Challenging US Hegemony: The Ukrainian Crisis and Russian Regional Order

2017 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 76-95
Author(s):  
Michael O. Slobodchikoff
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Dynamic Change ◽  
The United States ◽  
Global Order ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Regional Order ◽  
Us Hegemony ◽  
Ukrainian Crisis ◽  
The Cold War

Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia was reduced from the role of a global hegemon to that of a regional hegemon. As the regional hegemon, Russia was responsible for creating a regional order that was nested within the global order. However, since the Soviet Union had collapsed, it could not be assumed that Russia would create a regional order that was compatible with the global order. Would Russia create a regional order that was incompatible with the global order, and further, would Russia be a dissatisfied state that would challenge US hegemony? Using network analysis, I discover that Russia created a regional order that was compatible with the global order. In other words, Russia did not directly challenge the global order. More specifically, Russia accepted the global order that existed at the end of the Cold War. Providing that the global order remained static, Russia would not challenge that order. However, US actions following the collapse of the Soviet Union such as the expansion ofnatoand the withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty are interpreted by Russia as a dynamic change in the global order. The Ukrainian crisis further exacerbated the wedge that had developed between the United States and Russia. It has further isolated Russia, destroyed the regional order nested within the global order, and ensured that Russia fully became a dissatisfied state looking to challenge US hegemony. Russia will now turn to China to try to challenge US hegemony.

The Sputnik Challenge

Willy Ley ◽  
2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jared S. Buss
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
The United States ◽  
Cultural Lag ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Cold War

This chapter discusses the myriad of Ley’s activities during the late 1950s, when his status as a scientific celebrity and rocket expert peaked. It follows his pre-Sputnik and post-Sputnik tactics. Not only did Ley encourage millions of Americans to believe in American “firsts” in 1955 and 1956, but also he encouraged Americans to express resentment, anger, and shock following the launch of Sputnik I in 1957. In newspaper columns that circulated across the United States, Ley expressed fears of missile gaps and cultural lag with the Soviet Union. While historians have analyzed the role of politicians during the Cold War, they have not recognized the role of Ley as America’s rocket expert, who now shared the stage with Wernher von Braun.

Soviet Americanists, Academic Exchanges, the KGB and the Promotion of Video Media from Capitalist America during the Cold War

2021 ◽  
pp. 361-380
Author(s):  
Sergei Zhuk
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
The United States ◽  
Visual Media ◽  
Cultural Products ◽  
Popular Films ◽  
Television Shows ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Usa ◽  
The Cold War

This essay is an attempt, made by using the personal stories of Soviet Americani-sts, to study the role of Soviet academic visitors, approved and supervised by the KGB, in promoting the cultural products from the USA - mainly such visual media as films and television - in the USSR during the period of academic exchanges after 1959. During their visits to the United States, Soviet Americanists used their leisure time not only for sightseeing, visiting museums and shopping, but also for various forms of cultural entertainment, from watching films and television shows to visiting concerts of classical and popular music. These experiences eventually affected the recommenda-tions about American cultural products, which Soviet visitors submitted to the KGB and their supervisors after their return home. During the 1970s and the 1980s, Soviet admi-nistration benefited from such useful advice about American popular films and televi-sion programs, which could be promoted in the USSR. Even the KGB administration in the Soviet Union studied the lists of recommendations made by those scholars, and used them for promoting the "progressive, humanistic" American cultural products among local Communist and Komsomol leaders for the education of Soviet audience.

3. International history 1900–99

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Len Scott
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
The United States ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Total War ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
East West

This chapter focuses on some of the principal developments in world politics from 1900 to 1999: the development of total war, the advent of nuclear weapons, the onset of cold war, and the end of European imperialism. It shows how the confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union became the key dynamic in world affairs, replacing the dominance of — and conflict among — European states in the first half of the twentieth century. It also examines the ways that the cold war promoted or prevented global conflict, how decolonization became entangled with East–West conflicts, and how dangerous the nuclear confrontation between East and West was. Finally, the chapter considers the role of nuclear weapons in specific phases of the cold war, notably in détente, and then with the deterioration of Soviet–American relations in the 1980s.

scholarly journals The Future of World Order: Building a Community of Common Destiny

2017 ◽  
Vol 03 (02) ◽  
pp. 159-173 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vladimir Yakunin
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
International Relations ◽  
World Order ◽  
The United States ◽  
Global Order ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Common Destiny

This article briefly examines the political and ideological aspects of Western countries’ post-Cold War approach to the world order. The Western triumph in the Cold War is generally attributed to reasons that are largely erroneous. The ongoing crises in international relations reveal structural inconsistencies, which have been present in the United States’ foreign strategy since the collapse of the Soviet Union and have contributed to the subsequent erosion of the global order. The article analyzes the new trends of globalization resulting from the unexpected victory of Donald Trump in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. It concludes that Russia and China have now largely recognized Washington’s failure to establish a unipolar world system and to legitimize it through various political and media mechanisms and techniques. It suggests that it is only through the solidary development that both China and Russia are currently championing with their recent grand integration initiatives that a more successful and sustainable multipolar world benefiting every nation on the planet can be built and maintained.

