Khrushchev's Double Bind

Khrushchev's Double Bind PDF Author: James G. Richter
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
How do world leaders manage the competing priorities of maintaining support at home and credibility in the international arena? In Khrushchev's Double Bind James Richter explores this conflict by examining the case of Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev. Richter argues that in order to hold power and pursue his political agenda at home, Khrushchev needed to maintain his standing as an effective world leader. His successes--especially in winning concessions from the United States--contributed to his power base and ability to grant favors and effect change in the Soviet Union. Likewise, the more support he gained from Soviet colleagues, the better he could influence international affairs and increase the U.S.S.R.'s prestige. Richter explores ways in which certain images of the international environment became entrenched in the U.S.S.R.'s domestic institutions, furnished the backdrop for international actions meant to gain domestic support, and provided the standards by which the success or failure of competing strategies would be judged. The first book to make use of recent disclosures in the Russian archives, Khrushchev's Double Bind offers new perspectives on the interaction of international events and domestic bargaining in Soviet foreign policymaking during the 1950s and early 1960s. "Richter presents a very important reinterpretation of Khrushchev's 1958 Berlin ultimatum. Khrushchev's purpose was to show Politburo conservatives that the correlation of forces' had shifted sufficiently in the favor of socialism to allow international successes simultaneously with unilateral defense cuts. Richter marshalls impressive evidence in support of this interpretation. The work is systematic, persuasive, and larded with new information from archives, memoirs and other new sources."--Jack Snyder, Columbia University

Khrushchev's Double Bind

Khrushchev's Double Bind PDF Author: James G. Richter
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 288

Get Book Here

Book Description
How do world leaders manage the competing priorities of maintaining support at home and credibility in the international arena? In Khrushchev's Double Bind James Richter explores this conflict by examining the case of Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev. Richter argues that in order to hold power and pursue his political agenda at home, Khrushchev needed to maintain his standing as an effective world leader. His successes--especially in winning concessions from the United States--contributed to his power base and ability to grant favors and effect change in the Soviet Union. Likewise, the more support he gained from Soviet colleagues, the better he could influence international affairs and increase the U.S.S.R.'s prestige. Richter explores ways in which certain images of the international environment became entrenched in the U.S.S.R.'s domestic institutions, furnished the backdrop for international actions meant to gain domestic support, and provided the standards by which the success or failure of competing strategies would be judged. The first book to make use of recent disclosures in the Russian archives, Khrushchev's Double Bind offers new perspectives on the interaction of international events and domestic bargaining in Soviet foreign policymaking during the 1950s and early 1960s. "Richter presents a very important reinterpretation of Khrushchev's 1958 Berlin ultimatum. Khrushchev's purpose was to show Politburo conservatives that the correlation of forces' had shifted sufficiently in the favor of socialism to allow international successes simultaneously with unilateral defense cuts. Richter marshalls impressive evidence in support of this interpretation. The work is systematic, persuasive, and larded with new information from archives, memoirs and other new sources."--Jack Snyder, Columbia University

Macmillan, Khrushchev and the Berlin Crisis, 1958-1960

Macmillan, Khrushchev and the Berlin Crisis, 1958-1960 PDF Author: Kitty Newman
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134257422
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 282

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Book Description
This new study casts fresh light on the roles of Harold Macmillan and Nikita Khrushchev and their efforts to achieve a compromise settlement on the pivotal Berlin Crisis. Drawing on previously unseen documents and secret archive material, Kitty Newman demonstrates how the British Prime Minister acted to prevent the crisis sliding into a disastrous nuclear conflict. She shows how his visit to Moscow in 1959 was a success, which convinced Khrushchev of a sincere effort to achieve a lasting settlement. Despite the initial reluctance of the French and the Americans, and the consistent opposition of the Germans, Macmillan’s subsequent efforts led to a softening of the Western line on Berlin and to the formulation of a set of proposals that might have achieved a peaceful resolution to the crisis if the Paris Conference of 1960 had not collapsed in acrimony. This volume also assesses Khrushchev’s role, which despite his sometimes intemperate language, was to secure a peaceful settlement which would stabilize the East German regime, maintain the status quo in Europe and prevent the reunification of a resurgent, nuclearized Germany, thereby paving the way for disarmament. This book will be of great interest to all students of post-war diplomacy, Soviet foreign policy, the Cold War and of international relations and strategic studies in general.

