scholarly journals The Eagles Belt: The Unsuspected Stage of the Great Power Competition

2021 ◽  
Vol 24 ◽  
pp. 78-84
Author(s):  
Pietrobon Emanuel

The Balkans are one of the main stages of the so-called Cold War 2.0 between the United States and the Russo-Chinese axis, but, to a greater extent, they are also an important battlefront of the broader great power competition, a hegemonic confrontation fought by a number of European and non-European powers and only partly tied to the aforementioned Cold War 2.0. Just like in the past, the Balkans keep being the powder keg of Europe, but this time, due to a combination of historical events and demographic changes, the veridical beating heart of the region is no longer Serbia, it’s a rising geopolitical order based on and centered on Albania: the Eagles’ Belt.

2014 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 169-179 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Rojansky

At the present moment of obvious tension between Moscow and Washington, it may be tempting to dismiss the likelihood of progress on any diplomatic front, let alone in the complex multilateral format of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe. Yet the 1972–75 Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (csce) itself took place against a backdrop of intense rivalry between the u.s. and Soviet-led blocs, suggesting that reasoned dialogue and consensus on core issues of shared security in the osce space is possible, despite—or perhaps even because of—the looming threat of conflict between geopolitical rivals. Despite some superficial similarities, relations between Russia and the United States today are sufficiently different from the past that they cannot accurately be described as a conflict in the same category as the Cold War. The u.s.-Russia relations have been severely strained over the crisis in Ukraine, but management of the crisis alone will not be enough to restore productive relations between Washington and Moscow or to repair the damage to European security. The best hope is likely a return to the principles of the 1975 Helsinki Final Act, and through a similarly inclusive region-wide dialogue. Today, the United States, Europe, and Russia all share an interest in renewal of just such a dialogue, although what will not—indeed what must not—return is the Cold War “balance of terror” that exerted pressure on all sides to participate seriously in the original Helsinki process.


2019 ◽  
Vol 95 (6) ◽  
pp. 1423-1441
Author(s):  
Dong Jung Kim

Abstract Economic containment has garnered repeated attention in the discourse about the United States' response to China. Yet, the attributes of economic containment as a distinct strategy of Great Power competition remain unclear. Moreover, the conditions under which a leading power can employ economic containment against a challenging power remain theoretically unelaborated. This article first suggests that economic containment refers to the use of economic policies to weaken the targeted state's material capacity to start military aggression, rather than to influence the competitor's behaviour over a specific issue. Then, this article suggests that economic containment becomes a viable option when the leading power has the ability to inflict more losses on the challenging power through economic restrictions, and this ability is largely determined by the availability of alternative economic partners. When the leading power cannot effectively inflict more losses on the challenging power due to the presence of alternative economic partners, it is better off avoiding economic containment. The author substantiates these arguments through case-studies of the United States' responses to the Soviet Union during the Cold War. The article concludes by examining the nature of the United States' recent economic restrictions against China.


2001 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-77
Author(s):  
J. Peter Scoblic

Despite the radical changes in the global political and military situation in the past ten years, U.S. nuclear forces retain the same mission and the same basic structure they had when Moscow was the seat of the “Evil Empire.” As it has for decades, the United States maintains thousands of nuclear warheads on a variety of land-, sea- and air-based platforms. These forces are on a level of high alert, ready to launch within minutes of an attack warning. It is a distinctly Cold War footing in a world that has long since come in from the cold of U.S.–Soviet antagonism.


PMLA ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 130 (3) ◽  
pp. 599-614
Author(s):  
Gordon Fraser

Sherman Alexie's widely taught short story collection The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistight in Heaven (1993) ofers a largely unrecognized critique of the apocalyptic temporalities of United States militarism. War planners in the United States have frequently looked to the unrealized, potential holocausts of the future for a justiication of violence in the present. Alexie's collection—like much contemporary literature by Indian writers—unsettles this military logic by revealing how First Nations in North America and peoples around the world live with the consequences of a militarism that continually envisages impending antiAmerican violence as a means of justifying violence by the state. Alexie's writing provides a way of replacing the violent, futureoriented temporality of United States militarism with a “slow” temporality that acknowledges the un folding consequences of the past. Ultimately, this essay suggests a method for rereading “ethnic studies” literature with a view toward the interventions these texts make in mainstream United States culture.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-25
Author(s):  
Radoslav Yordanov

