Russian Revanche: External Threats & Regime Reactions

Daedalus ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 146 (2) ◽  
pp. 128-141
Author(s):  
Keith A. Darden
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
International System ◽  
The United States ◽  
Perceived Threat ◽  
The West ◽  
Civic Organizations ◽  
External Threats ◽  
The Press ◽  
Soviet Russia ◽  
Nato Bombing

Has the development of post-Soviet Russia in an international system dominated by a democracy-promoting United States bred an authoritarian reaction in Russia as a response to perceived threats from the West? Beginning with the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999, Russian elites have increasingly seen the United States as a distinctively threatening power, one with a strategy to exploit civic organizations, ethnic groups, and other forms of domestic pluralism as “fifth columns” in an effort to overthrow unfriendly regimes. With each new crisis in U.S.-Russian relations – Ukraine 2004, Georgia 2008, Ukraine 2014 – the Russian leadership has tightened controls over society, the press, and the state. The result is that the United States’ muscular promotion of democracy abroad has produced the opposite of its intended effect on Russia, leading successive Russian governments to balance the perceived threat from the United States by pursuing greater military and intelligence capacity to intervene abroad, and by tightening internal authoritarian controls at home to prevent foreign exploitation of the nascent internal pluralism that emerged in the wake of Communism.

North Atlantic Treaty Organization

1956 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 656-657
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
North Atlantic ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
North Atlantic Treaty Organization ◽  
The United States ◽  
The West ◽  
German Government ◽  
The North ◽  
The Press

Council It was reported in the press on July 20, 1956 that the west German government was preparing to bring its anxieties about United Kingdom and United States suggestions for a reduction in armed forces before the meeting of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Council, but contrary to expectation, at the July 25 meeting of the Council no reference was made to the reduction of forces. The press did note on July 25 that the United States Secretary of State Dulles gave reassurances to the German ambassador that the United States contemplated no change from the existing number of troops at that time and was still in favor of a German contribution of twelve divisions to NATO. Press reports also noted that the west German government transmitted notes to the members of the Western European Union calling for a review of allied strategy and military planning in view of moves by the United States and United Kingdom to cut their armed forces.

Just How Russian Was Stravinsky?

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Taruskin
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
The West ◽  
Soviet Russia ◽  
Russian Composers

Stravinsky’s career took him from Russia to Switzerland to France to the United States. He exemplified and explicitly asserted cosmopolitanism. Nevertheless, post-Soviet Russia has reclaimed him and in the West as well he is more likely than he used to be to be classified with other Russian composers. This article assesses the claim.

scholarly journals Biden Administration Imposes Sanctions and Seeks to Cement Alliances to Counter China and Russia

2021 ◽  
Vol 115 (3) ◽  
pp. 536-545
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
National Security ◽  
International System ◽  
The United States ◽  
The West ◽  
Human Rights Abuses ◽  
The World ◽  
Distribution Of Power ◽  
Global Influence ◽  
The U.S

The Biden administration's foreign policy emphasizes repairing U.S. alliances and returning the United States to a “position of trusted leadership” to counter increasing challenges from Russia and especially China. The U.S. Interim National Security Strategic Guidance (INSSG), released in March 2021, notes that the United States must “contend with the reality that the distribution of power across the world is changing.” It highlights that China, which has “rapidly become more assertive,” is the only country “potentially capable of combining its economic, diplomatic, military, and technological power to mount a sustained challenge to a stable and open international system,” while “Russia remains determined to enhance its global influence and play a disruptive role on the world stage.” To reaffirm established international norms, the Biden administration has acted both unilaterally and in coordination with long-standing allies to impose sanctions in response to human rights abuses, malicious cyber activity, and election influence. The administration has also taken steps to cement alliances in the Indo-Pacific and with the West.

«Пoлeзныe Идиoты» Глaзaми Пoлякa

2018 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
pp. 99-108
Author(s):  
Petr Cheremushkin (Пётp Чepёмушкин )
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Review Essay ◽  
The United States ◽  
Main Theme ◽  
The West ◽  
Baltic Countries ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Soviet Russia ◽  
The Baltic

This is a review essay of Dariusz Tołczyk’s book Gułag w oczach Zachodu (The Gulag in the Eyes of the West), which was published in Polish in 2009. This controversial work examines the question of why, for at least the first half of the twentieth century, the West has turned a blind eye to the Stalinist repression. Tołczyk notes that the West paid little attention to the complaints of the Baltic countries and Poland about Stalin’s Great Terror. The reviewer states that the formation of an improved Western image of first Soviet Russia and then the Soviet Union from 1917 to the Gorbachev years by a West that is currently worried about the Putin regime, is Tołczyk’s, a Polish author residing in the United States, main theme.

