scholarly journals NON-ALIGNMENT MOVEMENT: IT’S RELEVANCE IN PRESENT CONTEXT

2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (6) ◽  
pp. 272-279
Author(s):  
Balwinder Singh

After the end of Second World War, the two power bloc was raising in world politics and the revelry between the blocs was on top. The Cold War politics emerged as a bitter experience of international relations. Both blocs were mollifying the other countries of the world. It had to become stronger because of many newly independent countries. For the sake their independence many countries choose the third path to avoiding war and keeping their independence, they framed NAM (Non-alignment Movement). Most of these countries was belong to Asia and Africa and also newly independent. The US (United States) and European countries criticized NAM and revoked it as a group of opportunist countries. The NAM emerged as an international platform as a third alternative of two power blocs. The NAM was the international phenomenon of developing and third world countries. Non-alignment grew out of the cold war bitter relationship between US and USSR. Some developing and third world newly independent countries refused to post Second World War world politics through the eyes of their erstwhile colonial rulers. Indian Prime Minister Nehru was one of the paramount leaders of NAM since its inception. After the demise of British rule in India, India also refused to join any bloc in Cold War time. Nehru did not want to enter in two bloc politics due to India’s national interests. He thought that Indian independence could diminish if India going toward any blocs and adopted Non-alignment as an instrument of foreign policy. He also made effort to discuss other world leader to formulate NAM as platform of collective voice of newly independence countries. The paper also aims to explain India’s contribution to the Non-alignment Movement. The first formal conference of NAM was in Bandung in 1961. Nehru and others NAM leaders uttered against new imperialism in Asia and Africa in Bandung Summit by the western countries. Some countries raise questions about the importance and relevance of NAM and produce it as a callous movement after the end of the Cold War. However the broader membership of NAM proved its relevance and importance. Most of the world countries adopted NAM membership due to its popularity and momentous agenda. While the Cold War strategic environment underestimates Non-alignment movement and the two power blocs tried to demoralize Non-alignment movement, however the Non-alignment movement was accomplishing their work with a greater momentum. Non-alignment, both as a foreign policy perspective of most newly independence states of Asia, Africa and Latin America and as well as an international movement was a critical factor of contemporary international relations. The Non-alignment movement was the collective voice of developing and third world countries since the first official meeting of its leaders in Belgrade in 1961. The policy of the Non-alignment has been being the issue of debate in international politics since its origin. In 1970’s, its importance and relevance had questioned, with the emergence of détente in international relations. The US and European countries did not consider the NAM movement at that time. Both power blocs were also questioned the role of NAM in cold war era. The western countries always tagged NAM as a collaboration of opportunist countries. It was such a big thing that NAM survived in fracas of cold war. The study tried to remove skepticism on Non-alignment and NAM in post-Cold War arena. It is also suggesting a new way for making the movement effective and relevant in present context.

2005 ◽  
Vol 21 ◽  
pp. 8-44 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kazuhiko Togo

Out of the deep spiritual vacuum from defeat in the Second World War, two fundamental rifts emerged in Japan. First, on the foreign policy front, the realism embraced by the conservative government was opposed by strong idealistic pacifism advocated by opposition parties and media, and this rift continued until the end of the Cold War. Second, with regard to the war in Asia, the Japanese gradually learned of atrocities committed, for which Japan owed an apology. However, views prevailing at the time to totally reject the past caused discomfort aming many Japanese, and the issue of lost identity was left unanswered during the Cold War. When the Cold War ended, Japan began to move towords a more responsible and self-assertive security and defence policy. A series of initiatives toward clearer apology and reconciliation were confronted by a strengthened nationalism, and the issue of lost identity remained unresolved at the end of the 1990s. Koizumi has done well to implement a more responsible, proactive, realistic and self-assertive security and defence policy; moreover relations with the US have been considerably strengthened. But in East Asia, the issue of lost identity has reappeared and foreign policy towards Russia, Korea and China has resulted in a hardning of Japan's position in the region. Japan needs to have the courage to overcome this unresolved issue, while other countries' greater understanding of Japan's move toward a re-established identity will facilitate this process. Genuine dialogue is needed on all fronts.


2020 ◽  
Vol 99 (6) ◽  
pp. 5-14
Author(s):  
Alexey Gromyko ◽  

The article continues the research of the “big three” strategic thinking, especially the USSR and the USA, during the Second World War, their contribution to the post-war settlement with the United Nations as a key element. Their approaches to new mechanisms of global governance were developing on parallel and overlapping courses. On the chronology of the Cold War, the author proposes to define its start as an extended period from 1945 until the end of the decade. This methodology avoids absolutization of intentions, separate events and statements. Instead it imbeds them in the process of political-military structures’ construction, designed for regional and global confrontation. The attention is paid to the role of the subjective factor in transition of the “big three” from cooperation to the Cold War. The meaning of the Iranian crisis is demonstrated as an additional source of the Cold War’s premises. The author reveals the milieu of conflicting views in the US political establishment on the legacy of the “Roosevelt course” including the nuclear factor. The conclusion is drawn that in the years of the Second World War great powers pursued long-term policy towards the post-war settlement putting aside political conjuncture.


Author(s):  
Malcolm Mackintosh

John Erickson made his mark as a historian, scholar, soldier and military analyst during a period of major upheaval in international relations after the Second World War — especially in Europe — and during the clash between Soviet Communism and the Western group of nations which became known as the Cold War. He was actively involved in efforts to establish an informed academic dialogue between East and West on arms control issues. The earliest initiative came to Edinburgh through a process which became known as the Edinburgh Conversations.


2005 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-21 ◽  
Author(s):  
PERTTI AHONEN

This article analyses the process through which the dangers posed by millions of forced migrants were defused in continental Europe after the Second World War. Drawing on three countries – West Germany, East Germany and Finland – it argues that broad, transnational factors – the cold war, economic growth and accompanying social changes – were crucial in the process. But it also contends that bloc-level and national decisions, particularly those concerning the level of autonomous organisational activity and the degree and type of political and administrative inclusion allowed for the refugees, affected the integration process in significant ways and helped to produce divergent national outcomes.


Author(s):  
Andrew I. Port

The ‘long 1950s’ was a decade of conspicuous contrasts: a time of dismantling and reconstruction, economic and political, as well as cultural and moral; a time of Americanization and Sovietization; a time of upheaval amid a desperate search for stability. But above all, it was a time for both forgetting and coming to terms with the recent past. This article focuses on the two forms of government that controlled Germany, democracy, and dictatorship. The Cold War was without doubt the main reason for the rapid rehabilitation and integration of the two German states, which more or less took place within a decade following the end of the Second World War. This article further elaborates upon the political conditions under dictatorship and its effect on the social life. East Germany, under the Soviet control underwent as much political upheaval. It was not until the second half of the twentieth century that Germany became a democracy.


2018 ◽  
Vol 51 (3) ◽  
pp. 368-376
Author(s):  
Harold Behr

This article presents the writings of Gregory van der Kleij, group analyst and Catholic priest, whose experiences of the holocaust during the Second World War shaped his thinking, not only as a therapist but also as a campaigner against the nuclear arms race. The author re-visits two significant articles on the group matrix published in this journal in the 1980s and introduces the reader to a little-known monograph addressed to the Catholic community which examines the moral dilemma faced by Christians during the Cold War. The monograph contains an exhortation to rise up in protest against what Gregory considers to be ‘the madness’ of high-level thinking on the morality of the nuclear deterrent.


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