War Diplomacy Research Articles

The Sandinista revolution: a global Latin American history; Nicaragua must survive: Sandinista revolutionary diplomacy in the global cold war

The Sandinista revolution: a global Latin American history; Nicaragua must survive: Sandinista revolutionary diplomacy in the global cold war

An Examination of the Role of U.S. Media Diplomacy in the Second Gulf War (The 2003 Invasion of Iraq)

An Examination of the Role of U.S. Media Diplomacy in the Second Gulf War (The 2003 Invasion of Iraq)

Review of Nicaragua must survive. Sandinista revolutionary diplomacy in the Global Cold War

Review of Nicaragua must survive. Sandinista revolutionary diplomacy in the Global Cold War

Cultural Diplomacy and the Cold War Period

In addition to the massive arms race, the Cold War was psychological in winning over and attracting foreign individuals, groups, and governments. This study analyzes the very important role of cultural diplomacy in the Cold War, a period marked by intense geopolitical tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union. Taking into account the catastrophic consequences of a possible direct military conflict between the two superpowers, cultural diplomacy and the concept of projecting soft power to achieve national interests was crucial. Focusing on the interplay between the two superpowers, this study analyzes the mechanisms and influence of cultural diplomacy on international relations during the Cold War. Moreover, it analyzes the approach of the United States and the Soviet Union to this concept and provides insight into the key strategic differences in the use of cultural diplomacy in foreign policy of the period.

The Ripple Effects of the Illegitimacy of War

Abstracts Recent data show systematic changes in the diplomacy and practice of war. Conquests, peace treaties, declarations of war, and state boundary changes have declined or disappeared. There are still wars, but they are increasingly fait accomplis, and their outcomes are often not recognized as legal. How can we explain this wide-ranging but seemingly contradictory transformation? Existing accounts, such as those based on a territorial integrity norm, do not adequately explain these changes. This paper uses norm dynamics theory to show that all of these changes can be explained as ‘ripple effects’ of war becoming illegitimate as a way to solve international disputes. The kinds of rhetorical justifications states can convincingly give for engaging in violence have changed. States are navigating this changed international social environment through legitimacy management behaviors. The paper specifies three types of ripple effect, Reframing, Displacement, and Consistency-Maintenance, corresponding to changes in what states say, the actions they perform, and how the audience reacts. We show how this theory unifies all of the existing data into a single explanatory framework. We also apply the theory to the decline of peace treaties to show how ripple effects play out in more detail.

Army Orientations and Student Handbooks: Two Perspectives on Student Exchange during the US Occupation of Japan

In 1951, the largest cohort of Japanese exchange students in history arrived in the United States. Between 1949 and 1952, around 787 Japanese nationals received Government Aid and Relief in Occupied Areas (GARIOA) scholarships, intended to cultivate a learned group of people to spread American ideas in Japan. The purpose was to provide Japanese university graduates with first-hand experience of US democracy; earning advanced degrees was secondary. The Army produced elaborate orientations and films to explain this goal to GARIOA recipients, who were among the only Japanese able to travel abroad and attend US universities. Because students found Army materials insufficient in preparing them for the challenges of studying and living in the United States and because they wanted to use the GARIOA program to their own ends, they wrote their own handbooks. A prime example is A Handbook for Japanese Students Going to America (Beikoku seikatsu sama zama), 1956, by the Exchange Student Association (Beikoku ryūgakusei kai). This article argues that Army orientations and student handbooks described Occupation-era educational exchange from two different perspectives and helped both groups to achieve their version of success and to engage in a larger conversation about the political role of exchange students in Cold War diplomacy.

National liberation by other means: US visitor diplomacy in the Vietnam War

Abstract This article considers Americans who travelled to North Vietnam at the height of the Vietnam War (1965–75). It demonstrates, on the basis of revelations in files from the Vietnamese national archives, that authorities in Hanoi exercised far more control over visits by US citizens and the impressions they created than the visitors themselves and those who have written about them had heretofore surmised. In visiting North Vietnam on Hanoi’s very specific terms, guests unwittingly — for the most part — became accomplices in its ‘diplomatic struggle’, a distinctive aspect of the Vietnamese communist anti-American strategy that was intended to diminish the importance of the military contest inside Vietnam by winning hearts and minds and demonizing Washington policy makers outside the country. By elucidating Hanoi’s rationale for and contributions in arranging the visits, the article decentres the history of the Vietnam War and validates the emergent consensus among international relations historians that traditionally marginalized ‘Third World’ state and non-state actors assumed meaningful roles in shaping the post-1945 international order. The Vietnam War, it turned out, changed the global discourse on the laws of war, human rights and humanitarianism in no small part because of the way Hanoi framed the conflict and reported its dreadful effects to foreign publics.

