Making a Cold War in the Near East: Turkey and the Origins of the Cold War, 1945–1947

During the post-war negotiations in the years of 1945 and 1946, the Soviets launched a bitter war of nerves against Turkey in order to establish a military base in Istanbul and share control of the Straits. It was crucial for Britain that the USSR be prevented from gaining any influence in Turkey. However, as Britain was in no position to support Turkey financially, American authorities encouraged by London and Ankara took over the responsibility for Turkey. This articles examines the Great Powers rivalry over Turkey and Turkey’s response to it. It argues that regional factors other than US–Soviet confrontation, such as Turkey’s security search against the Soviets, also played a crucial part in starting the Cold War in the Near East.     

Emotions and the British Government’s Decision for War in 1914

ABSTRACT

Recent years have witnessed increasing interest amongst international historians in the impact of emotions on foreign policy decisions as part of a broader movement usually known as the ‘emotional turn’. This trend is associated with findings from the field of neuroscience that cognition and emotion—rather than operating independently—remain inextricably bound together in human decision-making. Most work thus far has concentrated on American foreign policy since 1945, but this analysis broadens the focus to consider the impact of emotions on British decision-makers, especially Cabinet ministers, as they debated whether to go to war in 1914. It shows that despite a tendency by the protagonists themselves to interpret their actions in rational terms, sufficient evidence of emotions exist in the written record to allow a fresh approach to the July Crisis. Whilst emotions must be seen as acting alongside rational mental processes, rather than regularly over-powering them, a focus on the subject helps explain different approaches taken by individual ministers, why the majority came to approve intervention in the conflict, and how Prime Minister Herbert Asquith, partly by appearing to control his feelings, minimised resignations over the fateful decision. It also allows a new view about why the Cabinet decided to go to war on 4 August in defence of Belgium, despite deciding just a few days earlier that the question of fulfilling the 1839 guarantee of Belgian neutrality was ‘one of policy than of legal obligation’.     

America''''s Difficulties after the War and the International Political Consequences of the War

The U. S. A will succeed militarily in the Iraq war. However, it is far away from the true meaning of victory in war defined by distinguished strategic thinker B. H. Liddell Hart, even inaccessible. Using Hart's own word, the true victory in war is to attain a better state of peace and improve the quality of life for the survivors after the war is over. What await America after the basic success in Iraq are grave military and political difficulties. Moreover, there may be bigger economic and financial troubles as well.     

UK policy coordination during the 1990–91 intergovernmental conference

Despite the importance of European Union negotiations, the majority of scholarly attention has not been directed towards the means by which policy is coordinated in member states. This article addresses one aspect of this gap by focusing upon the structures which existed for UK policy making during the 1990–91 IGC negotiations. Particular emphasis is attached to the key role of officials, who often proved crucial to the extraction of compromises at the European level, and the manner by which policy was constrained by the inability of the Prime Minister to dominate Cabinet.     

British Policy and the Ruhr Crisis 1922–24

This article provides an overview of British policy during a defining episode in the interwar period — the Ruhr crisis of 1923–4. The author assesses the external considerations influencing Britain's policy (especially the roles of France, Germany, and the United States), and also explores the processes of foreign policy making within Britain's complex bureaucratic system. In particular, the relationship between the Foreign Office and the Treasury is analyzed and its impact on European policy assessed. The article challenges traditional views of British policy at this time, concluding that it was far more complex, but also far more limited and constrained, than previous studies would suggest.     

Delegating Terror: Principal–Agent Based Decision Making in State Sponsorship of Terrorism

State sponsorship of terrorism, where a government deliberately provides resources and material support to a terrorist organization, is common in the international system. Sponsorship can provide significant strategic and political benefits for a state, but there are inherent international and domestic risks associated with delegating foreign policy to these actors. Using principal–agent analysis, I develop a model that evaluates the impact of potential costs and benefits on a state’s decision to sponsor terrorism. I test my model by using a novel dataset on sponsorship behaviors that ranges from 1970 to 2008. The results of my analysis support the validity of the principal–agent model in explaining sponsorship, as states will be more likely to engage in sponsorship when the strategic benefits of weakening the targeted state are high and the risks of international reputation loss and domestic dissatisfaction are low.     

