An exploration of multi‐country political conflict/cooperation interdependence

Previous investigations of dynamic conflict actions and reactions among major countries have generally assumed the unit of analysis to be either a dyad or a triad. Our objective of the papa‐is to explore this assumption. The empirical analysis employs quarterly political conflict/cooperation among the United States, the (former) Soviet Union, China, Japan, and (West) Germany from 1950 to 1991. The model consists of a system of dynamic multiple regression equations. Various groups formed among mese countries are tested to find out whether they can be considered an autonomous unit of analysis. The analysis reveals several groups of countries whose political relations can be considered to be autonomous. In particular, either the United States‐the Soviet Union dyad or the United States‐the Soviet Union‐China triad is not an appropriate, autonomous unit of analysis in dynamic conflict action‐reaction models, because these countries are significantly influenced by the presence of other countries. New directions for future research are also suggested.     

Is the internet an instrument of global democratization?

This article explores the hypothesis that people in less democratic nations will use the Internet newsgroups devoted to those countries as a relatively ‘safe’ form of political discussion and even protest. Also, it is expected that nationals of those countries living overseas will use these newsgroups to more openly discuss politics in those nations than they could otherwise do so. Before turning to a content analysis of the messages posted in non‐United States Usenet groups, the number of these groups and the levels of political discussion in them are quantified. The article quantifies the international usage of the Usenet as a first attempt to find some patterns in this usage that may be politically motivated. After all, many pundits imagine that the Internet will become the vaunted ‘global village’ and source of ‘grass‐roots democracy’, and not merely in the United States. An examination of the content of about 2500 messages in 41 Usenet groups then follows, with a view to establishing the following: how many messages are explicitly political; how many are in opposition to the current government; how many are pro‐government; whether they primarily serve as alternative sources of news; whether they are attempts to recruit people in the subject country and around the world into some sort of political action; and whether richer nations are more likely to have higher levels of discussion in their newsgroups than poorer ones. The findings conclude that newsgroups devoted to countries with lower levels of democratization have a much higher percentage of anti‐government messages than the newsgroups about nations that are more democratic.     

国际环境对东南亚威权政治的影响

冷战期间,东南亚国家处在冷战的全球国际大环境之下的“热战”地区国际小环境之中。两种制度之间的争夺、美苏中三大国之间的角逐对东南亚国家推行威权政治起到了一定的推动作用。由于实行威权政治的东南亚各国的国情不同,国际环境对它们的作用方式和影响效果也不尽相同。本文试对新加坡、印度尼西亚和菲律宾三国的情况进行初步的分析。     

America's freedom to act in the Caspian Area

After the break up of the Soviet Union the conflict over energy resources in the Caspian area has flared up again. The United States has entered the stage, but the only remaining superpower finds it hard to forward its security policy interests and interests in the economic sphere in the area. The creation of a US‐dominated hegemony in the area would be beneficial for the United States, but the policy of containment of Iran and Russia, and US policy towards Azerbaijan seriously limits this possibility. Thus it is not possible to secure American influence in the Caspian area. In the long term this leaves the area open to Russia and Iran, or new actors such as China and the EU, unless the United States is willing to soften its policy vis‐à‐vis Iran and/or Azerbaijan in order to create the needed hegemony, and in this way achieve economic and political influence in the former Soviet republics.     

Structure and Perceptions: Explaining American Policy Toward China (1949–50)

American policy toward China during the early Cold War has long been considered as a prime anomaly to balance of power theory. Many realists have argued that domestic forces caused a confrontational policy, overriding structural imperative to accommodate China to balance the stronger Soviet power in Asia. Refuting the domestic explanation, I argue that balance of power consideration primarily determined the U.S. policy. Under the powerful pressure of bipolar competition, the Truman administration persistently pursued a realist policy of forming an alliance with Communist China, or at least neutralizing it, through accommodation in order to balance the Soviet Union in Asia. This policy was based on the assessment of Soviet superiority in Asia. However, my analysis of the power structure shows that there was little structural incentive for China to cooperate with the United States against the Soviet Union because the latter was in a somewhat disadvantageous position globally and had limited offensive capabilities in Asia. Further, Chinese leaders perceived the United States as the superior power in bipolarity. Consequently, China formed an alliance with the Soviet Union to check the United States according to its own balance of power logic.     

