Cold War Think Tanks: Back in Business

Transatlantic Policy Quarterly

The last one year proved itself to be a very tough year, and it brought many new challenges for the international relations. Among these new challenges, the most striking one is probably the Russia’s unleashing a war of aggression on Ukraine. As Russia’s invasion stepped up on the 24 February 2022, many Western experts and policymakers predicted that the Ukrainian armed forces wouldn’t be able to defend Kyiv, and that it would fall to the invaders before the month ended. Nonetheless, the government and people of Ukraine are still fighting, and you can see evidence of this everywhere you walk in Kyiv thanks to the flag of free Ukraine flying from rooftops.

IR Theory, Historical Analogy, and Major Power War, 2018

Journalistic references to a "new Cold War" or "Cold War 2.0" 1 in the aftermath of the Russian annexation of Crimea and its political-military interference in eastern Ukraine since February-March 2014 are misleading. Instead, the post-Cold War era best resembles a mix of the pre-World War I and interwar periods-particularly following the disaggregation of the Soviet Empire-more so than the Cold War in which the global constellation of powers had been dominated by the US and Soviet Union. 2 This is not to argue that the Cold War-which directly or indirectly killed an estimated 20-25 million people in interstate conflicts and as much as seventy-six million deaths if one included innerstate "genocide" and "democide" in the period 1947-1987 3 in what can be considered a quasi-global war that was fought by surrogate forces primarily in semi-peripheral and peripheral regions-was not dangerous. In fact, the Cold War almost exploded into a nuclear conflict during the Cuban Missile Crisis and during NATO's Able Archer Exercises, as discussed in this book, and on several other occasions despite the belief that mutual assured destruction (MAD)-what was also called the "delicate balance of terror" 4-would prevent a nuclear war. Yet, in contemporary circumstances, it is no longer as certain (as it at least appeared to be during the Cold War) that nuclear weaponry possessed by major (or by emerging regional) powers will necessarily serve as a deterrent against other nuclear powers. CHAPTER 1

Mrs Bulletin, 1995

2018

Over the last few months there has been speculationthat the world has now entered a new period ofCold War. Serious mainstream journals suchas the US-based journal The Nation have referred tothe escalating nuclear arms race, the expansion ofNATO territory to Russia’s borders, Putin’s successfulannexation of Crimea, internet hacking accusations,and the expulsion of Russian diplomats following thepoisoning of ex-spy Sergei Skripal and his daughteras reasons for concern at the territorial ambitionsof both Trump and Putin. Writing in the UK-basedNew Statesman Professor of War Studies LawrenceFreedman develops an additional argument thatCold War 2.0 is essentially a product of the internetage, offering some continuity with Cold War 1.0, butratcheted up by the power of propaganda and (dis)information through the web. In pursuing his argument Freedman presses the point that ‘Western governmentsare never going to be much good at state-sponsoredinformation campaigns. It is worth noting, howev...

Varia Historia

In face of the growing systemic conflict between the West and China and the sudden escalation of tensions with Russia in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine, the concept of the Cold War reappears in recent years as a reference category. Terefore, the purpose of this article is to present an exhaustive and up-to-date review of the historiographical state of the art in relation to the concept, interpretations, physical and mental spaces and defining systemic structures of the world order between 1947 and 1991. Classic references are included, as well as the most recent, innovative and ground-breaking contributions to the historiography of the Cold War, which since 1991 has undergone a profound makeover, due to the broadening of interpretative categories and the multiplication of historiographical sources. Only by identifying what the Cold War really was will it be possible to construct valid comparative analyses, highlight lines of continuity, describe new variables and, ultimately, d...

The Cold War: The Definitive Encyclopedia and Document Collection., 2020

The Cold War superpower face-off between the Soviet Union and the United States dominated international affairs in the second half of the 20th century and still reverberates around the world today. This comprehensive and insightful multi-volume set provides authoritative entries on all aspects of this world-changing event, including wars, new military technologies, diplomatic initiatives, espionage activities, important individuals and organizations, economic developments, societal and cultural events, and more. This expansive coverage provides readers with the necessary context to understand the many facets of this complex conflict. The work begins with a preface and introduction and then offers illuminating introductory essays on the origins and course of the Cold War, which are followed by some 1,500 entries on key individuals, wars, battles, weapons systems, diplomacy, politics, economics, and art and culture. Each entry has cross-references and a list of books for further reading. The text includes more than 100 key primary source documents, a detailed chronology, a glossary, and a selective bibliography. Numerous illustrations and maps are inset throughout to provide additional context to the material. FEATURES Includes more than 1,500 entries covering all facets of the Cold War from its origins to its aftermath, including all political, diplomatic, military, social, economic, and cultural aspects Incorporates the scholarship of more than 200 internationally recognized contributors from around the world, many writing about events and issues from the perspective of their country of origin Offers more than 100 original documents—a collection that draws heavily on material from archives in China, Eastern Europe, and the former Soviet Union Provides hundreds of powerful images and dozens of informative maps detailing specific military conflicts and movements of various groups Includes a detailed chronology of important events that occurred before, during, and after the Cold War

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.

2008

The Soviet and Post-soviet Review, 1995

Between the "discovery" of the Cold War in 1946 and its "dissolution" in 1989, the world for scholars, citizens and policymakers was simple. There was an assumed and apparently undeniable dichotomy between "them" and "us"; the "evil empire" and "the City on the Hill"; a "Free World" and a "Communist" one that yvas in the "Soviet bloc" behind a virtually impregnable "Iron Curtain"; and pure democracy and capitalism yersus Communism. if effect, the assumptions that justified and kept the Cold War "heated" created a Cold War or, at least, 'Iron Curtain" from west to east in scholarship and in virtually every other area. To the extent the differences between the Soviet Union, its purported "satellites" in Eastern Eu