The Nyon Arrangements of 1937: A Success sui generis

1971 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 163-176
Author(s):  
Donald N. Lammers
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Decisive Role ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Great Power ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Law ◽  
Historical Judgment ◽  
Direct Attack

Here is a concise, recent and thoroughly orthodox historical judgment on the Nyon Arrangements of 1937: There was one minor but significant exception to the inaction of of the British and the French. In 1937, pirates in the form of unidentified Italian warships, began sinking British and French merchantmen entering Republican ports. To this, a direct attack and affront, France and Britain responded with firmness. A Conference was called in September at Nyon, in Switzerland, and the law was laid down. The sinkings stopped abruptly. It was a most instructive incident, but no lessons were drawn. Indeed, the governments wished, apparently, to draw no lessons.Here is another judgment, this one by a Soviet historian, which offers a somewhat different view of this episode: Bourgeois political persons ignore the positive, determined role of the Soviet Union in the outcome of the conference and assign the achievement of its successful results only to the unity of England and France. [Thus] Eden, in a letter to Churchill written after the conference, explained that its results showed the wholesomeness and effectiveness of cooperation between England and France. “The two Western Powers proved that they could play a decisive role in European affairs.” Eden completely ignores the fact that at the conference in Nyon there took part not two, but three Great Powers. The third Great Power, which played a first-class role in the resolution of the problem of piracy, was the Soviet Union. Eden's statement does not answer the question, why earlier, before the Nyon conference, England did not succeed in attaining such results.

Factors Promoting Sphere of Influence Relationships

1973 ◽  
Vol 8 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 155-171 ◽  
Author(s):  
Trygve Mathisen
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Political Influence ◽  
The United States ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Great Power ◽  
Small States ◽  
Factors Affecting ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Sphere Of Influence

In the following article an attempt has been made to identify factors affecting the implementation of expansionist and imperialist policies, and consequently it sheds light on the problem why some weaker states become the sphere of influence of greater powers while other small states are less exposed to such influence. Domestic motive forces which may prompt a great power to embark on policies of expansion are only briefly dealt with. On the basis of historical considerations a tentative conclusion is made concerning some factors affecting sphere of influence relationships. These factors are applied to the contemporary situation in an attempt to identify what areas are likely to remain exposed to strong great power influence, and to suggest in what directions the great powers are likely to expand their influence. It is assumed that the United States has reached at least a temporary climax with regard to the intensity and extension of its political influence. The Soviet Union and China, and most probably also Japan, are considered more capable of expanding their influence in the immediate future. It is, therefore, assumed that parts of Asia and Africa will remain areas of great power rivalry, but the present role of the great powers will reveal considerable changes, particularly in Southeast Asia.

Watching the Soviet Union Decline

2018 ◽  
pp. 99-118
Author(s):  
Joshua R. Itzkowitz Shifrinson
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Relative Position ◽  
State Policy ◽  
The United States ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Great Power ◽  
Archival Research ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Union Decline

Chapters 2 and 3 helped confirm that rising states support declining great powers when decliners can help rising states against other great power threats. In contrast, Chapters 4 and 5 assess the logic of rising state predation by examining the United States’ response to the Soviet Union’s decline in the 1980s and early 1990s. Chapter 4 first provides an overview of the Soviet Union’s waning relative position and discusses U.S. efforts to monitor the trend. Next, it reviews existing research on the course of U.S. strategy and relates this work to alternative accounts of rising state policy. The bulk of the chapter then uses extensive archival research to evaluate the factors central to predation theory and predict U.S. strategy given the argument. These predictions are analyzed in Chapter 5.

