Suchergebnisse

Cover -- Diplomacy before the Russian Revolution -- Contents -- List of Tables -- Preface -- 1 The Old Diplomacy and Anglo-Russian Relations -- 2 The British Foreign Office and Russia -- 3 The British Embassy in St Petersburg -- 4 British Consuls in Russia -- 5 The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs 1894-1914 -- Chapter 6 The British and Russian Diplomatic Establishments 1914-17 -- 7 Conclusion -- Select Bibliography -- Index.

© The Author(s) 2018. The recent accession by St Antony's College Oxford of papers from British army officer John Bagot Glubb, commander of Transjordan's Arab Legion, affords a remarkable opportunity to test and reimagine significant debates surrounding the first Arab–Israeli war. Glubb's papers establish two points. First, that military operational necessity best explains the actions of the Arab Legion in 1948 and that this was more important than the political objective by Transjordan and Israel to collude to divide Palestine. Second, the papers offer a new, augmented military history of the war taking into account daunting command and logistical challenges faced by the Legion.

This essay examines an aspect of British counter-insurgency in Palestine in the 1930s during the Arab revolt there against British colonial rule and Jewish settlement: the pro-British, anti-rebel Palestinian militia "peace bands," associated with the Palestinian Nashashibi family and raised with British and Jewish military and financial assistance, and with support from the British Consul in Damascus, Gilbert MacKereth. Using Hebrew, Arabic and untapped local British regimental sources, it details how the British helped to raise the peace bands and the bands' subsequent activities in the field; it assesses the impact of the bands on the course of the Arab revolt; and it sets out the views of the British Army towards those willing to work with them. In doing this, it extends the recent thesis of Hillel Cohen on Palestinian collaboration with Zionists to include the British and it augments the useful but dated work of Yehoshua Porath and Yuval Arnon-Ohanna on the subject. Such a study is significant for our understanding of British methods of imperial pacification methods, especially the British Army's manipulation during colonial unrest of "turned" insurgents as a "loyalist" force against rebels, an early form of "pseudo" warfare. The collaboration by Palestinians resonates with broader histories of imperial and neo-imperial rule, it extends military histories on colonial pacification methods, and it provides rich, new texture on why colonial subjects resisted and collaborated with the emergency state, using the Palestinians as a case study.

DURING THE YEARS BEFORE PERESTROIKA, A NUMBER OF SENIOR FIGURES IN THE SOVIET COMMUNIST PARTY EXPRESSED PUBLIC SUPPORT FOR AN EXTREME RUSSIAN NATIONALIST IDEOLOGY, IN SPITE OF ITS APPARENT CONTRADICTION WITH THE SPIRIT OF SOCIALIST INTERNATIONALISM. DURING THE GORBACHEV ERA, OPPOSITION TO THE GENERAL SECRETARY'S REFORMS WAS INCREASINGLY EXPRESSED IN TERMS OF A NATIONALIST RATHER THAN A MARXIST-LENINIST 'DISCOURSE', AS CONSERVATIVE COMMUNISTS ATTACKED THE CHANGES BROUGHT ABOUT BY PERESTROIKA FOR BEING UN-RUSSIAN. SINCE THE ABORTIVE COUP OF AUGUST 1991, OPPOSITION TO YELTSIN'S REFORM PROGRAMME HAS SIMILARLY FOCUSED ON ITS 'ANTI-NATIONAL' CHARACTER, FACILITATING A RAPPROCHEMENT BETWEEN CONSERVATIVE COMMUNISTS AND EXTREME RUSSIAN NATIONALISTS. THIS 'RED AND BROWN' COALITION POSES A CONSIDERABLE CHALLENGE TO THE RUSSIAN GOVERNMENT IN ITS ATTEMPT TO LEAD THE COUNTRY TOWARDS A POST-COMMUNIST SOCIETY AND SYSTEM.

THIS ARTICLE CONSIDERS THE CLAIM THAT WE SHOULD NEVER NEGOTIATE WITH TERRORISTS. THE AUTHOR ARGUES THAT, ALTHOUGH IT MAY ALWAYS BE WRONG TO LET TERRORISTS DICTATE TO US, NEGOTIATION MAY STILL BE ACCEPTABLE SINCE TO NEGOTIATE AND TO SUBMIT TO DICTATION ARE DIFFERENT THINGS. A RANSOM AGREED IN NEGOTIATION IS A RANSOM WHICH CAN BE AFFORDED AND SO SHOULD NOT BE WITHHELD. THE CLAIM THAT TO RANSOM SOME VICTIMS IS TO ENDANGER OTHERS IS COMMONLY EXAGGERATED TO THE POINT OF TREATING EXISTING HOSTAGES AS UNCONDITIONALLY EXPENDABLE; A CERTAIN BARBARISM IS REACHED AT THAT POINT. TURNING TO THE ARGUMENT THAT NEGOTIATION CONCEDES LEGITIMACY TO ILLEGITIMATE POLITICAL FORCES THE AUTHOR ARGUES, FIRSTLY, THAT TO DENY THAT AN OPPONENT HAS ANY LEGITIMACY IS TO RISK BRUTALIZING ONESELF AND, SECONDLY, THAT TO SEEK LEGITIMACY IN OPPONENTS WHO HAVE BEEN EVIL HITHERTO IS A USEFUL MEANS OF SECURING PEACE. HE CONCEDES THAT THE SEARCH FOR LEGITIMACY IN EVIL PEOPLE MAY FAIL FOR YEARS OR EVEN FAIL INDEFINITELY AND THAT DURING THOSE YEARS NEGOTIATIONS ARE USELESS; WHICH MAKES RUTHLESS REPRESSION ON OUR PART THE ONLY REPLY TO TERRORISM WHICH, DURING THOSE YEARS, IS OF ANY USE. BUT THIS CONCESSION DOES NOT ELEVATE 'NEVER NEGOTIATE WITH TERRORISTS' INTO AN ABSOLUTE MORAL PRINCIPLE.

THIS PAPER SEEKS TO SUPPORT, MAINLY BUT NOT EXCLUSIVELY BY ARGUMENTS CONCERNING TAXATION, THE VIEW THAT LOCKE WAS, BY THE STANDARDS OF HIS CONTEMPORARIES, A RADICAL DEMOCRAT; HENCE TO OPPOSE THE CONTRARY VIEW THAT HE WAS AN APOLOGIST FOR CLASS RULE, SPECIFICALLY FOR A PROPERTY-BASED OLIGARCHY SUPPORTED BY A FORMAL DENIAL OF THE RIGHT OF SUFFRAGE TO THE POOR. THE AUTHOR EMPHASIZES THE FACT THAT IN LOCKE'S TIME POOR PEOPLE PAID CONSIDERABLE SUMS IN TAX, AND RELATES LOCKE'S DEMAND FOR TAXATION BY THE CONSENT OF A REPRESENTATIVE PARLIAMENT TO "IMPROVEMENTS," TO THE TRADITIONAL SUFFRAGE AND ITS REFORM, TO HIS IDEA OF THE RIGHTS OF THE POOR, AND FINALLY TO HIS BASIC IDEA THAT LABOR CREATES WEALTH.