Understandable Failure: The Eisenhower Administration's Strategic Goals in Iraq, 1953–1958

The present article contends that while the United States did not link Iraq to the West in a Northern Tier alliance aimed at containing the Soviet Union, the failure to do so was not principally a result of mistakes made by Washington. American actions in Iraq were constrained by the competing imperial ambitions of the United Kingdom and by the regional political goals of the Iraqi monarchy. The criticism that the Eisenhower administration undermined the stability of the Iraqi monarchy by not supplying it with sufficient aid, and encouraging it to join the unpopular Baghdad Pact ignores the importance that Britain and the Iraqi government itself had on fate of the Iraqi monarchy.     

Understandable Failure: The Eisenhower Administration's Strategic Goals in Iraq, 1953-1958

The present article contends that while the United States did not link Iraq to the West in a Northern Tier alliance aimed at containing the Soviet Union, the failure to do so was not principally a result of mistakes made by Washington. American actions in Iraq were constrained by the competing imperial ambitions of the United Kingdom and by the regional political goals of the Iraqi monarchy. The criticism that the Eisenhower administration undermined the stability of the Iraqi monarchy by not supplying it with sufficient aid, and encouraging it to join the unpopular Baghdad Pact ignores the importance that Britain and the Iraqi government itself had on fate of the Iraqi monarchy.     

Strategic defense without star wars: The case for a defense‐emphasis arms control regime 1

This paper challenges two prevalent assumptions of the mainstream U.S. arms control community: first, that strategic nuclear disarmament? should be regarded as beyond the scope of serious superpower dialogue; second, that strategic defense (especially population defense) is inherently incompatible with the goals of arms control. It does so first by analyzing the events surrounding the Reykjavik summit—the occasion of the first direct negotiations on disarmament between the leaders of the United States and the Soviet Union. Next, while identifying grave flaws in the current design of the Strategic Defense Initiative, it will be argued that a defense‐emphasis arms control regime can provide the best long‐term means for addressing the problem of security in the nuclear age.     

Geopolitical pluralism in the CIS: The emergence of GUUAM

This article argues that the 12 states of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) are evenly divided into two groups that are grouped around Russia and Ukraine. The emergence of these two groups, one of which is decidely pro‐Western and pro NATO ‐GUUAM (Georgia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Moldova) ‐is a sign of what Brzezinski defined as early as 1994 as geopolitical pluralism has finally emerged in the former USSR. US policy, he argued, should be the consolidation of this geopolitical pluralism within the former Soviet Union as the means by which a non‐imperial, ‘normal’ Russian nation‐state would emerge with whom a ‘genuine American‐Russian partnership’ could be secured. Brzezinski signalled that Ukraine was the key state that prevented the revival of a new Russian empire and therefore aided the consolidation of Russian democracy. One could add that GUUAM, as an organization led by Ukraine, should also therefore play a central role in US and Western policy towards the former USSR.     

From East to West,and back again: Economic reform and Ukrainian Foreign Policy

In this article we argue that when Former Soviet Union (FSU) leaders can obtain Western economic resources, then their foreign policy will more often be independent of Russia. The principal factor we examine with respect to securing Western economic assistance concerns the willingness of leaders to implement economic reform, an enabling condition that allows leaders to adopt policies more independent from Russia. In contrast, if leaders cannot secure Western economic resources because of a lack of reform, they are more likely to adopt a pro‐Russian orientation. In the case of Ukrainian foreign policy throughout the past decade, we contend that there are three distinct phases. These include the initial anti‐Russian policy of the early 1990s that proved unsuccessful because of a lack of reform, the more moderate Russian orientation in the middle of the decade when moderate reform was implemented, and a stronger pro‐Russian orientation by the end of the decade as reform slowed.     

