General answers are hard to imagine for the many puzzling questions that are raised by Soviet relations with the world in the early years of the Cold War. Why was Moscow more frightened by the Marshall Plan than the Truman Doctrine? Why would the Soviet Union abandon its closest socialist ally, Yugoslavia, just when the Cold War was getting under way? How could Khrushchev's de-Stalinized domestic and foreign policies at first cause a warming of relations with China, and then lead to the loss of its most important strategic ally? What can explain Stalin's failure to ally with the leaders of the decolonizing world against imperialism and Khrushchev's enthusiastic embrace of these leaders as anti-imperialist at a time of the first detente of the Cold War? It would seem that only idiosyncratic explanations could be offered for these seemingly incoherent policy outcomes. Or, at best, they could be explained by the personalities of Stalin and Khrushchev as leaders. The latter, although plausible, is incorrect. In fact, the most Stalinist of Soviet leaders, the secret police chief and sociopath, Lavrentii Beria, was the most enthusiastic proponent of de-Stalinized foreign and domestic policies after Stalin's death in March 1953. Ted Hopf argues, instead, that it was Soviet identity that explains these anomalies. During Stalin's rule, a discourse of danger prevailed in Soviet society, where any deviations from the idealized version of the New Soviet Man, were understood as threatening the very survival of the Soviet project itself. But the discourse of danger did not go unchallenged. Even under the rule of Stalin, Soviet society understood a socialist Soviet Union as a more secure, diverse, and socially democratic place. This discourse of difference, with its broader conception of what the socialist project meant, and who could contribute to it, was empowered after Stalin's death, first by Beria, then by Malenkov, and then by Khrushchev, and the rest of the post-Stalin Soviet leadership. This discourse of difference allowed for the de-Stalinization of Eastern Europe, with the consequent revolts in Poland and Hungary, a rapprochement with Tito's Yugoslavia, and an initial warming of relations with China. But it also sowed the seeds of the split with China, as the latter moved in the very Stalinist direction at home just rejected by Moscow. And, contrary to conventional and scholarly wisdom, a moderation of authoritarianism at home, a product of the discourse of difference, did not lead to a moderation of Soviet foreign policy abroad. Instead, it led to the opening of an entirely new, and bloody, front in the decolonizing world. In sum, this book argues for paying attention to how societies understand themselves, even in the most repressive of regimes. Who knows, their ideas about national identity, might come to power sometime, as was the case in Iran in 1979, and throughout the Arab world today.

Published in 1999. These essays are not deconstructive in the postmodern sense. None of the authors have that depth of scepticism about knowledge claims, but they are all concerned that the terms of reference of Cold War enquiry have been inappropriately bounded. The chapters by Murray and Reynolds specifically address the broad theoretical issues involved with paradigms and explanation. The chapters by Dobson, Marsh, Malik, Evans and Dix stretch out Cold War paradigms with successive case studies of Anglo-American relations; the USA, Britain, Iran and the oil majors; the Gulf States and the Cold War; South Africa and the Cold War; and Indian neutralism. All five authors challenge the efficacy of neo-realist analysis and explanation and critique the way that assumptions derived from that position have been used in historical explanation. The chapters by Ryall, Rogers and Bideleux deal with Roman Catholicism in East Central Europe, with nuclear matters and with the Soviet perspective. Each work goes beyond the limits of Cold War paradigms. Finally, Ponting places the Cold War in the broad context of world history. These essays provide thought-provoking scholarship which helps us both to nuance our understanding of the Cold War and to realise that it should not be taken as an all-embracing paradigm for the explanation of postwar international relations.

This title explores how the early years of the Cold War were marked by contradictions and conflict. It looks at how the turn from Stalin's discourse of danger to the discourse of difference under his successors explains the abrupt changes in relations with Eastern Europe, China, the decolonizing world, and the West.

Published in 1999. These essays are not deconstructive in the postmodern sense. None of the authors have that depth of scepticism about knowledge claims, but they are all concerned that the terms of reference of Cold War enquiry have been inappropriately bounded. The chapters by Murray and Reynolds specifically address the broad theoretical issues involved with paradigms and explanation. The chapters by Dobson, Marsh, Malik, Evans and Dix stretch out Cold War paradigms with successive case studies of Anglo-American relations; the USA, Britain, Iran and the oil majors; the Gulf States and the Cold War; South Africa and the Cold War; and Indian neutralism. All five authors challenge the efficacy of neo-realist analysis and explanation and critique the way that assumptions derived from that position have been used in historical explanation. The chapters by Ryall, Rogers and Bideleux deal with Roman Catholicism in East Central Europe, with nuclear matters and with the Soviet perspective. Each work goes beyond the limits of Cold War paradigms. Finally, Ponting places the Cold War in the broad context of world history. These essays provide thought-provoking scholarship which helps us both to nuance our understanding of the Cold War and to realise that it should not be taken as an all-embracing paradigm for the explanation of postwar international relations.

An ingenious look at the Cold War?and how it can help America move forward Adding a fresh perspective to the debate about America?s options in the ?war on terror,? this lucid retrospective by one of the most admired voices in the national security arena answers an important and largely ignored question: How can the brilliance and energy of the great Cold War thinkers be recaptured and applied to the strategic challenges posed by transnational terrorism? In recounting the failures and successes of American strategists during the Cold War, Jonathan Stevenson synthesizes a massive amount of information from past and present to remind us that protecting the United States today will take more than good intelligence?it will also require exceptional imagination.