The Resurgence of Interwar Germany

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
David M. Edelstein
Keyword(s):  
Great Britain ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Interwar Period ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Great Power ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Time Horizons ◽  
The Soviet Union

While Hitler’s Germany in the 1930’s has received abundant attention, this chapter begins earlier in the interwar period. Throughout the 1920’s, Europe’s great powers debated how to manage a defeated Germany that had the latent power potential to again become a great power. This chapter traces how Great Britain, France, and the Soviet Union addressed this challenge. It argues that all three of these European powers preferred to cooperate with Germany in the short-term rather than paying the high cost of competing with Germany when it had uncertain long-term intentions. This explanation based on time horizons is superior to alternative explanations based on either buckpassing or engagement.

scholarly journals The Origins of European Security: the Factor of Neutrality in the early 1970s

2021 ◽  
Vol 103 (3) ◽  
pp. 71-82
Author(s):  
Alexey Sindeev ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Foreign Minister ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Federal Republic Of Germany ◽  
European Security ◽  
Interstate Relations ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Over Time

The article continues to explore a topic of «Sources of European Security».The author analyzes the role of personalities, processes and factors that have influenced the modern European security system, sustainable and variable elements of the transformation of the European segment of international relations. On the basis of documents from the Swiss Federal Archives, this article highlightsthe position of Switzerland and, in some cases, Austria before the start of the substantive discussions of the agreed agenda at the Conference for Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE). The 1970 Moscow Treaty between the USSR and the Federal Republic of Germany and the start of the CSCE process led to the Soviet Union abandoning its longstanding attempts to establish cooperation between the great powers in parallel with the UN structures.The Foreign Minister of the USSR Andrei Gromyko warned against this. Subsequently, the role of the small and medium-sized countries in the two ideological camps increased. The overall picture of interstate relations became more complicated. It is therefore no coincidence that the CSCE is treatedcontroversially in historiography. Considering that transformations are associated with continuous forms, positions, and mechanisms that have been tested over time, the author makes hypotheses and recommendations at the end of the article.

Realism and great power subversion

2020 ◽  
Vol 34 (4) ◽  
pp. 459-481
Author(s):  
William C Wohlforth
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Cost Benefit ◽  
The United States ◽  
Central Place ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Great Power ◽  
Support Theory ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Low Levels ◽  
Preliminary Support

I present a realist theory of subversion among great powers, an understudied phenomenon in the burgeoning literature on subversive statecraft. I show that a simple, rational cost-benefit calculus accounts for comparatively low-levels of subversion among non-belligerent great powers, much higher levels among belligerent great powers, and more frequent, violent and larger-scale subversion against weaker targets. Brief case studies of mid-twentieth century subversion featuring the Soviet Union and the United States illustrate the theory and provide preliminary support. Theory and evidence show that the conditions that are conducive to highly consequential subversion among great powers are quite limited and reversible. This gives rise to skepticism concerning claims that today’s strategic environment has fundamentally transformed the nature of great power rivalry so as to accord a newly central place to subversion.

The Cabal in Kabul: Great-Power Interaction in Afghanistan

1977 ◽  
Vol 71 (2) ◽  
pp. 468-476 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shaheen F. Dil
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
The United States ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Great Power ◽  
Republic Of China ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Bilateral Action ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Do So

The July 17, 1973 coup serves as a case study of the nature and extent of great-power interest and involvement in Afghanistan. The dynamics of American, Soviet, and Chinese interaction are multifaceted and volatile, and imply that no one great power had outright control. Thus, this treatment concerns influence rather than control, and multilateral interaction rather than unilateral or bilateral action. The differing interests of the great powers in Afghanistan are outlined. Next, the possibility of great-power involvement in the coup is examined. Finally, the impact of the coup upon Afghanistan's relations with the three great powers is considered. Available material suggests that neither the United States nor the People's Republic of China had sufficient interest or influence to instigate the coup. Nor is there any concrete evidence that the Soviet Union played a significant role, although it did have the opportunity, influence, and interests to do so.

Intraregional Conflict Management by the Organization of African Unity

1974 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 345-373 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. David Meyers
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Conflict Management ◽  
The United States ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
African Unity ◽  
International Conflicts ◽  
Regional Conflicts ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Organization Of African Unity

This article examines the intraregional conflict management activities of the Organization of African Unity (OAU). Three traditional regionalist claims are tested and suggestions concerning the future role of such organizations are provided. The findings indicate that in a number of cases the OAU was not an effective agent for conflict management; its limitations were clearest in internal disputes and those international conflicts involving allegations of subversion. Evidence from this study does not convincingly support the proposition that similarities of interests, problems, and loyalties found at the regional level make it more likely that attempts at settlement will be forthcoming and successful. Other findings indicate that the organization was able to isolate intra-regional conflicts from entanglement in more complex global disputes; this ability was, however, highly dependent on the desire of the great powers to remain uninvolved. The OAU was able to relieve the UN of the potential burden of numerous local conflicts, but this too sometimes proved dependent on policy decisions made by the United States or the Soviet Union. It is suggested that regional organizations may assist the superpowers in avoiding unwanted involvement in local disputes, but that unless the conflict management capacity of such organizations is increased, the result may be that many conflicts will remain unsettled.