The United States–EURATOM Agreement of 1958: The Cold War Impact

Drawing on declassified sources, this analysis examines how the Cold War influenced United States policy towards the creation of the European Atomic Energy Community [EURATOM]. In the 1950s, “the peaceful atom” became a crucial sector of the Cold War. To maintain American nuclear leadership, the Dwight Eisenhower Administration invited Western Europeans to enter into an active collaboration with the United States on peaceful uses of atomic energy. The United States encouraged the creation of EURATOM by promising that the Community would obtain more assistance in the nuclear field than any individual state. The Soviet launch of Sputnik provided additional impetus to the signing of the United States–EURATOM agreement, having strengthened American interest in a joint programme with EURATOM that would bring together American and Western European scientific and technical resources to counter the Soviet Union. The exegesis contributes to recent studies on the interaction between the Cold War and European integration.     

Not as bad as it seems: EU and US democracy promotion faces China in Africa

The rise of China in Africa is often described as a major challenge to the United States (US) and the European Union (EU) democracy promotion policies. China is accused of providing important volumes of loans, development aid, trade and investments without “political strings” attached, thereby undermining the US and the EU's possibilities to set material incentives for reforms. This article investigates Ethiopia and Angola as two cases where one would expect that the growing presence of China has made it more difficult for the EU and US to support reforms. Empirical findings presented in this article go against this argument. In both countries, the EU and the US face substantial difficulties to make the respective government address governance issues. However, the presence of China has not made it more difficult for the US and the EU to implement their strategies. Instead the empirical analysis suggests that domestic factors in Ethiopia and Angola, notably the level of challenge to regime survival both governments face, influence both governments’ willingness to engage with the EU and US.     

The elite press,the global system,and foreign news attention

This article presents summary findings from a content analysis of the foreign news coverage of four U.S. elite newspapers. Overall, the pattern of foreign news attention in the elite American press tends to reflect the “relative distances” between the United States and other national news targets. The more proximate another society is to the United States along economic, political, and cultural dimensions, the more likely the U.S. press will perceive its activities to be newsworthy. The country‐by‐country distribution of foreign news largely corresponds to existing hierarchical divisions within the international system. The reported foreign news is concentrated among the economically‐advanced, politically‐prominent, and culturally‐western societies; that is, the pattern of foreign news coverage is western‐oriented, big‐power dominated, and Eurocentric.     

《中导条约》与全球战略稳定论析

《中导条约》是冷战期间美苏达成的一项重要军控条约,是全球战略稳定的支柱之一。2019年8月,美俄相继退约,引发国际社会极大关注。人们担心,条约退场将冲击全球战略稳定,刺激军备竞赛,影响欧亚安全形势,削弱国际军控体系。中国是美国退约重要借口之一,条约作废势必深刻影响中国外部安全环境。《中导条约》从诞生、发展到消亡,有着深刻的国际、国内和个人三个层面的演变动因,归根结底起决定性作用的是国际格局变迁。20世纪80年代,苏美攻守异势促成了《中导条约》的诞生;进入21世纪后,北约对俄的挤压以及中导技术扩散促使俄罗斯抛出条约全球化倡议;近年来,美国霸权地位相对衰落促其选择退约。但美俄两国政治形势变化及领导人更迭也深刻影响了条约的“生、住、变、灭”的时机和方式。戈尔巴乔夫的“新思维”改革与当时高涨的核裁军运动为签署《中导条约》提供了特殊的政治、社会背景。特朗普政府奉行“美国优先”理念,频频废约“退群”,《中导条约》随之沦为牺牲品。在不同历史时期,陆基中导在全球战略稳定中所起的作用不同。在20世纪60年代初,它是美苏中央威慑的支柱。在20世纪70~80年代,它是影响延伸威慑的重要因素。进入21世纪后,它成为俄罗斯对付美国导弹防御的斗争手段。当前,陆基中导在跨域威慑中扮演日益重要的角色。大国中导博弈正卷土重来,但它必将带有与以往不同的诸多新特点。     

试论美国对苏维埃俄国的武装干涉

十月革命胜利后，美国参与了协约国对苏维埃俄国的武装干涉，并试图借此机会推翻苏维埃政权。由于美国的干涉遭到国内外民众的反对；参与干涉的各国，特剐是美日存在明显的矛盾；俄国反布尔什维克派别自身的腐败；俄国广大民众的英勇抵抗等因素，美国和协约国的武装干涉最终以失败告终。     

“Between Two and Four”: The French Initiative and the Multi-Power Diplomatic Initiatives to Resolve the Middle East Crisis

