Cold War Policy Research Articles

Averell Harriman has changed his mind: the Seattle speech and the rhetoric of Cold War confrontation

American W. Averell Harriman's many diplomatic activities have received considerable attention from historians. However, one of his most important contributions to the United States' early Cold War policy largely has been overlooked. On 18 August 1947 Harriman delivered a speech in Seattle calling for more confrontational Soviet policies, making a case for the Marshall Plan that successfully appealed to Americans even in ‘isolationist’ or conservative parts of the country. In the process, Harriman helped Truman overcome the effects of wartime pro-Soviet propaganda and helped mobilise support for active policies at a time when the legacy of the 1930s left some skeptics doubting democracies could mobilise before bombs began raining on them.

Is American Hegemony Bad or Just Better than Alternatives?

War, Peace and Hegemony in a Globalized World: The Changing Balance of Power in the 21st Century. Edited by Chandra Chari. London: Routledge, 2008. 256 pp., hardcover (ISBN-13: 9780415435772). This collection of essays covers familiar ground but still offers value as a largely Asian perspective on hegemony and globalization. Fourteen of the 18 contributors are from Asia, nine from India alone. In an introduction by Chandra Chari, the volume rejects the notion, popular among Western realists, that American hegemony is necessary to avoid anarchy and expects “the processes of globalization, which have economically empowered a large number of countries across the globe,” to provide new “bargaining chips” to strengthen multilateralism. Opening chapters address global perspectives. Eric Hobsbawn, the eminent British scholar, leads off with a blistering attack against the “political crazies” (p. 23) in the United States who after 9/11 abandoned the “emollient cream” (p. 22) of American Cold War policies and sought global hegemony through military might. If these crazies prevail, he predicts “another century of conflict” (p. 20). Akira Iriye and Joseph Nye, two equally eminent Harvard scholars, celebrate the “momentum toward transnationalism” (p. 33) ignited by globalization and expect that growing diversity especially on the economic and information chess boards of world affairs will check American military pretensions. William Wallace at the University of Saint Andrews worries that the world may be approaching “a nuclear tipping point beyond which a ‘cascade of proliferation’ could occur as states assume that the international nuclear order can no longer provide them with sufficient protection” (p. 56). Prem Shankar Jha, an Indian journalist, argues that “capitalism has …

“I Don't Know Whom to Thank”: The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee's Secret Aid to Soviet Jewry

A bstr A ct This article focuses on a little-known episode: the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee’s ( JDC) package program on behalf of Soviet Jewry in the post-Stalinist Soviet Union, from its inception through the Six Day War in 1967. The article reveals JDC clandestine activity on behalf of Soviet Jewry, in cooperation with the Israeli government, when the JDC was officially banned from working there. This package pro gram was an expression of Western Cold War policy to support discriminated-against Soviet ethnic and religious minorities. I explore the dimensions and dynamics of the package program, its share of the total JDC East European aid and its unique style of administration, its outreach and impact, and the response of the beneficiaries. Soviet policy regarding Western aid to its citizens was often guided by pragmatic rather than ideological considerations; therefore, the stream of packages was never entirely stopped. This article reveals that both Israeli and “establishment” American Jewish organizations’ activities on behalf of Soviet Jewry were considerably greater than American grassroots organizations claim. The story is also an encouraging example of mutual involvement of the three largest Jewish communities in the world, even when one of them was behind the Iron Curtain.

The United States and Eastern Europe in 1945: A Reassessment

This article reassesses U.S. Cold War policy in 1945, with particular emphasis on Eastern Europe. The article considers how the U.S. government proposed to deal with the Soviet Union in the postwar period more generally. The article looks closely at U.S. policy toward Poland and toward Romania and Bulgaria and sets these policies into context in order to determine whether U.S. leaders had “written off” the East European countries by the end of the year, consigning them to a Soviet sphere of influence. The article traces the strategic concept underlying U.S policy and analyzes key aspects of Secretary of State James Byrnes's policy at the July 1945 Potsdam conference and in the October–December 1945 negotiations with the USSR about the occupation of Japan.

