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Begin New Search Topic Cold War Political Geography Russia Content Type Journal Article

11. America’s Unipolar Moment of Renewal or Collapse?

Author:
Ofer Israeli
Publication Date:
02-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
American Diplomacy
Institution:
American Diplomacy
Abstract:
After a century of an American world order established by U.S. President Woodrow Wilson at the end of the First World War, we are facing a shift in Washington’s global attitude. President Trump’s approach to world affairs is different. Although Obama, and to some extent Bush before the September 11, 2001 terror attacks, was starting to withdraw from the U.S. historical position of key global superpower, President Trump’s approach to world affairs is a much more drastic acceleration of this move. Continuing in this direction means we may soon face a collapse of America’s century-long preeminence, and the creation of a new world order in which the U.S. is no longer leading the global power, but only first among sovereigns, if at all.
Topic:
International Relations, Cold War, Government, World War I, World War II, and Institutionalism
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, Iran, Middle East, Israel, Soviet Union, and United States of America

12. Murder in Equatorial Guinea: A Foreign Service Urban Legend

Author:
Mark L. Asquino
Publication Date:
09-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
American Diplomacy
Institution:
American Diplomacy
Abstract:
Almost fifty years have passed since the terrible day in 1971 when one State Department officer brutally killed another in the tiny, African country of Equatorial Guinea. What took place there is a lurid story of sex, madness and murder that almost every foreign service officer has heard about at one time or another. In many ways it’s the State Department’s version of the 1984 classic film, “Nightmare on Elm Street.” However, the murder in Equatorial Guinea is a real-life tale of horror that continues to intrigue foreign service officers. Here are the basic facts of what happened.
Topic:
Cold War, Crime, Diplomacy, and Memoir
Political Geography:
Africa, Russia, North America, United States of America, and Equatorial Guinea

13. From Geopolitical Competition to Strategic Partnership: Turkey and Russia after The Cold War

Author:
Evren Balta
Publication Date:
09-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Uluslararasi Iliskiler
Institution:
International Relations Council of Turkey (UİK-IRCT)
Abstract:
This article examines different analytical perspectives on Turkish-Russian relations and provides a conceptual history of developing connections between Turkey and Russia since the end of the Cold War. It first reviews evolving political relations, including military cooperation, and then focuses on economic relations, including energy cooperation. Finally, it discusses the socio-cultural aspects of bilateral relations, focusing on the movement of people. It shows how conflicting geopolitical interests have overshadowed the increasing economic cooperation and cultural exchange that had marked the previous two decades of bilateral relations. Although Turkey and Russia have competing regional interests, their dissatisfaction with and resentment of Western policies is one of the major reasons for their reluctant geopolitical cooperation. This article emphasizes the need for a multi-causal and analytically eclectic approach to analyzing Turkish-Russian relations that selectively recombines analytic components of causal mechanisms in competing research traditions.
Topic:
Cold War, Bilateral Relations, Military Affairs, Partnerships, and Economic Cooperation
Political Geography:
Russia, Eurasia, Turkey, Middle East, and Mediterranean

14. Spies, Election Meddling, and Disinformation: Past and Present

Author:
Calder Walton
Publication Date:
09-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Brown Journal of World Affairs
Institution:
Brown Journal of World Affairs
Abstract:
Spies, election meddling, disinformation, influence operations, data har- vesting: at present, it seems barely a moment passes without another intelligence scandal breaking on our news feeds. Following Russia’s “sweeping and systematic” attack on the 2016 U.S. presidential election—which was intended to support Moscow’s favored candidate, Donald J. Trump, and undermine his opponent, Hillary Clinton—the media frequently labeled the operation “unprecedented.” The social-media technologies that Russia deployed in its cyber-attack on the United States in 2016 were certainly new, but Russia’s strategy was far from unusual. In fact, the Kremlin has a long history of meddling in U.S. and other Western democratic elections and manufacturing disinformation to discredit and divide the West. Russia’s leader, Vladimir Putin, a former KGB officer, has reconstituted and updated the KGB’s old Cold War playbook for the new digital age. This paper, an exercise of applied history, has two aims: first, to understand the history of Soviet disinformation, and second, to make sense of Western efforts to counter it during the Cold War. Doing so provides policy-relevant conclusions from history about countering disinformation produced by Russia and other authoritarian regimes today.
Topic:
International Relations, Cold War, Espionage, and Disinformation
Political Geography:
Russia and United States of America

