Soviet Defectors

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin Riehle
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
National Security ◽  
Privileged Information ◽  
Soviet Government ◽  
Threat Perceptions ◽  
Aggregate Analysis ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Decision Making System ◽  
The Stability

This book identifies 88 Soviet intelligence officers who defected from 1924 to 1954 and provides an aggregate analysis of their information to uncover Soviet strategic priorities and concerns. When intelligence officers defect, they take with them privileged information and often communicate it to the receiving state, and thereby they open a window into a closed national security decision making system. The book provides the most comprehensive list of Soviet intelligence officer defectors compiled to date representing a variety of specializations. Through the information they provided in now-declassified debriefings, documents they brought with them, and post-defection publications and public appearances, this book shows the evolution of Soviet threat perceptions and the development of the "main enemy" concept in the Soviet national security system. It also shows fluctuations in the Soviet recruitment and vetting of personnel for sensitive national security positions, corresponding with fluctuations in the stability of the Soviet government. The shifting motivations of these officers also reveals the pressures that they were experiencing at the time, leading to their choice to break with the Soviet Union.

Conclusion

2020 ◽  
pp. 263-284
Author(s):  
Kevin Riehle
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
National Security ◽  
The United States ◽  
Policy Changes ◽  
Soviet Government ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Perception Of Threat ◽  
The Stability

Several lessons emerge from these defectors’ revelations. First, the motivations of defectors changed based on the circumstances around them, which reflected Soviet policy changes. Those policy changes, such as purges and increased domestic repression, were often at the foundation of defector’s motivations. Second, vetting standards for Soviet personnel assigned to sensitive national security positions fluctuated, depending on the stability in the Soviet government and the level of urgency for hiring new personnel. When the Soviet Union was stable, it had the luxury of enforcing strict standards. When the Soviet Union needed a lot of people fast—such as during purges or wartime—it did not vet them as thoroughly. Finally, the Soviet perception of threat evolved, beginning with Great Britain as the primary threat in the early Soviet era, and joined by Germany after 1933, although Stalin never abandoned hope for an accommodation with Hitler. However, even before Germany was defeated in 1945, Soviet intelligence began targeting its wartime allies. By the late 1940s, when the United States assumed the role of the leader of the democratic world, the label “main enemy” was coined and applied to the United States, which stuck for the rest of the Soviet era.

Armand Hammer, Lenin, and the First American Concession in Soviet Russia

Slavic Review ◽  
1981 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 355-365 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip S. Gillette
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
National Security ◽  
The United States ◽  
Soviet Government ◽  
Personal Relations ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
New Interpretation ◽  
Soviet Russia ◽  
American Trade

In 1921 a young American doctor named Armand Hammer went to Russia, met Lenin, and undertook the first American concession in Soviet Russia. Interest in this episode has been heightened by the fact that fifty years later Armand Hammer, as chairman of the Occidental Petroleum Corporation, forged new commercial links between the United States and the Soviet Union. This article provides a new interpretation of Hammer’s meeting with Lenin and his receipt of the first American concession granted by the Soviet government. It throws light on how Soviet national security objectives and personal relations can influence Soviet government decisions on American trade.

The Handbook of European Defence Policies and Armed Forces

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
National Security ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
Blind Spot ◽  
Military Operations ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Security Challenges ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
National Defence

The armed forces of Europe have undergone a dramatic transformation since the collapse of the Soviet Union. The Handbook of European Defence Policies and Armed Forces provides the first comprehensive analysis of national security and defence policies, strategies, doctrines, capabilities, and military operations, as well as the alliances and partnerships of European armed forces in response to the security challenges Europe has faced since the end of the cold war. A truly cross-European comparison of the evolution of national defence policies and armed forces remains a notable blind spot in the existing literature. This Handbook aims to fill this gap with fifty-one contributions on European defence and international security from around the world. The six parts focus on: country-based assessments of the evolution of the national defence policies of Europe’s major, medium, and lesser powers since the end of the cold war; the alliances and security partnerships developed by European states to cooperate in the provision of national security; the security challenges faced by European states and their armed forces, ranging from interstate through intra-state and transnational; the national security strategies and doctrines developed in response to these challenges; the military capabilities, and the underlying defence and technological industrial base, brought to bear to support national strategies and doctrines; and, finally, the national or multilateral military operations by European armed forces. The contributions to The Handbook collectively demonstrate the fruitfulness of giving analytical precedence back to the comparative study of national defence policies and armed forces across Europe.

