scholarly journals GEOSTRATEGIC SHIFTS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE

Author(s):  
UROŠ TOVORNIK

POVZETEK Članek analizira geostrateške spremembe v današnji Evropi in svetu, ki smo jim priča od konca hladne vojne in predvsem od leta 2014 naprej. Klasična geopolitična dinamika se je vrnila in geopolitične teorije, kot sta osrčje in obrobje, so ponovno aktualne. Posledično se na svetovni oder vračajo tudi klasični geostrateški igralci. Članek analizira premike v treh evropskih državah in hkrati članicah Evropske unije, ki so v preteklih stoletjih krojile usodo Evrope, in sicer Francije, Nemčije in Združenega kraljestva. Geostrateške igre v Evropi so zmeraj imele globalne posledice, zato je bila v članku posebna pozornost namenjena tudi ZDA in Rusiji, njunim geopolitičnim interesom in geostrateškemu repozicioniranju. Sčasoma postaja jasno, da smo v tranziciji in na poti k oblikovanju nove evropske in svetovne strateške arhitekture. V tem smislu članek prepoznava nove porajajoče se geostrateške vektorje v Evropi. Ti lahko po eni strani opredeljujejo novo prihajajoče ravnotežje sil, po drugi strani pa možnost kolizije teh vektorjev. Pri slednjem smo lahko priče nepredvidljivim varnostnim posledicam tako za Evropo kakor tudi za ves svet. Ključne besede: geopolitika, geostrategija, Francija, Nemčija, Združeno kraljestvo, ZDA, Rusija. ABSTRACT This article shows how Europe and the world we are living in have changed drastically since the end of the Cold War, and especially since 2014. Classical geopolitical dynamics have resurfaced; theories, such as Heartland and Rimland, apply time and again. Consequently, classical players on the Europe and world stages are back in the game. The article analyses shifts in the following three traditional European powers and members of the European Union which have shaped the destiny of Europe during the last centuries: France, Germany and the United Kingdom. As strategic games in Europe have always had global dimensions, the United States and Russia’s influence and their geostrategic repositioning in Europe is also duly considered. The trend of a transition towards a new strategic architecture in Europe and in the world is ever more evident; the article thus also indicates the new emerging geostrategic vectors in Europe. On the one hand, they may indicate that a new balance is emerging, and on the other hand, that these vectors might collide. In case of the latter, we may face unprecedented security ramifications for Europe as well as for the entire world. Key words: geopolitics, geostrategy, France, Germany, United Kingdom, United States, Russia

2019 ◽  
pp. 82-117
Author(s):  
Geoffrey B. Robinson

This chapter examines the role of foreign powers in the October 1, 1965 incident. It argues that the wider international context, in particular the rhetoric and logic of the Cold War and anticolonial nationalism, affected the contours of Indonesian politics, making it more militant and polarized. In addition, that general atmosphere, together with the actions of major powers elsewhere in the region and beyond, contributed to political conditions inside Indonesia in which a seizure of power by the army was much more likely to occur. In creating this atmosphere of polarization and crisis, several major powers played some part, including China. Yet it was overwhelmingly the United States, the United Kingdom, and their closest allies that played the central roles.


English Today ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 61-64 ◽  
Author(s):  
tom mcarthur

there are, as it were, three levels in the title of the discussion, each going further ‘out’ from hong kong, although the direction and perspective could as easily have been reversed, moving ‘inwards’ from the world to china to hong kong, one of history's most successful social, cultural, political, and economic anomalies. there could equally easily have been four levels: hong kong, china, asia, and the world, a framework that would even then have been simpler than, say, ‘london, england, the united kingdom, the european union, europe at large, and the world’, but much the same as ‘lagos, nigeria, africa, and the world’ or ‘los angeles, california, the united states, and the world’.


Author(s):  
Peter J. Schmelz

This chapter examines censorship in the Soviet Union during the Cold War by focusing on the experience of composer Alfred Schnittke (1934–1998). More specifically, it looks at Schnittke’s evolving interactions with Soviet political and aesthetic strictures, as well as the representation and interpretation of those interactions abroad, particularly in the United States and the United Kingdom. The chapter explores the increasingly complex, globalized musical economy in which late Soviet censorship played a key role. It also discusses the “harsh censorship” that Schnittke had to endure and how it gave him prominence, and ultimately prestige, with the help of various agents such as Gidon Kremer and the Kronos Quartet, the Soviet copyright agency VAAP (All-Union Agency for the Protection of Authors’ Rights), and the BIS record label. Finally, it highlights the actors (performers, producers, impresarios, critics, and listeners) who affect the way music is shaped and received, bought and sold.


