Suchergebnisse

Elie reviews The Hidden Hand: Britain, America and the Cold War Secret Intelligence by Richard J. Aldrich.

The Gulf War in 1990–91 came at the end of the Cold War and at a time when the Left across the globe was reassessing itself as the Soviet Bloc collapsed. In this period of flux, the Australian Radical Left had also experienced a series of debates about its configuration, with several different attempts at unity, as well as reconsiderations about the relationship between the extra-parliamentary Left, the trade unions and the Australian Labor Party. After Saddam Hussein's Iraq invaded Kuwait in August 1990 and several Western powers, led by the USA and Britain, sought to intervene, Bob Hawke's Labor government supported the coalition against Iraq. A movement against Western intervention in the Gulf and Australia's involvement in the coalition was built, including sections of the Labor Left, the trade unions, the peace movement, students and the organisations of the Far Left. Most looked back to the decade-long movement against the Vietnam War for the framework for the anti-war campaign, but the Left, in all its guises, had faded in influence since the 1970s. This article will look at how the movement against the First Gulf War developed between August 1990 and March 1991 and how it reflected a fractured and weakened Left in Australia in the dying days of the Cold War.

Congress has received insufficient attention from scholars of Cold War foreign policy for a number of reasons, including historiographical patterns & the scattered nature of congressional sources. This gap in the literature has skewed our understanding of the Cold War because it has failed to take into account the numerous ways in which the legislature affected US foreign policy after WWII. This article looks at Cold War congressional policy within a broad historical perspective, & it analyzes how the flurry of congressional activity in the years following the Vietnam War was part of a larger trend of congressional activism in foreign policy. After reviewing the existing literature on the subject of Congress & the Cold War, the article points out various directions for future research. Adapted from the source document.

"This book provides the first historical interpretation of the congressional response to the entire Cold War. Using a wide variety of sources, including several manuscript collections opened specifically for this study, the book challenges the popular and scholarly image of a weak Cold War Congress, in which the unbalanced relationship between the legislative and executive branches culminated in the escalation of the U.S. commitment in Vietnam, which in turn paved the way for a congressional resurgence best symbolized by the passage of the War Powers Act in 1973"--Jacket

"Featuring new evidence on: the end of the Cold War, 1989; the fall of the Wall; Sino-Soviet relations, 1958-59; Soviet missile deployments, 1959; the Iran Crisis, 1944-46; Tito and Khrushchev, 1954. ; "Fall/Winter 2001" ; Caption title. ; Includes bibliographical references. ; "Featuring new evidence on: the end of the Cold War, 1989; the fall of the Wall; Sino-Soviet relations, 1958-59; Soviet missile deployments, 1959; the Iran Crisis, 1944-46; Tito and Khrushchev, 1954. ; Mode of access: Internet.

Johnson reviews 'From the Shadows: The Ultimate Insider's Story of Five Presidents and How They Won the Cold War' by Robert M. Gates and 'The First Directorate: My 32 Years in Intelligence and Espionage Against the West' by Oleg Kalugin with Fen Montaigne.

