Religious Humanitarianism and the Evolution of Sudan People’s Liberation Army (1990-2005)

2020 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-37
Author(s):  
Yusuf Sholeye ◽  
Amal Madibbo
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Civil War ◽  
The United States ◽  
Humanitarian Assistance ◽  
Southern Sudan ◽  
Humanitarian Organizations ◽  
The Us ◽  
The World ◽  
Peace Initiatives ◽  
The Cold War

During the Cold War, military and economic tensions between the US and the Soviet Union shaped the process of war in conflict regions in different parts of the world. The end of the Cold War in the early 1990s reshaped the balance of power in global politics, as new actors appeared on the global scene and global foreign policy shifted to mediating and providing humanitarian assistance in conflict regions zones. Humanitarianism became the method of conflict resolution, which provided humanitarian organizations, especially the religious ones among them, with the opportunity to have more influence in the outcomes of sociopolitical events occurring in the world. These dynamics impacted conflicts in Africa, especially within Sudan. This is because that era coincided with Sudan’s Second Civil War (1983-2005) between the Sudan People Liberation Army (SPLA) and the Government of Sudan (GofS). During the Cold War, both the US and Russia intervened in the civil war in Sudan by providing military and economic assistance to different parties, but, again, in the post-Cold War era humanitarianism was used in relation to the civil war. Transnational religious organizations provided humanitarian assistance in the war-torn and drought-afflicted regions in Southern Sudan, and sought to help implement peace initiatives to end the war. The organizations included Operation Lifeline Sudan (OLS), a consortium of UN agencies and NGOs1 which was created in 1989. In addition, transnational religious groups based in the United States and Canada such as the Christian Solidarity International (CSI), the Canadian Crossroads, Catholic Relief Service, Mennonite Central Committee and the Lutheran Church got involved in humanitarian relief in Sudan. The global focus on religious humanitarianism extended to Southern Sudan as the New Sudan Council of Churches (NSCC) was founded in 1989-1990 to coordinate the humanitarian assistance. Because SPLA has led the civil war on behalf of Southern Sudan and had suzerainty over territories there, the humanitarian organizations had to build relationships with the SPLA to deliver relief through Southern Sudan and negotiate peace initiatives. This article analyzes how the transnational activities of the religious humanitarian groups shaped the evolution of SPLA from 1990 to 2005, with a particular focus on the US and Canadian organizations. We will see that the organizations influenced SPLA in a manner that impacted the civil war both in positive and negative ways. The organizations were ambivalent as, on one hand, they aggravated the conflict and, on the other hand influenced the development of both Church and non-Church related peace initiatives. Their humanitarian work was intricate as the civil war itself became more complex due to political issues that involved slavery, and oil extraction in Southern Sudan by US and Canadian multinational oil companies. All the parties involved took action to help end the civil war, but they all sought to serve their own interests, which jeopardized the possibility of a lasting peace. Thus, the interpretation of that history provides ways to help solve the current armed conflict in South Sudan.

Cold War diplomacy

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Beverley Hooper
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
National Security ◽  
The United States ◽  
Arab Countries ◽  
The Us ◽  
The World ◽  
Communist China ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Foreign Ministries

From the early 1970s, the US-China relationship was central to diplomatic reporting, with National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger’s visit to Peking in October 1971, President Nixon’s historic visit in February 1972, and the establishment the following year of small liaison offices in Peking and Washington. Following each of Kissinger’s further visits in 1973 and 1974, senior diplomats virtually queued up at the liaison office to find out what progress, if any, had been made towards the normalization of US-China relations. Peking’s diplomats, like some of their colleagues elsewhere in the world, did not always see eye-to-eye with their foreign ministries. There was little chance of their becoming overly attached to Communist China, as the Japanologists and Arabists were sometimes accused of doing for Japan and Arab countries. At the same time, living and breathing the PRC led some diplomats to regard Chinese Communism as being rather more nuanced—and the government somewhat less belligerent—than the Cold War images portrayed in the West, particularly the United States.

