The Return of History and the End of Dreams

The Return of History and the End of Dreams
Author: Robert Kagan
Publisher: Vintage
Total Pages: 130
Release: 2009-05-05
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 030738988X

Hopes for a new peaceful international order after the end of the Cold War have been dashed by sobering realities: Great powers are once again competing for honor and influence. The world remains “unipolar,” but international competition among the United States, Russia, China, Europe, Japan, India, and Iran raise new threats of regional conflict, and a new contest between western liberalism and the great eastern autocracies of Russia and China has reinjected ideology into geopolitics.For the past few years, the liberal world has been internally divided and distracted by issues both profound and petty. Now, in The Return of History and the End of Dreams, Robert Kagan masterfully poses the most important questions facing the liberal democratic countries, challenging them to choose whether they want to shape history or let others shape it for them.

The Return of History

The Return of History
Author: Jennifer Welsh
Publisher: House of Anansi
Total Pages: 220
Release: 2016-09-17
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1487001312

In the 2016 CBC Massey Lectures, former Special Advisor to the UN Secretary-General and international relations specialist Jennifer Welsh delivers a timely, intelligent, and fascinating analysis of twenty-first-century geopolitics. In 1989, as the Berlin Wall crumbled and the Cold War dissipated, the American political commentator Francis Fukuyama wrote a famous essay, entitled “The End of History,” which argued that the demise of confrontation between Communism and capitalism, and the expansion of Western liberal democracy, signalled the endpoint of humanity’s sociocultural and political evolution, and the path toward a more peaceful world. But a quarter of a century after Fukuyama’s bold prediction, history has returned: arbitrary executions, attempts to annihilate ethnic and religious minorities, the starvation of besieged populations, invasion and annexation of territory, and the mass movement of refugees and displaced persons. It has also witnessed cracks and cleavages within Western liberal democracies as a result of deepening economic inequality. The Return of History argues that our own liberal democratic society was not inevitable, but that we must all, as individual citizens, take a more active role in its preservation and growth.

Return to Cold War

Return to Cold War
Author: Robert Legvold
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2016-03-28
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9781509501892

The 2014 crisis in Ukraine sent a tottering U.S.-Russian relationship over a cliff - a dangerous descent into deep mistrust, severed ties, and potential confrontation reminiscent of the Cold War period. In this incisive new analysis, leading expert on Soviet and Russian foreign policy, Robert Legvold, explores in detail this qualitatively new phase in a relationship that has alternated between hope and disappointment for much of the past two decades. Tracing the long and tortured path leading to this critical juncture, he contends that the recent deterioration of Russia-U.S. relations deserves to be understood as a return to cold war with great and lasting consequences. In drawing out the commonalities between the original cold war and the current confrontation, Return to Cold War brings a fresh perspective to what is happening between the two countries, its broader significance beyond the immediate issues of the day, and how political leaders in both countries might adjust their approaches in order, as the author urges, to make this new cold war "as short and shallow as possible."

A Year Since the Return of History: A New Cold War

A Year Since the Return of History: A New Cold War
Author: Richard Sakwa
Publisher: TRANSATLANTIC POLICY QUARTERLY
Total Pages: 202
Release: 2023-03-01
Genre: Political Science
ISBN:

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. It is clear that we are entering a new era in international relations, one that has revived the horrors and catastrophes of the past and paved the way for "The Return of History," regardless of the outcome of the conflict in Ukraine. Now that a full year has passed since the beginning of the attack, TPQ has devoted this issue to exploring the implications of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on many spheres, ranging from energy security to agriculture. At the same time, we' are raising the question of whether the current era deserves to be classified as the "new Cold War." If so, who are the competing parties, and in what ways is this new Cold War differs from the one that ended in 1991, with the United States and the liberal world emerging victorious? To come up with sufficient and informative answers for these critical questions, we assembled a large number of extremely valuable articles written by eminent researchers, policymakers, journalists, and young experts. All around the world, from the United States to Russia, and from Türkiye to Sweden, manuscripts came in from our contributors. Hence, it is with great pleasure that we provide you with this very qualified issue, which investigates several facets of the emerging global order from an international perspective. Professor Richard Sakwa investigates the causes of the resurgence of the Cold War and examines the differences between it with the original confrontation. He thinks the Cold War mentality is once again ruling world relations. These arguments suggest that the hope that the conclusion of the Cold War in 1989 would usher in a more universal and permanent peace has largely been disproved; instead, by 2014, the centennial of the beginning of World War I, Europe was once again in the grips of bloody war. The United States and the rest of the Political West, as it had been reshaped by the Cold War, remained on one side. On the other hand, he claims that a considerably diminished Russia has replaced the defunct Soviet Union, and that this is happening alongside a China that is determined to regain its great power position. Professor Li Bennich-Björkman argues that Russia is using bombings, attacks, and cruelty to obliterate Ukraine's history. As a result, she sees the current conflict as a struggle to maintain the recollection of what a peaceful Ukraine looked like, smelt like, tasted like, and felt like. She contends that a split between Russia and Ukraine is inconceivable for Putin because of Ukraine's strategic importance to Russia. Ukrainian President Leonid Kravchuk understood this as early as 1991. She says that he and other Ukrainian leaders sought to defend Ukrainian territory while assuring Moscow that amicable ties remained a possibility. Russia, she complains, has never undergone a comparable transformation. Professor Ziya Öniş, who believes that we are in the midst of a Neo Cold War, focuses more on the conflict between "the West" and "the Rest." He claims that the clash between democratic and authoritarian capitalism, the defining conflict of the new era, was exacerbated by Russia's invasion of Ukraine. According to him, the concerted effort of Western nations to end the conflict was evidence of the resurgence of the democratic club of Western governments and their allies (G7 plus). He also argues that a significant schism in opinion has developed between "the West" and "the Rest" as a direct result of the War. He claims that the Russian War in Ukraine ushers in a new era in the post-Western world, one in which territorial conquests are accepted as the norm, setting the path for more armed clashes in a globe already riven by war. Professor Nicolai N. Petro maintains that the healing of the Ukrainian people is often forgotten among the numerous conflicting narratives that drive the war in Ukraine. He argues that this is because the West is ignoring the "Other Ukraine," whose dissatisfaction with the actions of the Ukrainian government since 2014 has stoked tensions. According to him, the West's reaction to Russia's incursion has focused on punishing Moscow but hasn't done anything to ease the tensions within Ukraine. His work indicates that permanent societal harmony in Ukraine and peace in Europe can be achieved only via reconciliation inside Ukraine. We encourage you to learn more about “A Year Since the Return of History: A New Cold War?”. On behalf of Transatlantic Policy Quarterly, I would like to express my gratitude to all the contributors who committed a significant amount of effort and work. The TPQ team has had a great time putting together this special issue. An important acknowledgment goes to our premium corporate sponsor Tüpraş. In addition, we would like to thank our online sponsor, and the sponsor of this issue, Monaco Economic Board. We also like to thank our other sponsors Gordon-Blair, Halifax, Kalekim, TEB, The Ritz-Carlton, and Uluslararası İlişkiler Dergisi for their ongoing support.

The Cold War as History

The Cold War as History
Author: Louis Joseph Halle
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Total Pages: 498
Release: 1991
Genre: History
ISBN:

The classic historical analysis of East-West relations since World War II.

A New Cold War

A New Cold War
Author: Sanjaya Baru
Publisher: HarperCollins
Total Pages: 321
Release: 2021-08-04
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9354227899

In July 1971, US National Security Advisor, Henry Kissinger, made a secret visit to China to meet top Chinese leaders. This inaugurated a new phase not just in US-China relations but in contemporary history. That visit and the subsequent US-China relationship, including the US decision to invest in China's economic rise and admit it into the WTO, combined to firm up the foundations of China's rise as a world power. For more than four decades, the leadership of the two countries had a secretive pact, which worked well to each other's benefit. The US helped power China's economic growth in the hope that Beijing would turn a new political leaf and adopt Western practices (e.g. democracy). China grew economically and militarily, used its financial prowess to spread its influence across continents, as four generations of Chinese leaders built their nation at the expense of the US. Half a century after Kissinger's historic visit, the US and China are today engaged in a trade war bordering on a new Cold War. Washington is not openly talking about 'de-coupling' from China, which has begun to challenge its global dominance, but it might very well be. China has already established itself as a dominant power across Eurasia. More worryingly, China is militarily and economically threatening its neighbours, including Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Taiwan, Australia, Philippines, Indonesia and India. This collection of critical essays examines the impact, consequences and legacy of Kissinger's first, door-opening visit to China and how it has shaped world order.