"Das suggestive Potential von Performanzen beruht ganz allgemein darauf, den Eindruck beim Publikum zu erwecken, die jeweilige Darbietung, selbst wenn sie im metaphorischen oder auch tatsächlichen Sinne in luftiger Höhe auf dem Drahtseil erfolgt, sei insofern das 'Natürlichste auf der Welt', wenn durch die bruchlose Perfektionierung der expressiven Form deren letztendliche Konstruiertheit in Vergessenheit gerät. Gelungene Performanzen verwandeln so gesehen Helmuth Plessners anthropologisches Grundgesetz 'natürlicher Künstlichkeit' in 'künstliche Natürlichkeit', sie stiften in ihrer emotional vereinnahmenden und rational nur schwer dechiffrierbaren Ästhetik gleichsam selbstevidenten Sinn und beendigen damit Kontingenz. Der Kniefall Willy Brandts im Jahre 1970 vor dem Warschauer Ghetto-Denkmal kann als eine der entscheidenden politischen Performanzen nach 1945 gewertet werden, deren symbolische Legitimität spätestens im Jahre 2000 von der deutschen Presse einstimmig bestätigt wurde, als der polnische Ministerpräsident Jerzy Buzek und Bundeskanzler Gerhard Schröder auf dem Areal des ehemaligen Ghettos, direkt gegenüber des Ghetto-Denkmals, ein 'Willy-Brandt-Denkmal' einweihten, das auf einer Relieftafel den knienden Brandt zeigt. Eine entscheidende Frage lautet daher, wie es zu erklären ist, dass Brandts Geste, die gemessen am diplomatischen Protokoll des ursprünglich vorgesehenen Kranzlegung-Rituals im Grunde einen Störfall darstellte, dennoch nicht als solcher, sondern als geradezu auratisches Ereignis gewertet wurde. Eine andere, ebenso entscheidende Frage lautet wiederum, wie es gelingen kann, die an der Konkretheit von Zeit, Ort und Person haftende Authentizität von Performanzen massenmedial zu transportieren, ohne das Erlebnis des Auratischen zu zerstören. Die Analyse des Kniefalls zeigt, dass die Symbolik der Performanz gerade nicht durch den Umweg über die Medien Schaden erlitt, sondern dass dem Kniefall überhaupt erst durch die narrative Interpretationsschlaufe der Presse sein eigentlicher Symbolwert zuerkannt wurde. Symbolizität und Performanz einerseits und mediale Narrativierung andererseits sind hier als zwei Kommunikationskanäle zu begreifen, deren jeweilig spezifisches Vermögen der Sinnproduktion sich reziprok dynamisierte." (Autorenreferat)

Western scholars have long disagreed about the role that ideology played in the Cold War. The release of crucial documentation from the former East-bloc archives has shed new light on this question, but no consensus is likely to emerge. Even if all the archives are eventually opened, the new evidence will not—and cannot—provide full vindication for either realism or an ideology-based approach. A key task for scholars will be to reexamine the broad and often unspoken assumptions on which specific US and Soviet policies were based.

Scholars interested in international relations theory and history are indebted to
Mark Kramer for his splendid review of new historical evidence on the role of ideas
and power during the Cold War. I agree with Kramer that new evidence by itself
never settles learned debates such as the one he reviews. However, the sharper the
debate, the bigger the potential payoff from fresh evidence. Toward that end, I have
three comments.

Bloody birth of a new state -- The United States responds -- Strange bedfellows -- Birth of the Cold War -- The Iron Curtain falls -- Containing communism -- The Berlin Blockade -- One for all against the Soviets -- Mao's moment -- The Cold War turns "hot" - Korea -- Cold War spies -- A dictator dies -- The red scare -- Satellites in the skies -- Khrushchev in America -- Cuba goes communist -- The Berlin Wall -- The race for space -- A crisis in Cuba -- Living with the bomb -- The Vietnam War -- Nixon in China -- Limiting nuclear weapons -- The Sports War -- Reagan's Star Wars -- A new day in Russia -- The fall of the Wall -- End of the Soviet Union -- A new world order -- A second Cold War? -- Glossary -- The central players -- Timeline

This comprehensive study of China's experience during the Cold War, based on American and recently declassified Chinese sources, reveals the crucial role China played in the conflict between the U.S. and the Soviet Union.

Drawing on archival records in Australasia, Europe and North America, Australia and the War in the Air provides a fresh perspective on Australia's involvement in the Great War and a revaluation of air power's early influence on warfare. From the earliest days of the Great War, Australians volunteered to fight in the air - warfare's newest arena, and one that would transform the nature of military operations. In the squadrons of the Australian Flying Corps and with Britain's flying services, Australian airmen fought in campaigns that spanned the length and breadth of the First World War; between 1914 and 1918 they served in the Middle East, the Mediterranean and on the Western Front. By 1919 over 4000 Australians had served with the empire's flying units. Though modest compared to some of the other British dominions, Australia's part had been the most conspicuous. Whereas the other dominions had opted to provide manpower to serve in Britain's flying services, the Commonwealth's insistence on a distinctly national contribution ensured recognition for Australia's support to the empire's effort in the air. This book examines Australia's role in history's first major air war. Unlike previous accounts, which focus on the airmen of the Australian Flying Corps in isolation, this study conceives the Australian part as one of an imperial - and international - whole. In addition to using Australian involvement as a case study to analyse the impact air power had on military operations, this study also addresses aspects of organisation, training, administration and command, as well as the imperial politics and strategic issues that contextualised dominion participation in the war. -- Provided by publisher