Foreign Intelligence and the Historiography of the Cold War

2004 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 21-56 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raymond L. Garthoff
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
The United States ◽  
Unintended Consequences ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Cold War Era ◽  
Foreign Intelligence ◽  
The Cold War

Foreign intelligence played a number of important roles in the Cold War, but this topic has not received the scholarly attention it deserves. This survey article provides a broad overview of some of the new literature and documentation pertaining to Cold War era intelligence, as well as the key dimensions of the topic. Despite the continued obstacles posed by secrecy and the mixed reliability of sources, the publication of numerous memoirs and the release of a huge volume of fresh archival material in the post— Cold War era have opened new opportunities to study the role of intelligence in Cold War history. Scholars should explore not only the “micro level” of the problem (the impact of intelligence on specific events) but also the “macro level,” looking at the many ways that the Cold War as a whole (its origins, its course, and its outcome) was influenced, perhaps even shaped, by the intelligence agencies of the United States, the Soviet Union, and other key countries. It is also crucial to examine the unintended consequences of intelligence activities. Some interesting examples of “blowback” (effects that boomerang against the country that initiated them) have recently come to light from intelligence operations that the United States undertook against the Soviet Union. Only by understanding the complex nature of the role of intelligence during the Cold War will we be able to come to grips with the historiographic challenge that the topic poses.

The Nuclear Revolution

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Campbell Craig
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
Atomic Bomb ◽  
The United States ◽  
Arms Races ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Cold War

This chapter, which examines the role of nuclear weapons in the Cold War and the role of the Cold War in the nuclear revolution, argues that the development of nuclear weapons significantly affected the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union beyond the nuclear crises and arms races. It investigates the role of the atomic bomb in making impossible the postwar cooperation between the United States and the Soviet Union, and evaluates the role of nuclear fear in invalidating the Soviet's Marxism-Leninism ideology. The chapter also considers how the mutual assured destruction pushed the superpowers away from direct military confrontation and into senseless weapon overproduction at home.

Messengers of Death

2021 ◽  
pp. 224-241
Author(s):  
Evan Renfro
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
The United States ◽  
Terrorist Attacks ◽  
Mass Shootings ◽  
Mass Violence ◽  
Lone Wolf ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Cold War

This chapter analyzes the cyber environment of mass violence and terrorism globally. More specifically, it uncovers the role of cyberspace at the root of terror. Since the fall of the Soviet Union and conclusion of the Cold War, the United States (US) has been perceived both domestically and globally as the single super power capable of anything, but it remains vulnerable to a not-so-new tactic of destruction. 9/11 made that clear and spawned an immense architecture of countering terrorism, which as of this writing has been successful in the limited sense of defending the country from the sort of catastrophic wreckage that occurred that September morning. From mass shootings to “lone wolf” terrorist attacks, the US and the international community remain quite vulnerable to terror. While the role of cyber is not deterministic, its importance is as overwhelming as it is overlooked by policymakers and scholars alike.

Ideology and the Investment Regime

2021 ◽  
pp. 130-147
Author(s):  
Erik Voeten
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Dimensional Space ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Ideological Space ◽  
Low Dimensional ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Investment Agreements

This chapter investigates how ideological contestation has shaped the institutions that protect foreign investment from expropriation. It explains how a focus on competition in a low-dimensional ideological space helps one make sense of the emergence of the investment regime and adjustments to it. From the U.S. perspective, the investment regime is partially about protecting the specific assets of American investors. Yet this could be achieved through other means. The institutional regime is also about advancing principles favored by the United States over alternative principles advocated by the Soviet Union and other states. This chapter first details ideological conflict during the Cold War. It then uses the framework from Chapter 4 to analyze the role of ideology in determining which countries did and did not sign bilateral investment treaties (BITs) with the United States. Finally, the chapter shows that governments that changed their ideological orientations since originally negotiating BITs are the most likely to renegotiate or end treaties. The rational functional rationales of investment agreements must be understood against the backdrop of fierce ideological competition in a low-dimensional space.

scholarly journals CONTESTED HEGEMONY: RUSSIA’S APPROACH TO THE MILITARY AND ECONOMIC PREDOMINANCE OF THE US IN WORLD AFFAIRSHEGEMONIA CONTESTADA: A ABORDAGEM RUSSA QUANTO À PREDOMINÂNCIA MILITAR E ECONÔMICA GLOBAL DOS EUA

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (20) ◽  
Author(s):  
Valdir da Silva Bezerra
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
International System ◽  
The United States ◽  
Russian Economy ◽  
The World Bank ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Military

This paper discusses the Russian approach, from a rhetorical and practical viewpoint, regarding the military and economic predominance of the United States in the International System. The research method adopted was based on the compilation of statements by Russian authorities about the US position on the global stage, as well as on the presentation of the main initiatives and actions taken by the Kremlin, particularly from the 2000s onwards, in opposition to US interests both in the military and economic spheres. The first section initially deals with Russia’s intervention in Syria and Moscow's actions vis-a-vis the dismantling of bilateral nuclear-force treaties signed between the US and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. The second section brings the Russian articulation within the BRICS group as a criticism to American (and Western) privileges within institutions such as the IMF and the World Bank, posteriorly pointing out to the steps taken by Moscow in its quest to make the Russian economy less dependent on the dollar. We conclude by observing that in both military and economic aspects Moscow has obtained moderate results in view of its aspirations regarding the role of counterweight to the American power in International Relations.

scholarly journals The Corona Virus Pandemic and Global Transformations: Making or Breaking International Orders?

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (5) ◽  
pp. 20-37
Author(s):  
G. Simons
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
The United States ◽  
Black Swan ◽  
Global Order ◽  
Corona Virus ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Us ◽  
Relative Decline ◽  
The Cold War

In the period of the 21st century leading up to the Corona Virus pandemic, there was increasing consensus that the global order that had existed since the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union where the unipolar hegemony of the United States was in relative decline, weakening and transforming. It was transforming from a unipolar to multipolar order, of course, the US was not going to leave the transformation uncontested in order to retain its privileged global position. The Corona Virus outbreak was a black swan event, it is also being used by various international actors to leverage opportunities caused by the weaknesses exposed in this extraordinary time. The US has been acting in an aggressive manner during the pandemic in an effort to try and weaken opponents and coerce friends in order to ‘cancel’ the pre-Corona Virus global transformations and retain its global hegemony.

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