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Begin New Search Topic Cold War Content Type Working Paper

1. A Roundtable on Heather Dichter, Bidding for the 1968 Olympic Games: International Sport’s Cold War Battle with NATO

Author:
Jenifer Parks, Anne M. Blaschke, Kevin B. Witherspoon, John Soares, and Richard Kimball
Publication Date:
09-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations (SHAFR)
Abstract:
When Heather Dichter embarked on writing Bidding for the 1968 Olympic Games, she could not have anticipated how prescient her study would be upon publication. Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has found a renewed unity and sense of purpose, and sport has again become a key arena for diplomatic policy. In the 1960s, the focus was on Germany which lay at the heart of a divided Europe, and NATO, the Soviet bloc, and the international sporting community struggled to solve the “German question” of how to handle the existence of two separate German states. Dichter’s book takes the reader through the many intricacies of that question, demonstrating not only how the politics of the Cold War influenced sport, but how international sports in turn influenced Cold War international relations. The “German problem” came to a head when the German Democratic Republic (GDR or East Germany) adopted a new flag and anthem and constructed the Berlin Wall. The erection of the wall, effectively cut off East German athletes from the West, and in response, NATO enacted what amounted to a ban on East German athletes traveling to international competitions in NATO countries. International sports organizations responded by downgrading competitions where East German athletes were excluded or moving competitions from NATO countries to neutral or Warsaw Pact countries, depriving host nations of the soft- power benefits of hosting major sports competitions. Meanwhile, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) deliberated whether to recognize a separate East German Olympic Committee or continue to insist on a unified German team. Once the IOC demanded a guarantee that any city hosting the Olympic Games would allow the free travel of East German athletes to the Games, NATO countries with cities bidding for 1968 Winter and Summer Games, namely the USA, Canada, France, and Norway, pressured the alliance to alter its policies on East German travel. East German officials’ attempts to use sport to legitimize their regime ultimately succeeded, and international sports precipitated the official recognition of a separate German Democratic Republic, which would go on to compete in the 1972 Summer Games in Munich under their own flag and anthem as a fully-fledged member of the Olympic Movement. How this unfolded makes for a fascinating read and a compelling discussion.
Topic:
NATO, Cold War, Diplomacy, and Sports
Political Geography:
Europe and Germany

2. A Contested Conquest: The Many Meanings of 1453 in Turkish Political Rhetoric

Author:
Nicholas Danforth
Publication Date:
09-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP)
Abstract:
Turkish politicians have invoked Ottoman history to justify everything from interfaith tolerance to aggressive irredentism. In the early years of the Cold War, shortly after Turkey and Greece joined NATO, Ankara sought to downplay anti-Greek elements in its 1453 conquest celebrations. Now, by recasting the reconversion of Hagia Sophia and Turkey’s Exclusive Economic Zone claims as matters of national sovereignty, Erdoğan has succeeded in winning support from his political opponents.
Topic:
Cold War, History, Domestic Politics, and Ottoman Empire
Political Geography:
Turkey and Middle East

3. Moscow’s Strategic Obsession with the Eastern Mediterranean: Lessons from pre-Cold-War history

Author:
Constantine Capsaskis
Publication Date:
07-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP)
Abstract:
The vital role of the Eastern Mediterranean has once again come to the fore in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The region has been the site of competition between Russia, and its historical predecessors, and the Anglo-American world for almost 250 years. This paper seeks to glean lessons from the past and help identify the dangers that may face the region today. To do so, a brief, but hopefully thorough, analysis of interactions in the Mediterranean between the British Empire, Russia (in all its iterations) and, to a lesser degree, the United States prior to the Cold War will be presented. It will then seek to use this historical context to examine the present situation in the region. There is a longstanding perception that the Russian Federation, and its historical predecessors (the Russian Empire and the USSR), desired control of the Eastern Mediterranean. The British Empire saw the region as an essential lifeline, connecting the British Isles to India and the dominions of Oceania through the Suez Canal. Britain in the 19th century pursued a policy of directly defending the Canal while also supporting a proxy (primarily the Ottoman Empire) to form a counterweight to the Russian threat. This policy would remain unchanged right up to the beginning of the Cold War. Britain went to great lengths during World War Two to ensure that, following the defeat of the Axis, Greece remain oriented away from the USSR. This included coming to difficult terms with the Soviet Union over the future of Europe and militarily confronting Greek left-wing guerrillas. In the aftermath of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, there has been a significant concentration of Russian and NATO warships in the Eastern Mediterranean as Russia recognizes the critical importance attached by NATO to the region and hopes to achieve disproportionate gains with a threatening presence there. These include the complete control of the Black Sea, the pre-occupation of NATO resources in a region peripheral to Russian coastal security, and rendering regional energy sources vulnerable.
Topic:
Cold War, History, Strategic Interests, and Competition
Political Geography:
Russia, Eurasia, and Mediterranean

