major powers are engaging in either hard or soft balancing against the United States. The absence of hard balancing is explained by the lack of underlying motivation to compete strategically with the United States under current conditions. Soft balancing is much ado about nothing: the concept is difficult to define or operationalize; the behavior seems identical to traditional diplomatic friction; and, regardless, specific predictions of soft balancing are not supported by the evidence. Balancing against the United States is not occurring because contemporary U.S. grand strategy, despite widespread criticism, poses a threat to only a very limited number of regimes and terrorist groups. Most countries either share U.S. strategic interests in the war on terrorism or do not have a direct stake in the confict. As such, balancing behavior is likely only among a narrowly circumscribed list of states and actors being targeted by the United States.

From Buzuluk to London: The Combat Trail and Everyday Service of Women Auxiliaries in the Polish Army (1941–1945)

2019 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 263-287 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Marcinkiewicz-Kaczmarczyk
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Middle East ◽  
Daily Life ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Second World

This article explores the establishment of the Polish Women’s Auxiliary Service (was) as part of the complex story of the formation of a Polish army in exile. In 1941, after the German invasion of the Soviet Union, the Polish Army in the Soviet Union was established. The Women’s Auxiliary Service was formed at the same time as a means to enable Polish women to serve their country and also as a way for Polish women to escape the Soviet Union. The women of the was followed the Polish Army combat trail from Buzuluk to London, accompanying their male peers first to the Middle East and then Italy. The women of the was served as nurses, clerks, cooks and drivers. This article examines the recruitment, organization and daily life of the women who served their country as exiles on the battlefront of the Second World War.

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