The Christian Parties of Western Europe

1948 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 30-58 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gabriel Almond
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Party Affiliation ◽  
Wall Street ◽  
Nation States ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Progressive Policy ◽  
The Right ◽  
New Democracy

It is a cliché of Communist propaganda to describe the opposition to the peaceful and progressive policy of the Soviet Union as consisting of Wall Street, fascists and former collaborationists, the Vatican, and the right-wing Socialist “toadies.” The general impression given is one of a monolithic and wholly malevolent alliance of all the reactionary “minorities,” bent on driving the innocent and peace-loving masses into a war against the Soviet Union and the “New Democracy.” It is hardly a betrayal of confidence to point out that the Communist is not given to making distinctions. But it is possible to disentangle at least one element of truth in this somewhat harsh judgment of the world outside. This is, that the units engaged in the present world struggle are not solely, and perhaps not even primarily, the nation-states. There is, in a sense, an “East” in the “West,” and a subdued “West” in the “East.” Ideological and political movements, whether regional or world-wide in scope, have become increasingly important bearers of foreign policy. On the most significant issues of foreign policy in the present crisis, the party affiliation of a Western European makes a greater difference than his national affiliation.

The De-moralization of the Cold War

2018 ◽  
pp. 45-64
Author(s):  
Laurence R. Jurdem
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
The United States ◽  
Nixon Administration ◽  
International Affairs ◽  
Republic Of China ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Cold War

As the American public became increasingly disenchanted over the nation’s ongoing presence in Southeast Asia, the Nixon administration initiated a diplomatic strategy toward the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China. Nixon, who early in his political career had been a passionate anticommunist, began to consider ways in which he might bring China into the international community. The president believed that this strategy had the potential to decrease the Cold War tensions that existed between the United States and the Soviet Union. The foreign policy strategy that Nixon and his national security adviser, Henry Kissinger, developed came to be known as détente. The initiatives that composed Nixon’s policy were based on Kissinger’s realist view of international affairs. That perspective embraced the idea of accepting the world as it was rather than trying to change it. By deemphasizing the importance of the conflict between international communism and democracy, pundits on the Right believed Nixon was not only withdrawing America from its global responsibilities, but in doing so was giving the communist world free reign to pursue a more aggressive foreign policy.

scholarly journals Suomi Moskovasta nähtynä: Suurvaltapolitiikan, sisällissodan ja vallankumouksen leikkauspisteessä 1920–1930

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aappo Kähönen
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
The Great Depression ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Baltic Sea Region ◽  
Soviet Foreign Policy ◽  
The Baltic ◽  
The Right ◽  
Political Decision Making

The focus of this research is on Finland’s role in Soviet Union’s calculation of its foreign policy between 1920 and 1930. This was the first decade of both Finnish independence and of Soviet power in Russia. This book answers questions about the objectives of Soviet foreign policy in Finland, on the contacts used by the Soviet legation to obtain information, and on how well the Soviets understood Finland’s objectives. People interested in Finland and in Russian perspectives with regards to foreign policy and neighbouring countries will find much new in this book because it relies on formerly unpublished Russian archival material to form the basis for charting Soviet objectives in Finland. The book shows that the Soviets primarily observed Finland in a larger regional context along with other states on its borders in the Baltic Sea region. The global objectives of the revolution and the Soviet Union, but also the domestic political situation in both countries, are reflected on this framework. The period was characterized by forced collectivization in the Soviet Union and, in Finland, by the rise of the right-wing Lapua Movement that emerged at the onset of the Great Depression, laying the foundations for the most severe crisis in the relations during 1929–1930 when the issues surrounding these events destabilized simultaneously the society and political decision-making in both countries.

Finlandization Is Not a Gurse Word

Worldview ◽  
1973 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-21
Author(s):  
Anne Fried
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Foreign Affairs ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Senior Editor ◽  
The World

Senior editor Arnaud de Borchgrave of Newsweek writes (July 10,1972):Today, Western Europe is a collection of nations united only in disunity. Within the last month, I have spoken with more than a dozen of the top foreign policy planners in Europe. Never before have I seen them so gloomy; never before haye I heard so much talk about Europe's confusion and disarray. “The spectacle we are presenting to the world,” one expert told me, “is truly lamentable.” It is more than lamentable; it is highly dangerous. For Western Europe faces the threat of “Finlandization”— which is to say, of finding itself effectively dominated, so far as foreign affairs are concerned, by the Soviet Union.

scholarly journals The Withering Away of the Danger Society: The Pensions Reforms of 1956 and 1964 in the Soviet Union

2015 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 129-148 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark B. Smith
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Industrial Society ◽  
Social Risk ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Social Risks ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Right ◽  
Almost All

