scholarly journals Yalta Decisions: Was There an Alternative for the West?

Author(s):  
Vladimir PECHATNOV

The concluding results of the anti-Hitler coalition meeting in Yalta have long been criticized in the United States by the antagonists of Franklin Roosevelt’s policy. In recent decades, they have raised renewed criticism in Central and Eastern Europe and across the West. Though, the decisions of Yalta Conference were fully determined by the balance of power and the real military situation on the war theatre by spring 1945. Each of the Allies pursued their own interests, but they appeared able to achieve a mutually acceptable compromise of these interests for the sake of final victory over common enemy. The Yalta Conference manifested the last upsurge of the Allied cooperation and in no way it served a prologue to the Cold War as it is now being asserted.

2019 ◽  
pp. 127-149
Author(s):  
Victoria Smolkin

This chapter describes the timing and motivations of the USSR's promotion of atheist doctrine. At the outset, it seems, the Soviets expected Orthodoxy to wither away, invalidated by rational argument and the regime's own record of socialist achievement. This did not happen, but Soviet officialdom did not take full cognizance of the fact until the 1950s and 1960s at the height of the Cold War. Then it was that the Soviet Union's confrontation with the West came to be recast in religious terms as an epic battle between atheist communism on the one hand and on the other that self-styled standard-bearer of the Judeo-Christian tradition, the United States. So, here indeed, in Soviet atheism, is a secular church militant—doctrinally armed, fortified by the concentrated power of the modern state, and, as many believed, with the wind of history at its back. It speaks the language of liberation, but what it delivers is something much darker. The chapter then considers the place of ritual in the Soviet secularist project.


Author(s):  
Matthew K. Shannon

The introduction reconstructs Iran’s historical educational ties the West and explains how the United States became the primary destination for Iranian student during the Cold War era. It also engages with various historiographies to situate the book within the appropriate scholarly context.


2019 ◽  
pp. 290-316
Author(s):  
Joshua R. Itzkowitz Shifrinson

Most discussions of cross-domain deterrence focus on variation in the means of coercion, but variation in political ends can be just as consequential. Cross-domain deterrence in the context of linkage politics, in which disparate political interests are tied together to create incentives for favorable outcomes, gives potential adversaries the opportunity to avoid confrontational meeting engagements by playing for time to clarify interests and choosing the means most suited to achieving new goals. A broader diplomatic conception of cross-domain deterrence can also highlight the potential of using financial, institutional, or other nonmilitary actions that render the threat or use of force less attractive. This chapter draws on newly available archival evidence to examine issue linkage politics in the context of changing strategic interests in the case of U.S. efforts to deter Soviet repression in Poland and East Germany at the end of the Cold War. In both cases, U.S. policymakers used diplomatic reassurance and threats of isolation to shape Soviet policy as the United States pressed its new-found political interests in Eastern Europe rather than its traditional preoccupation with military affairs.


Worldview ◽  
1959 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 4-7
Author(s):  
James Greene

The speed with which economics has sped to the front of the Cold War over the past four years has caught the West-used to diplomatic maneuvering and “little wars”-off guard. We have, as yet, no adequate answer to what may well prove to be Communism's most devastating weapon-a Soviet economy producing at a greater per capita rate than the United States. No nation of free men ever rallied round a column of statistics, and yet, clearly, that is where the current battle between East and West has moved.The change, it now seems, was inevitable. When they continue for any period of time, “total” wars, both hot and cold, slip more and more from the grasp of those charged with diplomacy and come to rest upon the impersonal powers of clashing armies, armies either on the battlefields or in the factories.


1999 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 34-37
Author(s):  
Amadu Sesay ◽  
Charles Ukeje

The end of the cold war has made democratization, and its barest essential component elections, imperative for all nondemocratic forms of government. This is to be expected, given the dismal failure of the socialist alternative even in the first socialist country, the former Soviet Union. The United States, which is not only the foremost democracy in the world but also the only superpower, has been in the vanguard of democracy salesmanship. Africa, the continent with the least democratic space, has not been left out, as witnessed by President Bill Clinton’s unprecedented tour of the continent in March 1998.Understandably, Nigeria, arguably the most important country in Africa, was left out of the tour, since it was then under the obnoxious, undemocratic, and oppressive military regime of the late General Sani Abacha.


