Between Containment and Rollback

Between Containment and Rollback
Author: Christian F. Ostermann
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Total Pages: 566
Release: 2021-04-27
Genre: History
ISBN: 1503607631

In the aftermath of World War II, American policymakers turned to the task of rebuilding Europe while keeping communism at bay. In Germany, formally divided since 1949,the United States prioritized the political, economic, and, eventually, military integration of the fledgling Federal Republic with the West. The extraordinary success story of forging this alliance has dominated our historical under-standing of the American-German relationship. Largely left out of the grand narrative of U.S.–German relations were most East Germans who found themselves caught under Soviet and then communist control by the post-1945 geo-political fallout of the war that Nazi Germany had launched. They were the ones who most dearly paid the price for the country's division. This book writes the East Germans—both leadership and general populace—back into that history as objects of American policy and as historical agents in their own right Based on recently declassified documents from American, Russian, and German archives, this book demonstrates that U.S. efforts from 1945 to 1953 went beyond building a prosperous democracy in western Germany and "containing" Soviet-Communist power to the east. Under the Truman and then the Eisenhower administrations, American policy also included efforts to undermine and "roll back" Soviet and German communist control in the eastern part of the country. This story sheds light on a dark-er side to the American Cold War in Germany: propaganda, covert operations, economic pressure, and psychological warfare. Christian F. Ostermann takes an international history approach, capturing Soviet and East German responses and actions, and drawing a rich and complex picture of the early East–West confrontation in the heart of Europe.

Western "containment" Policies in the Cold War

Western
Author: Beatrice Heuser
Publisher:
Total Pages: 332
Release: 1989
Genre: Political Science
ISBN:

This book argues that the immediate analysis in the West of the Tito-Stalin split was misguided and that to consider the split as a 'defection' on the part of Yugoslavia is in itself misleading.

Strategies of Containment

Strategies of Containment
Author: John Lewis Gaddis
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 503
Release: 2005-06-23
Genre: History
ISBN: 0199883998

When Strategies of Containment was first published, the Soviet Union was still a superpower, Ronald Reagan was president of the United States, and the Berlin Wall was still standing. This updated edition of Gaddis' classic carries the history of containment through the end of the Cold War. Beginning with Franklin D. Roosevelt's postwar plans, Gaddis provides a thorough critical analysis of George F. Kennan's original strategy of containment, NSC-68, The Eisenhower-Dulles "New Look," the Kennedy-Johnson "flexible response" strategy, the Nixon-Kissinger strategy of detente, and now a comprehensive assessment of how Reagan - and Gorbechev - completed the process of containment, thereby bringing the Cold War to an end. He concludes, provocatively, that Reagan more effectively than any other Cold War president drew upon the strengths of both approaches while avoiding their weaknesses. A must-read for anyone interested in Cold War history, grand strategy, and the origins of the post-Cold War world.

The Cold War: A Very Short Introduction

The Cold War: A Very Short Introduction
Author: Robert J. McMahon
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 208
Release: 2021-02-25
Genre: History
ISBN: 0192603272

Very Short Introductions: Brilliant, Sharp, Inspiring The Cold War dominated international life from the end of World War II to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. But how did the conflict begin? Why did it move from its initial origins in Postwar Europe to encompass virtually every corner of the globe? And why, after lasting so long, did the war end so suddenly and unexpectedly? Robert McMahon considers these questions and more, as well as looking at the legacy of the Cold War and its impact on international relations today. The Cold War: A Very Short Introduction is a truly international history, not just of the Soviet-American struggle at its heart, but also of the waves of decolonization, revolutionary nationalism, and state formation that swept the non-Western world in the wake of World War II. McMahon places the 'Hot Wars' that cost millions of lives in Korea, Vietnam, and elsewhere within the larger framework of global superpower competition. He shows how the United States and the Soviet Union both became empires over the course of the Cold War, and argues that perceived security needs and fears shaped U.S. and Soviet decisions from the beginning—far more, in fact, than did their economic and territorial ambitions. He unpacks how these needs and fears were conditioned by the divergent cultures, ideologies, and historical experiences of the two principal contestants and their allies. Covering the years 1945-1990, this second edition uses recent scholarship and newly available documents to offer a fuller analysis of the Vietnam War, the changing global politics of the 1970s, and the end of the Cold War. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

Russia Leaves the War

Russia Leaves the War
Author: George Frost Kennan
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 592
Release: 2023-01-24
Genre: History
ISBN: 0691166102

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, the Bancroft Prize, and the Parkman Prize From acclaimed diplomat and historian George Kennan, a landmark history of the crucial months in 1917–1918 that forged the pattern of Soviet-American relations When the Bolsheviks seized power in November 1917, American diplomats in St. Petersburg and Moscow were thrown into a bewildering situation. Should the new regime be recognized? What was its true nature? And was there any way to keep Russia fighting against Germany in the Great War? In vivid detail, George Kennan’s classic history tells the gripping story of the Americans’ furious, and ultimately failed, efforts to strike a deal to keep the Soviets in the war—and how these events set the pattern of future relations between the two emerging superpowers. In a new foreword, Kennan biographer Frank Costigliola puts the book in the context of its Cold War publication and Kennan’s life.