Anatomy of Mistrust

Anatomy of Mistrust PDF Author: Deborah Welch Larson
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 9780801486821
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 348

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Book Description
Synthesizing different understandings of trust and mistrust from the theoretical traditions of economics, psychology, and game theory, Larson analyzes five cases that might have been turning points in U.S.-Soviet relations.

Khrushchev: The Man and His Era

Khrushchev: The Man and His Era PDF Author: William Taubman
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393081729
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 929

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Book Description
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award The definitive biography of the mercurial Soviet leader who succeeded and denounced Stalin. Nikita Khrushchev was one of the most complex and important political figures of the twentieth century. Ruler of the Soviet Union during the first decade after Stalin's death, Khrushchev left a contradictory stamp on his country and on the world. His life and career mirror the Soviet experience: revolution, civil war, famine, collectivization, industrialization, terror, world war, cold war, Stalinism, post-Stalinism. Complicit in terrible Stalinist crimes, Khrushchev nevertheless retained his humanity: his daring attempt to reform communism prepared the ground for its eventual collapse; and his awkward efforts to ease the cold war triggered its most dangerous crises. This is the first comprehensive biography of Khrushchev and the first of any Soviet leader to reflect the full range of sources that have become available since the USSR collapsed. Combining a page-turning historical narrative with penetrating political and psychological analysis, this book brims with the life and excitement of a man whose story personified his era.

A History Of Russia Volume 2

A History Of Russia Volume 2 PDF Author: Walter G. Moss
Publisher: Anthem Press
ISBN: 0857287397
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 667

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Book Description
Moss has significantly revised his text and bibliography in this second edition to reflect new research findings and controversies on numerous subjects. He has also brought the history up to date by revising the post-Soviet material, which now covers events from the end of 1991 up to the present day. This new edition retains the features of the successful first edition that have made it a popular choice in universities and colleges throughout the US, Canada and around the world.

Cold War Respite

Cold War Respite PDF Author: Günter Bischof
Publisher: LSU Press
ISBN: 9780807123706
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 344

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Book Description
At the midpoint of the “high” cold war, when most people in North America and Europe thought catastrophic nuclear onslaught was almost inevitable, an unprecedented and unrepeated event took place in Geneva in July 1955. The heads of state from the United States, the Soviet Union, Britain, and France came together in an attempt at diplomatic dialogue, primarily over the questions of German unification, European security, and nuclear disarmament. Although the summit ended with no tangible results, its ramifications were extensive, and it provided the world with a brief repose from escalating East-West tension. In Cold War Respite twelve scholars writing from several national perspectives investigate in riveting detail how that event—examined only in passing until now—came about, why its “spirit” was so short-lived, and what its subsequent impact was on the development of the cold war. Making use of newly -declassified archives in the United States, France, Britain, and Russia, the authors provide some of the latest research and insights into early cold-war history as they track the crucial period from Stalin’s death in 1953 until the summit. They consider John Foster Dulles’s policy at Geneva and the meeting of the four foreign ministers that followed the summit. As the essayists attest, the psychological effects of the summit were of immense significance to the history of international relations and reveal the complexity and dynamism of foreign affairs during the decades following World War II. While some argue that the series of international crises beginning in 1958 and culminating in 1962 might have been averted if the Geneva conference had been pursued more eagerly, others argue that it is a credit to the summit that those events are studied today as examples of crisis management and not of nuclear war.

