Vietnamese Political Studies and Debates on Vietnamese Nationalism

2007 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 175-230 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tuong Vu
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Other ◽  
Deep Impact ◽  
Political Studies

This essay reviews the study of Vietnamese politics, specifically the debates about Vietnamese nationalism that have preoccupied scholars. The field has undergone two growth spurts——one in the mid 1960s and the other since the mid 1980s. These periods of growth were precipitated by Cold War politics and political developments in the United States and Vietnam, and the debates on Vietnamese nationalism evolved in a way that corresponded to trends in the field as a whole. When the field shifted, the tone of the debates and the major arguments advanced also shifted. Clearly, politics has had a deep impact not only on the development of the field but also on its scholarship.

An Ordinary Soviet Death

2019 ◽  
pp. 127-149
Author(s):  
Victoria Smolkin
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Other ◽  
Modern State ◽  
Christian Tradition ◽  
The West ◽  
Rational Argument ◽  
The One ◽  
The Cold War

This chapter describes the timing and motivations of the USSR's promotion of atheist doctrine. At the outset, it seems, the Soviets expected Orthodoxy to wither away, invalidated by rational argument and the regime's own record of socialist achievement. This did not happen, but Soviet officialdom did not take full cognizance of the fact until the 1950s and 1960s at the height of the Cold War. Then it was that the Soviet Union's confrontation with the West came to be recast in religious terms as an epic battle between atheist communism on the one hand and on the other that self-styled standard-bearer of the Judeo-Christian tradition, the United States. So, here indeed, in Soviet atheism, is a secular church militant—doctrinally armed, fortified by the concentrated power of the modern state, and, as many believed, with the wind of history at its back. It speaks the language of liberation, but what it delivers is something much darker. The chapter then considers the place of ritual in the Soviet secularist project.

Response to “France and the German Question, 1945–1955,” by Michael Creswell and Marc Trachtenberg

2003 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 33-36
Author(s):  
William I. Hitchcock
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Other ◽  
Traditional View ◽  
Main Thrust ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
German Question

Three scholars offer separate responses to the article by Michael Creswell and Marc Trachtenberg. The responses include some common points, but they diverge sharply in other respects. The first two respondents generally agree with the conclusions reached by Creswell and Trachtenberg, but one of them believes that the article goes too far (in its contention that France's anxiety about the Soviet Union eclipsed its concerns about Germany), whereas the other argues that the article does not go far enough in showing how the United States adapted its policy to accommodate French leaders. The second respondent also questions whether Creswell and Trachtenberg have added anything new to the latest “revisionist” works on French-German relations in the first decade of Cold War. The third respondent, unlike the first two, rejects the main thrust of the article by Creswell and Trachtenberg and seeks to defend the traditional view that France was very reluctant to go along with U.S. and British policies on the German question. This respondent also questions whether Creswell and Trachtenberg have focused on the most appropriate sources of evidence.

The First Years of the Cold War

1952 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 536-547
Author(s):  
Dana G. Munro
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Other ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Secretary Of State ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Cold War

We rarely have an opportunity to study the intimate reactions of two members of the President's cabinet to a series of very recent and very important events. Both Speaking Frankly and The Forrestal Diaries cover about the same period—the period when the United States was slowly awakening to the realities of the postwar world—but they are very different in other respects. Secretary Byrnes' book was written to give a picture of the problems that he encountered during his tenure as Secretary of State and to express his considered views about policy for the future. The Diaries, on the other hand, were never intended for publication, and without connective matter supplied by the editor they would be merely a collection of memoranda of meetings and conversations, copies or summaries of documents prepared by other people, personal letters, and less frequent entries in which Mr. Forrestal recorded his own opinions or impressions.

Nation

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Castiglia
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
National Identity ◽  
Cold War ◽  
The United States ◽  
Local Communities ◽  
The Other ◽  
Ideology Critique ◽  
National Belonging ◽  
European Culture ◽  
The Cold War

Taking the Cold War state to be the origin of diffused suspicion, abstract enemies, and totalizing explanations, this chapter contends that contemporary ideology critique—based on the same dispositions—melancholically reproduces rather than challenges Cold War epistemologies. As an alternative, the chapter offers the practice of hope Granville Hicks and Constance Rourke developed around the empty signifiers nation, exceptionalism, and activism, concepts most often targeted by New Americanists (and New Historicists in general). Hicks argued for two Americas, one synonymous with capitalism and hence worthy of critique, and the other based on local communities that use nationhood to organize against capitalism and the models of national exceptionalism it requires. For Hicks, patriotism is an organizing concept for the economically disadvantaged majority who are weakened by their denied access to rhetorics of national belonging. Constance Rourke, turning to folkways that transform European culture into something distinctly American, focused on the specificity of cultures produced by distinctive communities within the United States, yet she used the particularity of cultural formations as the basis, rather than simply a renunciation, of national identity.

