Suchergebnisse

Besides natural barriers, human-made obstacles have played an important role in the development of aviation. The context of the nation state was a major influence. National states stood for national interests and the defence of borders and sovereignty. These were conducive factors for the development of technologies that resulted in armed craft that used the air medium to defend or further the national interest. National interests were not absent from the civil and commercial use of the air either. The history of commercial aviation is fraught with conflicts over landing and transport rights, resulting from states' sovereignty in the air. For these reasons, operating in the air environment has always been challenging. This special issue of the Journal of transatlantic Studies offers five contributions that revolve around the military and commercial manifestations of natural and human challenges in the field of aeronautics.

The history of development aid has often been analyzed on the level of international politics and ground breaking ideas on big overriding issues. But the policies developed in the various Western capitals do not in themselves provide a full picture of foreign aid. It is important to examine the field more closely: what did actually happen 'on the ground' as a result of intentions and agreements on aid? Did the practice of aid projects influence aid effectiveness? The present article looks at the history of aid provided by the Netherlands, a country that for a long time liked to portray itself as occupying a guiding role in the vanguard of international development. It is based on archival study of project files, set in countries that were at the core of the Dutch aid effort. They are taken from the time span of four decades in which the aid effort was developed and flourished, before the end of the Cold War changed the scenery in 1989. The article aims to shed new light on how policy aims were translated and provides an indication as to why the desired results failed to come about.

After months of crisis, the government of the German Democratic Republic suddenly announced on November 9, 1989 that it would open the border crossings to West Berlin. Even well-informed diplomats had not seen this coming. Foreign envoys warned of the "specter of German reunification" that could disrupt stability in Europe. The reunification promoted by the West German government in Bonn became the keyword for all subsequent developments. Agreements signed in 1945 suddenly assumed a new immediacy. But four decades after the end of the war, the right of the German people to self-determination was undisputed. However, the rapid pace of developments posed challenges for foreign and German diplomats alike. This article compiles a selection of reactions and embeds them in the context of the fall of the Berlin Wall.