America’s Cold War

America’s Cold War
Author: Campbell Craig
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 460
Release: 2020-07-14
Genre: History
ISBN: 0674247345

“A creative, carefully researched, and incisive analysis of U.S. strategy during the long struggle against the Soviet Union.” —Stephen M. Walt, Foreign Policy “Craig and Logevall remind us that American foreign policy is decided as much by domestic pressures as external threats. America’s Cold War is history at its provocative best.” —Mark Atwood Lawrence, author of The Vietnam War The Cold War dominated world affairs during the half century following World War II. America prevailed, but only after fifty years of grim international struggle, costly wars in Korea and Vietnam, trillions of dollars in military spending, and decades of nuclear showdowns. Was all of that necessary? In this new edition of their landmark history, Campbell Craig and Fredrik Logevall engage with recent scholarship on the late Cold War, including the Reagan and Bush administrations and the collapse of the Soviet regime, and expand their discussion of the nuclear revolution and origins of the Vietnam War. Yet they maintain their original argument: that America’s response to a very real Soviet threat gave rise to a military and political system in Washington that is addicted to insecurity and the endless pursuit of enemies to destroy. America’s Cold War speaks vividly to debates about forever wars and threat inflation at the center of American politics today.

The Wise Men

The Wise Men
Author: Walter Isaacson
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 852
Release: 1997-06-04
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0684837714

A captivating blend of personal biography and public drama, The Wise Men introduces the original best and brightest, leaders whose outsized personalities and actions brought order to postwar chaos: Averell Harriman, the freewheeling diplomat and Roosevelt's special envoy to Churchill and Stalin; Dean Acheson, the secretary of state who was more responsible for the Truman Doctrine than Truman and for the Marshall Plan than General Marshall; George Kennan, self-cast outsider and intellectual darling of the Washington elite; Robert Lovett, assistant secretary of war, undersecretary of state, and secretary of defense throughout the formative years of the Cold War; John McCloy, one of the nation's most influential private citizens; and Charles Bohlen, adroit diplomat and ambassador to the Soviet Union.

Economic Containment

Economic Containment
Author: Michael Mastanduno
Publisher:
Total Pages: 380
Release: 1992
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780801427091

Mr. X and the Pacific

Mr. X and the Pacific
Author: Paul J. Heer
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Total Pages: 317
Release: 2018-05-15
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1501711172

George F. Kennan is well known as the preeminent American expert on the Soviet Union during the Cold War and the author of the doctrine of containment. In Mr. X and the Pacific, Paul J. Heer chronicles and assesses Kennan's work in affecting US policy toward East Asia. Heer traces the origins, development, and bearing of Kennan's strategic perspective on the Far East during his time as director of the State Department's Policy Planning Staff from 1947 to 1950. The author follows Kennan's career and evolution of his thinking as he subsequently became a prominent critic of American participation in the Vietnam War. Mr. X and the Pacific offers readers a new view of Kennan, revealing his importance and the totality of his role in East Asia policy, his struggle with American foreign policy in the region, and the ways in which Kennan's legacy still has implications for how the United States approaches the region in the twenty-first century.

Cold War Cultures

Cold War Cultures
Author: Annette Vowinckel
Publisher: Berghahn Books
Total Pages: 395
Release: 2012-03-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 0857452444

The Cold War was not only about the imperial ambitions of the super powers, their military strategies, and antagonistic ideologies. It was also about conflicting worldviews and their correlates in the daily life of the societies involved. The term “Cold War Culture” is often used in a broad sense to describe media influences, social practices, and symbolic representations as they shape, and are shaped by, international relations. Yet, it remains in question whether — or to what extent — the Cold War Culture model can be applied to European societies, both in the East and the West. While every European country had to adapt to the constraints imposed by the Cold War, individual development was affected by specific conditions as detailed in these chapters. This volume offers an important contribution to the international debate on this issue of the Cold War impact on everyday life by providing a better understanding of its history and legacy in Eastern and Western Europe.