scholarly journals Bush’s ‘Beyond Containment’ strategy toward the Eastern Bloc in 1989 within the US Foreign Policy context

2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 367-392
Author(s):  
David Mareček

Abstract This paper explores the foreign policy of US President George H. W. Bush and his administration towards the Soviet Union and the other countries of the Warsaw Pact. The article also focuses on two historically significant American foreign policy strategies that were implemented during the earlier years of the Cold War: containment and détente. The rapidly changing international environment and Bush’s Beyond Containment policy which, aimed to respond to these changes, became the basis for the following research questions: 1) How did American conception of foreign policy approach to Eastern Bloc countries such as Hungary or Poland change under the Bush administration in 1989 in comparison to the period of implementation of the containment or détente? 2) How did the American perception of the retreating Soviet power within the bipolar international structure affect American diplomatic relations with the Eastern European governments? The aim of the paper is to put Bush’s foreign policy in his first year in office in the American ‘Cold War’ foreign policy context and to compare the classical American political strategies with Bush’s foreign policy in 1989.

2021 ◽  
pp. 42-79
Author(s):  
Derek Chollet

This chapter explores what Eisenhower, H. W. Bush, and Obama set out to achieve in foreign policy—explaining the initial strategic choices they made once in office, how they formulated them, and what influenced their thinking. It analyzes Eisenhower’s effort to build a foundation for US foreign policy in the early Cold War years and devise a sustainable concept of containment; Bush’s attempts to understand the nature of change in the Soviet Union and the possibilities for superpower cooperation, especially how to define American foreign policy after the Cold War; and Obama’s work to promote a foreign policy based on “smart power” and to “rebalance” US foreign policy to address twenty-first-century geopolitical shifts after inheriting a catastrophic economic crisis at home.


The Columnist ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 107-128
Author(s):  
Donald A. Ritchie

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.


Author(s):  
Marjorie L. Jeffrey

This chapter investigates American foreign policy, looking at the persistence of a neoconservative foreign policy in the conservative movement and why it has not been discarded despite its obvious limitations. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, the American Right faced an existential question: Would it support the continuation of a semi-imperial foreign policy, or would it seek to redirect political energies toward domestic policy? The 1992 Republican primary and the victory of the incumbent president, George H. W. Bush, against his challenger, Pat Buchanan, answered that question. Until the election of 2016, both major parties were in agreement on matters of foreign policy, except for working out the details. The chapter studies the philosophic claims of the interventionist, or “neoconservative,” wing of the American conservative movement, against the foreign policy prescriptions of the American Founders, as well as those of such truly conservative modern critics as George Kennan and Buchanan.


2021 ◽  
Vol 22 ◽  
pp. 667-675
Author(s):  
Mohamad Hasan Soueidan

The Yum Kippur War, or as the Egyptians call it The October War, is one of the most important wars in the history of the Middle East between the coalition of Egypt and Syria versus Israel. It occurred at a time when the two superpowers then, the Americans and the Soviet Union, were in engaging in what was called the Cold War. For that every Superpower used to support a certain party of conflict to assure the balance of global dominance isn't affected. This paper reviews American foreign policy during the war in 1973. It concentrates on how the American institutions and foreign policy activists acted and influenced the outcome of the war. The paper finally conducts a counter analysis on what could have happened if the Americans didn’t support the Israelis in the war.


Author(s):  
K. Demberel ◽  

The article deals with the issue of Mongolia's foreign policy during the Cold War. This period is divided into two parts. The first period, 1945-1960s, is a period of conflict between two systems: socialism and capitalism. In this first period of the Cold War Mongolia managed to establish diplomatic relations with socialist countries of Eastern Europe, as the “system allowed”. The second period, from the mid-1960s to the mid-1980s, is the period of the conflict of the socialist system, the period of the Soviet-Chinese confrontation. During this period Mongolia's foreign policy changed dramatically and focused on the Soviet Union. This was due to the Soviet investment «boom» that began in 1960s and the entry of Soviet troops on the territory of Mongolia in 1967. The Soviet military intervention into Mongolia was one of the main reasons for cooling the Soviet-Chinese relations. And military withdrawal contributed to the improvement of Soviet-Chinese relations until the mid-1980s and one of the conditions for improving relations with their neighbors. The internal systemic conflict had a serious impact on Mongolia's foreign policy over those years.


