Indian Power Projection in the Greater Middle East: Tools and Objectives

2007 ◽  
Vol 6 (1-3) ◽  
pp. 417-439 ◽  
Author(s):  
Prithvi Ram Mudiam
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Middle East ◽  
International System ◽  
Domestic Sphere ◽  
Regional Environment ◽  
Jammu And Kashmir ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Cold War

AbstractIndia's approach to the Middle East during the Cold War years was weighed down by the partition of the subcontinent and the creation of Pakistan on a religious basis, the dispute with Pakistan over the Muslim majority province of Jammu and Kashmir and its own large Muslim minority. Hence, its policy towards the region tended to be defensive and reactive, and a general policy of support to the Arab causes, particularly that of the Palestinians, and a non-relationship with Israel were considered necessary to serve India's broad interests in the region. India's projection of secularism into the region was meant to prevent Pakistan from organizing an anti-Indian Islamic bloc in the region, and its projection of nonalignment was meant to scuttle the Western attempts to build anti-communist alliances there. However, the transformation in the superpowers relations following the collapse of the Soviet Union, changes in the regional environment in the Greater Middle East (GME) as well as South Asia and changes in India's domestic sphere created a new strategic and economic context for India to pursue its interests in the GME in the 1990s. There is an increasing convergence of strategic interests between the two regions and a growing complementarity of their economies in the post-Cold War world. Iran and Israel have become the two lynchpins of India's policy toward the region and, as an emerging global player, India, unlike during the Cold War, is in a strong position to promote its own interests as well as those of the international system in the region, which largely seem to coincide in the post-Cold War milieu.

scholarly journals EXPLORING AND EXPLAINING THE ECONOMIC POLITICAL RELATIONS BETWEEN IRAN AND THE SOVIET UNION IN THE SECOND PAHLAVI ERA EMPHASIZING THE SYSTEM THEORY

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kimia Zare ◽  
Habibollah Saeeidinia
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
International System ◽  
World War ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Political Relations ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Cold War

Iran and Russia have common interests, especially in political terms, because of the common borders and territorial neighborhood. This has led to a specific sensitivity to how the two countries are approaching each other. Despite the importance of the two countries' relations, it is observed that in the history of the relations between Iran and Russia, various issues and issues have always been hindered by the close relations between the two countries. The beginning of Iran-Soviet relations during the Second Pahlavi era was accompanied by issues such as World War II and subsequent events. The relations between the two countries were influenced by the factors and system variables of the international system, such as the Cold War, the US-Soviet rivalry, the Second World War and the entry of the Allies into Iran, the deconstruction of the relations between the two post-Cold War superpowers, and so on.The main question of the current research is that the political relations between Iran and Russia influenced by the second Pahlavi period?To answer this question, the hypothesis was that Iran's political economic relations were fluctuating in the second Pahlavi era and influenced by the changing system theory of the international system with the Soviet Union. The findings suggest that various variables such as the structure of the international system and international events, including World War II, the arrival of controversial forces in Iran, the Cold War, the post-Cold War, the US and Soviet policies, and the variables such as the issue of oil Azerbaijan's autonomy, Tudeh's actions in Iran, the issue of fisheries and borders. Also, the policies adopted by Iranian politicians, including negative balance policy, positive nationalism and independent national policy, have affected Iran-Soviet relations. In a general conclusion, from 1320 (1942) to 1357 (1979), the relationship between Iran and Russia has been an upward trend towards peaceful coexistence. But expansion of further relations in the economic, technical and cultural fields has been political rather than political.

Bipolarism and Its End, From the Cold War to the Post-Cold War World

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vidya Nadkarni
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
International System ◽  
The United States ◽  
System Structure ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Impact

Bipolarity was viewed both as an empirical condition and as a central explanatory concept, albeit contested, during the Cold War (1945–1989), when two superpowers dominated the international system. The United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) confronted each other as military and ideological rivals heading competing alliance systems—the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), founded in 1949, and the Warsaw Pact established in 1955. Nuclear weaponry added a new wrinkle to the global superpower competition, particularly after the Soviet Union broke the American nuclear monopoly in 1949. A rich literature around these themes emerged as scholars sought to grapple with the explanatory dynamics propelling state behavior under the systemic constraints of bipolarity and the technological challenges presaged by the nuclear age. Such an academic focus meant that the study of international politics, particularly in the United States, was largely refracted through the prism of U.S.-Soviet competition and centered on the nature and implications of polarity, power, alliances, and nuclear deterrence. When the Soviet Union imploded, bipolarity in the sense of two predominant powers ended, as did the division of the world into two opposing blocs. In the post-Cold War period, scholars turned their attention to investigating questions regarding the impact on the nature of system structure and the international order of the collapse of one of the poles. Accordingly, during the Cold War, scholars debated the conceptual and empirical understandings of bipolarity as well as its implications and the causal factors on which the expectation of bipolar stability was based. In the post-Cold War period, scholars reflected over whether the end of ideological (capitalism/democracy vs. communism/single party authoritarianism) conflict presaged the end of history or inaugurated a clash of civilizations, with some questioning the salience of the concept of polarity and the viability of the state system in the face of rising subnational and transnational pressures.