Unarmed Forces

Unarmed Forces PDF Author: Matthew Evangelista
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501724002
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 419

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Book Description
Throughout the Cold War, people worldwide feared that the U.S. and Soviet governments could not prevent a nuclear showdown. Citizens from both East-bloc and Western countries, among them prominent scientists and physicians, formed networks to promote ideas and policies that would lessen this danger. Two of their organizations—the Pugwash movement and the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War—won Nobel Peace Prizes. Still, many observers believe that their influence was negligible and that the Reagan administration deserves sole credit for ending the Cold War. The first book to explore the impact these activists had on the Soviet side of the Iron Curtain, Unarmed Forces demonstrates the importance of their efforts on behalf of arms control and disarmament.Matthew Evangelista examines the work of transnational peace movements throughout the Khrushchev, Brezhnev, and Gorbachev eras and into the first years of Boris Yeltsin's leadership. Drawing on extensive research in Russian archives and on interviews with Russian and Western activists and policymakers, he investigates the sources of Soviet policy on nuclear testing, strategic defense, and conventional forces. Evangelista concludes that transnational actors at times played a crucial role in influencing Soviet policy—specifically in encouraging moderate as opposed to hard-line responses—for they supplied both information and ideas to that closed society. Evangelista's findings challenge widely accepted views about the peaceful resolution of the Cold War. By revealing the connection between a state's domestic structure and its susceptibility to the influence of transnational groups, Unarmed Forces will also stimulate thinking about the broader issue of how government policy is shaped.

Cold War Statesmen Confront the Bomb

Cold War Statesmen Confront the Bomb PDF Author: John Gaddis
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191522333
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 408

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Book Description
Cold War Statesmen Confront the Bomb: Nuclear Diplomacy Since 1945 is a path-breaking work that uses biographical techniques to test one of the most important and widely debated questions in international politics: Did the advent of the nuclear bomb prevent the Third World War? Many scholars and much conventional wisdom assumes that nuclear deterrence has prevented major power war since the end of the Second World War; this remains a principal tenet of US strategic policy today. Others challenge this assumption, and argue that major war would have been `obsolete' even without the bomb. This book tests these propositions by examining the careers of ten leading Cold War statesmen—Harry S Truman; John Foster Dulles; Dwight D. Eisenhower; John F. Kennedy; Josef Stalin; Nikita Krushchev; Mao Zedong; Winston Churchill; Charles De Gaulle; and Konrad Adenauer—and asking whether they viewed war, and its acceptability, differently after the advent of the bomb. The book's authors argue almost unanimously that nuclear weapons did have a significant effect on the thinking of these leading statesmen of the nuclear age, but a dissenting epilogue from John Mueller challenges this thesis.

To Agree or Not to Agree

To Agree or Not to Agree PDF Author: Lisa Baglione
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
ISBN: 0472027204
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 303

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Book Description
Why were the leaders of the United States and the Soviet Union able to negotiate a series of arms control agreements despite the deep and important differences in their interests during the Cold War? Lisa A. Baglione considers a variety of explanations for the successes--and failures--of these negotiations drawn from international relations theories. Focusing on the goals and strategies of individual leaders--and their ability to make these the goals and strategies of their nation--the author develops a nuanced understanding that better explains the outcome of these negotiations. Baglione then tests her explanation in a consideration of negotiations surrounding the banning of above-ground nuclear tests, the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks of the 1970s, the negotiations for the limitation of intermediate-range nuclear forces in the 1980s, and the last negotiations between the Americans and the disintegrating Soviet Union in 1990 and 1991. How these great rivals were able to negotiate significant arms control agreements not only will shed light on international relations during an important period of history but will help us understand how such agreements might develop in the post-Cold War period, when arms proliferation has become a serious problem. This book will appeal to scholars of international relations and arms control as well as those interested in bargaining and international negotiations and contemporary military history. Lisa A. Baglione is Assistant Professor of Political Science, St. Joseph's University.

Crisis Bargaining and the State

Crisis Bargaining and the State PDF Author: Susan Peterson
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
ISBN: 9780472106288
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 220

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Book Description
Examines the effect of domestic politics on the interstate bargaining in international crises