scholarly journals The Simba Rebellion, the Cold War, and the Stanleyville Hostages in the Congo

2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 75-99
Author(s):  
Alanna O'Malley
Keyword(s):  
Adverse Effect ◽  
Cold War ◽  
International Law ◽  
Military Intervention ◽  
Use Of Force ◽  
The United States ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Western Government ◽  
Postcolonial Africa ◽  
The Cold War

In late October 1964, nearly 1,000 European and U.S. citizens were taken hostage by rebel forces in Stanleyville in northern Congo as part of an attempt to create the “People’s Republic of Congo,” an opposition regime designed to rival the pro-Western government in the capital Léopoldville (now Kinshasa). The hostages were captured to use as leverage against the advancing Armée Nationale Congolaise (ANC), led by white mercenaries as part of a Western-backed military effort to crush the rebellion. In response, Belgium and the United States launched a military intervention to rescue their citizens on 24 November 1964, publicly justifying the incursion on humanitarian grounds. In reality, the main purpose was to crush the rebellion and secure Western interests in Congo. The intervention reflected a cavalier attitude toward sovereignty, international law, and the use of force in postcolonial Africa and had the adverse effect of discrediting humanitarian reasoning as a basis for military intervention until the end of the Cold War. The massacre of tens of thousands of Congolese in Stanleyville was a unique moment in which African countries united in their criticism of Western policies and demanded firmer sovereignty in the postcolonial world.

Part 1 The Cold War Era (1945–89), 32 The Intervention of the United States and other Eastern Caribbean States in Grenada—1983

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hajjami Nabil
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
International Law ◽  
Use Of Force ◽  
The United States ◽  
International Organisations ◽  
Caribbean Community ◽  
The Caribbean ◽  
Eastern Caribbean ◽  
The Cold War

This chapter examines the legality of the 1983 American-led intervention in Grenada. It recalls the positions of the main protagonists of the crisis, including international organisations such as the United Nations, the Caribbean Community and the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States. It then analyses the justifications of the American administration, which are mainly based on three different grounds: the protection of citizens abroad; the activation of regional mechanisms and the intervention by invitation. The conclusion assesses the precedential value of the Operation Urgent Fury. Regarding its wide condemnation, the chapter argues that reactions to the American-led intervention in Grenada can finally be deemed as a strong reaffirmation of the prohibition of the use of force in international law.

scholarly journals The Cold War and Africa’s Political Culture

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-21
Author(s):  
Kenneth Kalu
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Political Culture ◽  
Political Development ◽  
The United States ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Past Half Century ◽  
Foreign Policies ◽  
Military Support ◽  
Postcolonial Africa ◽  
The Cold War

Leadership and political systems in most of Africa have been described in several negative ways. Paternalism, clientelism, dictatorship, corruption and such pejorative labels have been used to described the type of politics prevalent in most of Africa today. A number of studies have explained Africa’s political challenges in the context of the choices of postcolonial African leaders. Others have pointed to European colonial exploitation and its destructive legacies as the foundations of the perverse political culture that define contemporary Africa. While these factors play important roles in defining the type of politics that has endured in the continent during the past half century, this paper takes a look at another epoch that had significant impacts on Africa’s political culture. The paper argues that the foreign policies of the United States and USSR - two major actors in Africa during the Cold War - had some of the most significant impacts on the political culture that evolved in postcolonial Africa. In pursuit of ideological supremacy, these foreign actors focused on undermining each other, with little consideration on how their actions in Africa were shaping the continent’s political development. By providing military support to opposing forces in African countries, the Cold War actors institutionalized a violent political culture in postcolonial Africa.

Linkage Politics

2019 ◽  
pp. 290-316
Author(s):  
Joshua R. Itzkowitz Shifrinson
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Use Of Force ◽  
The United States ◽  
Soviet Policy ◽  
Issue Linkage ◽  
Cross Domain ◽  
Political Interests ◽  
The Cold War

Most discussions of cross-domain deterrence focus on variation in the means of coercion, but variation in political ends can be just as consequential. Cross-domain deterrence in the context of linkage politics, in which disparate political interests are tied together to create incentives for favorable outcomes, gives potential adversaries the opportunity to avoid confrontational meeting engagements by playing for time to clarify interests and choosing the means most suited to achieving new goals. A broader diplomatic conception of cross-domain deterrence can also highlight the potential of using financial, institutional, or other nonmilitary actions that render the threat or use of force less attractive. This chapter draws on newly available archival evidence to examine issue linkage politics in the context of changing strategic interests in the case of U.S. efforts to deter Soviet repression in Poland and East Germany at the end of the Cold War. In both cases, U.S. policymakers used diplomatic reassurance and threats of isolation to shape Soviet policy as the United States pressed its new-found political interests in Eastern Europe rather than its traditional preoccupation with military affairs.

Part 1 The Cold War Era (1945–89), 10 The Gulf of Tonkin Incident—1964

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guilfoyle Douglas
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
Use Of Force ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
The United States ◽  
Operational Environment ◽  
Armed Attack ◽  
Gulf Of Tonkin ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Self Defence

This chapter examines the United States’ air strikes against torpedo boat bases in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam in August 1964 in response to two claimed armed attacks against its naval units in the Gulf of Tonkin earlier that month. It considers the facts, historical context and operational environment. It examines the reactions at the time of the main actors, and their allies, in the Security Council. In assessing the incident’s legality it notes that several of the questions raised remain controversial today, including: (i) Can a state validly exercise self-defence based on a mistake of fact? (ii) Can self-defence encompass ‘preventative’ actions? (iii) Can an attack on a single vessel trigger a right of self-defence? (iv) Was the action proportionate and necessary? (v) How proximate in time must a (legal) defensive use of force be to the triggering armed attack in order to avoid being classed as a reprisal?