End of History and the Last Man

End of History and the Last Man
Author: Francis Fukuyama
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 464
Release: 2006-03-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 1416531785

Ever since its first publication in 1992, the New York Times bestselling The End of History and the Last Man has provoked controversy and debate. "Profoundly realistic and important...supremely timely and cogent...the first book to fully fathom the depth and range of the changes now sweeping through the world." —The Washington Post Book World Francis Fukuyama's prescient analysis of religious fundamentalism, politics, scientific progress, ethical codes, and war is as essential for a world fighting fundamentalist terrorists as it was for the end of the Cold War. Now updated with a new afterword, The End of History and the Last Man is a modern classic.

Cold War II

Cold War II
Author: Tatiana Prorokova-Konrad
Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi
Total Pages: 264
Release: 2020-12-15
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 1496831136

Contributions by Thomas J. Cobb, Donna A. Gessell, Helena Goscilo, Cyndy Hendershot, Christian Jimenez, David LaRocca, Lori Maguire, Tatiana Prorokova-Konrad, Ian Scott, Vesta Silva, Lucian Tion, Dan Ward, and Jon Wiebel In recent years, Hollywood cinema has forwarded a growing number of images of the Cold War and entertained a return to memories of conflicts between the USSR and the US, Russians and Americans, and communism and capitalism. Cold War II: Hollywood’s Renewed Obsession with Russia explores the reasons for this sudden reestablished interest in the Cold War. Essayists examine such films as Guy Ritchie’s The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Steven Spielberg’s Bridge of Spies, Ethan Coen and Joel Coen’s Hail, Caesar!, David Leitch’s Atomic Blonde, Guillermo del Toro’s The Shape of Water, Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther, and Francis Lawrence’s Red Sparrow, among others, as well as such television shows as Comrade Detective and The Americans. Contributors to this collection interrogate the revival of the Cold War movie genre from multiple angles and examine the issues of patriotism, national identity, otherness, gender, and corruption. They consider cinematic aesthetics and the ethics of these representations. They reveal how Cold War imagery shapes audiences’ understanding of the period in general and of the relationship between the US and Russia in particular. The authors complicate traditional definitions of the Cold War film and invite readers to discover a new phase in the Cold War movie genre: Cold War II.

Exiting the Cold War, Entering a New World

Exiting the Cold War, Entering a New World
Author: Daniel S. Hamilton
Publisher: Foreign Policy Institute
Total Pages: 250
Release: 2019-11-12
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9781733733953

This book explores how and why the dangerous yet seemingly durable and stable world order forged during the Cold War collapsed in 1989, and how a new order was improvised out of its ruins. It is an unusual blend of memoir and scholarship that takes us back to the years when the East-West conflict came to a sudden end and a new world was born. In this book, senior officials and opinion leaders from the United States, Russia, Western and Eastern Europe who were directly involved in the decisions of that time describe their considerations, concerns, and pressures. They are joined by scholars who have been able to draw on newly declassified archival sources to revisit this challenging period.

Not One Inch

Not One Inch
Author: M. E. Sarotte
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 567
Release: 2021-11-30
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 030026335X

Thirty years after the Soviet Union’s collapse, this book reveals how tensions between America, NATO, and Russia transformed geopolitics in the decade after the fall of the Berlin Wall “The most engaging and carefully documented account of this period in East-West diplomacy currently available.”—Andrew Moravscik, Foreign Affairs Not one inch. With these words, Secretary of State James Baker proposed a hypothetical bargain to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev after the fall of the Berlin Wall: if you let your part of Germany go, we will move NATO not one inch eastward. Controversy erupted almost immediately over this 1990 exchange—but more important was the decade to come, when the words took on new meaning. Gorbachev let his Germany go, but Washington rethought the bargain, not least after the Soviet Union’s own collapse in December 1991. Washington realized it could not just win big but win bigger. Not one inch of territory needed to be off limits to NATO. On the thirtieth anniversary of the Soviet collapse, this book uses new evidence and interviews to show how, in the decade that culminated in Vladimir Putin’s rise to power, the United States and Russia undermined a potentially lasting partnership. Prize-winning historian M. E. Sarotte shows what went wrong.