On the Ends of the Network as a Zone of Friction (And Extraction)

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 8-27
Author(s):  
Sudipto Basu
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
World Order ◽  
Not Given ◽  
Human Form ◽  
Surplus Value ◽  
The World ◽  
The Status ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
General Intellect

In a world-order where planetary computational networks have restructured nearly all spheres of existence, what is not already networked lies in wait merely as standing-reserve. Today, it seems as if the network and the world are naturally interoperable. Thinking through Harun Farocki’s work on operational images, I however locate a zone of friction or incommensurability between the network and the world. Revisiting Norbert Wiener’s anti-aircraft predictor – a founding episode in the history of cybernetics – I show how this gap was bridged by a logic of (en)closures that reduced the living human form and the world to narrow operational ends; banishing the openness and indeterminacy of both life and nature into undesirable contingency. However, cybernetics’ relentless expansion into a universal episteme and planetary infrastructure since the Cold war necessarily floods the network with contingency; which it wards off by feeding on a disavowed living labor. I argue that this living labor is an uneasy reconciliation of mechanism and vitalism, which we may call habits. Drawing on the Marxian notion of general intellect, I posit how habits are key to generating network surplus value, and to cybernetic expansionism. Habits shape, prepare the outside for its subsumption into the network. Yet they are not given the status of productive activity, and consequently disavowed and vaporized by networks. I propose that this living labor be given a specific name – interfacing – and, following Georges Bataille’s critique of political economy, speculate on the reasons for its disavowal. Drawing on Bataille’s idea of the general in ‘general economy’ (that which is opposed to utilitarian or operational ends) and Hito Steyerl’s How Not to Be Seen, I try to imagine what an interface contiguous with the general intellect might be.

The 1945 World Order – Process with «Open» Continuation

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 52-79
Author(s):  
V. T. Yungblud
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
International Relations ◽  
World Order ◽  
International Order ◽  
International Terrorism ◽  
Bipolar Structure ◽  
Political Processes ◽  
The World ◽  
Post War ◽  
The Cold War

The Yalta-Potsdam system of international relations, established by culmination of World War II, was created to maintain the security and cooperation of states in the post-war world. Leaders of the Big Three, who ensured the Victory over the fascist-militarist bloc in 1945, made decisive contribution to its creation. This system cemented the world order during the Cold War years until the collapse of the USSR in 1991 and the destruction of the bipolar structure of the organization of international relations. Post-Cold War changes stimulated the search for new structures of the international order. Article purpose is to characterize circumstances of foundations formation of postwar world and to show how the historical decisions made by the leaders of the anti-Hitler coalition powers in 1945 are projected onto modern political processes. Study focuses on interrelated questions: what was the post-war world order and how integral it was? How did the political decisions of 1945 affect the origins of the Cold War? Does the American-centrist international order, that prevailed at the end of the 20th century, genetically linked to the Atlantic Charter and the goals of the anti- Hitler coalition in the war, have a future?Many elements of the Yalta-Potsdam system of international relations in the 1990s survived and proved their viability. The end of the Cold War and globalization created conditions for widespread democracy in the world. The liberal system of international relations, which expanded in the late XX - early XXI century, is currently experiencing a crisis. It will be necessary to strengthen existing international institutions that ensure stability and security, primarily to create barriers to the spread of national egoism, radicalism and international terrorism, for have a chance to continue the liberal principles based world order (not necessarily within a unipolar system). Prerequisite for promoting idea of a liberal system of international relations is the adjustment of liberalism as such, refusal to unilaterally impose its principles on peoples with a different set of values. This will also require that all main participants in modern in-ternational life be able to develop a unilateral agenda for common problems and interstate relations, interact in a dialogue mode, delving into the arguments of opponents and taking into account their vital interests.

Liberal Internationalism

2021 ◽  
pp. 30-41
Author(s):  
Beate Jahn
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
World Order ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Main Function ◽  
Liberal Internationalism ◽  
The World ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Successful Integration

Since the end of the Cold War, peacebuilding operations have become an integral part of world politics—despite their continuing failures. This chapter provides an account of peacebuilding operations in practice and identifies cycles of failure and reform, namely the successful integration of peacebuilding into the fabric of the world order despite its continuing failures. It traces these dynamics back to the internal contradictions of liberalism and argues that the main function of peacebuilding operations lies in managing the tensions and contradictions inherent in a liberal world order. Peacebuilding—in one form or another—is therefore likely to persist for the duration of a liberal world order.

Cold War consumption and the marketing of childhood in the Soviet Union and the United States, 1950-1960

2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-98 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margaret Peacock
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
The United States ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Usa ◽  
History Of ◽  
Global Discourse ◽  
The Cold War

Purpose – This paper aims to explore the relationship between childhood, consumption and the Cold War in 1950s America and the Soviet Union. The author argues that Soviet and American leaders, businessmen, and politicians worked hard to convince parents that buying things for their children offered the easiest way to raise good American and Soviet kids and to do their part in waging the economic battles of the Cold War. The author explores how consumption became a Cold War battleground in the late 1950s and suggests that the history of childhood and Cold War consumption alters the way we understand the conflict itself. Design/Methodology/Approach – Archival research in the USA and the Russian Federation along with close readings of Soviet and American advertisements offer sources for understanding the global discourse of consumption in the 1950s and 1960s. Findings – Leaders, advertisers, and propagandists in the Soviet Union and the USA used the same images in the same ways to sell the ethos of consumption to their populations. They did this to sell the Cold War, to bolster the status quo, and to make profits. Originality/Value – This paper offers a previously unexplored, transnational perspective on the role that consumption and the image of the child played in shaping the Cold War both domestically and abroad.