scholarly journals rise of China

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 436-464
Author(s):  
David Garciandía Igal
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New World ◽  
International System ◽  
Asian Country ◽  
The United States ◽  
Global Order ◽  
The West ◽  
Major Topic ◽  
Rise Of China ◽  
China's Rise

A new world emerges to the detriment of the unipolar world led so far by the United States. In this context, what the new global order will look like, due to China's growing influence in the international arena, is a major topic of discussion for internationalists. The debate is mainly based on two alternative standpoints: China will adapt itself to the international system or China will build a new one according to its own values and norms. The aim of this research is to trace the line between (1) the narratives and debates on China's rise, and (2) the civilizational differences between the Asian country and the West, thus providing a framework for identifying possible ways in which China could impact the international system.

Emigrant Psychoanalysts in the USA and the FBI Archives

2004 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 75-92 ◽  
Author(s):  
James E. Goggin
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
National Socialism ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Due Process ◽  
The United States ◽  
External Threats ◽  
The Usa ◽  
The Rich ◽  
New Nation

Interest in the fate of the German psychoanalysts who had to flee Hitler's Germany and find refuge in a new nation, such as the United States, has increased. The ‘émigré research’ shows that several themes recur: (1) the theme of ‘loss’ of one's culture, homeland, language, and family; and (2) the ambiva-lent welcome these émigrés received in their new country. We describe the political-social-cultural context that existed in the United States during the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s. Documentary evidence found in the FBI files of three émigré psychoanalysts, Clara Happel, Martin Grotjahn, and Otto Fenichel, are then presented in combination with other source material. This provides a provisional impression of how each of these three individuals experienced their emigration. As such, it gives us elements of a history. The FBI documents suggest that the American atmosphere of political insecurity and fear-based ethnocentric nationalism may have reinforced their old fears of National Socialism, and contributed to their inclination to inhibit or seal off parts of them-selves and their personal histories in order to adapt to their new home and become Americanized. They abandoned the rich social, cultural, political tradition that was part of European psychoanalysis. Finally, we look at these elements of a history in order to ask a larger question about the appropriate balance between a liberal democratic government's right to protect itself from internal and external threats on the one hand, or crossover into the blatant invasion of civil rights and due process on the other.

Off to a bad start: John Adams’s tussle over titles

2008 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
Author(s):  
James C Alexander
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
United States Of America ◽  
Vice President ◽  
The United States ◽  
John Adams ◽  
The Press ◽  
First Session

From the first days, of the first session, of the first Congress of the United States, the Senate was consumed by an issue that would do immense and lasting political harm to the sitting vice president, John Adams. The issue was a seemingly unimportant one: titles. Adams had strong opinions on what constituted a proper title for important officers of government and, either because he was unconcerned or unaware of the damage it would cause, placed himself in the middle of the brewing dispute. Adams hoped the president would be referred to as, “His highness, the President of the United States of America, and Protector of the Rights of the Same.” The suggestion enraged many, amused some, and was supported by few. He lost the fight over titles and made fast enemies with several of the Senators he was constitutionally obligated to preside over. Adams was savaged in the press, derided in the Senate and denounced by one of his oldest and closest friends. Not simply an isolated incident of political tone-deafness, this event set the stage for the campaign against Adams as a monarchist and provided further proof of his being woefully out of touch.

Mafias on the Move

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Federico Varese
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New York ◽  
Organized Crime ◽  
The United States ◽  
The West ◽  
Market Expansion ◽  
The North ◽  
Economic Transformations ◽  
At Will

Organized crime is spreading like a global virus as mobs take advantage of open borders to establish local franchises at will. That at least is the fear, inspired by stories of Russian mobsters in New York, Chinese triads in London, and Italian mafias throughout the West. As this book explains, the truth is more complicated. The author has spent years researching mafia groups in Italy, Russia, the United States, and China, and argues that mafiosi often find themselves abroad against their will, rather than through a strategic plan to colonize new territories. Once there, they do not always succeed in establishing themselves. The book spells out the conditions that lead to their long-term success, namely sudden market expansion that is neither exploited by local rivals nor blocked by authorities. Ultimately the inability of the state to govern economic transformations gives mafias their opportunity. In a series of matched comparisons, the book charts the attempts of the Calabrese 'Ndrangheta to move to the north of Italy, and shows how the Sicilian mafia expanded to early twentieth-century New York, but failed around the same time to find a niche in Argentina. The book explains why the Russian mafia failed to penetrate Rome but succeeded in Hungary. A pioneering chapter on China examines the challenges that triads from Taiwan and Hong Kong find in branching out to the mainland. This book is both a compelling read and a sober assessment of the risks posed by globalization and immigration for the spread of mafias.

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