Author(s):  
Maryna Bessonova

The most widespread plots interpreted as the beginning of the Cold War are the events that took place in 1946: February 9 – J. Stalin’s speech to the electorate in Moscow; February 22 – the American charge d’Affaires in the Soviet Union G. Kennan’s “long telegram”; March 5 – W. Churchill’s speech in Fulton (the USA); September 27 – the Soviet Ambassador in the United States N. Novikov’s “long telegram”. But there was an earlier event, so called “Gouzenko affair”, which is almost unknown for the Ukrainian historiography. On September 5, 1945, Igor Gouzenko, a cipher clerk of the Soviet embassy to Canada, defected to the Canadian side with more than a hundred secret documents that proved the USSR’s espionage activities in the countries of North America. Information about the network of Soviet agents caused a real panic in the West and was perceived as a real start of the Cold War. In the article, there is made an attempt to review the main events related to the Gouzenko affair and to identify the dominant interpretations of this case in contemporary historical writings. One can find different interpretations of the reasons and the consequences of Gouzenko’s defection which dramatically affected the history of the world. One of the main vivid results was an anti-communist hysteria in the West which was caused by the investigation that Canadian, American and British public officials and eminent scientists were recruited by the Soviet Union as agents for the atomic espionage. For Canada, the Gouzenko affair had an unprecedented affect because on the one hand it led to the closer relations with the United States in the sphere of security and defense, and on the other hand Canada was involved into the international scandal and used this case as a moment to start more activities on the international arena. It has been also found that the Canadian and American studies about Gouzenko affair are focused on the fact that the Allies on the anti-Hitler coalition need to take a fresh look at security and further cooperation with the USSR, while the overwhelming majority of Russian publications is focused on the very fact of betrayal of Igor Gouzenko.


Author(s):  
Dianne Kirby

This chapter, which examines the place of religion during the Cold War years, suggests that there were conflicting attitudes toward religion in both the United States and the Soviet Union. It explains that Protestant suspicion of the Vatican complicated U.S.–Vatican relations while church leaders within the Soviet bloc were divided between those who advocated cooperation and those who preferred resistance and active opposition. The chapter also contends that religion provided the United States with a stick with which to beat the new communist regimes, and argues that the so-called religious Cold War influenced religion in the West and the developing world in a variety of ways.


2015 ◽  
Vol 2 (02) ◽  
pp. 01
Author(s):  
Ali Muhammad

AbstrakPaper ini berupaya memahami memburuknya hubungan antara Rusia dan Barat (Uni Eropa danAmerika Serikat) terkait dengan dengan Ukraina. Yang akan menjadi fokus pembahasan adalahmengapa Rusia melakukan anekasi semenajung Krimea dan melakukan intervensi di Ukraina Timur.Inti argumennya adalah bahwa, pertama, aksi aneksasi Rusia sebenarnya adalah hal yang bisadipahami sebagai puncak reaksi terhadap aksi ekspansi masif pengaruh Barat ke Eropa Timur sejakberakhirnya Perang Dingin. Ukraina hanyalah salah satu sisa-sisa dan benteng akhir mitra Rusia diEropa Timur. Kejatuhan tragis presiden Viktor Janukovych yang pro-Rusia di negara tersebut hanyalahmenjadi faktor pemicu bagi tindakan petualangan Rusia. Kedua, sejauh mana efektivitas respons ataureaksi Barat yang berupa sanksi ekonomi dan diplomatik negara-negara Barat atas Rusia belum bisadipastikan. Bagi Barat, upaya mengendalikan aksi �illegal� Rusia sangat dilematis mengingat Rusiaadalah negara great power. Serangkian aksi Rusia sangat mengkawatirkan Barat dan telah memicuketegangan serius, yakni, �Perang Dingin Baru� yang tak terelakkan Kata-kata Kunci: Rusia, Barat, Ukraina, Krimea, Ukraina Timur, Perang Dingin AbstractThis paper attempts to explain the worsening relationship between Russia and the West (EuropeanUnion and the United States) related to Ukraine issue. The focus of the discussion is to elaborate whyRussia carried out an annexation of Crimea peninsula and intervention in the Eastern Ukraine. Themain argument of the paper consists of two points; firstly, annexation by Russia is a peak of reactionsagainst massive expansion of the Western to Eastern Europe since the end of Cold War. Ukraine wasthe last standing partner of Russia in the Eastern Europe. The tragic fall of Victor Janukovych whichwas pro-Russia in the country was only a trigger to Russia�s action. Secondly, the extent of effectivityof response or reaction from the West, for example the economic and diplomatic sanction of Westercountries to Russia is still uncertain. For the West, the attempts to control the �illegal� action of Russiais found to be a dillematic issue considering that Russia is one of the great powers. This worrisomeaction by Russia has led to a sirious tension, namely �a New Cold War�. Keywords: Rusia, West, Ukraine, Crimea, East Ukraine, Cold War


2020 ◽  
pp. 17-44
Author(s):  
Anne Searcy

Chapter 1 discusses the Bolshoi Theater’s first tour of the United States in 1959. While the popular response was rapturous, critics were more cautious. They praised the company’s dancers, particularly the Soviet ballerinas, but disparaged the choreography and music. This split was gendered and allowed critics and audiences to sympathize with the performers while condemning the ostensibly more political works themselves. The chapter focuses on Sergei Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet and Stone Flower. Because Prokofiev’s music was so well known in the West, tour organizers hoped that his music could mediate between American expectations for Russian ballet and newer Soviet models. However, the Soviet performers failed to convince Western critics that their ballet was sufficiently “modern,” a complaint that would permeate American criticisms of the Soviet Union throughout the Cold War.


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