scholarly journals GRANDE ESTRATÉGIA: POLÍTICA EXTERNA E DEFESA EM UM MUNDO EM TRANSFORMAÇÃO

2015 ◽  
Vol 4 (7) ◽  
Author(s):  
Celso Amorim
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Soft Power ◽  
World Order ◽  
Defense Policy ◽  
Mixed Structure ◽  
Hard Power ◽  
The World ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Brazilian Case

In the last years of the twentieth century, after the end of the Cold War, the world has evolved into a mixed structure, which preserves the characteristics of unipolarity at the same time that approaches to a multipolar world in some ways. In an international reality marked by its fluid nature, the emergence of new actors and the so-called "asymmetric threats" has not eliminated the former agents in the world order. And the conflict between the States has not disappeared from the horizon. In this context, diplomacy must have the permanent support of defense policy. Therefore, in the Brazilian case, the paper presents that the country should adopt a grand strategy that combines foreign policy and defense policy, in which soft power will be enhanced by hard power.

Liberalism since the Cold War: an enemy to itself?

1999 ◽  
Vol 25 (5) ◽  
pp. 145-160 ◽  
Author(s):  
GEOFFREY HAWTHORN
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
World Order ◽  
The United States ◽  
International Markets ◽  
Political Rights ◽  
The World ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Regional Development Banks

Many expected that after the Cold War, there would be peace, order, increasing prosperity in expanding markets and the extension and eventual consolidation of civil and political rights. There would be a new world order, and it would in these ways be liberal. In international politics, the United States would be supreme. It would through security treaties command the peace in western Europe and east Asia; through its economic power command it in eastern Europe and Russia; through clients and its own domination command it in the Middle East; through tacit understanding command it in Latin America; and, in so far as any state could, command it in Africa also. It could choose whether to cooperate in the United Nations, and if it did not wish to do so, be confident that it would not be disablingly opposed by illiberal states. In the international markets, it would be able to maintain holdings of its bonds. In the international financial institutions, it would continue to be decisive in the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank; it would be an important influence in the regional development banks; and it would be powerful in what it was to insist in 1994 should be called the World (rather than Multinational) Trade Organisation. Other transactions in the markets, it is true, would be beyond the control of any state. But they would not be likely to conflict with the interests of the United States (and western Europe) in finance, investment and trade, and would discipline other governments.

scholarly journals REVIEW: New World myths

1994 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 96-97
Author(s):  
David Robie
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
World Economy ◽  
New World ◽  
World Order ◽  
New World Order ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
News Service ◽  
The World ◽  
The Cold War

Review of Whose Story? Reporting the Developing World After the Cold War, edited by Jill Spelliscy and Gerald B. Sperling, Calgary, Canada: Detselig Enterprises, 1993. 242 pp. 'I get terribly angry', remarks Daniel Nelson, editor of Gemini News Service, 'when journalists take the phrase, which is completly manufactured, "New World Order"—it's absolutely meaningless. Personally I don't think there is a New World Order. I think we have the same world order, but without the Soviet Union which was never a major part of the world economy. And if you live in Katmandu or Kampala, there is no change.'

scholarly journals International Slavic Studies: Concepts, History and Evolution

2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Wenfei Liu
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
The West ◽  
The Status ◽  
History Of ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Formal Establishment ◽  
Slavic Studies

Abstract This paper departs from the definition of Slavistics and reviews the history of international Slavic studies, from its prehistory to its formal establishment as an independent discipline in the mid-18th century, and from the Pan-Slavic movement in the mid-19th century to the confrontation of Slavistics between the East and the West in the mid-20th century during the Cold War. The paper highlights the status quo of international Slavic studies and envisions the future development of Slavic studies in China.

scholarly journals Thinking Across Hemispheres: Further notes on Oversights and Blind Spots in Disciplinary African Studies

Afrika Focus ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 11-22
Author(s):  
Premesh Lalu
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
African Studies ◽  
Creative Work ◽  
Area Studies ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Nationalist Sentiment ◽  
Sustained Effort ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Blind Spots

In the midst of ever-hardening nationalist sentiment across the world, the humanities may need to recall its long history of thinking across hemispheres. In such balkanised times, we may have to rethink the work that a hermeneutics of suspicion performs for a critical humanities as well as how Africa is bound to particular configurations of area studies that emerge out of the geopolitical distributions of knowledge during the Cold War. To the extent that we might develop a history of a critical humanities across hemispheres, this paper asks what it might mean to return to a concept of freedom formed through a sustained effort at reckoning with the worldliness specific to the anti-colonial struggles in Africa. There, a critical humanities may discover the sources of a creative work in which Africa is not merely bound to the binary of blind spots and oversights, but functions as that supplement which gives itself over to a liveable future.

Foreign Policy: Ideological and Human Rights Factors

1992 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 36-53
Author(s):  
Mark P. Gibney
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
New World ◽  
World Order ◽  
Concrete Block ◽  
New World Order ◽  
Berlin Wall ◽  
George Bush ◽  
The World ◽  
The Persian Gulf ◽  
The Cold War

The Berlin Wall is down; the Cold War is finally over. With the stunning victory by the United Nations forces in the Persian Gulf, President George Bush has proclaimed a “new world order.” Bush provides this description of the old world: “Until now, the world we've known has been a world divided—a world of barbed wire and concrete block, conflict and cold war.

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