The Sociology of a Not-So-Integrated Discipline: The Development of International Relations in Japan

2002 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 111-126 ◽  
Author(s):  
Takashi Inoguchi
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
International Relations ◽  
The United States ◽  
Japanese History ◽  
Recent Exposure ◽  
The Social ◽  
Causes Of War ◽  
The Us ◽  
The World ◽  
The Cold War

Stimulated by Ole Waever's (1998) examination of American and European developments in International Relations, this article examines the growth of the discipline of international relations in Japan, focusing on the major currents of the social science tradition since 1868 and the intellectual agenda of international relations since 1945. Postwar scholarship has reflected the main themes and questions of Japanese history — the causes of war, the struggle for peace, Japan's place in the world and Asia, and Japan's role in the Cold War. To an extent, the organization and substance of IR teaching and scholarship in Japan can be explained by reference to certain sociological and historical variables. Discussions about methodology have not mirrored the “great debates” of the United States, but the younger scholars are moving closer to the American pattern. Recent exposure to and interaction with American scholarship has become increasingly visible, allowing Japanese scholars to make important contributions to debates in the US.

scholarly journals U.S. Empire: Divergent Views

2015 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 132
Author(s):  
Alida TOMJA ◽  
Daniel BORAKAJ
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Bush Administration ◽  
The United States ◽  
September 11 ◽  
The Us ◽  
Imperial Power ◽  
The World ◽  
The Cold War

The restructuring of the international order at the end of the Cold War created a unipolar system with the United States at the top, but at the same time, restored the language of empire and their categorization as an imperial power. Moreover, the foreign policy pursued by George W. Bush administration after September 11, 2001, prompted many researchers to describe the US role in the world as inseparable from this term. The debate is widely increased in recent years and the dilemma is whether to refer them as imperial or hegemonic power of this system. If it’s hegemonic nature would be purely obvious, then how can be explained that many researchers do not hesitate to define America as empire, especially after September 11, 2001? Based on the literature that deals with the US imperial character, this paper aims to answer the above questions, and to highlight that United States, do not possess anything as an imperial power beyond their Republican core.

The Anti-Aryan Moment: Decolonization, Diplomacy, and Race in Late Pahlavi Iran

2021 ◽  
Vol 53 (4) ◽  
pp. 691-702
Author(s):  
Firoozeh Kashani-Sabet
Keyword(s):  
South Carolina ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
The United States ◽  
World War ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Us ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
The Cold War

In 1946, the entertainer and activist Paul Robeson pondered America's intentions in Iran. In what was to become one of the first major crises of the Cold War, Iran was fighting a Soviet aggressor that did not want to leave. Robeson posed the question, “Is our State Department concerned with protecting the rights of Iran and the welfare of the Iranian people, or is it concerned with protecting Anglo-American oil in that country and the Middle East in general?” This was a loaded question. The US was pressuring the Soviet Union to withdraw its troops after its occupation of the country during World War II. Robeson wondered why America cared so much about Soviet forces in Iranian territory, when it made no mention of Anglo-American troops “in countries far removed from the United States or Great Britain.” An editorial writer for a Black journal in St. Louis posed a different variant of the question: Why did the American secretary of state, James F. Byrnes, concern himself with elections in Iran, Arabia or Azerbaijan and yet not “interfere in his home state, South Carolina, which has not had a free election since Reconstruction?”

The Soviet Factor in the US-China Military-Technical Cooperation during the Cold War

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 12-47
Author(s):  
Yinan Li
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
Active Role ◽  
The United States ◽  
Technical Cooperation ◽  
Arms Sales ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Military