While a framework of statist welfare practices was constructed in the 1930s, the principles that underwrote it—and that defined the interaction of individual citizens and state agencies—were changed as a consequence of World War II and transformed as a result of Stalin's death and the onset of de-Stalinization. Following a major sequence of welfare reforms in the Khrushchev period, most people's encounters with social risk were substantially minimized. By the Brezhnev era, problems associated with moral hazard were creating new challenges for policy makers: not only did people enjoy the right to a job, as they had done for decades, but perverse incentives discouraged innovation and, for some, hard work. A welfare system had been established that went far beyond the universalism of Western Europe. Cash transfers diffused social risks. Furthermore, welfare touched almost all areas of life, from jobs to leisure, creating a new kind of industrial society, in which many social risks had been artificially eliminated. The effectiveness of this system was highly uneven, and many miserable examples of welfare provision persisted, but this revised relationship between risk and welfare guided the mentalities of policy makers and ordinary people alike. This article offers a commentary on the long-term nature of this process but focuses particularly on the reforms associated with Khrushchev, especially the pension laws of 1956 and 1964.

The Politics of Indifference: Portugal and Africa, A Case Study in American Foreign Policy

1972 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 9-17
Author(s):  
John Marcum
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Vietnam War ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
American Foreign Policy ◽  
Cost Benefit ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Low Profile ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
The Persian Gulf

To those who peer into the shadows beneath the dazzling peaks of media-lit summitry, the shape of America's projected post (Vietnam) war foreign policy is becoming discernible. Thoroughly nationalist and pragmatic, it stresses advantage and comity in relations with other major powers — whether politico-military (China and the Soviet Union) or economic (Western Europe and Japan). Coonskin zealotry having given way to cost-benefit real-politik, military withdrawal from Southeast Asia is being accompanied by strategic retrenchment. From Guam and Micronesia in the Pacific, to Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, to Bahrain in the Persian Gulf, to the Azores in the Atlantic, American air and sea power is taking on an insular “low profile” — while maintaining a long reach. At the same time, domestic postwar introversion threatens a further decline in already minimal American concern for the fate of the world's relatively powerless and economically disadvantaged.

Just Mild about Harry

The Columnist ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 107-128
Author(s):  
Donald A. Ritchie
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
American Foreign Policy ◽  
Wrong Side ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Harry Truman ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Fair Deal

Harry Truman had a dim view of newspaper pundits, especially Drew Pearson. Although Pearson supported Truman’s Fair Deal, he got on the president’s wrong side by publishing perceived slights of his wife and daughter. Truman fired some of his best sources in the cabinet, but leaks continued, leading Truman to have the FBI investigate Pearson and tap his phones. Pearson regretted the collapse of the alliance with the Soviet Union but supported American foreign policy during the Cold War. In 1947 he sponsored the Freedom Train to collect food and supplies for Western Europe. Holding Defense Secretary James Forrestal responsible for the deepening Cold War, Pearson conducted a sustained attack on him. Blame for Forrestal’s suicide later fell on the columnist. Pearson also targeted Truman’s aide, General Harry Vaughn, for influence peddling and called for his dismissal. Truman responded that he would not let “any S.O.B.” dictate whom he fired.

scholarly journals Russia’s Foreign Policy Evolution in the New Balkan Landscape

2020 ◽  
Vol 56 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 179-199
Author(s):  
Ekaterina Entina ◽  
Alexander Pivovarenko
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Regional Security ◽  
Southeast Europe ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Current Trends ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
The Difference

The article reflects on the issue of the foreign policy strategy of modern Russia in the Balkans region. One of the most significant aspects of this problem is the difference in views between Russia and the West. Authors show how different interpretations of the events in former Yugoslavia in the 1990s and the beginning of the 2000s predetermined the sense of mutual suspicion and mistrust which spread to other regions such as the post-Soviet space. Exploring differences between the Russian and the Western (Euro-Atlantic) views on the current matters, authors draw attention to fundamental differences in terminology: while the Western narrative promotes more narrow geographical and political definitions (such as the Western Balkan Six), traditional Russian experts are more inclined to wider or integral definitions such as “the Balkans” and “Central and Southeast Europe”. Meanwhile none of these terms are applicable for analysis of the current trends such as the growing transit role of the Balkans region and its embedding in the European regional security architecture. Therefore, a new definition is needed to overcome the differences in vision and better understand significant recent developments in the region. Conceptualizing major foreign policy events in Central and Southeast Europe during the last three decades (the 1990s, 2000s and 2010s), authors demonstrate the significance of differences in tools and methods between the Soviet Union and the modern Russia. Permanent need for adaptation to changing political and security context led to inconsistence in Russian Balkan policy in the 1990s. Nevertheless, Russia was able to preserve an integral vision of the region and even to elaborate new transregional constructive projects, which in right political circumstances may promote stability and become beneficial for both Russia and the Euro-Atlantic community.

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