Conflicting visions? Cuba in the eyes of a Soviet spy and an American diplomat

2019 ◽  
Vol 95 (4) ◽  
pp. 917-924
Author(s):  
Radoslav Yordanov
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
The United States ◽  
Us Foreign Policy ◽  
The Other ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Southern Neighbour ◽  
Council Of State ◽  
Che Guevara ◽  
East West

Abstract This review essay considers the books Raúl Castro: un hombre en revolución by Nikolai S. Leonov and Our woman in Havana: a diplomat's chronicle of America's long struggle with Castro's Cuba by Vicki Huddleston. One would be hard-pressed to find more qualified observers with first-hand experience of Cuba's politics than Nikolai Leonov and Vicki Huddleston. A former chief of KGB's analytical department, Leonov held several medals and decorations, including the Ernesto Che Guevara First Degree Order of the Cuban Council of State. Huddleston, on the other hand, headed the Cuban Affairs of the State Department and in 1999 became the first woman to lead the United States' Interests Section in Havana. Both authors offer in their accounts two visions of Cuba which rather complement each other. The keen revolutionary eye of the Soviet spy leans towards temporality. He saw Cuba in East–West terms, where historically the decade-old American aggressive plans and Soviet's withdrawal pushed the island into a corner. On the other hand, the seasoned American diplomat, well versed in the complex ebb and flow between her state and its southern neighbour, sides with positivity. To her, Cuba is a ‘natural ally’ to the United States. Our woman in Havana admits there is more to the erstwhile Cold War, and with this Ambassador Huddleston's seeks to awaken the ‘better angels’ of US foreign policy towards the island nation.

Turkey-United States Relations

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barin Kayaoğlu
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Military Personnel ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Other ◽  
Great Power ◽  
National Interests ◽  
Us Military ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The 19Th Century

Since the 1780s, the geographical, historical, cultural, and ideational chasm between Turkey and the United States has remained wide. The presence of US merchants, missionaries, and educators in Ottoman territories, the immigration of hundreds of thousands of Ottoman subjects to the United States, the tens of thousands of US military personnel stationed in Turkey during the Cold War, and the thousands of Turkish citizens who continue to attend US universities every year have not been able to bridge that gap. Aside from the cultural and geographical gap, much of the disconnect between Turkey and the United States came from Turkish and American leaders’ ignorance of the other side. From the 19th century onward, Ottoman and Turkish leaders hoped to use the United States as a counterweight in Europe’s great power games despite Washington’s lack of interest in such an outlook until 1945. Likewise, most US administrations after 1945 thought that Turkey’s national interests could be easily reconciled with US global security priorities.

The Nixon Doctrine and Nakasone Yasuhiro’s Unsuccessful Challenge to Japan’s Defense Policy, 1969-1971

2012 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 52-74
Author(s):  
Fintan Hoey
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Northeast Asia ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Other ◽  
New Approach ◽  
Security Treaty ◽  
Security Relationship ◽  
The One ◽  
The Cold War

The Nixon Doctrine of 1969 heralded a new approach wherein the United States sought to limit military commitments, particularly of ground forces, in Asia. This departure was seized on by Nakasone Yasuhiro as an opportunity to push for “autonomous defense” at the risk of undermining the Mutual Security Treaty of 1960. For Premier Satō, however, the treaty was the cornerstone of Japan’s relationship with the United States and vital to the security of Japan and Northeast Asia. Such a divergence of views went to the heart of Japan’s security relationship with the United States. On the one hand, America would cajole and pressure Japan to assume more of the regional defense burden, while on the other, Japanese elites resisted such pressure due to fears of alienating and alarming both Japan’s neighbors and the Japanese public. The Nixon Doctrine and Nakasone’s ideas on “autonomous defense” posed a major challenge to the postwar consensus on defense and Japan’s security ties to the United States. Ultimately, however, they were not able to undermine this consensus which lasted long after the end of the Cold War.

Changing images of the USA in German media discourse during four American presidencies

2011 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-51 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lucas Pettersson
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Other ◽  
Media Discourse ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Time Periods ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Relationship

•This article presents a study of how images of the United States have changed in German media discourse since the end of the Cold War. Two leading German news papers, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and Süddeutsche Zeitung, have been analysed during four time periods — from 1984 to 2009 — covering four American presidencies. The results show that the image of the USA was far more critical in 2004, during the Bush era than during the other presidencies, where positive and trustful images had a more prominent place in the discourse. Even anti-American images were found. However, the critical images were, in general, more focused on what the USA does, not what it is — even during the Bush era. Furthermore, the relationship between the USA and Germany was portrayed as being close and friendly — like a father—son relationship — with the exception of 2004, when relations were presented as somewhat strained. •

The Hazards of Operations Involving Nuclear Weapons during the Cold War

2018 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 207-249 ◽  
Author(s):  
Milton Leitenberg
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Other ◽  
False Alarms ◽  
Nuclear War ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Cold War

This article provides an overview of the perils of U.S. and Soviet nuclear war planning during the Cold War. In particular, the article discusses instances of false alarms, when one side or the other picked up indications of an imminent attack by the other side and had to take measures to determine whether the indicators were accurate. None of these incidents posed a large danger of an accidental nuclear war, but they illustrate the inherent risks of the war preparations that both the United States and the Soviet Union took for their immense nuclear arsenals.

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