Sharof Rashidov's Role in Cold War Diplomacy: A Soviet Uzbekistan Perspective

After World War II, the Soviet Union gained significant international prestige, which required a comprehensive approach to foreign policy. Newly liberated nations in Africa and Asia, seeking to break free from enduring colonial legacies, became a crucial battleground for Soviet propaganda. Over time, this trend gained momentum, leading to new approaches in Soviet diplomacy. Satellite states and non-Kremlin individuals played an active role in shaping Soviet foreign policy. The case of Soviet Uzbekistan, led by Sharof Rashidov, is particularly notable. Rashidov's exceptional diplomatic skills allowed him to play a prominent role in key events during the Cold War era, guiding his country for 24 years. The main goal of this study is to determine if there was a powerful and semi-autonomous actor outside of the Kremlin, shedding light on the complexities of decentralized involvement within the Soviet geopolitical landscape.

Defense Diplomacy Indonesia - United Arab Emirates Through Confidence Building Measures

This research paper explores the defense diplomacy efforts between Indonesia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) through confidence-building measures (CBMs) as a strategic step to strengthen bilateral relations and increase trust between the two countries. The paper begins by discussing the historical context and the importance of defense diplomacy in the post-World War II era. It then examines the concept of defense strategy and its evolution beyond military operations. The role of diplomacy, particularly soft power diplomacy, is highlighted as an essential tool in international relations. The paper further delves into the concept of defense diplomacy, its peaceful use of armed forces, and its significance in addressing security challenges and building trust among countries. The focus is on the defense diplomacy efforts between Indonesia and the UAE and their impact on regional defense and security cooperation. The researchers employ a qualitative descriptive approach and a case study design to analyze the defense industry and defense cooperation efforts within the perspective of defense diplomacy. The results and discussions section presents an analysis of Indonesia's defense strategy, highlighting the objectives, means, and approaches employed in defense diplomacy with the UAE. The paper concludes by emphasizing the importance of defense diplomacy in enhancing bilateral relations, promoting regional stability, and leveraging the strengths and resources of both countries in the defense industry.

Domestication of Russian Cuisine in the United States: Wanda L Frolov’s Katish: Our Russian Cook (1947)

Abstract This article examines Wanda L Frolov’s cookbook, Katish: Our Russian Cook (1947) as a transitional text that navigates the food diplomacy of World War II and the Cold War “Red Scare.” The book narrates the story of two women from different parts of the world and walks of life – an American widow and a refugee widow from Russia – who lived together in Southern California during Prohibition. The plot is presented through the point-of-view of one of the characters, Sis, as she recounts her childhood memories, while recipes come in clusters triggered by specific vignettes. Using irony, exoticisms, and literary and cultural allusions, the cookbook embodies the journey of the Russian character from her home country to the United States through American recipes. In Katish: Our Russian Cook, Frolov created an original character who asserts herself in the female space of the kitchen while adjusting to a new country. This adjustment is reflected in the hybrid Russian–American menu, which represents a radical departure from the three decades worth of auto-ethnographic cookbooks produced by the white émigrés in the United States. Frolov’s mode of representation of the Russian identity is fused with consumer potential as a positive force, while the child’s eye view of the story obfuscates the refugee trauma narrative. Released before the advent of television cooking shows and food editor conferences, Katish: Our Russian Cook mapped the local Los Angeles culinary scene in the 1920s and contributed to the development of the culinary memoir writing genre. Published first during the Cold War and republished by Ruth Reichl in 2001, it serves as a pertinent example of American integration and domestication of Russianness.