The Change to Engagement in Britain's Cold War Policy: The Origins of the Thatcher-Gorbachev Relationship

Using previously unseen British Cabinet Office and Foreign Office papers obtained through the UK Freedom of Information Act, this article shows how a change in Britain's stance in the Cold War was initiated in 1983. As a result of this process, the British government of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher decided to move to greater engagement with the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Distrusting the Foreign Office as an institution, Thatcher asked for papers from eight outside academic specialists, on whose analyses she placed considerable weight. The desire for East-West dialogue was strongly favored by Foreign Office ministers and officials, whose advice, paradoxically, was more readily accepted by Thatcher when similar policy recommendations (though with some differences in analysis) were made by the academics. The invitation to Mikhail Gorbachev to visit Britain in 1984, prior to his becoming leader of the Soviet Union, had its origins in a Chequers seminar involving both academics and officials on 8–9 September 1983. This was the beginning of an important, and surprising, political relationship that transformed Britain's militantly anti-socialist prime minister into the strongest supporter—certainly among conservative politicians worldwide—of the new leader of the Soviet Communist Party.

A Question of Balance: How France and the United States Created Cold War Europe (review)

Reviewed by: A Question of Balance: How France and the United States Created Cold War Europe Michael Doidge A Question of Balance: How France and the United States Created Cold War Europe. By Michael Creswell. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2006. ISBN 0-674-02297-3. Notes. Sources. Index. Pp. xv, 238. $49.95. Sharply refuting contemporary historiographic claims that France’s role in shaping early Cold War Europe was minimal, Michael Creswell’s work, A Question of Balance: How France and the United States Created Cold War Europe, concisely argues that the French role in European Cold War policy endeavors was paramount. France’s unique position as a European continental power and its special historic role as the three-time victim of German military aggression ensured that all U.S. policy roads towards West Germany’s rearmament for use as a buffer against Soviet communist expansion went through France. Playing on the phrase “balance of power” in his title, Creswell definitively argues that in order for postwar security to come to Europe, the U.S. had to balance its desires to protect Europe cheaply with France’s desire to protect itself from the threat of German and Soviet aggression. Striking the balance between the United States and France would not be easy, as both nations had powerful domestic factions that strongly influenced their differing international agendas and limited their respective abilities to achieve policy accommodation with one another. In the U.S.’s case, enormous domestic pressure to demobilize following World War II came just as the rising specter of the Cold War demanded a global U.S. presence to protect the free world. With the onset of the Eisenhower administration, the U.S. attempted to deter Soviet expansion by way of its nuclear arsenal, rather than with a troop presence. To offset the U.S.’s lack of troops, it expected Europe, which included France and West Germany, to pick up the slack by mobilizing conventional forces. Saddled with enormous war debt, constant political turnover, an ailing colonial war in Indochina, and largely dependent on U.S. economic aid, France found the U.S.’s desires to lessen its presence in Europe unacceptable. While not against the idea of German rearmament, the French found little comfort in U.S. desires to maintain a defensive perimeter off the main continent, providing a nuclear shield in the interim. Having found their homeland [End Page 981] the battleground for three wars in a seventy year period, the French wanted no part in seeing Europe become the potential battleground for a conventional and possibly nuclear exchange. They demanded British and American continental commitments to prevent both a return of German militarism in addition to bulwarking against the Soviet threat. Carefully and copiously footnoted, and written with an uncanny amount of nuance in this relatively brief work, Creswell persuasively argues that despite all obstacles the French achieved their goals. Creswell’s work definitively shows that by the mid-1950s, with characteristic diplomatic subtlety and activism, France had secured all of the British and U.S. assurances it desired from the outset, to include permanent continental commitments to Europe as well as limitations on German militarization. Creswell’s superb study is recommended to all scholars of the Cold War, even across disciplines. In addition to its historiographic value, Creswell’s findings challenge many previously held notions within International Relations Theory regarding the nature of the bipolar system, including the role that domestic politics play in determining international policy and the role “secondtier” powers can play in influencing the bipolar system. Michael Doidge Hattiesburg, Mississippi Copyright © 2008 The Society for Military History