4. Russia and India: A New Chapter

Author:
Rajan Menon and Eugene Rumer
Publication Date:
09-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:
Russian-Indian relations are undergoing a major change. Throughout the Cold War, the relationship rested on three pillars: Soviet arms sales to India; shared public-sector-heavy economic philosophy and extensive Soviet aid; and the Soviet Union–India vs. United States–Pakistan–China geopolitical alignment. The fall of the Soviet Union, the rise of India and China, the U.S.-China tensions, the deepening of U.S.-India ties, and the Russian-Chinese partnership intensified by Russia’s break with the West and the war against Ukraine have had a profound effect on Russian-Indian relations. Of the three pillars of the Moscow–New Delhi relationship, only one remains: the arms trade. Russia remains a major supplier of weapons to India, and Russian equipment still makes up a vast portion of Indian Armed Forces’ force structure; but Russia is facing competition in the Indian arms market. India’s desire to diversify its supply of weapons and develop its own defense industry has resulted in declining Russian arms deliveries to India in recent years. Russia’s break with the West because of its war against Ukraine has accelerated its pivot toward China. Against the backdrop of U.S.-China and China-India tensions, Russia’s position as China’s junior partner will make it harder for Russia to preserve partnership with India. Moscow’s leverage versus both New Delhi and Beijing is shrinking as they have greater capabilities of their own than they had previously and have new partners that offer more than Russia. Still, the Russian-Indian partnership will continue. For India, Russia remains an important supplier of weapons and, most recently, oil. India has not joined the West’s sanctions on Russia. By doing so, it has demonstrated its independent foreign policy. For Russia, India is an important market for arms and oil. The Indian-U.S. security relationship is relatively new, whereas India-Russia ties have endured for over two generations. India has no reason to forsake the benefits of this relationship. Nor does Russia. It has been said that Moscow plays a weak hand well, but sustaining strong security ties with both China and India will become more difficult for it. The question is how China will react to Russian arms sales to India, and what Russia will do if pressed by China to curtail them. For reasons of geographic proximity, economic ties, and personal relations between Presidents Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, the odds favor Beijing over New Delhi to have a bigger say in Moscow.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Cold War, History, Bilateral Relations, Partnerships, Geopolitics, and Russia-Ukraine War
Political Geography:
Russia, South Asia, Eurasia, Ukraine, India, and United States of America

5. Russia in the Arctic—A Critical Examination

Author:
Eugene Rumer, Richard Sokolsky, and Paul Stronski
Publication Date:
03-2021
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:
Russia has big Arctic plans, but how they will be realized is uncertain. For the United States this will likely mean the return to a Cold War–like environment rather than a new chapter in great-power competition in the Arctic. Russia’s Arctic ambitions have attracted increasing attention in the West over the past decade as climate change opens up new opportunities in the region for navigation and exploration of its riches. For its part, Moscow casts a wary eye on what it sees as a challenge from the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to its position and ambitions there. The Kremlin’s rhetoric about Western encroachment has become more strident, in sync with its enhanced military posture and ambitious economic and infrastructure projects.
Topic:
NATO, Cold War, Infrastructure, Geopolitics, and Economy
Political Geography:
Russia, Eurasia, North America, Arctic, and United States of America

6. The Humility of Restraint: Niebuhr’s Insights for a More Grounded Twenty-First-Century American Foreign Policy

Author:
Christopher S. Chivvis
Publication Date:
11-2021
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:
The habits of primacy and exceptionalism that history has bestowed on today’s U.S. foreign policy elites are unlikely to serve the nation well in a more competitive twenty-first-century international environment. Fresh perspectives on America’s role in the world are needed. One such perspective can be found in the work of Reinhold Niebuhr, whose searching books and articles from the 1920s to the 1960s drew attention to the unintended consequences of U.S. power in the world, pointed out Americans’ naïveté, and called for greater restraint and humility in U.S. foreign policy. His intellectual corpus deals widely with the perennial issues of U.S. foreign policy, such as nationalism, the self-interest of states, empires, violence, technology, and the problem of peaceful change. He was a realist who diverged from other, especially later realists, in his skepticism about rationalism and his rejection of the nationalist realpolitik of the right and the left alike. He was an anti-Communist who nonetheless urged U.S. policymakers to proceed cautiously in its Cold War struggle with the Soviet Union. Most of all, his critique of American exceptionalism stands as the classic argument for greater humility in U.S. foreign policy. It is a reminder that, however important the country’s role in the world may be, it is too often undergirded by an idealistic naïveté that looks duplicitous to other societies and can undermine durable U.S. leadership. Niebuhr’s insights seem well-suited for the challenges facing U.S. statecraft today. His mix of realism, humility, and sensitivity to the broader moral framework in which the United States operates offer essential ingredients for a clear-eyed, healthy U.S. foreign policy. His warnings against the excesses of anti-Communist ideological competition during the Cold War seem increasingly relevant given growing tensions between the United States and China. The exceptionalism and national chauvinism that Niebuhr diagnosed in the 1950s is no less pervasive in the U.S. foreign policy establishment today, and this diagnosis seems especially important in light of Washington’s recent struggle to reckon with its failures in Iraq and Afghanistan and to manage its global alliances. Niebuhr’s insights speak volumes to the present historical moment the United States finds itself in—characterized by resumed domestic fractures, seemingly intractable international problems, and a role in the world that is again in flux.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Cold War, Exceptionalism, and Reinhold Niebuhr
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