War Strategy of Acehnese and Dutch in the Aceh War 1873-1912

<em>Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam in the history of the struggle of the Indonesian nation is the most difficult area to conquer by the Dutch. This area was once a Sultanate area that was crowded with international traders because of its strategic location. The war began when the Dutch tried to control the Aceh region so it received fierce resistance from the sultanate and the people of Aceh. The war between the Acehnese and Dutch people lasted between 1873 and 1912 which was the largest war during colonialism in the archipelago. The Acehnese and Dutch people in this long war implemented strategies with the aim of weakening the opponent's defenses. This paper aims to explain the strategies of both sides in the Aceh War. The author uses qualitative methods with library study as well as documentation to collect historical information with historiographic techniques. The result of this research was that the strategy of the Acehnese people with the spirit of fisabilillah war, deceitful tactics, and guerrilla was able to make the Dutch with higher-tech troops overwhelmed to deal with it. Meanwhile, the Dutch used war diplomacy to gain support from regional leaders with the politics of fighting and analyze the socio-cultural aspects of the Acehnese people to weaken the opponent's defenses.</em>

An African Looks at America: Picturing Racial Integration for Africa, 1956–68

The global tour of Edward Steichen’s 1955 photographic exhibition The Family of Man, sponsored by the United States Information Agency (USIA), has long been viewed as the defining moment for the medium’s engagement in US Cold War diplomacy and propaganda. Yet the attention garnered by this single exhibition has served to obscure an extensive programme of photographic diplomacy developed by the USIA during the late 1950s and early 1960s, and largely overlooked by photographic scholarship. One strand of this programme was shaped by the twin concerns of racial conflict at home and decolonisation in Africa and Asia. As the US government cultivated audiences in the newly independent nations of the emerging Third World, it became clear that it would need to adapt its message. Racial integration became a pervasive theme in the agency’s photographic output as it sought to picture America for its international audiences and visually refute accusations that the USA was an inherently racist society. In contrast to studies of US propaganda output of the early 1950s, which have suggested a limited repertoire for the representation of African Americans, the photographic records for this period provide evidence that the USIA paid close attention to the micro-politics of racial interaction and endeavoured to create a richer and more complete set of representations. Seen in the context of the time, the carefully choreographed portrayals of interracial interaction that emerge from the USIA archives are remarkable, if always highly partial and selective.

Medals, Rings, and Olympic Dreams: A Review Essay of Antonio Sotomayor and Cesar R. Torres, eds., Olimpismo

Medals, Rings, and Olympic Dreams: A Review Essay of Antonio Sotomayor and Cesar R. Torres, eds., <i>Olimpismo</i>

Illusions of Empire: The Civil War and Reconstruction in the US-Mexico Borderlands

Illusions of Empire: The Civil War and Reconstruction in the US-Mexico Borderlands

Illusions of Empire: The Civil War and Reconstruction in the U. S.—Mexico Borderlands by William S. Kiser