15. Confrontation in Eastern Europe: The Russian Challenge to the European Union

Author:
Roger E Kanet
Publication Date:
06-2018
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Journal of Diplomacy and International Relations
Institution:
School of Diplomacy and International Relations, Seton Hall University
Abstract:
In the following pages we intend to trace the factors that explain the shifts in Russian policy from the early to mid-1990s, when Russian leaders were committed to joining the international system dominated by the European Union and the United States, to the present confrontation between Russia and the West.2 Why has the relationship deteriorated as it has? I will first discuss briefly the essentially unsatisfactory nature of relations between the Russian Federation and the West; from the Russian perspective, in the 1990s, and their role in determining the central goals that have driven Russia’s evolving sense of identity and policy since Vladimir Putin came to power at the turn of the century. I will note the aspects of Western policy that seemingly led to the decision in Moscow, around 2005, that cooperation with the West on terms of equality was impossible and that Russia should forge ahead to achieve its own objectives, even if that resulted in confrontation with the West. This decision resulted in the so-called “gas wars” with Ukraine in 2006 and 2009, the Russo-Georgian war of August 2008, and more recently the intervention in Ukraine since 2013, including the absorption of Crimea into the Russian Federation and the ongoing military support for the government of President Bashar Hafez al-Assad of Syria, an assessment of which will comprise the final substantive section of the article. All these Russian policies contributed to the growing confrontation in relations between Russia and the European Union, as did EU efforts to tie East European states more closely to the EU itself.
Topic:
International Relations, Cold War, and Vladimir Putin
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, Ukraine, United States of America, and European Union

16. James and the Moscow Goons

Author:
Peter Bridges
Publication Date:
04-2018
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
American Diplomacy
Institution:
American Diplomacy
Abstract:
Putin’s recent expulsion of hundreds of our colleagues serving at our embassy and consulates in Russia reminded me of my own service in Moscow in the 1960s. You may call this ancient history, though it doesn’t seem so ancient to me. Stalin had been in his grave for a decade, and dear Nikita Khrushchev was now in charge. Under Stalin, two and a half million people had been prisoners in the deadly Gulag camps. Thousands of poor haggard people had been released, and some of the system’s more notable deceased victims were even “posthumously rehabilitated.” The Gulag had officially been closed down in 1960—but an estimated three-quarters of a million inhabitants of the USSR were still in the horrid camps. And nothing had been done to lessen the role of the KGB, at least so far as we could see.
Topic:
Cold War, Diplomacy, Economy, and Memoir
Political Geography:
Russia, Soviet Union, North America, and United States of America

17. In a World of War, Could it Be ‘From Russia with Love’: A Conversation with Igor Istomin

Author:
Igor Istomin and Akshobh Giridharadas
Publication Date:
07-2018
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Fletcher Security Review
Institution:
The Fletcher School, Tufts University
Abstract:
Igor A. Istomin is a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Applied Analysis of International Issues at MGIMO University. He holds Ph.D. and M.A. degrees from MGIMO University as well as an undergraduate degree from Saint Petersburg State University. Istomin teaches undergraduate and graduate classes in methods of applied analysis of international affairs. He is an executive editor at International Trends, a leading Russian academic journal. He is also a visiting fellow at the School of International and Public Affairs at Jilin University in China. Istomin is the author of more than 50 publications on U.S. foreign policy, relations in the Euro-Atlantic space, and international security. His most recent book is The Logic of State Behavior in International Politics (2017). He has also prepared policy reports and papers for the Russian International Affairs Council, the Valdai Discussion Club, the Center for Strategic Research in Moscow, and the European Leadership Network.
Topic:
Security, Foreign Policy, Cold War, and Bilateral Relations
Political Geography:
Russia, Eurasia, North America, and United States of America