This paper offers a broad historical overview of US economic sanctions against Cuba, starting with the imposition of the partial trade embargo on 19 October 1960, taking the story up to the present day. Additionally, it develops a comprehensive survey of the numerous scholarly and policy debates which closely follow the changes in United States’ post-Cold War attitudes and actions towards its southern neighbor and which demonstrate the thinking behind centers of power in Washington and Miami related to US’ Cuba policies. The paper also glances over the latest developments under Cuba’s new President Miguel Díaz-Canel and the notable return to the harsh Cold War rhetoric, which transcends the boundaries of the localized Washington-Miami-Havana axis of the past thirty years. Referring to historic patterns, the paper concludes that the conjecture between the recent complication in the US-Cuba relations and Moscow’s ambition to reinstate its erstwhile position as an unavoidable international factor would afford Havana with the opportunity to reclaim once again the dubious honor of becoming one of the focal points in the renewed competitive coexistence between the United States and Russia.


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.


Author(s):  
Matthew Kroenig

This chapter introduces the subject of the book and summarizes its basic argument and structure. It explains that the United States of America has been the world’s leading state for the past seven decades, but that great power rivalry has returned in recent years with Russia and China becoming more assertive on the international stage. Indeed, many believe the days of U.S. global leadership are coming to an end in the face of challenges from its leading autocratic rivals. In contrast, this chapter argues that democracies have systematic advantages in international politics and that there is good reason to believe that the American era of international preeminence will endure.


Author(s):  
Andrew J. Rotter

This chapter examines the history of the Cold War in South Asia. It describes the position of South Asia in the Cold War, and investigates the reasons why Pakistan decided to side with the United States while India sought to avoid great power alliances and keep the Cold War at arm's length. The chapter highlights the negative reaction of India on the decision of the U.S. government to provide military aid to Pakistan, its main rival, and also considers Cold War legacies and the legacy of colonialism in India and Pakistan.


2020 ◽  
pp. 186-202
Author(s):  
Alexander Cooley ◽  
Daniel Nexon

After two decades, American global hegemony is almost certainly reaching its expiration date. America will remain a great power, if the not greatest power. But, barring a major shock to emerging powers—and especially China—the world will fully transition to a new global order. This chapter sketches out some possible futures. These include a new bipolar system, perhaps with China and the United States locked in a new Cold War; a multipolar system that maintains the veneer of liberal global governance, but in the service of authoritarianism; and an international system characterized by globalized oligarchy and kleptocracy. There is still time to avoid the worst versions of these orders, and to push back against the full hijacking of liberal institutions in the service of worldwide corruption. But on these, and a number of other matters, American policymakers should assume the window of outsized American influence is fast closing.


2017 ◽  
Vol 61 (2) ◽  
pp. 453-475
Author(s):  
ASA MCKERCHER ◽  
TIMOTHY ANDREWS SAYLE

AbstractFor the past two decades, Canadian international historians have largely missed the Cold War, or at least a significant portion of it. Certainly, there has been no shortage of studies of Canadian foreign policy featuring the bipolar struggle, and yet historians have largely confined their attention to Canada's admittedly crucial relationship with the United States, while Canadian–Soviet relations have been ignored. Indeed, in the historiography of Canada's Cold War international relations, the communist powers are largely missing. Hoping to challenge this limited focus, we frame our article around two Canada–US air defence exercises held in 1959 and 1960. While historians have viewed these exercises within the context of Canada's relationship with the United States, we highlight the wider Cold War framework in which Canadian policy was formed. After all, these exercises occurred during the mini-détente of the late 1950s and the collapse of the Paris summit in May 1960. As we demonstrate, the failure to take full account of the Cold War is a shortcoming of much of the writing on Canadian international relations, and so we offer an example of the need to take seriously Canada's foreign policy toward the communist bloc.


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