This analysis examines one of the unknown chapters in the diplomatic history of the Arab-Israeli conflict: the French initiative of 1969 calling for diplomatic co-operation amongst the four Great Powers—the United States, Soviet Union, Britain, and France—to put an end to the conflict. The “Forum of Four” did not just attempt to mediate and achieve a compromise between Israel and the Arabs; it also presumed to define the general envelope for the agreement and dictate the path that the sides should follow toward a peace agreement. This analaysis examines the diplomatic positions of Israel, Egypt, and their superpower patrons—which conducted a “Forum of Two”—during the first months of the War of Attrition in 1969 and presents the details of the planned agreement worked out in the deliberations amongst the Powers, especially the United States and Soviet Union. It also surveys the reactions to them and the reasons why mediation failed.     

苏美租让制合作

新经济政策时期苏俄利用租让制来吸引外国的资金和技术。尽管苏俄对租让制企业寄予很高的期望．但租让制企业对苏联国民经济的发展所起的作用不大。美国是参与苏联租让制活动的主要国家之一，通过总结美国承租者在苏联的经营活动，我们可以进一步了解租让制政策未能在苏联取得明显成效的原因。     

“As Far as His Army Can Reach”: Military Movements and East–West Discord in Germany, 1945

This article explores the diplomatic implications of United States troop movements in Germany before and after V-E Day. Existing accounts emphasize American good will and Soviet refusal to cooperate, pointing to the example of an American convoy en route to Berlin in June 1945. Citing an “agreement” of which the American convoy commander had never heard, the Russians would allow only one-half of his troops to proceed. The agreement did exist, however, and the episode must be seen against the backdrop of Soviet suspicions regarding Western willingness to withdraw from the Soviet occupation zone. United States President Harry S. Truman did overrule British Prime Minister Winston S. Churchill's calls to link withdrawal to concessions from the Soviets, but he waited two months before doing so. Prior accounts have ignored the delay's effects on Soviet perceptions. The article argues that American actions had the unintended consequence of reinforcing Soviet Chairman Joseph V. Stalin's belief in Western bad faith.     

中美舆论战与中国的国际传播

美国政府视中国为首要战略竞争对手,并进行遏制打压,激起中国的强烈反对,而舆论战是中美博弈的重要组成部分。中美两国舆论战涵盖的议题广泛,影响波及全球,并发展到意识形态对抗和互相驱逐媒体从业人员的地步。中美双方的舆论攻势和各自国家的政治制度、社会形态的特点息息相关,其阶段性效果与中美既有的国际影响力相匹配。在美国对华大打舆论战的情况下,中国在西方发达国家的形象受损,但在国内极大地凝聚了人心、提振了士气。未来,美国可能仿效针对苏联和俄罗斯的做法,将舆论战更多地和心理战、政治战相结合,以服务其遏制中国的目标。为增强自身的国际传播力,更好地服务与美国的舆论战,中国需要维护好政治安全,提高话语和叙事能力及舆论反击效果,将传统媒体和新兴媒体相融合,并将发展中国家作为国际传播的重点,以逐步形成同我国综合国力和国际地位相匹配的国际话语权。     

Anglo–American Relations and the Cold War in 1950

1950 was a crisis year in the Cold War and saw a growing rift between the United Kingdom and the United States over how best to wage it. It was in the Far East that the most dangerous crisis occurred. Britain recognised the People's Republic of China, not only because the Communist regime clearly controlled the mainland, but also because it was felt that it was not irretrievably linked to the Soviet Union. The United States, on the other hand, regarded China as a Soviet satellite and displayed a consistently hostile attitude towards it. The situation worsened with the outbreak of the Korean War in June. Although the United States and Britain agreed that the invasion of South Korea must be repelled, the British were anxious not to broaden the conflict, whilst the Americans used it as a stick to beat the Chinese. The war also prompted accelerated rearmament and the Americans favoured the rearmament of West Germany. Things came to a head in November, with the large-scale Chinese intervention in Korea, followed in early December by a visit to Washington by the British Prime Minister, Clement Attlee. The British believed that the United States had already concluded that a global war was inevitable, whereas they wished to avoid it if possible. As this article shows, the events of 1950 amply demonstrated the subordinate position of Britain in the “special relationship.”