Cold War history in Italy

The article aims at reviewing the historical production on the Cold War in Italy (both research and teaching activities). Some preliminary remarks deal with the Italian university system and the role some historical disciplines, especially the history of international relations, play in such a context. In Italy, historical studies on the Cold War had their origins in the 1970s mainly as a consequence of both the availability of US records and of the interpretations developed by US revisionist historians. In an early stage, Italian historians' attention focused on Italy's involvement in the Cold War and US policy towards Italy; some interpretations were influenced by the domestic political debate that characterized the 1970s. During the 1980s, owing to the development of Cold War studies in other western European nations and of growing contacts between Italian scholars and foreign historians, Italian historians' attention focused, not only on the Italian case, but also on various aspects of the Cold War history that led to the analyses of wider topics and to extensive research in foreign archives. After the end of the Cold War, there have been relevant changes in the approaches to the study of the Cold War developed by Italian scholars. Some historians went on focusing their attention on wider Cold War themes following the opening of archives; others shifted their attention to topics related to other historical areas, such as the history of the European integration or the history of the international organizations, although the Cold War was regarded as a useful background. The most interesting and innovative results have been offered through more sophisticated and complex analyses and interpretations of Italy's role in the Cold War, that, however, mainly for linguistic reasons, have scant impact on Cold War historiography. Inspite of that, historical production on the Cold War seems to experience a positive season that is characterized by new research projects, some interesting contributions and a lively debate that involves historians from different backgrounds.

Cold War, Public Opinion, and Foreign Policy Spending Decisions: Dynamic Representation by Congress and the President

Conventional wisdom before the Vietnam War held that public opinion exerted no influence on U.S. foreign policy decisions. Scholars working in Vietnam's aftermath found episodic influence of public opinion on foreign policy, but missing in our understanding were longitudinal examinations of public opinion's influence on foreign policy. A number of post-Vietnam scholars subsequently revealed a long-term relationship between public opinion and defense spending. This study extends that work by analyzing responsiveness to public opinion in different foreign policy arenas by different government institutions, and by accounting for a critical variable not relevant in most previous studies: the end of the cold war. We construct a model explaining the influences of public opinion and the cold war on spending proposals for defense and foreign economic aid by the presidency, the House of Representatives and the Senate. Both public opinion and the end of the cold war exert direct influence on defense spending proposals by the presidency, while the Senate and the House respond primarily to public opinion inputs and the partisan composition of the Senate. In the case of foreign economic aid, the cold war's end gives occasion for increasing spending proposals, contrary to the public's expectation that the end of the cold war minimized the need for the U.S. to provide foreign economic assistance.

The Origins of the Cuban Revolution Reconsidered

Samuel Farber introduces his book as a “work of historical synthesis [that] will challenge the conventional views common among both supporters and opponents of the present Cuban government” (p. 1). As a synthesis it is, at best, uneven. An inordinate amount of space is given to rehashing the academic studies of the 1960s and reprising data from the published sources on which they were based. All this effort is hardly necessary to dispose of the hoary theory that agents of the Soviet Union and the Cuban PSP (communist party) controlled the revolutionary movement before the 1959 overthrow of President Fulgencio Batista, and, once in power, proceeded to enact their secret agenda, or, conversely, that the Fidelista rebels were essentially social-democratic reformers who were pushed onto the communist path and into the arms of the USSR by the Cold War policies of the U.S. government in 1959 – 61. Farber’s extensive reconsideration of the old social and economic data and of the similarly well-worked U.S. Department of State records from 1955 to 1960, declassified and published in 1987 – 91, sheds little new light on the Cuban revolutionary process. For all his attention to “objective” economic, social, and political conditions, Farber, like other scholars in the last decade (Marifeli Pérez-Stable, Julia Sweig), emphasizes “the agency of Cuba’s revolutionary leadership” (p. 4).Farber rightly recognizes the autonomy of Cuba’s supreme revolutionary leader. Unique among the world’s nonhereditary rulers, Fidel Castro ascended to power through no hierarchy; he had no institutional base. Aside from his tenuous participation in university and Ortodoxo party politics prior to 1952, he has belonged to no organization that was not his own creation and under his control. As an adult, he has never held a normal job; he has no experience as an employee or subordinate. By contrast, his younger brother, Raúl Castro, has been, since childhood, Fidel’s principal subordinate and lifetime employee.Farber labels Fidel Castro and Ernesto “Che” Guevara “adventurers” (p. 57). The term is correctly applied in the entrepreneurial sense. Fidel is certainly one of history’s most accomplished revolutionary entrepreneurs, one who personally conceived, organized, raised funding for, directed, and implemented his own revolution. Che was a short-term contractor, a self-described “soldier of fortune” and “adventurer . . . of a different sort—one of those who risks his skin to prove his platitudes