7. Protracted Great-Power War: A Preliminary Assessment

Author:
Andrew F. Krepinevich Jr.
Publication Date:
02-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for a New American Security (CNAS)
Abstract:
FEBRUARY 05, 2020 Protracted Great-Power War A Preliminary Assessment By Dr. Andrew Krepinevich, Jr. Print Download PDF Executive Summary This study provides preliminary observations and insights on the character and conduct of protracted great-power war.1 It finds the U.S. Department of Defense is giving insufficient attention to preparing for such wars. While the probability of an extended great-power war may be low, the costs involved in waging one would likely be extraordinarily high, making it an issue of strategic significance for senior Defense Department leaders. Arguably the best way to avoid these costs is to demonstrate to great-power rivals that the United States is capable of prevailing in a protracted conflict. Once the United States became an active world power, in the early 20th century, a great deal of intellectual effort and considerable resources were devoted to planning for an extended great-power war. The primary purpose of these efforts was not to fight such a war but to avoid one, by discouraging prospective enemies from believing they could win. Even during the Cold War, when both superpowers possessed large nuclear arsenals, successive U.S. administrations sought to demonstrate to the Soviet Union that the United States could wage an extended conventional war. Following the Cold War, planning for protracted great-power war contingencies was essentially abandoned. Now, however, with the rise of revisionist China and Russia, the United States is confronted with a strategic choice: conducting contingency planning for a protracted great-power conflict and how to wage it successfully (or, better still, prevent it from occurring), or ignoring the possibility and hoping for the best. Should they choose the former course of action, U.S. defense leaders and planners must understand the characteristics of contemporary protracted great-power war, which are likely to be far different from those of both recent conflicts and World War II—the last protracted great-power conflict.
Topic:
Cold War, Power Politics, History, and Conflict
Political Geography:
United States of America

8. Causal Mechanism and Explanation in Social Science

Author:
Renate Mayntz
Publication Date:
04-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies
Abstract:
In the social sciences, the development of a specific social event or structure is often ex- plained by a statistical correlation between an independent variable and a variable assumed to be dependent upon it. This mode of explanation is contested by a methodology of causal reconstruction that operates with the concept of mechanisms. A mechanism is a process in which a set of linked steps leads from initial conditions to an outcome or effect. Mechanisms are general concepts, subjecting individual cases to a general category. Except for the litera- ture dealing specifically with the concept, the term “mechanism” is often used without defi- nition of its substantive content; there is no agreement with respect to the unique or plural character of the initial conditions, nor to the structure of the causal path leading to a specific outcome. Nevertheless, mechanisms have played a crucial role in detailed causal analysis of complex historical events, such as the financial crisis of 2008 and German unification of 1989.
Topic:
Cold War, Nationalism, Financial Crisis, and Unification
Political Geography:
Europe, Germany, West Germany, Central Europe, and East Germany

9. India, The United States, Australia and the Difficult Birth of Bangladesh

Author:
Ric Smith
Publication Date:
10-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Australian Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:
Ric Smith has masterfully woven archival material, memories of his own time as a foreign service officer, and conversations with other officers of the then Department of Foreign Affairs to recount the crisis in East Pakistan in 1971 and the difficult birth of Bangladesh. Smith highlights the Cold War incongruities of the crisis, including the Soviet Union’s support for democratic India’s position during the crisis, while the United States supported the military regime in Pakistan. The episode also stands as an example of Canberra diverging from Washington on an issue that was garnering political and media attention in Australia. Australia was able to pursue a policy toward the region that was independent from the United States, accepting early that East Pakistan was “finished” and that there was a need to address an unfolding humanitarian crisis. Smith’s book imparts important lessons about diplomacy for Australia: It is not only possible for Australia’s politicians and diplomats to take independent positions on major international problems, but they are sometimes respected by their allies when they do so.
Topic:
Cold War, Human Rights, Democracy, Geopolitics, and Military Intervention
Political Geography:
Pakistan, United States, Europe, India, Asia, Soviet Union, and Australia

10. The Middle Eastern Scramble for the Horn of Africa: Humanitarian, Agricultural and Educational Aspects

Author:
Irit Back
Publication Date:
10-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies
Abstract:
In the new issue of Ifriqiya, Irit Back deals with how Middle Eastern powers are trying to increase their involvement in the Horn of Africa. A number of analysts and observers have noted that in the Horn of Africa, contemporary Middle Eastern states are now influencing events on the ground and long-term patterns of change. Moreover, the regional divisions within the Middle East, such as the divide between Iran, Turkey and Qatar on the one hand, and the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Egypt on the other, impacts how they compete for shares in the economic and human potential of the Horn of Africa, which includes about 150 million people.[1] Indeed, it seems that the Horn is one of the more turbulent regions in the world, which at the same time is among the most geopolitically and economically important. Currently, the intersection of global, regional, national, and local interests is creating rapid change and political transition.
Topic:
Cold War, Humanitarian Aid, and Geopolitics
Political Geography:
Middle East and Horn of Africa