Reviewed by: Illusions of Empire: The Civil War and Reconstruction in the U. S.—Mexico Borderlands by William S. Kiser Robert Wooster Illusions of Empire: The Civil War and Reconstruction in the U. S.—Mexico Borderlands. By William S. Kiser. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2022. Pp. 262. Illustrations, notes, bibliography, index.) In this, his fifth book published since 2011, William S. Kiser continues to burnish his reputation as a prodigious researcher, productive writer, and keen analyst of the mid-nineteenth century southwestern borderlands from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific Ocean. Using an impressive variety of manuscripts, official documents, English- and Spanish-language newspapers, and secondary books and articles, Kiser demonstrates the often-overlooked significance of northern Mexico to the American Civil War and Greater Reconstruction (meaning the imperial struggles for hemispheric dominance as well as the fate of slavery and the former Confederate states). The weight of the evidence is indeed overwhelming: countless Confederate and Union political officials, army officers, diplomats, and [End Page 585] rogue leaders envisioned the northern borderlands of Mexico as a means of furthering their national and personal ambitions, more often than not through such "irregular diplomacy" (7) as fantastical schemes, filibustering, bribes, tariffs, and secret personal deals. By 1864, the occupation of much of the region by Emperor Maximilian I's imperialists only increased the potential stakes, as the French presence promised even more meaningful opportunities for a Confederate resurgence. As Kiser rightly insists, however, "the localized nature of borderlands diplomacy" (28) greatly complicated the dreams of outsiders. State governors Ignacio Pesqueíra (Sonora), Luis Terrazas (Chihuahua), Santiago Vidaurri (Nuevo León), and Albino López (Tamaulipas) stubbornly sought to maintain their local sovereignty while continuing to further their own personal interests as they balanced official and unofficial diplomacy with the external forces. Bandits, smugglers, and non-state regional strongmen such as Patricio Milmo, Juan Cortina, Mangas Coloradas, Cochise, and Victorio also sought to exploit these rivalries through financial machinations and open warfare to further their own causes, which invariably featured a greater emphasis on local rather than national interests. To transform the complex variety of ingredients into a comprehensible narrative, Kiser sensibly organizes his work into five chapters: one on the pre-Civil War diplomacy that had shaped the region; one each on the Mexican northwest (Chihuahua and Sonora) and northeast (Nuevo León and Tamaulipas) before mid-1863; and one for each of these regions following the French intervention. A concluding essay seeks to bring borderlands diplomacy into the present day. Built upon the foundational publications of historian Jerry Thompson along with Kiser's own studies, Illusions of Empire makes the strongest case in print for the importance of Mexican diplomacy to the United States during the Civil War era. Furthermore, it offers important analytical opportunities for Texas historians beyond the southwestern borderlands. Traditional scholars, including this reviewer, have tended to compartmentalize the complicated experiences of the Lone Star State in the mid-nineteenth century into segmented time periods and regions. That research has been invaluable in establishing a basic narrative. But a deeper understanding of the Texas past now requires something of a paradigm shift. Rather than shaping our investigations around unique eras like the antebellum years, the Civil War, and Reconstruction, and approaching our studies from the perspective of separate regions—the South and the Confederacy, the American West, and the southwestern borderlands—we need to begin the more complicated but infinitely more rewarding task of emphasizing, as Kiser suggests, a "more expansive vision" (7) of the interconnectedness of these experiences. [End Page 586] Robert Wooster Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi (emeritus) Copyright © 2022 The Texas State Historical Association

U.S.–Japan Economic Contention in Manchukuo: What did Manchukuo’s Economic Control Bring to the U.S.–Japan Relationship?

Abstract This article examines the impact of Japan’s economic control of Manchukuo on U.S.-Japan relations. From 1933 to 1935, ties between the two countries came to a temporary standstill. However, during these years, Washington and Tokyo waged a diplomatic war in the background over Japan’s control of Manchukuo’s economy. Although the United States accused Japan of violating the Nine Power Treaty it had signed endorsing the Open Door Policy, Japan established several special companies in Manchukuo, and some American firms withdrew from Manchuria. What kind of diplomatic negotiations developed between the United States and Japan during this period? What impact did they have on the relationship between the two countries? This article examines Japan’s development of economic control in Manchukuo and considers its impact, while situating the matter within the history of U.S.-Japan relations during the interwar period. In doing so, it will show how Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs implemented measures that prevented Japan’s economic domination of Manchukuo from immediately worsening U.S.-Japan relations. At the same time, it demonstrates that Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as well as its army, played an important role in the process of Japan asserting dominance over Manchuria.

Q. Marcius Philippus in the Third Macedonian War

Q. Marcius Philippus (cos. I, 186; II, 169; cen. 164) is generally considered a duplicitous diplomat by both ancient and modern historians. This paper re-examines his diplomacy in the Third Macedonian War. It can be argued that Marcius was more interested in promoting his own political interest than in tricking and harming the Greeks. There was no novelty in Marcius' diplomacy. Instead, Scipio Africanus and Flamininus had provided precedents for his behavior. The paper also examines Polybius' and Livy's portrayals of Marcius and explores the roles played by Marcius in the historians' overall arrangements of the war narrative.