FORUM: ELIE HALEVY, FRENCH LIBERALISM, AND THE POLITICS OF THE THIRD REPUBLIC INTRODUCTION

2014 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 121-126
Author(s):  
K. STEVEN VINCENT
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Civil Liberties ◽  
Third Republic ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Role Of The State ◽  
General Decline ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Cold War

The history of French liberalism is undergoing a renaissance. For much of the twentieth century, it was viewed with disdain, as insufficiently “engaged,” as too tentative in its demands for social reform, as overly optimistic concerning the progress of reason and science. Scholarship during the past three decades has challenged these views, though it is notable that there is still, to my knowledge, no general history of French liberalism that goes past the consolidation of the Third Republic in the late 1870s. Part of the ongoing reassessment has been the consequence of the decline of revolutionary illusions and of marxisant frameworks of analysis following 1968, reinforced by the more general decline of the left following the end of the Cold War in 1989 and the implosion of the Soviet Union in 1991. Another element contributing to this reassessment has been the emergence of more nuanced definitions of “liberalism,” ones that are not limited to legal (civil liberties), political (constitutionalism), and/or economic (free trade) dimensions. Equally important, scholars are insisting, are conceptions of science, of religion, of the role of the state, of solidarity, of sociability, of moeurs, of identity, of gender, of the self.

scholarly journals Non-proliferation of Nuclear Weapons in the US Military-political Strategy and Ukraine

2016 ◽  
pp. 132-152
Author(s):  
O. Potiekhin
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
International Security ◽  
Decisive Role ◽  
Political Strategy ◽  
Nuclear Arsenal ◽  
The Third ◽  
Us Military ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Us

The article deals with the main events and causes of appearance in the US of nuclear taboo under President H. Truman’s influence, who was responsible for the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The consideration is given to the principles and options for containment as a separate case of non-use of nuclear weapons strategy. The positive and negative features of the nuclear deterrent doctrine and policy are shown.The author considers some aspects of the US policy in the sphere of non-proliferation of nuclear weapons related to nuclear taboo and the joint efforts of Washington and Moscow aimed at depriving Ukraine of the nuclear arsenal inherited from the Soviet Union. The discussions on the matter are revealed. The consequences of violation  of the Budapest Memorandum of 1994 and a lack of deterrent power against the Russian aggression in nuclear-free Ukraine are analysed. The attention is focused on the need for the US military and political assistance  to Ukraine and its provision with  appropriate weapons for strengthening international security. It is stressed that nuclear weapons play a decisive role in preventing  the third WW.

Editorial

2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 105-106
Author(s):  
Djene Rhys Bajalan ◽  
Welat Zeydanlioglu
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Group Formation ◽  
The Third ◽  
Refugee Families ◽  
Political Group ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Diasporic Community ◽  
Kurdistan Workers Party

The three articles published in this issue cover a wide range of topics. Sociologist Joost Jongerden’s article, “A spatial perspective on political group formation in Turkey after the 1971 coup: The Kurdistan Workers’ Party of Turkey (PKK)”, examines the Kurdistan Revolutionaries, the milieu from which the PKK emerged in 1978. The second article in our October issue shifts focus to the Kurdish diaspora in Europe. Psychologists Ruth Kevers, Peter Rober and Lucia De Haene in their collaborative piece titled “The role of collective identifications in family processes of post-trauma reconstruction: An exploratory study of Kurdish refugee families and their diasporic community”, engage in the study of a group of five families in Belgium. The third article in our issue is titled “Kurds in the USSR, 1917-1956” and penned by J. Otto Pohl, a historian of the Soviet Union. 

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