The development of the PRC’s armed forces included three phases when their modernization was carried out through an active introduction of foreign weapons and technologies. The first and the last of these phases (from 1949 to 1961, and from 1992 till present) received wide attention in both Chinese and Western academic literature, whereas the second one — from 1978 to 1989 —when the PRC actively purchased weapons and technologies from the Western countries remains somewhat understudied. This paper is intended to partially fill this gap. The author examines the logic of the military-technical cooperation between the PRC and the United States in the context of complex interactions within the United States — the USSR — China strategic triangle in the last years of the Cold War. The first section covers early contacts between the PRC and the United States in the security field — from the visit of R. Nixon to China till the inauguration of R. Reagan. The author shows that during this period Washington clearly subordinated the US-Chinese cooperation to the development of the US-Soviet relations out of fear to damage the fragile process of detente. The second section focuses on the evolution of the R. Reagan administration’s approaches regarding arms sales to China in the context of a new round of the Cold War. The Soviet factor significantly influenced the development of the US-Chinese military-technical cooperation during that period, which for both parties acquired not only practical, but, most importantly, political importance. It was their mutual desire to undermine strategic positions of the USSR that allowed these two countries to overcome successfully tensions over the US arms sales to Taiwan. However, this dependence of the US-China military-technical cooperation on the Soviet factor had its downside. As the third section shows, with the Soviet threat fading away, the main incentives for the military-technical cooperation between the PRC and the United States also disappeared. As a result, after the Tiananmen Square protests, this cooperation completely ceased. Thus, the author concludes that the US arms sales to China from the very beginning were conditioned by the dynamics of the Soviet-American relations and Beijing’s willingness to play an active role in the policy of containment. In that regard, the very fact of the US arms sales to China was more important than its practical effect, i.e. this cooperation was of political nature, rather than military one.

The Emergence of the New Cold War: The Syrian and Ukraine Conflicts

2016 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 135-156
Author(s):  
Mediel Hove
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Former Soviet Union ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Us ◽  
The World

This article evaluates the emergence of the new Cold War using the Syrian and Ukraine conflicts, among others. Incompatible interests between the United States (US) and Russia, short of open conflict, increased after the collapse of the former Soviet Union. This article argues that the struggle for dominance between the two superpowers, both in speeches and deed, to a greater degree resembles what the world once witnessed before the collapse of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) in 1991. It asserts that despite the US’ unfettered power, after the fall of the Soviet Union, it is now being checked by Russia in a Cold War fashion.

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.

US grand strategy after the Cold War: Can realism explain it? Should realism guide it?

2018 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen M Walt
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Cold War ◽  
World Order ◽  
The United States ◽  
Grand Strategy ◽  
Structural Constraints ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Policy Elites

This article uses realism to explain past US grand strategy and prescribe what it should be today. Throughout its history, the United States has generally acted as realism depicts. The end of the Cold War reduced the structural constraints that states normally face in anarchy, and a bipartisan coalition of foreign policy elites attempted to use this favorable position to expand the US-led ‘liberal world order’. Their efforts mostly failed, however, and the United States should now return to a more realistic strategy – offshore balancing – that served it well in the past. Washington should rely on local allies to uphold the balance of power in Europe and the Middle East and focus on leading a balancing coalition in Asia. Unfortunately, President Donald Trump lacks the knowledge, competence, and character to pursue this sensible course, and his cavalier approach to foreign policy is likely to damage America’s international position significantly.

Henry R. Luce and the Security Ethos

2018 ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
William O. Walker
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
The United States ◽  
World Society ◽  
Free World ◽  
Good Samaritan ◽  
American Century ◽  
Concrete Form ◽  
The World ◽  
The Cold War

The introduction shows how Henry R. Luce in his 1941 essay, “The American Century,” gave concrete form to the security ethos: the belief that, for its own safety, the United States should provide political and economic leadership and act as the indispensable Good Samaritan around the world. For Luce, longstanding fear of foreigners was unacceptable. The United States should heed a providential calling to serve as a beacon of hope for peoples everywhere. In practical terms, especially after 1945 as the Cold War took hold, U.S. officials acted to create a broadly-based free-world society in which modernization was possible. Success in this undertaking depended on whether they could establish credibility with those Washington presumed to lead.

8. Collapsing Empires: The Cold War Battle for Hearts and Minds, 1953–63

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
John W. Young ◽  
John Kent
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
The United States ◽  
French Empire ◽  
Suez Crisis ◽  
Black Africa ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The World ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Hearts And Minds

This chapter examines how the United States and the Soviet Union sought to win the hearts and minds of people in various parts of the world as empires began to collapse during the period 1953–1963. It begins with a discussion of the end of the French Empire, taking into account the loss of French Indo-China and the start of American involvement in Vietnam, along with the collapse of French rule in Morocco and Tunisia. It then considers the crises in the Congo, Angola, and the Middle East, focusing on the zenith of the Cold War in Black Africa, Britain’s declining power, and the Suez crisis. It concludes by looking at the end of the British Empire in Africa.

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