Sustaining the Confederacy: Informal Diplomacy, Anglo-Confederate Relations, and Blockade-Running in the Bahamas

Sustaining the Confederacy: Informal Diplomacy, Anglo-Confederate Relations, and Blockade-Running in the Bahamas Beau Cleland (bio) In early 1862, the acting governor of the Bahamas welcomed the arrival of “numerous strangers from the neighbouring continent,” as Confederates and their supporters flowed into Nassau to open a critical and lucrative trade with the nearby Confederate coast. Their friendly reception in Nassau was not simply an accident of geography.1 In an unlikely triumph of informal Confederate diplomacy, merchants, planters, and ship captains on both sides created ties of trade, self-interest, and genuine sympathy and sustained them against pressure from both the U.S. federal and British imperial governments. It was a diplomacy of personal acquaintance, business relationships, and shipping routes rather than one of formal envoys, and these informal networks gave the Confederacy a rare success in international affairs. By using British colonial partners, the Confederacy’s ad hoc collection of minor officials, merchants, and shipowners pressed claims on the British government, and, through the British, on the Union, in ways that formal diplomats could not. In doing so, this Confederate commercial-diplomatic network formed and protected the blockade-running enterprise that sustained much of the Confederate war effort and created the means [End Page 61] for expatriates and foreign allies to materially aid the rebellion. This Confederate web extended across British America, from Toronto and Halifax to British Honduras and numerous places in between, but it had its greatest success in Nassau. This reassessment of who mattered and what constituted “success” in Confederate diplomacy is important for bringing scholarship on Civil War diplomacy in line with the broader deinstitutionalization of diplomatic history.2 It is also an opportunity to reconsider how and why individuals and subnational groups shaped the course of the war and international relations in the nineteenth century—and to push back against the paradigm of the state as the most important actor, a perspective that underlies even the “new” diplomatic history of the Civil War.3 Whatever the relative claims over state capacity in this era, it was still a time of comparative bureaucratic weakness and agonizingly slow and unreliable communication. We must embrace the trend in histories of empire and sovereignty that deemphasizes the role of the state by decentering the diplomatic history of the war from the State Department or Foreign Office and placing focus on the people who personally shaped the transformation of state policy into action and, perhaps more frequently, vice versa.4 This approach allows us to ask different questions about things like blockade-running. Rather than just assessing how much it helped the Confederacy in material terms, or what it meant for formal diplomacy, we have the opportunity to reassess the actual importance of formal state power, both in blockade-running as well as in the “international” Civil War. The merchants, supercargoes, and minor officials who [End Page 62] conducted the informal diplomacy that enabled blockade-running were but one aspect of a broader universe of filibusters, ad hoc militias, settler colonists, and others who mobilized private resources and violence in behalf of (or in resistance to) empire building in mid-nineteenth-century North America.5 While they have often escaped the notice of historians, these grassroots foreign policy actors deeply affected the course of the Civil War and the shaping of sovereignty and empire. The United States government certainly took notice of the Confederacy’s friends in the Bahamas. Secretary of State William H. Seward noted, “Among those British subjects who were the first to institute a contraband trade with the insurgents, in violation of our laws, and in contempt of the Queen’s proclamation [of neutrality], is a house established in Nassau and Liverpool, under the name of Adderly & Co.” Seward, with undisguised anger, referred to the head of that firm, Henry Adderley, as “a person who is so vicious as to dishonor his own country and send desolation abroad through mine upon the motive of commercial gain.” As Seward informed a British diplomat, “I desire that the British nation may understand that . . . we do not confound the just and the good with the unjust and depraved.”6 Henry Adderley, whom blockade-runners dubbed “King...

Diplomacy in a Proxy war

The activity of diplomacy to resolve the proxy war as one of the military conflicts of our time, which, apparently, will signifi cantly determine the development of the military-power component of foreign policy for many years, is based on the principle of interaction and interdependence of several participants in the military proxy confl ict. The confl icting interests of the participants require flexibility, insight, and the ability of diplomacy to bring together and promptly analyze the totality of conflict factors based on reliable, proactive information. In the conditions of the existence of nuclear weapons, the concept of "proxy war or proxy war" largely determines the relations between states in the foreign policy sphere. The efforts of politicians, diplomats and the military in the preparation and during the proxy conflict are characterized by a two-vector orientation: firstly, to achieve the goals set, and secondly, to prevent the transformation of a military-military clash into a large-scale.

Book review:Castro and Franco: The Backstage of Cold War Diplomacy by Haruko Hosoda

Book review:Castro and Franco: The Backstage of Cold War Diplomacy by Haruko Hosoda