In the Shadow of the Bomb: U.S.-Soviet Biomedical Relations in the Early Cold War, 1944–1948

The deterioration of U.S.-Soviet scientific relations in 1946–1948 traditionally has been seen as simply a consequence of the growing political conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union. Scientific activities with direct military applications—most clearly manifested in the nuclear bomb—have been depicted as the primary motive for a variety of Cold War science policies, ranging from restrictions on international cooperation to the veil of secrecy placed over military-related scientific research. This article explores U.S.-Soviet relations in oncology in 1944–1948 and shows that science became an integral part and an instrument, rather than a mere reflection, of the Cold War confrontation. Science played a central role in the formulation of certain Cold War policies and informed Soviet decision-making on a wide range of policy issues that were essential to the growth of the Cold War. In this context, the symbolic value of science as a propaganda tool became no less important than its military applications.

An African-Vietnamese American: Robert S. Browne, the Antiwar Movement, and the Personal/Political Dimensions of Black Internationalism

Like most Americans of my generation, I had learned little about Indo-China in my schooling. To me, it was a vaguely recalled blob of purple on the map of Asia, clinging to the southeastern border of China. Robert S. Browne (1) This [the year of 1963] has proved to be the summer of as well as of civil rights! I have been rather busy with the former. Robert S. Browne (2) African American economist Robert Span Browne (1924-2004) is not widely recognized among the pantheon of black liberation movement leaders. However, during the decade of the 1960s, he was among the first public figures to criticize U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War and also emerged as a major spokesperson for black separatism, reparations, and decolonization. He helped inaugurate the teach-in movement on U.S. college campuses in 1965, often serving as the leadoff speaker and sharing the stage with prominent antiwar activists such as historian Staughton Lynd and Dr. Benjamin Spock. He also traveled to Vietnam multiple times to bring back eyewitness accounts of the U.S. war in Southeast Asia. Browne even attempted to negotiate terms for peace with the Vietnamese National Liberation Front in Paris in 1968 as part of a delegation that included playwright Arthur Miller. Although Browne moved away from the antiwar movement during the late 1960s, he became a dedicated activist on behalf of black nationalist causes and African independence. This essay seeks to draw attention to the underrecognized political vision and career of Robert S. Browne. A focus on Browne's early life and involvement in the antiwar movement provides a unique opportunity to examine the global and personal influences on the reemergence of black nationalism and internationalism in the late 1960s. From 1955 to 1961 Browne was stationed in Cambodia and South Vietnam as a foreign aid advisor under the auspices of the U.S. government. There he witnessed firsthand the decolonization of these former French colonies, even as he served as an agent of U.S. Cold War policies. In addition, Browne married a woman of mixed Vietnamese and Chinese ancestry during his stay in Southeast Asia, an action that ultimately led to his removal from his government post. He and his wife subsequently raised a multiracial family of four children in the Untied States as Browne became a visible spokesperson against U.S. economic and military intervention in Indochina and a leading advocate for Black Power. To analyze the international and familial influences on Browne's political activism, this essay will focus on three aspects of his life. The first section examines how Browne's early frustrations with American race relations, which were intricately connected to economic inequalities, led to his interest in travel and his desire to live abroad. The second segment analyzes how race shaped Browne's work and family life during his stay in Southeast Asia. The final section describes how Browne utilized his international experiences and multiracial family to construct his political identity as a critic of U.S. intervention in Indochina. This study of Robert S. Browne seeks to contribute to the growing scholarship on black internationalism. (3) Browne's life and politics suggest a different trajectory than those explored by earlier scholars. Some studies have focused on how African Americans perceived international events, and how these global events shaped the development and reception of black freedom struggles within the United States. Other studies have analyzed African American leaders and cultural figures who traveled and lived abroad. However, these individuals tended to either make brief visits such as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., or Louis Satchmo Armstrong, or lived abroad for an extensive period of time due to their status as political exiles such as Robert F. Williams and W.E.B. Du Bois. In contrast, Browne resided and worked in Southeast Asia for six years as an agent of the U. …

US Counter–terrorism Options: A Taxonomy

US Counter–terrorism Options: A Taxonomy

Justice delayed or too late for justice? The Khmer Rouge Tribunal and the Cambodian “genocide” 1975–79

The Khmer Rouge under their leader Saloth Sar (“Pol Pot”) were in power in Cambodia between April 1975 and January 1979.1 They came into control of the country after a long and brutal civil war2 an...

