scholarly journals Political-military alliances in shaping the security of Poland in 1918-1939

2020 ◽  
Vol 196 (2) ◽  
pp. 245-257
Author(s):  
Zdzisław Cutter

Poland was forming allied relations in the twenties and thirties of the twentieth century due to the state’s weakness, mainly in military and economic terms. The Polish state’s situation regarding political and military security guarantees on the part of other subjects of the international community was neither stable nor advantageous during that period. That was influenced, among others, by the following phenomena: changes in the international arena that were unfavorable for the Second Republic of Poland, diplomatic activities of Germany and the USSR aimed at revising the borders of the Polish state, political and military rapprochement between the USSR and Germany in the area of economic and military cooperation, conciliatory and ineffective international policy of the Western powers (mainly the French Republic) towards Germany in the late 1920s, impermanence and low effectiveness of bilateral agreements and declarations concluded by Poland with its eastern neighbor – the Soviet Union and its western neighbor – Germany, ineffectiveness of the political-military alliances concluded by Poland with France, Romania, and the United Kingdom, and significant disproportions between Polish and German and Soviet industrial and military potential, combined with the inability of the western powers to fulfil their allied obligations in practical terms.

2012 ◽  
Vol 43 ◽  
pp. 165-188 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew E. Harrod

Austria emerged in 1955 from a ten-year occupation administered by the four major powers of the successful anti-Third Reich coalition of World War II—France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States—as a united, independent state. The 15 May 1955 State Treaty signed by these countries and Austria spared Austria the fate of Cold War division suffered by Austria's neighbor to the north (in the ultimate East-West breakdown of Germany's parallel postwar quadripartite occupation). Paving the way for Austria's good fortune was a political quid pro quo agreed between Austrian leaders and their Soviet counterparts in Moscow the previous April. In the 15 April 1955 Moscow Memorandum, Austria consented to becoming a permanently neutral state modeled on Switzerland. This neutrality precluded a possible Austrian membership in NATO in exchange for a long-delayed Soviet assent to an end of Austria's occupation regime with a concomitant abandonment of the Soviet occupation zone and the withdrawal of all occupation troops. After the completion of this withdrawal, a fully sovereign Austria made good on its pledge with the passage on 26 October 1955 of a constitutional law declaring Austria to be “permanently neutral” and foreswearing all military alliances.


2015 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-16 ◽  
Author(s):  
Judith Inggs

This article investigates the perceived image of English-language children's literature in Soviet Russia. Framed by Even-Zohar's polysystem theory and Bourdieu's philosophy of action, the discussion takes into account the ideological constraints of the practice of translation and the manipulation of texts. Several factors involved in creating the perceived character of a body of literature are identified, such as the requirements of socialist realism, publishing practices in the Soviet Union, the tradition of free translation and accessibility in the translation of children's literature. This study explores these factors and, with reference to selected examples, illustrates how the political and sociological climate of translation in the Soviet Union influenced the translation practices and the field of translated children's literature, creating a particular image of English-language children's literature in (Soviet) Russia.


2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 62-71
Author(s):  
Melissa Chakars

This article examines the All-Buryat Congress for the Spiritual Rebirth and Consolidation of the Nation that was held in the Buryat Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic in February 1991. The congress met to discuss the future of the Buryats, a Mongolian people who live in southeastern Siberia, and to decide on what actions should be taken for the revival, development, and maintenance of their culture. Widespread elections were carried out in the Buryat lands in advance of the congress and voters selected 592 delegates. Delegates also came from other parts of the Soviet Union, as well as from Mongolia and China. Government administrators, Communist Party officials, members of new political parties like the Buryat-Mongolian People’s Party, and non-affiliated individuals shared their ideas and political agendas. Although the congress came to some agreement on the general goals of promoting Buryat traditions, language, religions, and culture, there were disagreements about several of the political and territorial questions. For example, although some delegates hoped for the creation of a larger Buryat territory that would encompass all of Siberia’s Buryats within a future Russian state, others disagreed revealing the tension between the desire to promote ethnic identity and the practical need to consider economic and political issues.