18. Historical Trajectory of the U.S.-Russia Relationship: Perception and Misperception: A Conversation with Professor Tatiana Shakleina

Author:
Tatiana Shakleina and Ryan Rogers
Publication Date:
07-2018
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Fletcher Security Review
Institution:
The Fletcher School, Tufts University
Abstract:
Professor Tatiana Shakleina sat down with the Fletcher Security Review in November 2017 in conjunction with the Conference on U.S.-Russia Relations between The Fletcher School and Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO). In a detailed and engaging conversation that spanned over 25 years of history, Professor Shakleina traced the post-Cold War origins of the current tension between the United States and Russia. While personnel within the Trump Administration have moved on to new positions or left government altogether since the interview, Professor Shakleina’s rich historical overview of post-Cold War U.S.-Russia relations remains extremely relevant in understanding the recent trajectory and current state of the bilateral relationship. ​
Topic:
Security, Cold War, Government, History, Bilateral Relations, and Trump
Political Geography:
Russia, Eurasia, North America, and United States of America

19. Turkey and East Central Europe: Idealism, Pragmatism, Misperception or Clash of Interests?

Author:
Konrad Zasztowt
Publication Date:
01-2018
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Warsaw East European Review (WEER)
Institution:
Centre for East European Studies, University of Warsaw
Abstract:
urkey is focused on Russia in its policy vis-à-vis the Black Sea region, Cauca- sus, Ukraine, Balkan countries as well as, at least to some extent, Central European countries, including Poland. This priority has its impact on Ankara’s relationship with Eastern and Central European countries, which remain in the shadow of Turkish policy towards Russia. However that negative impact is not powerful enough to spoil Turkey’s cooperation with Eastern and Central European countries. It certainly limits the scope of such partnerships or alliances. Turkey contin- ues to cooperate with the region’s countries, but often rejects their Euro-Atlanticism. In Turkish perception the EU’s enlargement in Central Europe was unjust (as Turkey has been applying much longer for the EU’s membership without any significant progress, whereas post-commu- nist countries were accepted relatively quickly). NATO enlargement in the East in Turkey’s view was always a ‘risky adventure’. At the same time, from Ankara’s point of view the Middle East is strategically more important than Turkish northern neighbourhood. Moreover, Turkey wants to be an equal interlocutor in dialogue with Russia, the U.S. and the EU, whereas it often conceives post-communist and post-Soviet countries merely as a zone of influence for the Kremlin and Washington or their battleground in Cold War 2.0.
Topic:
NATO, Cold War, Diplomacy, Regional Cooperation, Military Strategy, and Conflict
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, Turkey, Poland, North America, and United States of America

20. Old Times on the Soviet Desk

Author:
Peter Bridges
Publication Date:
01-2016
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
American Diplomacy
Institution:
American Diplomacy
Abstract:
Back in the late 1950s, when Stalin was not long gone and the Soviet state remained our militarily powerful and dangerous adversary, the State Department’s basic office for dealing with the Russians was a Soviet desk composed of just four members of the Foreign Service and four from the Civil Service, the latter including an archivist and two stenographers. There were of course other Washington offices that had to do with the USSR, in State as well as in CIA, Commerce, the FBI, the Pentagon, and USIA; but we were the primary interface wth the two embassies, the Soviet in Washington and ours in Moscow. Shortly before Christmas in 1957 I became the junior Foreign Service officer on the Soviet desk, after completing the then three-month orientation course for new FSOs at the Department’s Foreign Service Institute.
Topic:
Cold War, Diplomacy, and Memoir
Political Geography:
Russia, Soviet Union, and United States of America