Congress and the Cold War

Robert David Johnson is a leading historical expert on the role of Congress in modern American foreign policy. In Congress and the Cold War, he successfully challenges the common assumption that Capitol Hill nearly always rubber-stamped the president's Cold War policies. While granting that after the Second World War Congress abdicated its responsibilities in the areas of war making and treaties, Johnson shows that enterprising senators and representatives found other tools—the appropriations process, subcommittee hearings and investigations, the news media—they could employ to shape the nation's foreign policy. Johnson identifies two important factions that confronted presidential power during the Cold War. The members of the first, and less successful, group were the “revisionists” (so called because they wanted to “revise” Cold War liberalism) of the early 1950s, led by right wing conservative nationalists such as Robert A. Taft, John Bricker, Patrick A. McCarran, and Joseph McCarthy. They sought to uncover Communists in the State Department, academe, and Hollywood, to shift the focus of American military policy from Europe to East Asia and from the Army to the Air Force, and to substitute rollback for containment. After mounting a noisy campaign for a few years, the group rapidly declined in the aftermath of McCarthy's disgrace, the defeat of the Bricker Amendment, and McCarran's death. Its legacy survived, however: for some years observers linked the Far Right with the championing of congressional power.

Projecting Confidence, Not Fear: Russia's Post-Imperial Assertiveness

Contrary to the increasingly popular image of Russia as an aggressive, imperialist state, the primary drivers in Russia's foreign policy are domestic. They include new economic confidence, new soft power, and remaining security vulnerabilities. In response to these conditions, Russia pursues opportunities for economic growth and stability, and it builds strategic alliances in the near and distant abroad in order to address increasing security threats. The often-used comparison of Russia's foreign policy assertiveness to the Soviet Cold War policy is inaccurate. A better parallel is to Russia's 1890s policy led by Finance Minister Sergei Witte: strong internal economic development through state-driven liberalization, while avoiding foreign policy adventures. The United States should follow a policy of pragmatic substantive engagement, rather than neo-containment, toward Russia.

Realism and Interdependence in Singapore's Foreign Policy (review)

Reviewed by: Realism and Interdependence in Singapore's Foreign Policy Jørgen Ørstrøm Møller Realism and Interdependence in Singapore's Foreign Policy. By N. Ganesan. London and New York: Routledge, 2005. Hardcover: 179 pp. This book forms part of the "Politics in Asia" series formerly edited by Michael Leifer with an impressive and long list of previous publications. The present volume by N. Ganesan deals with Singapore's foreign policy since the birth of the republic in 1965. It falls naturally into six main parts even if the book itself does not use this procedure in its organization. Part one deals in general terms with international relations theories and small states (Chapter 1), and the organizational set-up of Singapore's foreign policy focusing on Singapore's Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Chapter 2). Part two describes Singapore's foreign policy in the two decades immediately following independence in 1965 within the context of the Cold War, and how that ideological framework of bipolarity defined and shaped the republic's foreign policy orientation (Chapters 3 and 4). Part three offers an analysis of Singapore's relations with its two neighbours, Malaysia and Indonesia (Chapters 5 and 6), while part five addresses economic and defence policies (Chapter 7). Chapter 8 is the conclusion. The book is well organized and well researched — and many readers will appreciate the almost meticulous work that went into the preparation of appendices, which are very informative and useful to the general reader, especially if he is interested in understanding Singapore's foreign policy. The author is comfortable in his general analysis and is not given to jumping to conclusions. He knows his subject and writes on a solid foundation of documented facts. In his short introduction the author categorically states that foreign policy is an extension of domestic policy. He is to be commended for doing so. Many foreign policy analysts forget what the former speaker of the US House of Representatives, Tip O'Neil, once so unequivocally stated: "all politics are local". This dictum applies as much to Singapore as it does to the United States. The author argues: Singapore's existence and success derive in part from the PAP's success in the domestic political arena and in part from skilful management of a well-defined foreign policy with clearly identifiable goals and issues. A clear core of realist self-reliance is layered with the domestic demands of a competitive trading state that requires a liberal international trading regime. (p. 2) This is a very succinct observation of Singapore's foreign policy. [End Page 164] The chapters on Singapore's Ministry of Foreign Affairs are interesting as is the chapter on the early days of the country. Once more it is brought to the attention of the reader how vulnerable Singapore was in its early days and how precarious the situation was or might have turned out to be if circumstances had been a bit different. The sensitive issues of seceding from Malaysia and the uncertainties of whether Malaysia would contemplate untoward measures, as well as the uncertainties arising from Indonesia's Konfrontasi under then President Soekarno are described and analysed with a high degree of objectivity, which does credit to the author. The same goes for the chapter on Singapore's Cold War and post–Cold War policy output. There is much to learn for people not having lived during these sometimes nerve-racking years characterized by an unpredictable and threatening political climate. It was difficult to know who your enemy could be, how reliable your partners and allies were — and the American withdrawal from Vietnam followed a few years later by the Vietnamese occupation of Cambodia cast a long shadow of non-transparency over foreign policy. Decisions that now look seemingly straightforward were at that time extremely difficult and would have put the nation's survival at stake if policy-makers got them wrong. For a small and newborn nation-state like Singapore these were dangerous waters to navigate in, but as the book shows, the navigators were up to the task and got it right. The two chapters on Singapore's relations with Malaysia and Indonesia are useful reading as...