2010 ◽  
Vol 70 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-117 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Brainerd

This article uses anthropometric and archival data to reassess the standard of living in the Soviet Union. In the prewar period, the population was small in stature and sensitive to the political and economic upheavals experienced in the country. Significant improvements in child height, adult stature, and infant mortality were recorded from approximately 1945 to 1970. While this period of physical growth was followed by stagnation in heights, the physical growth record of the Soviet population compares favorably with that of other European countries at a similar level of development in this period.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 22-40
Author(s):  
Lasha Tchantouridze

The two-decade-long U.S.-led military mission in Afghanistan ended in August 2021 after a chaotic departure of the NATO troops. Power in Kabul transferred back to the Taliban, the political force the United States and its allies tried to defeat. In its failure to achieve a lasting change, the Western mission in Afghanistan is similar to that of the Soviet Union in the 1980s. These two missions in Afghanistan had many things in common, specifically their unsuccessful counterinsurgency efforts. However, both managed to achieve limited success in their attempts to impose their style of governance on Afghanistan as well. The current study compares and contrasts some of the crucial aspects of counterinsurgency operations conducted by the Soviet and Western forces during their respective missions, such as special forces actions, propaganda activities, and dealing with crucial social issues. Interestingly, when the Soviets withdrew in 1988, they left Afghanistan worse off, but the US-backed opposition forces subsequently made the situation even worse. On the other hand, the Western mission left the country better off in 2021, and violence subsided when power in the country was captured by the Taliban, which the United States has opposed.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tareq Kakarash ◽  
Alnasir Doraid

The issue of national diversity is considered one of the most important points in studying the development of political systems in our time. Many scholars and researchers have noticed that there is rarely a people or nation in the world today that does not possess different national or ethnic diversity, some of which succeed in forcibly obliterating them, which leads to its ignition and the division of nations and states. (As happened in the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, the Eight State, the Empire of Austria-Hungary, etc.) and as it will happen in the future in other repressive countries, no matter how long their repression takes, and some of them succeed in preserving them through assimilation and understanding, as happened in Switzerland and a few other countries. While there are countries that have been striving for decades to arrange their national situations (such as India, Belgium and Spain), with varying degrees of success. The element of national diversity sometimes plays an active role in reforming the political system, and at other times this national diversity hinders the entire political reform. On the basis of the difference and contrast between the two models in terms of the degree of modernity and development, however, a careful examination of the two models confirms that they are not different to this degree. Only years (1998 in Britain and 2003 in Iraq) and the political conflict still exists in the two countries, leading to a final solution to this crisis.


1953 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 133-167
Author(s):  
S. Bernard

The advent of a new administration in the United States and the passage of seven years since the end of World War II make it appropriate to review the political situation which has developed in Europe during that period and to ask what choices now are open to the West in its relations with the Soviet Union.The end of World War II found Europe torn between conflicting conceptions of international politics and of the goals that its members should seek. The democratic powers, led by the United States, viewed the world in traditional, Western, terms. The major problem, as they saw it, was one of working out a moral and legal order to which all powers could subscribe, and in which they would live. Quite independently of the environment, they assumed that one political order was both more practicable and more desirable than some other, and that their policies should be directed toward its attainment.


2008 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 67-93
Author(s):  
Mariya Polner

The dissolution of the Soviet Union resulted not only interindependence for Moldova. It also served as a push factor for the secessionist conflict on its territory which due to its unresolved status is referred to as frozen. All attempts of the political settlement since 1990s have ended in deadlock. Interestingly, the EU policies towards Transnistria changed significantly in 2003-2004. From the ‘security consumer’ the EU has been slowly turning into the ‘security provider’. The main goal of this paper is to evaluate the impact of the EU in ensuring security and stability through its involvement in the Transnistrian conflict. For this purpose the study will focus on EU-Moldova relations and the instrument it dedicates to ensuring stability, the EU Border Assistance Mission.


2019 ◽  
Vol 193 (3) ◽  
pp. 547-557
Author(s):  
Sławomir Wojciechowski

This year, NATO is celebrating its 70th anniversary and the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty. The Alliance was founded in the early days of the Cold War, but found itself in a new geopolitical situation after the col-lapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the bipolar world. The organi-zation has been transforming ever since and over time this transfor-mation has included both expansion and adaptation to new circum-stances. With the return of Russian neo-imperial ambitions in the re-cent years, NATO has been given new impetus. Emerging threats and challenges, which are mainly of a military nature, have been addressed by NATO through further recent adaptation processes which were based on the return to the core role of the Alliance, namely collective defense and deterrence. This, in turn, has created a boost of NATO ac-tivity on the ground, which means that improvement with regard to interoperability and integration is now in high demand.


Author(s):  
Justin Morris

This chapter analyzes the transformational journey that plans for the United Nations undertook from summer 1941 to the San Francisco Conference of 1945 at which the UN Charter was agreed. Prior to the conference, the ‘Big Three’ great powers of the day—the United States, the Soviet Union, and the United Kingdom—often struggled to establish the common ground on which the UN’s success would depend. However, their debates were only the start of the diplomatic travails which would eventually lead to the establishment of the world organization that we know today. Once gathered at San Francisco, the fifty delegations spent the next two months locked in debate over issues such as the role of international law; the relationship between the General Assembly and Security Council; the permanent members’ veto; and Charter amendment. One of modern history’s most important diplomatic events, its outcome continues to resonate through world politics.


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