Not the Third World War: The Heathrow Succession Rights Affair and Anglo–American Relations 1990–1991

Whilst the British and Americans expended blood and treasure together in the Kuwaiti desert in 1991, bureaucratic blood from both sides was also visible on carpets in London and Washington. The reason was attempts to replace the access to Heathrow airport of two failing airlines, Pan American World Airways and Trans World Airlines, with American and United Airlines. This succession rights affair was one of the most difficult diplomatic negotiations ever on civil aviation between the United States and Britain. How and why that controversy developed, its resolution, and what impact on, and feedback from, the broader Anglo–American relationship that it had are the main concerns of this analysis.     

Civil War Diffusion and the Emergence of Militant Groups, 1960–2001

In this research note, I argue that scholars of the international diffusion of civil conflict would benefit from directly measuring rebel mobilization prior to the onset of civil war. To better understand the way in which international processes facilitate dissidents overcoming the collective action problem inherent in rebellion, I focus on militant organizations and model the timing of their emergence. I use several data sets on militant groups and violent nonstate actors and rely on Buhaug and Gleditsch’s (2008) causal framework to examine how international conditions predict militant group emergence. While Buhaug and Gleditsch conclude that civil war diffusion is primarily a function of internal conflict in neighboring states, once militant group emergence is substituted in the dependent variable, I observe that global conditions affect rebel collective action. A final selection model links militant groups with civil conflict onset and demonstrates the variable performance of diffusion effects. The results indicate that many rebels mobilize in response to more global events and then escalate their behavior in response to local conditions.     

US Foreign Policy Decision‐Making during the Clinton Administration

Citizenship and identity in Europe / edited by Leslie Holmes and Philomena Murray. ‐ Aldershot: Ashgate, c1999. ‐ xii, 167 p. ‐ ISBN 1–84014–002‐X

The enlargement of Europe / Stuart Croft... [et al.]. ‐ Manchester and New York : Manchester University Press, c1999. ‐ XVI, 188 p. ‐ ISBN 0–7190–4971–7 (pbk)

The rebirth of Europe / Elizabeth Pond. ‐ Washington D.C. : Brookings Institution Press, C1999. ‐ xiv, 290 p. ‐ ISBN 0–8157–7157–6

Theory and reform in the European Union / Dimitris N. Chryssochoou... [et al.]. ‐Manchester and New York : Manchester University Press, c1999. ‐ xiv, 174 p. ‐(Europe in change). ‐ ISBN 0–7190–4991–1

The competitive advantage of nations: the case of Turkey : assessing Porter's framework for national advantage / Özlem Öz. ‐ Aldershot: Ashgate, c1999. ‐ xii, 214 p. ‐ ISBN 1–84014–982–5

Ethnic conflicts and civil society: proposals for a new era in Eastern Europe / edited by Andreas Klinke, Ortwin Renn, Jean‐Paul Lehners. ‐ Aldershot : Ashgate, c1997. ‐ XVI, 283 p. ‐ ISBN 1–84014–455–6 (hbk)

Ethnicity and intra‐state conflict / edited by Håkan Wiberg, Christian P. Scherrer. ‐Aldershot : Ashgate, c1999. ‐ x, 327 p. ‐ ISBN 1–84014–713‐X

The European Union and Turkey: an anchor/credibility dilemma / Mehmet Ugur. ‐Aldershot: Ashgate, c1999. ‐ xviii, 286 p. ‐ ISBN 1–84014–443–2

The G7/G8 system : evolution, role and documentation / Peter I. Hajnal; with a contribution by Sian Meikle. ‐ Aldershot : Ashgate, c1999. ‐ xvi, 197 p. – ISBN 1–84014–776–8

The G8's role in the new millennium / edited by Michael R. Hodges, John J. Kirton, Joseph P. Daniels. ‐ Aldershot : Ashgate, c1999. ‐ xvi, 191 p. – ISBN 1–84014–774–1

Mediatori in armi: l'allargamento della NATO e la politica USA in Europa / Roberto Menotti. ‐ Milano : Guerini e associati, c1999. ‐ 228 p. ‐ (Frontiere). – ISBN 88–7802–996–3

Revolutionary Iran : civil society in the modernization process / Masoud Kamali. ‐Aldershot : Ashgate, c1998. ‐ xx, 318 p. ‐ ISBN 1–84014–449–1

Russian national interests and the current crisis in Russia / Henry Trofimenko. ‐Aldershot: Ashgate, c1999. ‐ viii, 324 p. ‐ ISBN 1–84014–405‐X

Serbia under Milosevic : politics in the 1990s / Robert Thomas. ‐ London : Hurst &; Co., C1999. ‐ xx, 443 p. ‐ ISBN 1–85065–367–4 (pbk)

Gli Stati Uniti e l'apertura a sinistra : importanza e limiti della presenza americana in Italia / Leopoldo Nuti. ‐ Bari: Gius. Laterza &; Figli, c1999. ‐ XXIV, 729 p. ‐ ISBN 88–420–5749–5     

Cause and Impact of the Financial Crisis in the United States

The current round of financial crisis stemming from the U.S. is now spreading rapidly all over the world. People are yet to see what will become of the crisis. There are entrenched reasons for the crisis.     