Part 1 The Cold War Era (1945–89), 5 The Soviet Intervention in Hungary—1956

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lieblich Eliav
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
International Law ◽  
Real Time ◽  
Use Of Force ◽  
Warsaw Pact ◽  
Jus Ad Bellum ◽  
Soviet Invasion ◽  
The Cold War

In late October 1956, the Soviet army crushed a burgeoning rebellion in Hungary, ostensibly upon the invitation of the Hungarian government, and allegedly in conformity with the provisions of the Warsaw Pact. While the intervention was widely condemned, international law could not prevent the Soviet invasion nor secure the USSR's withdrawal from Hungary. Seven decades later, this Chapter analyses the Soviet intervention under jus ad bellum. It focuses on the positions of relevant actors in real-time, as well as on the enduring aspects of the affair. As the Chapter reveals, the Hungary intervention presented dilemmas that plague the law on the use of force even in contemporary times. It raised questions that remain burning today, such as the role of consent in legalizing external forcible intervention, the ability of international law to face superpowers, and the dialectics between effectiveness and legitimacy in the determination of lawful authority during internal strife.

“Post” As Justification: International Law and Democracy-Building after Iraq

2003 ◽  
Vol 4 (7) ◽  
pp. 709-723 ◽  
Author(s):  
Outi Korhonen
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
International Law ◽  
Use Of Force ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Political Elite ◽  
Deterrent Effect ◽  
The Political ◽  
The West ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Democracy Building

The “post”-phase of a conflict has become the justification for both the possible action and the inaction of the Western states. It is not so much any longer that we would be averse to war in any circumstances, as the non-use of force principle in its absolute sense would require. Again, after a good fifty years of the UN and its raison d'etre – the guardianship of peace – we seem to have arrived at an era where ideological contestation no more has the deterrent effect that it did during the Cold War and, consequently, there are cases of the use of force that are accepted and even regarded as just as long as they are quick. When looking back at the NATO bombings of FRY in 1999 as the response to atrocities in Kosovo many are able to accept that ‘though illegal they were legitimate’ in some sense. This is the conclusion irrespective of whether one, at the time, was for action or inaction. Such a ‘condoning condemnation’ has become the popular middle road as so many other paradoxes in world politics. Through the cases of Afghanistan and Iraq the paradox has gained in strength. Although there is quite strong and unequivocal opposition to the wars and a condemnation for their illegality, the political elite of the West seems to be quick in forgetting scruples and taking a keen interest in the “post”-management of the targets, i.e. the states that are about to be or already have been ‘bombed into the stone age’ or into shambles in any case. There is a general rush to the “post”-phase; both in the sense that the tacit requirement for the condoning condemnation is that the action be quick – the use of force should be very limited in time – and, secondly, in the sense that already before the bombs fall (or during) the major reconstruction plans and projects are dealt. This article outlines some points of critique that could be launched at the phase when the majority cannot be bothered to re-analyze the wrongs committed ex ante.

“Is This the End of Perestroika?” International Reactions to the Soviet Use of Force in the Baltic Republics in January 1991

2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 26-57 ◽  
Author(s):  
Una Bergmane
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Use Of Force ◽  
The United States ◽  
State Archives ◽  
The Baltic ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The U.S ◽  
West European

This article examines the official U.S. reaction to the Soviet government's use of force in the Baltic republics in January 1991, not only showing the complexity of the U.S. position but also demonstrating how reactions in Washington became harsher in the space of a week, eroding the previous “Gorbachev first” attitude. The article identifies the main reasons for this shift, especially West European reactions, domestic pressures, and growing concerns that violence in the Baltics marked the end of perestroika. The analysis sheds light on a larger debate between Kristina Spohr and Celeste Wallander about Western attitudes toward the Baltic question at the Cold War endgame. The article is based on newly available archival materials in the United States and France as well as on documents from the archives of the Gorbachev Foundation in Moscow and in the Latvian State Archives.

An Introduction: International Law in a Multipolar World

2013 ◽  
Vol 107 ◽  
pp. 1-1
Author(s):  
Stanimir Alexandrov ◽  
Laurence Boisson de Chazournes ◽  
Kal Raustiala
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
International Law ◽  
The United States ◽  
Nuclear Nonproliferation ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Independent States ◽  
The Many ◽  
The Cold War

During the Cold War, international relations and international law were deeply shaped by the struggle for global dominance between the United States and the Soviet Union. The clashes between the superpowers reverberated in legal issues relating to the functioning of the United Nations, the use of force, nuclear nonproliferation, human rights, etc. The many newly independent states, caught in the middle, repeatedly made claims for reform and initiated rule-making initiatives, but with limited results. After the end of the Cold War, the United States, its Western allies, and their shared economic and geopolitical interests remained largely unchallenged in the international arena.

Africa

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Schmidt
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
The United States ◽  
African Countries ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Internal Affairs ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
External Actors ◽  
The Impact

This chapter examines the impact of the Cold War on Africa. It explains that while Africa is the least-known Cold War battleground, the United States, the Soviet Union, China, and Cuba became embroiled in the internal affairs of countless African countries. The chapter analyzes the ideologies, practices, and interests of these main external actors and describes the four major arenas of conflict that are representative of broad trends in Cold War intervention in Africa. It also discusses how the Cold War altered the dynamics of local struggles, created unprecedented levels of destruction and widespread instability, and contributed to many of the problems that plague Africa today.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document