scholarly journals Decentering the Cold War in Southern Africa: The Portuguese Policy of Decolonization and Détente in Angola and Mozambique (1974–1984)

2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-51
Author(s):  
Bruno C. Reis
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Southern Africa ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
Positive Influence ◽  
Military Coup ◽  
Soviet Bloc ◽  
Diplomatic Relations ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Military ◽  
The Impact

Contrary to the expectations of many, the break between Portugal and its former colonies in southern Africa was far from complete after decolonization. This article points to three major reasons. First, the impact on relations with Angola and Mozambique of the fragmentation of Portuguese state power and tense polarization in the Portuguese polity after the military coup of 24 April 1974 has been overstated and was far from entirely negative. Second, diplomatic relations were normalized between Portugal, Angola, and Mozambique during the Cold War in a way that has significant parallels with West Germany's Ostpolitik. Portugal's Südpolitik saw a cultural identity worth preserving despite geopolitical divisions and pushed for better relations and deepened ties with these states to help move them away from strict alignment with the Soviet bloc. Third, officers of the Armed Forces Movement that carried out the April 1974 coup exercised a fundamental, positive influence in Portuguese policies toward Angola and Mozambique during decolonization and for years afterward.

The Soviet Factor in the US-China Military-Technical Cooperation during the Cold War

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 12-47
Author(s):  
Yinan Li
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
Active Role ◽  
The United States ◽  
Technical Cooperation ◽  
Arms Sales ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Military

The development of the PRC’s armed forces included three phases when their modernization was carried out through an active introduction of foreign weapons and technologies. The first and the last of these phases (from 1949 to 1961, and from 1992 till present) received wide attention in both Chinese and Western academic literature, whereas the second one — from 1978 to 1989 —when the PRC actively purchased weapons and technologies from the Western countries remains somewhat understudied. This paper is intended to partially fill this gap. The author examines the logic of the military-technical cooperation between the PRC and the United States in the context of complex interactions within the United States — the USSR — China strategic triangle in the last years of the Cold War. The first section covers early contacts between the PRC and the United States in the security field — from the visit of R. Nixon to China till the inauguration of R. Reagan. The author shows that during this period Washington clearly subordinated the US-Chinese cooperation to the development of the US-Soviet relations out of fear to damage the fragile process of detente. The second section focuses on the evolution of the R. Reagan administration’s approaches regarding arms sales to China in the context of a new round of the Cold War. The Soviet factor significantly influenced the development of the US-Chinese military-technical cooperation during that period, which for both parties acquired not only practical, but, most importantly, political importance. It was their mutual desire to undermine strategic positions of the USSR that allowed these two countries to overcome successfully tensions over the US arms sales to Taiwan. However, this dependence of the US-China military-technical cooperation on the Soviet factor had its downside. As the third section shows, with the Soviet threat fading away, the main incentives for the military-technical cooperation between the PRC and the United States also disappeared. As a result, after the Tiananmen Square protests, this cooperation completely ceased. Thus, the author concludes that the US arms sales to China from the very beginning were conditioned by the dynamics of the Soviet-American relations and Beijing’s willingness to play an active role in the policy of containment. In that regard, the very fact of the US arms sales to China was more important than its practical effect, i.e. this cooperation was of political nature, rather than military one.

Turkey: The Rise and Fall of the Influence of the Military in Politics

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Acar Kutay
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
National Security ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
Political Polarization ◽  
The Political ◽  
Turkish Republic ◽  
Constitutional Order ◽  
Political Processes ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Military

The continued influence of the Turkish Armed Forces (TAF) on politics characterized the political history of the Turkish Republic, until such influence was first bridled and then ultimately broken by the Justice and Development Party governments during the 2000s. When the new regime was established in 1923, the military identified itself with its founding ideology, namely Kemalism, which was built on the ideas of modernism, secularism, and nationalism. Because the TAF assumed the roles of guardian of the regime and vanguard of modernization, any threat to the foundational values and norms of the republican regime was considered by the military as a threat to the constitutional order and national security. As a self-authorized guardian of the regime and its values, the TAF characterized itself as a non-partisan institution. The military appealed to such identity to justify the superiority of the moral and epistemological foundations of their understanding of politics compared with that of the elected politicians. The military invoked such superiority not only to intervene in politics and take power (1960, 1971, 1980, 1997, and 2007). They also used such identity to monitor and control political processes by means of the National Security Council (established after the 1960 military intervention) and by more informal means such as mobilizing the public against the elected government’s policy choices. In the context of the Cold War, domestic turmoil and lasting political polarization helped legitimate the military’s control over security issues until the 1980s. After the end of the Cold War, two threats to national security drew the TAF into politics: the rising power of Islamic movements and the separatist terrorism of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which posed threats to the constitutional order. Turkey’s EU membership bid is one of the most important aspects that bridled the influence of the TAF on politics. Whereas the democratic oversight of the military and security sector constituted a significant dimension of the EU reforms, events that took place around the nomination of the Justice and Development Party’s candidate, Abdullah Gül, for the presidency created a rupture in the role and influence of the military on politics. Two juristic cases against members of the TAF in 2008 and 2010 made a massive impact on the power of the military, before the ultimate supremacy of the political sphere was established after the coup attempt organized by the Gülenist officers who infiltrated the TAF during the 2000s.