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.”     

Iraq War and the Period of Important Strategic Opportunities

The American and British war against Iraq started on March 20, 2003 not only caused heavy casualties and ecological environmental disasters but also exerted impact on regional and world security, stability and development. Even so the war is a local war, and it is unlikely to     

The impact of the Iraqi Crisis on the transatlantic link. A summary of views on the US–EU and US–NATO relationship

Lithuania's security orientation has evolved significantly since 1991. It has moved from prioritising Baltic and, then, Nordic, cooperation to focusing on partnership with Poland, and seeking NATO and European Union membership. Initially re‐buffed by both, Lithuania has gradually sought to strengthen its de facto ties with NATO and WEU, and to build up its economic ties with the EU and its member states, in the belief that this provided a form of ‘soft’ security, and prepared the way for eventual membership of NATO and the EU.     

Peace and quiet in the British House of Commons, 1990–2010

This article is concerned with disruption by Members of Parliament in the British House of Commons between 1990 and 2010. Disorder in the “Thatcherite” parliaments of the 1980s has been the subject of parliamentary and academic investigation, but the phenomenon since then has gone unexamined. This article introduces a distinction between non-tolerated and tolerated disorder. Non-tolerated disorder has been relatively rare in the House of Commons between 1990 and 2010, and can mainly be attributed to a handful of parliamentary “mavericks”. Tolerated disorder, which forms an accepted part of the Commons' culture, is also explored, and recent changes to the House are examined for their potential effects on the phenomenon. While opinions vary about the desirability of tolerated disorder, this article accepts the argument that it is a symptom of serious problems with the British governing tradition and will persist unless and until those problems are addressed.     

“No More War?” Belgian Reception of the League of Nations and Arbitration After the First World War

After the horrors of the First World War, different initiatives were taken to introduce and institutionalise principles of international organisation such as collective security and arbitration in international relations. The League of Nations was founded, and different bilateral and multilateral arbitration treaties were concluded. This article studies the reception of these internationalist principles by Belgian policymakers and diplomats. I will argue that this reception initially ranged from cautiousness to clear scepticism. Although an evolution towards increased trust in collective security and arbitration can be observed between 1919 and 1929, Belgian policymakers' and diplomats' views during this period remained predominantly based on realist premises and beliefs.     

Kazakhstan： Impact of and Countermeasures to the Global Financial Crisis

Kazakhstan, a big power in Central Asia, is one of the first countries affected by the U.S. financial crisis. As the funds of Kazakh banks are mostly from the international bank loans, Kazakhstan has suffered a slowdown in the international capital flows after the outbreak of the U.S. subprime lending crisis. In the second half of 2007, many other issues such as the decline in bank solvency, the increase in non-performing loans and the problem of ＂loan stint＂ emerged in Kazakhstan. Several projects had to be stopped due to capital-strand break.     

Crisis leadership and non‐communication: Marcos of the philippines

For all of their centralized power and undisputed authority, even crisis leaders are susceptible to breakdowns in political communication. This is particularly significant when martial rule or a state of emergency—most effective when of short duration— becomes open‐ended; the sense of urgency no longer prevails.

In the initial stage of proclaiming a constitutional emergency it is perhaps easiest to create an atmosphere of crisis and to promote a collective sense of danger. A climate of national fear and insecurity, in turn, enables the constitutional dictator to mobilize broad support even for draconian measures imposed at the expense of individual freedoms. With the prolongation of the emergency, however, and the institutionalization of crisis government, certain immunities to authoritarianism do begin to surface. As suggested by periods of prolonged emergency rule in India and South Korea, the leader becomes remote and isolated; he or she no longer feels quite so compelled to communicate; domestic opposition increases.

The experience of President Marcos and the Philippines since 1972 illustrates some of the political dynamics of the modern, permanent “emergency state.” What has happened to the New Society program of reforms should help in understanding the critical link of communication between leaders and their followers under conditions of either real or manipulative domestic political stress.