Author(s):  
Ted R. Bromund

The Special Relationship is a term used to describe the close relations between the United States and the United Kingdom. It applies particularly to the governmental realms of foreign, defense, security, and intelligence policy, but it also captures a broader sense that both public and private relations between the United States and Britain are particularly deep and close. The Special Relationship is thus a term for a reality that came into being over time as the result of political leadership as well as ideas and events outside the formal arena of politics. After the political break of the American Revolution and in spite of sporadic cooperation in the 19th century, it was not until the Great Rapprochement of the 1890s that the idea that Britain and the United States had a special kind of relationship took hold. This decade, in turn, created the basis for the Special Relationship, a term first used by Winston Churchill in 1944. Churchill did the most to build the relationship, convinced as he was that close friendship between Britain and the United States was the cornerstone of world peace and prosperity. During and after the Second World War, many others on both sides of the Atlantic came to agree with Churchill. The post-1945 era witnessed a flowering of the relationship, which was cemented—not without many controversies and crises—by the emerging Cold War against the Soviet Union. After the end of the Cold War in 1989, the relationship remained close, though it was severely tested by further security crises, Britain’s declining defense spending, the evolving implications of Britain’s membership in the European Union, the relative decline of Europe, and an increasing U.S. interest in Asia. Yet on many public and private levels, relations between the United States and Britain continue to be particularly deep, and thus the Special Relationship endures.


Author(s):  
Melvyn P. Leffler

This chapter takes a look at U.S. war planning during the Cold War. Looking through Joint Chiefs of Staff records, the chapter shows that U.S. war planning, although crude, began in the early months of 1946. If war erupted, for whatever reasons, the war plans called for the United States to strike the Soviet Union (USSR). Expecting Soviet armies to overrun most of Europe very quickly, planners assumed that the United States would launch its attack primarily from bases in the United Kingdom and the British-controlled Cairo-Suez base in the Middle East. To protect the latter, it would be essential to slow down Soviet armies marching southward to conquer the Middle East. The United States needed the Turkish army to thwart Soviet military advances and required Turkish airfields to insure the success of the strategic offensive against targets inside the USSR.


1982 ◽  
Vol 89 ◽  
pp. 74-96 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yu-ming Shaw

Reverend John Leighton Stuart (1876–1962) served as U.S. ambassador to China from July 1946 until August 1949. In the many discussions of his ambassadorship the one diplomatic mission that has aroused the most speculation and debate was his abortive trip to Beijing, contemplated in June–July 1949, to meet with Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai. Some students of Sino-American relations have claimed that had this trip been made the misunderstanding and subsequent hostility between the United States and the People's Republic of China in the post-1949 period could have been avoided; therefore, the unmaking of this trip constituted another “lost chance in China” in establishing a working relationship between the two countries. But others have thought that given the realities of the Cold War in 1949 and the internal political constraints existing in each country, no substantial result could have been gained from such a trip. Therefore, the thesis of a “lost chance in China” was more an unfounded speculation than a credible affirmation.


Author(s):  
Aneta Ejsmont

Building own business is a long-term and laborious process. A person who leads a startup tries to start with building own business by taking first steps toward financial independence. Analyzing conditions in Poland, on average every second startup sells its services abroad, admittedly it is good news, although half of them do not export at all. Half of the startups which export their services and goods generates more than 50% of their revenues outside Poland. Very interesting is the fact that 60% of exporters have conducted their foreign sale since the moment of establishing their business. On which markets do they sell their services? It turns out that the most popular are markets in the European Union (54%), including the United Kingdom 14% and Germany 9%. Only about 25% of Polish startups exports their products and services to the United States. Taking the United States into consideration, in 2008 the USA lost their leading position in the number of startups which are newly created and achieving success in business. Currently in terms of the number of new startups the USA is on a quite distant place after Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Hungary, New Zealand, Israel or Italy. In short, more companies were closed than created, so it was, as a matter of fact, like in Poland. Therefore, the condition to improve the development of startups both from Poland and other countries all the world is to increase cooperation and coopetition.


2021 ◽  
pp. 73-99
Author(s):  
Uta A. Balbier

This chapter defines Graham’s crusades in the United States, Germany, and the United Kingdom in the 1950s as powerful cultural orchestrations of Cold War culture. It explores the reasons of leading political figures to support Graham, the media discourses that constructed Graham’s image as a cold warrior, and the religious and political worldviews of the religious organizers of the crusades in London, Washington, New York, and Berlin. In doing so, the chapter shows how hopes for genuine re-Christianization, in response to looming secularization, anticommunist fears, and post–World War II national anxieties, as well as spiritual legitimizations for the Cold War conflict, blended in Graham’s campaign work. These anxieties, hopes, and worldviews crisscrossed the Atlantic, allowing Graham and his campaign teams to make a significant contribution to creating an imagined transnational “spiritual Free World.”


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