Security dilemmas and the end of the Cold War (original) (raw)
Related papers
Was the Cold War a Security Dilemma?
Journal of Cold War Studies, 2001
Under the security dilemma, tensions and conflicts can arise between states even when they do not intend them. Some analysts have argued that the Cold War was a classic example of a security dilemma. This article disputes that notion. Although the Cold War contained elements of a deep security dilemma, it was not purely a case in which tensions and arms increased as each side defensively reacted to the other. The root of the conflict was a clash of social systems and of ideological preferences for ordering the world. Mutual security in those circumstances was largely unachievable. A true end to the Cold War was impossible until fundamental changes occurred in Soviet foreign policy.
Encyclopedia of the Cold War. 2 vols.
3 short articles in Encyclopedia of the Cold War. 2 vols. Eds. Ruud van Dijk et al. “Chiang Kai-shek,” 1:138-141; “Great Leap Forward,” 1:379-381; “Liu Shaoqi,” 2:548-550. New York: Routledge, 2008. Between 1945 and 1991, tension between the USA, its allies, and a group of nations led by the USSR, dominated world politics. This period was called the Cold War – a conflict that stopped short to a full-blown war. Benefiting from the recent research of newly open archives, the Encyclopedia of the Cold War discusses how this state of perpetual tensions arose, developed, and was resolved. This work examines the military, economic, diplomatic, and political evolution of the conflict as well as its impact on the different regions and cultures of the world. Using a unique geopolitical approach that will present Russian perspectives and others, the work covers all aspects of the Cold War, from communism to nuclear escalation and from UFOs to red diaper babies, highlighting its vast-ranging and lasting impact on international relations as well as on daily life. Although the work will focus on the 1945–1991 period, it will explore the roots of the conflict, starting with the formation of the Soviet state, and its legacy to the present day.
An overview of the myriad circumstances that led to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the de facto victory of democracy over communism in the geopolitical arena.
Sources, Methods, and Competing Perspectives on the End of the Cold War
Diplomatic History, 1997
The facts. .. are like fish swimming about in a vast and sometimes inaccessible ocean.. .. What the historian catches will depend partly on chance, but mainly on what part of the ocean he chooses to fish in and what tackle he chooses to use.-E. H. Carr It goes without saying that a decade of glasnost has been a boon to scholarship on Soviet politics and history, including diplomatic history. Although archival revelations have not, to date, supported any radically new interpretations of Soviet foreign policy, they have served to clarify important issues and strengthen one or another long-standing argument on the causes or consequences of the Cold War. Moreover, new documentary sources have contributed much to works that shed valuable light on precisely how the "Kremlin's Cold War" was waged. But the archival windfall brings potential pitfalls. And, as Carr's dictum serves to remind us, one of these is overreliance on the new sources, a temptation to view Politburo, Central Committee, or Foreign Ministry records as definitive in and of themselves. The temptation is understandable given that they offer access to what seems most important: the inner councils of a highly centralized, dictatorial system. But herein a danger lies, for so centralized and dictatorial was the Soviet system-fully autocratic under Josef Stalin-that the decision-making locus was not the Central Committee or Politburo, but Stalin's own mind. Also complicating the historian's task were Stalin's aversion to records of his deliberations and his pains to deflect responsibility and depict authority as lying elsewhere. Thus, the "black box" of early Cold War decision
To a very large extent the current policies developed for dealing with the strife between Russia and the West echo the policy and ideological stresses of the Cold War. There is an underlying theme of anti-communism in dealing with Russia which colours the strategy. For most scholars, academics and analysts the term Cold War is viewed as a general rubric for the competition between the U.S. and its allies in the West against the Soviet Union and its allies around the world. The Cold War has been described as a game of tactics and coercion conducted by nation states under the umbrella of Mutual Assured Destruction where nuclear attacks were the ultimate weapons. This interaction by sovereign states may, indeed, be the vital component of the Cold War struggle but it was not really the arena in which most the Cold War interactions took place. The Cold War was rarely conducted on a battlefield with soldiers (except for Korea); the real Cold War battlefield was in the factories, ports, schools, universities and cultural centres across the world where the covert forces of the U.S. and the Soviets were pitted against each other; occasionally with deadly consequences. It involved the most important elements of our societies: political parties; labour unions; national unions of students; organisations of cultural freedom; organised criminal structures; and organised religious groups. These were the battlefields of the real Cold War and the loci of competition and coercion by the KGB, the GRU, the CIA, MI6, the BND, the Stasi and many others. Without understanding the crucial dimensions of these conflicts any real understanding of the term 'Cold War' is woefully deficient. The modern development of social media and the internet has added the capability of the competitors to lie, exaggerate and confuse.