The United States and the Soviet Union

2020 ◽  
pp. 138-152
Author(s):  
Matthew Kroenig
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
The United States ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Global Peace ◽  
Otto Von Bismarck ◽  
The Cold War

Otto von Bismarck famously said that “God has special providence for fools, drunks, and the United States of America.” Divine providence may not have hurt, but it was America’s domestic political institutions that transformed a smattering of British colonies in North America into, first, an independent nation and, then, a global superpower with a network of allies and partners spanning six continents. The United States faced off against the Soviet Union for a half century during the Cold War. But Washington possessed the better institutions, and the stress of the competition caused Moscow’s political system to collapse altogether. In the post–Cold War period that followed, Washington deepened and expanded the Pax Americana, and spread unprecedented levels of global peace, prosperity, and freedom. For the first time since Ancient Rome, a single superpower so overawed any potential competitors that great power rivalry itself came to a temporary halt.

The Indian Ocean Creole Islands: Geo-politics and Decolonisation

1992 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 465-484 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean Houbert
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
International System ◽  
The West ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Indian Ocean ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
North And South ◽  
Radical Transformation

Decolonisation was a policy of the West, as well as a process reflecting the radical transformation of the configuration of power in the international system. The Soviet Union, perceived as poised to dominate Eurasia, had to be ‘contained’ lest it expanded into the Rimland and challenged the West at sea. This geo-political obsession was reinforced by the ‘loss of China’ and the outbreak of the bitter struggle between North and South Korea. But the cold war was about ideology as well as military power, and containment was therefore not just a question of building pacts but of fostering the ‘right’ kind of political régimes.

The United States at the End of the Cold War, 1989–1993

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Graham Wilson
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
The United States ◽  
Mikhail Gorbachev ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Challenges And Opportunities ◽  
The Persian Gulf ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Military Campaign

The Cold War may have ended on the evening of November 9, 1989, when East German border guards opened up checkpoints and allowed their fellow citizens to stream into West Berlin; it certainly was over by January 28, 1992, when U.S. president George H. W. Bush delivered his annual State of the Union Address one month after President Mikhail Gorbachev had announced his resignation and the end of the Soviet Union. After the Berlin Wall came down, Bush and Gorbachev spoke of the Cold War in the past tense in person and on the telephone. The reunification of Germany and U.S. military campaign in the Persian Gulf confirmed that reality. In January 1991, polls indicated that, for the first time, a majority of Americans believed that the Cold War was over. However, the poll results obscured the substantial foreign and domestic crises, challenges, and opportunities created by the end of the Cold War that occupied President Bush and his national-security team between November 1989 and Bush’s defeat in the 1992 presidential inauguration and the inauguration of William Jefferson Clinton as America’s first post–Cold War president in January 1993.

After the Cold War: Wilsonianism Resurgent?

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tony Smith
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
National Security ◽  
World Order ◽  
The United States ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Selective Approach ◽  
The Cold War

This chapter examines the United States's Wilsonianism in the post-Cold War era, first under George H. W. Bush and then under Bill Clinton. It considers how Bush, who became president as the Soviet Union was disintegrating and its leaders were looking for a new framework of understanding with the West, used Wilsonianism to address the question of establishing a world order favorable to American national security. It also discusses various Bush initiatives that were designed to establish a new world order after the cold war, Clinton's selective approach to liberal democratic internationalism, the effects of liberal economic practices on American national security, and the link between nationalism and liberal democracy. Finally, it assesses some of the challenges involved in the United States' efforts to bring about stable constitutional governance in many parts of the world.

Conclusion

2019 ◽  
pp. 240-254
Author(s):  
Edward M. Geist
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
The United States ◽  
Civil Defense ◽  
Policy Implications ◽  
Historical Evolution ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Cold War

This conclusion describes some general findings about the historical evolution of civil defense in the two superpowers over the course of the Cold War. Neither U.S. nor Soviet officials regarded their civil defense efforts as successful, but the shortcomings of the programs appear to have resulted from domestic political obstacles rather than technical, strategic, and budgetary considerations. In the United States, Congressional opponents blocked large-scale funding for civil defense before its unpopularity with the general public became a crippling obstacle. In the Soviet Union, ideological strictures simultaneously impelled the development of civil defense yet undermined its plausibility. This chapter also makes some observations about post-Cold War developments in U.S. and Russian civil defense and their possible policy implications.

Introduction

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph Heller
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Middle East ◽  
Turning Point ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
Military Aid ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Cold War

The strategic importance of the Middle East dictated Israel’s fate in the cold war. While the USSR supported the inimical Arab attitude towards Israel, the US limited its support to Israel to economic military aid. The USSR not only regarded the Arabs as a cold war asset, it accused Israel of being part and parcel of western alliances. The turning point in Soviet-Israeli relations was the Czech-Egyptian arms deal (1955) which changed the balance of power. The Suez war exemplified the explosive situation in the region, and Israel’s shaky position vis-a-vis the the Soviet Union. The combination of strategic weakness and constant Arab hatred put Israel continually on the brink of war. The eruption of another war was on the horizon immediately following the Sinai campaign.

3. The Cold War in the Middle East

2019 ◽  
pp. 63-79
Author(s):  
Peter Sluglett ◽  
Andrew Payne
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Middle East ◽  
Political Development ◽  
American Foreign Policy ◽  
Middle Eastern ◽  
Great Part ◽  
Eastern State ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Cold War

This chapter examines the effects of the Cold War upon the states of the Middle East. Although the region was not so profoundly affected as other parts of the world in terms of loss of life or major revolutionary upheaval, it is clear that the lack of democracy and many decades of distorted political development in the Middle East are in great part a legacy of the region's involvement at the interstices of Soviet and American foreign policy. After a brief discussion of early manifestations of USSR–US rivalry in Greece, Turkey, and Iran at the beginning of the Cold War, the chapter uses Iraq as a case study of the changing nature of the relations between a Middle Eastern state and both superpowers from the 1940s until the collapse of the Soviet Union.

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