Henkel Articles: The Cold War (1950-87)

The article presents the analytical review of the international and domestic policy of the US government by George Kennan. He feels that the problems of modern living of the American society are to be dealt with first before aiming at a leadership position in world affairs, and there is nothing to seek other countries diplomatically and no greater military effort to defend the country. He feels that the domestic policy was biased and over reacted to fears of Russian domination earlier.

Chronicles the peace initiatives of British prime minister Harold Wilson during the Vietnam war. Ways in which the Vietnam War became tangled with the economic order that undergirded the noncommunist side of the Cold War system; SUNFLOWER as a corrective to the general trend of the internationalization project; Struggle of American policy-makers to direct a war going out of control.

Compares the `Long Telegram' written by George Kennan and the `National Security Memorandum No. 68' by a Joint State-Defense Department Committee, documents that discusses the onset of the Cold War and the shaping of the United States grand strategy in the post-war. Comments and criticisms of the author on the documents; How the documents recognized the existence of Soviet threat and the need for U.S. resistance; Theoretical differences between the two reports..

Discusses the relevance of the United States Armed Forces in relation to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in the post-Cold War era in Europe. Fruits of the NATO; Prospects of dissolution; Post-cold war problems; Reorganization issue.

Discusses how a new doctrine for American foreign policy is gradually emerging from the tumult of the first post-Cold War years. How new interventionists seek to end civil wars and stop governments from abusing the rights of their peoples; Roots of new interventionism; Gulf War's errant example; Need for selective intervention; Recognizing United Nations costs and limits; Lessons from Yugoslavia; Pitfalls for President Clinton.

Focuses on the reaction of the American public to the country's use of military force in other countries. Support given by the Americans to the Persian Gulf War; Public support to the Somalia mission; Reaction to the Bosnian civil war; Surveys on American support for the use of military force during interventions; Media coverage of military interventions; Pattern of post-Cold War approval of U.S. interventions.

Features the post-World War Two relationship between the United States and Germany. Foreign policy achievement of reuniting Germany; Transnational relationships affecting American-German alliance; Prospects for cooperation after the Cold War.

Discusses the role of the United States military in international peacekeeping. Types of peacekeeping; Effect of the end of the Cold War; Involvement of the US in several civil wars; Mediation of peace accords; Status of the US as an international military force.

Develops a comprehensive model of bipartisan congressional support of presidents from 1947-1988 on foreign policy and defense policy roll-call votes in the House and Senate. Cold war consensus; Public support for initial American involvement in Korea and Vietnam; Congressional institutional context; Presidential influence in Congress.

Chronicles the United States' foreign relations with Middle East since 1945. United States' access to the oil fields in the Middle East; Alliance with the oil-producing states in the Middle East during the Cold War; Handling of the Palestinian issue; American relations with Israel, Egypt, Syria, Iran and Saudi Arabia.

Analyzes the transformation of the United States' foreign policy in the post-Cold War era. United States' assumption of the role of the world's policeman; Changes in the US' economic relationships to the rest of the world and in the perspective of the American citizenry as major constraints to the US' efforts to shape a new foreign policy; Need for foreign countries to accept the US' departure from a parental role.

Discusses the foreign policy of the President Bill Clinton Administration for the post-Cold War era. New Wilsonians; Rethinking American interests; Limits of power.

Discusses the foreign policy of the United States in the context of possible intervention and mediation of international conflicts. Reasons for interventions in the post Cold War era; American exceptionalism concept; Purity through separation; Political ideology; Role in world politics; Approaches to foreign policy; Intervention in the New World order.

Discusses the characteristics of American foreign policy after the Cold War. Factors which shaped the country's foreign policy; Tradition of slow-changing foreign policies in many countries; Moralism and isolationalism of American foreign policy; History of American foreign policy.

Defines the United States military policy in the post-Cold War world. Range of role proposals; Search for a sensible course that lays out an active international role for the US as a global superpower while avoiding its role as a `supercop'; Flexible array of military alliances; Focus of its security policies on major threats.

Discusses the appropriate defense strategies for the United States in the post-Cold War era. Reliance on strategic nuclear deterrent capability; Immediate and decisive response to regional crises; Continued deployment of American troops overseas to help provide stability in critical regions of the world.

Investigates issues about how to understand the use of nuclear counterforce strategies by the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Function of the counterforce strategies model; Basic argument for the utility of counterforce strategies; United States superiority.

Examines the American cold war debate over US national security policy in terms of military capabilities and political consequences. Assertion that the political consequences of military policy will be of even greater importance in the coming decades; Various means of evaluation.

This article provides an overview of the Cold War from its origins in 1947 to the present day. It begins with a discussion of the balance of power after the war and asks why - if the USSR was as weak as many assumed - did a very powerful United States regard it as a threat to the West's vital interests. This discussion is then followed by an examination of the Cold War as a 'system' which concludes that for both superpowers bipolarity was an acceptable foundation upon which to base their security in the postwar period. The article then examines the crisis of the Cold War in the late 1960s and how Kissinger tried and failed to resolve the problem of world order through the strategy of superpower detente. This brings the discussion to the second Cold War. Here the author explores both the coherence of the Reagan strategy and the degree to which Reagan succeeded where Kissinger failed in establishing a more stable international system.

This review examines some of the recent British, American, and Russian scholarship on a series of important international transitions that occurred in the years around 1945. One is the shift of global leadership from Great Britain to the United States, in which, it is argued, the decisive moment was the fall of France in 1940. Another transition is the emergence of a wartime alliance between Britain and America, on the one hand, and the Soviet Union, on the other, followed by its disintegration into the Cold War. Here the opening of Soviet sources during the 1990s has provided new evidence, though not clear answers. To understand both of these transitions, however, it is necessary to move beyond diplomacy and strategy to look at the social, cultural, and economic dimensions of the Second World War. In particular, recent studies of American and Soviet soldiers during and after the conflict re-open the debate about Cold War ideology from the bottom up.