Armed Forces as a Geopolitics Instrument from a Historical and Contemporary Perspective

2020 ◽  
Vol 34 (34) ◽  
pp. 145-156
Author(s):  
Mateusz Ziętarski
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Political Activity ◽  
World War ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Military ◽  
Second World ◽  
Contemporary Context

Geography can restrain states, or create possibilities to the political activity that states carry out. Following Carl von Clausewitz, one can point to the relation between politics and war. The famous Prussian general claimed that war is an extension of politics made by means of the armed forces. Questions should therefore be posed how geography restrains or stregthens the activity of the armed forces, and how geopolitics determines the functioning of the military. The following article shows the abovementioned imperative in the historical as well as contemporary context. The aim of the study is to place the armed forces in the geopolitical framework and to show the cause-and-effect relationship between the operations of the armed forces and geopolitics. The research is carried out on the time axis: the time analysis is divided into the period of the Second World War, the Cold War and the post-Cold War period.

scholarly journals Os Militares e a Guerra Fria no Brasil

Diálogos ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 176
Author(s):  
Paulo Ribeiro Rodrigues da Cunha
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Present Article ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
The State ◽  
Military Officers ◽  
Democratic State ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Military

O presente artigo procura resgatar um dos períodos mais intensos e menos estudados da Guerra Fria no Brasil, quando duas correntes militares antípodas política e ideológicas atuaram na perspectiva de influenciar através de suas entidades de classe um projeto de nação. Entretanto, essa reflexão tem por foco, os militares nacionalistas e de esquerda, oficiais e praças das forças armadas cuja intervenção foi bem sucedida ao final, com a vitória da Tese do Monopólio Estatal do Petróleo e não intervenção brasileira no conflito coreano, embora ao custo de uma repressão sobre centenas de militares, muitos deles presos e torturados e até hoje não anistiados, demonstrando em última instância, a fragilidade da democracia e do Estado Democrático e de Direito no Brasil. Abstract The Military and the Cold War in Brazil The present article seeks to recover one of the most intense and least studied period of the Cold War in Brazil, when two military antipodal political and ideological currents acted in the perspective of influencing through its class entities a nation project. However, this reflection is focused on the nationalist and leftist military, officers and squares of the armed forces whose intervention was successful in the end, with the victory of the Thesis of the State Petroleum Monopoly and not Brazilian intervention in the Korean conflict, although at cost of a crackdown on hundreds of soldiers, many of them imprisoned and tortured and still unamused, demonstrating in the last instance the fragility of democracy and the Democratic State and Law in Brazil. Resumen Los Militares y la Guerra Fría en Brasil El presente artículo busca rescatar uno del período más intensos y menos estudiados de la Guerra Fría en Brasil, cuando dos corrientes militares antípodas políticas e ideológicas actuaron en la perspectiva de influenciar a través de sus entidades de clase un proyecto de nación. Sin embargo, esta reflexión tiene por foco, los militares nacionalistas y de izquierda, oficiales y plazas de las fuerzas armadas cuya intervención fue exitosa al final, con la victoria de la Tesis del Monopolio Estatal del Petróleo y no intervención brasileña en el conflicto coreano, aunque al costo de una represión sobre cientos de militares, muchos de ellos presos y torturados y hasta hoy no aniquilados, demostrando en última instancia, la fragilidad de la democracia y del Estado Democrático y de Derecho en Brasil.

A Generic Pedagogic Model for Academically Based Professional Officer Education

2018 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 333-348 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erik Hedlund
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Higher Education Systems ◽  
Defense Expenditure ◽  
Military Profession ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Military ◽  
The Eu ◽  
Officer Education

After the end of the Cold War, many European countries cut back so heavily on defense expenditure that they lost their capacity to defend themselves. This resulted in greater need for improved cooperation and interoperability among member states’ armed forces. One important attempt to improve the understanding and interoperability among the European Union (EU) nation’s armed forces was taken in 2008 by the creation of the European Initiative for exchange of young officers aimed to make the officer education in Europe more transparent and convergent with each other. This article presents a proposal for a generic pedagogic model for an academically professional officer education that can improve understanding and interoperability among the EU nation’s armed forces. The model helps to facilitate a process of professionalization of the military profession with an officer education that can meet the requirements of higher education systems as well as the demands of the military profession.

Why Nations Arm in the Age of Globalization

2003 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 667-693 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guido Mehlkop ◽  
Peter Graeff
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Important Determinant ◽  
Cultural Influences ◽  
Negative Effect ◽  
Cross Country ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Military ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Different Levels ◽  
Over Time

AbstractWhat accounts for different levels of military forces between countries and over time? Payne (1989) found in cross country regressions cultural influences to be the most important determinant. In contrast to Payne, we will show that the mechanisms of why nations arm can only be fully discovered by time series analysis and – going beyond Payne's model – we will test the impact of the end of the Cold War and show that the process of globalization has a significantly negative effect on the military efforts of nations. Democracy and the membership in defence alliances or supranational organisations have no impact on the level of armament at all.