The Truman Doctrine: Containing Communism and Modernity

This article examines the enunciation in March 1947 of the Truman Doctrine. The doctrine pledged the United States to “assist free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures.” Although the statement was initially aimed at winning congressional support for U.S. aid to Greece and Turkey, where the administration feared Soviet penetration, it ultimately underpinned U.S. Cold War policy throughout Europe and around the world. Moreover, the doctrine addressed a broader cultural insecurity regarding modern life in a globalized world. The administration's concern over communism's domino effect, its media‐sensitive presentation of the doctrine, and its mobilization of U.S. economic and military power to modernize unstable regions marked the advent of a modern U.S. foreign policy. In its maintenance of military preponderance, its nation‐building activities, its organization of alliances, its advocacy of “regime change,” and its resort at times to limited war against armed insurgencies, the Truman Doctrine foreshadowed the contemporary Bush Doctrine against international terrorism.

Global flows: Terror, oil & strategic philanthropy

US involvement in Africa is growing following threats of terrorism and interruptions in oil production and because of desires by foreign corporations to expand their activities on the continent. The response of American policymakers has been to establish a stronger military presence that will engage in counterterrorism initiatives and police oil installations. The goals and extent of this buildup, and the ideology legitimating it, are new. They are departures from Cold War policies. Similarly, the response of American business leaders to weaknesses in the infrastructure and political order of African states leads them to establish their own forms of community development, known as strategic philanthropy, in order to protect and expand local markets. Despite these major developments, the media are not informing the public. This article examines the implications of these military and business initiatives for African nations and the reasons for lack of information about them. Editor's Note: This article was delivered as the presidential address to the African Studies Association, New Orleans, 12 November 2004. It first appeared in the African Studies Review, Vol. 47, No. 5, April 2005:1–22, the principal scholarly journal of that Association. On the role of the US in Africa, also see Daniel Volman, ‘US Military Involvement in Africa’ and Michel Chossudovsky, ‘New Undeclared Arms Race: America's Agenda for Global Military Domination’ in ROAPE 103, March 2005.

The Wrath of God: Hollywood Religious Epics and American Cold War Policy

The Wrath of God: Hollywood Religious Epics and American Cold War Policy

U.S. policy in postcolonial Africa: four case studies in conflict resolution

This book, a concise examination of U.S. policy in contemporary Africa, delineates various aspects of the role that the U.S. played in exacerbating and/or resolving violent conflicts in postcolonial Africa and provides a succinct historical overview of these armed conflicts. F. Ugboaja Ohaegbulam devotes considerable attention of four specific conflicts in Ethiopia-Somalia, the Western Sahara, Angola, and Rwanda and to the Clinton administration's African Crisis Response Initiative and its sequel under George W. Bush. The book concludes that lack of congruence between local forces in conflict in Africa, as well as U.S. aims in those conflicts, was only one of the constraints on the United States in its attempts at conflict resolution. America's counterproductive Cold War policies also defined relations with African states for far too long. Hence, the conflicts in postcolonial Africa became part of the legacy of those policies even as African problems continued to be low-priority concerns for the U.S. government. Libraries, advanced undergraduate and graduate students, and professors, of African studies, as well as the general reader, will find this book useful.