'Hell in a Very Small Place' Cold War and Decolonisation in the Assault on the Vietnamese Body at Dien Bien Phu

2010 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 201-223 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Goscha
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
Western World ◽  
Intensive Phase ◽  
Similarities And Differences ◽  
Western Experience ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Modern War

AbstractThis essay examines how Vietnamese combatants of the communist-led Democratic Republic of Vietnam may have experienced battle during the Indochina War's most intensive phase beginning in 1950 and culminating in the Vietnamese victory over the French at Dien Bien Phu in 1954. It seeks to provide what is almost always missing in military histories of Dien Bien Phu—the unprecedented assault on the Vietnamese body. It uses the Vietnamese experience to think about what might be some of the similarities and differences between the Western experience of war and those occurring in the non-Western world, especially at this deadly southern intersection between decolonization and the Cold War. Vietnamese bodies were particularly vulnerable to the technological destruction of modern war as decolonization and the Cold War combined in an explosive and uneven mix from 1950.

Juggling Several Balls at Once

2021 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 493-516
Author(s):  
Grace Mueller ◽  
Paul F. Diehl ◽  
Daniel Druckman
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
Peace Operations ◽  
Early Failure ◽  
Republic Of The Congo ◽  
The Cold War

Abstract Peacekeeping during the Cold War was primarily, and in some cases exclusively, charged with monitoring cease-fires. This changed significantly, as peace operations evolved to include other missions (e.g., rule of law, election supervision), many under the rubric of peacebuilding. What is lacking is consideration of how the different missions affect one another, simultaneously and in sequences. This study addresses that gap by looking at the interconnectedness of missions and their success in the UN Organization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUC), which was mandated to perform eight different missions over a decade. The article examines success or failure in each of those missions and how they relate to one another guided by theoretical logics based on the “security first” hypothesis and mission compatibility expectations. Early failure to stem the violence had negative downstream consequences for later peacebuilding missions. Nevertheless, MONUC’s election supervision mission was successful.

scholarly journals A EVOLUÇÃO DO PEACEKEEPING: SUEZ, RUANDA E REPÚBLICA DEMOCRÁTICA DO CONGO

2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (10) ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Fernanda Affonso Leal ◽  
Rafael Santin ◽  
David Almstadter De Magalhães
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Security Council ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
Democratic Republic Of Congo ◽  
Republic Of Congo ◽  
Peacekeeping Operations ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Way

Since the first peacekeeping operation was created until today, the UN has been trying to adapt them to the different contexts in which they are deployed. This paper analy- ses the possibility of a bigger shift happening in the way the United Nations, through the Security Council, operates their Peacekeeping Operations. The change here ad- dressed includes, mainly, the constitution of more “robust” missions and the newly introduced Intervention Brigade in the Democratic Republic of Congo. By presenting three missions (UNEF I, UNAMIR and MONUSCO) deployed in different historic periods, we identified various elements in their mandates and in the way these were established which indicate a progressive transformation in the peacekeeping model since the Cold War - when conflicts were in their majority between States – until present days, when they occur mostly inside the States.

scholarly journals Style and ideology: The cold war 'blend' in Greece

Muzikologija ◽  
2008 ◽  
pp. 55-63
Author(s):  
Keti Romanu
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Cultural Policy ◽  
American Culture ◽  
Western World ◽  
World War ◽  
Musical Life ◽  
Iannis Xenakis ◽  
Western Countries ◽  
The Cold War

This paper describes cultural policy in Greece from the end of World War II up to the fall of the junta of colonels in 1974. The writer's object is to show how the Cold War favoured defeated Western countries, which participated effectively in the globalisation of American culture, as in the Western world de-nazification was transformed into a purge of communism. Using the careers of three composers active in communist resistance organizations as examples (Iannis Xenakis, Mikis Theodorakis and Alecos Xenos), the writer describes the repercussions of this phenomenon in Greek musical life and creativity.

Conclusion

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gregg A. Brazinsky
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
The United States ◽  
Less Developed Countries ◽  
Similarities And Differences ◽  
The Cold War

The conclusion seeks to draw out some of the manuscript’s lessons for China, the United States, and less developed countries. It looks briefly at current Sino-American competition in Africa and parts of Asia and draws comparisons with the Cold War period, pointing to both similarities and differences. Although the dimensions of Chinese involvement in these regions have changed, some of the PRC’s motives remain the same.

19. Strategic Studies: The West and the Rest

2018 ◽  
pp. 329-347
Author(s):  
Amitav Acharya ◽  
Jiajie He
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Armed Conflicts ◽  
Western World ◽  
Strategic Culture ◽  
The West ◽  
China And India ◽  
Security Challenges ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Strategic Studies

This chapter examines the limitations and problems of strategic studies with respect to security challenges in the global South. It first considers the ethnocentrism that bedevils strategic studies and international relations before discussing mainstream strategic studies during the cold war. It then looks at whether strategic studies kept up with the changing pattern of conflict, where the main theatre is the non-Western world, with particular emphasis on the decline in armed conflicts after the end of the cold war, along with the problem of human security and how it has been impacted by technology. It also explores the issue of whether to take into account non-military threats in strategic studies and the debates over strategic culture and grand strategy in China and India. It concludes by proposing Global International Relations as a new approach to strategic studies that seeks to adapt to the strategic challenges and responses of non-Western countries.

Belgian Rule and its Afterlives: Colonialism, Developmentalism, and Mobutism in the Tanganyika District, Southeastern DR-Congo, 1885–1985

2017 ◽  
Vol 92 ◽  
pp. 47-68
Author(s):  
Reuben Loffman
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Agricultural Production ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
Labor History ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Dr Congo ◽  
Unfree Labor ◽  
Republic Of The Congo ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Cold War

AbstractThe arrival of Belgian rule in the late nineteenth century initiated significant changes in the labor history of Tanganyika, a province in the southeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), as well the discursive regimes used to legitimize these transformations. After the colonial conquests, unfree labor was justified by paternalistic rather than mythical discourses. Although unfree labor was less common in the postcolonial period, the state forced farmers to sell crops at low prices and build roads for no remuneration. In the Cold War context, the language and practice of developmentalism mediated the coercive practices of the independent Congolese state (known as Zaïre, 1971–1997). The floundering Zaïrian government expanded its presence in Tanganyika due to its partnership with USAID. USAID's rhetoric and practice was influenced by a “bottom up” approach to agricultural production, but the cuts to its funding in the 1980s meant it struggled to soften Mobutu's coercive administration.

The Wisdom of a Socialist Defector

2020 ◽  
pp. 58-62
Author(s):  
Harry R. Targ
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Federal Republic ◽  
German Democratic Republic ◽  
Karl Marx ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
The United States ◽  
West Germany ◽  
Federal Republic Of Germany ◽  
The Cold War

Victor Grossman's A Socialist Defector: From Harvard to Karl-Marx-Allee is at once an exciting adventure story, an engaging autobiography of a radical opponent of U.S. imperialism, and a clear-headed assessment of the successes and failures of the German Democratic Republic (GDR, East Germany) at the onset of the Cold War until 1990, when its citizens voted to merge with the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG, West Germany). Most poignantly, Grossman compares the benefits workers gained in the GDR, the FRG, and even the United States during the Cold War.

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