Despite Insurgency: Reducing Military Prerogatives in Colombia and Peru

2009 ◽  
Vol 51 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-85 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Avilés
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
Democratic Governance ◽  
Significant Progress ◽  
Free Markets ◽  
State Authority ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Military

AbstractColombia and Peru made significant progress in reducing the institutional prerogatives of their respective militaries in the 1990s and 2000s while reforming their economies in a neoliberal direction. They accomplished this despite internal armed threats to state authority and stability. The end of the Cold War, U.S. promotion of “market democracies,” and the international centrality of free markets and formal democratic governance coincided with the rise to power in Peru and Colombia of “neoliberal policy coalitions.” The internal insurgency mitigated the emergence of antiglobalization or antidemocratic reform factions in the military and civil society. The armed forces unified behind their counterinsurgency mission, and opposition in civil society was weakened, creating greater space for neoliberal elites to reform their economies and reduce military prerogatives.

scholarly journals Religion and Military Security: The Military Still Matters

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Opeoluwa Adisa Oluyemi ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
International Terrorism ◽  
Civilian Control ◽  
Online Data ◽  
Secondary Sources ◽  
Security Issues ◽  
Military Security ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Military

The debate on changes and continuity in the field of security studies before and aftermath of the Cold War expounds certain security issues that have been reformed or changed and those that continue to be essential security concerns after the Cold War. The pervasiveness of military security might have been reconstructed at the aftermath of the Cold War but has remained ubiquitous despite scholarly argumentative prepositions debating its declination. This article uses secondary sources of data analysis by obtaining necessary information from textbooks, libraries, academic journals, online data and articles to examine the nexus between religion and violence leading to the renaissance of international terrorism after the attack of 9/11 that had propelled the involvement of military armed forces in domestic security of democratic governments constituting a debatable encumbrance to the principles of objective civilian control of the military entrenched in the liberal democracy and a justifiable argument for the potency of military security in the present liberal democratic states. It theoretically instantiates the emerging domestic role of the military armed forces signalizing the subjective control of civil-military relations in incongruousness to the objective control as expounded under military professionalism of Samuel Huntington.

Revolution in the Terra do Sol

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Sarzynski
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Cuban Revolution ◽  
Military Coup ◽  
New Meanings ◽  
Cultural Movements ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Military ◽  
Cold War History ◽  
Rural Social Movements

This book recasts conventional narratives of the Cold War in Brazil and the 1964 coup through its examination of revolutionary social and cultural movements in the Northeastern region in the 1950s and 1960s. During this period, hundreds of thousands of rural men and women protested in the streets, on the plantations, and in the courtrooms for land, labor, and citizenship rights. In the wake of the Cuban Revolution, the strength of the rural social movements raised hopes and fears about the potential for social revolution in Brazil. Rural social movements, Conservative landowners, politicians, and filmmakers debated agrarian reform in a language of regional historical symbols and themes. The repetition of such symbols and themes in popular culture and political discourse drew from the trope of o Nordeste, defining the region and its people as the backwards, impoverished, fatalistic, violent, traditional Other in contrast to the modern, urban Brazilian nation. Even if rural social movements and radical filmmakers attempted to rework and assert new meanings of o Nordeste, often the images they produced served to further entrench assumptions and stereotypes of the region and its people. This book shows how such narratives and stereotypes were deliberately deployed as political tools to empower certain groups in Brazilian society while disenfranchising others. It reveals how discriminatory assumptions about rural Northeasterners as impoverished, non-modern victims and violent fanatics legitimized the state persecution of rural social movements, provided a rationale for the military coup and shaped the way Cold War history has been told.

scholarly journals The Impacts of the Adjustment of India’s Foreign Policy for India — Myanmar Relations (1992–2014)

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 436-460
Author(s):  
Tuan Binh Nguyen ◽  
◽  
Xuan Hiep Tran ◽  
Hoang Long Tran ◽  
Minh Hung Vo ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Asian Country ◽  
The Political ◽  
Diplomatic Relations ◽  
New Development ◽  
The Look ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Relationship

India and Myanmar are two neighboring countries that share a border of nearly 1500 kilometers and have a relationship based on history, politics, culture, and ethnicity from over 2000 years to the present. India officially established diplomatic relations with Myanmar after the Southeast Asian country gained independence in 1948. Since 1992, the implementation of India’s Look East Policy in addition to the strategic importance of Myanmar as a neighbor created a catalyst for new development in relations between the two countries. India — Myanmar relations have shifted from a cold and strained status (1962–1991) to improvement, consolidation and development in the years 1992–2014. Furthermore, the relationship between the two countries was developed on the basis of inheriting the achievements of the previous period (1948–1991) that were not only in the political sphere. There was a complete development in many aspects (politics — diplomacy, economy, security — defense, etc.) for two decades after the end of the Cold War. This article focuses on analyzing the adjustment of India’s foreign policy, especially the implementation of the Look East Policy and the “Act East” strategy, and the impact of this adjustment for the development of India — Myanmar relations during 1992–2014.

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