Author(s):  
Peter Rutland ◽  
Gregory Dubinsky

This chapter examines U.S. foreign policy in Russia. The end of the Cold War lifted the threat of nuclear annihilation and transformed the international security landscape. The United States interpreted the collapse of the Soviet Union as evidence that it had ‘won’ the Cold War, and that its values and interests would prevail in the future world order. The chapter first provides an overview of the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 before discussing U.S.–Russian relations under Bill Clinton and Boris Yeltsin, respectively. It then turns to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and its enlargement, the Kosovo crisis, and the ‘Great Game’ in Eurasia. It also analyses the rise of Vladimir Putin as president of Russia and the deterioration of U.S.–Russian relations and concludes with an assessment of the cautious partnership between the two countries.


Author(s):  
Richard Saull

This chapter offers a theoretically informed overview of American foreign policy during the Cold War. It covers the main historical developments in U.S. policy: from the breakdown of the wartime alliance with the USSR and the emergence of the US–Soviet diplomatic hostility and geopolitical confrontation,to U.S. military interventions in the third world and the U.S. role in the ending of the Cold War. The chapter begins with a discussion of three main theoretical approaches to American foreign policy during the Cold War: realism, ideational approaches, and socio-economic approaches. It then considers the origins of the Cold War and containment of the Soviet Union, focusing on the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan. It also examines the militarization of U.S. foreign policy with reference to the Korean War, Cold War in the third world, and the role of American foreign policy in the ending of the Cold War.


Author(s):  
Richard Saull

This chapter examines US foreign policy during the Cold War, beginning with an overview of the main historical developments in US policy. It first considers the origins of the Cold War and containment, focusing on the breakdown of the wartime alliance between the United States and the USSR, the emergence of US–Soviet diplomatic hostility and geopolitical confrontation, and how the Cold War spread beyond Europe. It then explains how the communist revolution in China in 1949 and the outbreak of the Korean War in June 1950 propelled the US towards a much bolder and more ambitious containment policy. It also looks at US military interventions in the third world, the US role in the ending of the Cold War, and the geopolitical, ideational, and/or socio-economic factors that influenced American foreign policy during the Cold War. The chapter concludes with an assessment of the dual concerns of US foreign policy.


2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Oksana Nagornaia

Based on an analysis of modern Cold War historiography, the article considers current discussions, topics, and perspectives in the chosen research landscape. Taking into account the modern circumstances, the author concludes that in the latest publications, there is a tendency to reconsider the dichotomic model “Sovietisation vs Americanisation” and, instead, take a closer look at the representations of socialism and the structures and actors of cultural diplomacy in Eastern Europe. Referring to propaganda projects of socialist integration and intercultural spaces, the author demonstrates what was specifically socialist about the forms and instruments of representations of the Eastern Bloc, the conflicting spheres of collaboration, and independent initiatives of people’s democracies in the sphere of cultural diplomacy. The author concludes that at the end of the Second World War, the propaganda system in the Soviet Union was integrated into a larger scheme of presenting the world system of socialism where the Eastern European states became symbolically appropriated spaces and promising symbolic resources. The cultural initiatives of the socialist countries of Eastern Europe at the international level testify to the cultural pluralism in the Eastern Bloc. The independent steps the countries of the socialist camp took for self-realisation on the international arena testify to this cultural pluralism. The effectiveness of their symbolic messages was facilitated by the geographical proximity to borders, integration into the contexts of western culture, and better developed information resources. In the article, the author’s own analysis is preceded by a review of materials thematically related to the section of the journal on the cultural diplomacy of socialism. Articles referred to in the study and devoted to the projects of the socialist camp prove the thesis that the Eastern Bloc that emerged during the Cold War and the hybrid identities developed under its influence survived the breakdown of the bipolar order and are important for modern culture.


2018 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Marten Hanura

Russia or formerly known as the Soviet Union has a historically unique cooperation and diplomatic relations with Indonesia. This is because the relationship between Indonesia and Russia has a long history and experiencing ups and downs. The closeness of the two countries was influenced ideologically in the early days of Indonesian independence, and later the rise of the New Order regime influenced the dynamics of Indonesian foreign policy. During the New Order period, the Indonesian government began to freeze all forms of cooperative relations with the Soviet Union. The collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War era began to change the map of international politics to affect the situation in Indonesia. In the Post-Reformation era, the normalization of relations between the two countries recovered and lasted until the administration of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. The purpose of this article is to find out how the changes in the implementation of the foreign policy of Indonesia-Russia during the administration of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono with the previous era and what factors underlie Indonesia's foreign policy towards Russia. This research uses the descriptive-analytical method and using some theoretical concepts in the foreign policy-making process. The results of this study concluded that foreign policy between Indonesia and Russia increased significantly in the Post-Reformation era which no longer saw Russia as a threat as in the New Order era. The cooperation between Indonesia and Russia is implemented in various main areas, prominently is the cooperation in the field of military, social, economic and political.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document