US Decision Makers’ Perceptions of Soviet Intentions

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keren Yarhi-Milo
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Selective Attention ◽  
National Security ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Jimmy Carter ◽  
Individual Decision ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
And Behavior ◽  
The U.S

This chapter examines the indicators used by U.S. President Jimmy Carter and two key decision makers in his administration, National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski and Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, to assess the intentions of the Soviet Union during the period 1977–1980. Using evidence from U.S. archives and interviews with former U.S. decision makers, it compares the predictions of the selective attention thesis, capabilities thesis, strategic military doctrine thesis, and behavior thesis. After discussing the U.S. decision makers’ stated beliefs about Soviet intentions, the chapter considers the reasoning they employed to justify their intentions assessments. It then describes the policies that individual decision makers advocated and those that the administration collectively adopted. It also explores whether decision makers advocated policies that were congruent with their stated beliefs about intentions and evaluate sthe impact of beliefs about intentions on U.S. foreign policy at the time.

“Ballet Is a Flower”

2020 ◽  
pp. 97-128
Author(s):  
Anne Searcy
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
York City ◽  
Soviet Government ◽  
George Balanchine ◽  
The Soviet Union

Chapter 4 analyzes New York City Ballet’s (NYCB’s) 1962 tour of the Soviet Union and the Soviet reception of NYCB choreographer George Balanchine. Previous scholarly accounts have claimed the Soviet reviews of Balanchine’s works were heavily censored, and that, as a result, the tour undermined the authority of the Soviet government with the intelligentsia. Chapter 4 re-examines this tour, using transliteration as a way of modeling the Soviet response to Balanchine. This re-examination shows that Soviet cultural authorities were not at all hostile to the choreographer or his company. The Soviet critics mostly accepted Balanchine’s ballets, but they reframed his accomplishments within their own debates about drambalet and choreographic symphonism. According to Balanchine’s Soviet critics, his works were successful precisely because they reaffirmed the value of the Russian systems of training, artistry, and meaning.

“If You Want Peace, Prepare for War”

2019 ◽  
pp. 12-38
Author(s):  
Petra Goedde
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
National Security ◽  
The United States ◽  
World War ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Peace Activism ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Military Preparedness ◽  
Diplomatic Relationship

The first chapter of The Politics of Peace provides an analysis of peace within the context of the diplomatic relationship between East and West. Between the late 1940s and early 1960s, both sides in the Cold War battle used the rhetoric of peace to advance their own domestic and international political agendas. By repeating the narrative of their failure to prevent World War II, US and Western European governments promoted a strategy of peace through strength and military preparedness. The United States in particular regarded peace advocates as a threat to national security and often accused them of being either communist agents or naïve idealists who had been duped into becoming puppets of international communism. While the Soviet Union and its allies followed a similar strategy of military preparedness, they linked the rhetoric of peace to internationalism, often institutionalizing peace activism within the bureaucratic machinery of the Communist Party.

Introduction

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Stephen G. Rabe
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
South America ◽  
National Security ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Latin Americans ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Foreign Policies ◽  
History Of

This introductory chapter provides an overview of U.S. policies toward Latin America during Henry Kissinger's career as national security adviser and secretary of state. Henri Kissinger directed inter-American relations between 1969 and 1977. Like his predecessors, Kissinger judged relations with Western Europe, the Soviet Union, and China as strategically more important than relations with Latin America. But Kissinger launched noteworthy initiatives, such as the attempt to normalize relations with Cuba and to transfer the canal to Panama. The Kissinger years were also historically significant for Latin Americans. The 1970s represented the most violent period in the history of post-independence (1825) South America. This book provides a comprehensive investigation of the foreign policies of the Nixon and Ford administrations toward Latin America and Kissinger's central role in formulating and implementing those policies.

Challenging Hegemony, Competing for the Truth

2019 ◽  
pp. 109-125
Author(s):  
Richard Togman
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
National Security ◽  
Environmental Movement ◽  
Threat Perception ◽  
Black Panthers ◽  
Environmental Destruction ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Development Agencies ◽  
Alternative Theories

Chapter 6 focuses on the rebirth of the Malthusian concept of overpopulation and the translation of fears over hunger, poverty, and environmental destruction to the problem of population. Moreover, delving into how alternative theories arose to challenge the dominant modernization discourse championed by national security and development agencies of Western states, this chapter explores the subjugated discourses espoused by actors including the nascent environmental movement, the Soviet Union, the Vatican, and the Black Panthers. This chapter shows how it is the subjective threat perception, married to the dominant discursive frame the actor adopts, that results in the creation of natalist attitudes and policy. Significantly, the wishes of individuals themselves are systematically ignored when actors come to narrate the meaning of fertility for the collective, which due to the very conceptualization of the problem at hand most often results in the failure of policy to have the desired effects.

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