Direct Military Intervention Research Articles

Foxbats over Dimona: The Soviet Nuclear Gamble in the Six Day War (review)

Foxbats over Dimona: The Soviet Nuclear Gamble in the Six Day War, by Isabella Ginor and Gideon Remez. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2007. 287 pp. $26.00. The authors argue that the USSR deliberately instigated the crisis and war of 1967; that it did so in the context of blocking Israel's program; and that it committed Soviet personnel and weapons for a direct military intervention on behalf of the Arabs. According to the authors the Israeli Prime Minister and Minister of Defense, Levi Eshkol, was the one who initially - against his own better judgment - instigated the May 1967 crisis, together with Yitzhak Rabin, his Chief of the IDF's General Staff, who played a role here, each of them operating on a different level. The authors begin with assurances given by Eshkol's aide to the Soviets, that the Israeli program was not ready yet, since this unconventional endeavor, including intermediate ballistic missiles ordered in France, seemed to have triggered Moscow's wrath. Hence Eshkol and his allies at home (mainly Achdut Ha'avoda nationalist-leftist politicians Yigal Allon and Israel Galili, it should be added here) allowed Moscow to extend a nuclear guarantee or umbrella to Egypt, just in case some Israeli atomic bombs were ready, and pushed Nasser to eliminate the Dimona reactor altogether, if not Israel itself. Rabin's part in this drama, whose epilogue would lead years later to the tragedy of his assassination, was purely conventional, aimed at maintaining deterrence vis-a-vis the hostile Arab States and preventing Palestinian guerillas from operating inside Israel from bases in Syria or havens in Jordan. He thus embarked upon a major retaliatory act against the then Jordanian-Palestinian village of Samu' in November 1966, prompting American wrath and a Palestinian uprising that had to be quelled by force by King Hussein. Rabin thus focused on Soviet-backed, aggressive Syria, whose radical Ba'ath regime was behind the Palestinian incursions into Israel; Damascus also directly fought Jewish farmers working a contested border land by shelling large parts of the Galilee from the Golan Heights. A series of air battles initiated by Rabin, one of which ended by downing Syrian MiGs over Damascus, was followed by open threats made by Rabin in public, to bring about a regime change in Syria. The Soviets thus operated on two levels: while trying to protect their allies in Damascus, they were given a pretext to push President Nasser of Egypt, on the other side of Israel's borders, to move his army into fortified yet empty positions along the open, hardly protected Israeli southern boarder; later he pushed out UN peacekeepers along his armistice line with Israel in Gaza, and blockaded the straits leading to Israel's southern port of Eilat. On the basis of primary sources and former Soviet officials' memoirs and interviews with Soviet military personnel, the authors describe Brezhnev's first demanding the withdrawal of the U.S. Sixth Fleet from the Mediterranean, and then assuming an extremely hostile attitude toward Israel. Previously, Eshkol presided over a rogue Israeli intelligence operation in France, which might have driven a furious General de Gaulle to cancel the delivery of French-made medium-range, nuclear-capable missiles scheduled for 1967 or early 1968. Eshkol and his Foreign Minister, Abba Eban, tried their best to find ways to lessen Washington's criticism of the Israeli program by allowing (ineffective) American inspection visits at the facility in Dimona, and also to calm Moscow down. One of these strategies might have been the message conveyed to the Kremlin that the Israeli program was not operational yet. …

The bottom billion: why the poorest countries are failing and what can be done about it

Global poverty is falling rapidly, but in around fifty failing states, the world's poorest people face a tragedy that is growing inexorably worse. This bottom billion live on less than a dollar a day and while the rest of the world moves steadily forward, this forgotten billion is left further and further behind with potentially serious consequences not only for them but for the stability of the rest of the world. Why do the states these people live in defy all the attempts of the international aid community to help them? Why does nothing seem to make a difference? In The Bottom Billion, Paul Collier pinpoints the issues of corruption, political instability and resource management that lie at the root of the problem. He describes the battle raging in these countries between corrupt leaders and would-be reformers and the factors such as civil war, dependence on the export of natural resources and lack of good governance that trap them into a downward spiral of economic and social decline. Collier addresses the fact that conventional aid has been unable to tackle these problems and puts forward a radical new plan of action including a new agenda for the G8 which includes more effective anti-corruption measures, preferential trade policies and where necessary direct military intervention. All of these initiatives are carefully designed to help the forgotten bottom billion, one of the key challenges facing the world in the twenty first century.

De Carter à Reagan : La politique salvadorienne des États-Unis

Ever since Monroe's doctrine and up to President Carter, the American foreign policy in Latin America has been remarkably continuous both from the point of view of objectives - the maintenance and extension of American influence and domination - and that of the pressures required to attain them - from direct military intervention to economic sanctions, including clandestine activities of destabilization. Carter came to power and from then on that policy rested on different principles which became expressed, particularly in the case of El Salvador, in pressures for the respect of human rights, a temporary suspension of aid from the Interamerican Development Bank and in the immediate recognition of the regime which followed the coup d'État of october 1979 and which made possible a third option between a reactionary dictatorship and a takeover by the Marxists. The principles were once again altered under President Reagan for whom the fight against communism and international terrorism is a priority. Latin America acquired a new strategic importance and El Salvador became the scene of the East-West conflict, the symbol of American determination to contain Soviet expansionism. But Reagan's policy in El Salvador had to be restrained confronted as it was by opposition both internal, from the public, and external through the stand taken by the Allies. In spite of starting doctrinal differences, Carter's and Reagan's policies in El Salvador are very similar, both showing incoherence and inefficiency. They are heirs to a situation and an intellectual tradition which they perpetuate, one clumsily, the other cheerfully. But the failure of the Reagan administration is even more patent than that of its predecessor. The United States have only one alternative left, military intervention or negotiations with the guerilla, and furthermore they risk "losing" El Salvador the Vietnam or the Nicaragua way.

Chitradurga: Spatial Patterns of a Nayaka Period Successor State in South India

South Indian historical accounts, inscriptions, and literature describe many attempts at state formation and political independence by local elites between the collapse of Vijayanagara control of its heartland in the sixteenth century and the eighteenthcentury rise of British hegemony in the south. Most of these elites, known variously as "little kings," nayakas, and poligars, did not survive long in the political turmoil of the era. Those that did endure into the early nineteenth century were soon marginalized or removed from power by East India Company policies and direct military intervention. Archaeological site surveys, guided by contemporaneous East India Company manuscript maps, fort inventories, building plans, and other records, enable researchers to reconstruct and interpret major spatial patterns of the cultural landscapes of these small polities. This approach, which the authors are currently applying in their investigations of the Mysore kingdom, yields a fresh perspective of South Indian little kings and chiefs that complements the work of historians and contributes significantly to the understanding of the nature of these polities. This article describes a case study of the major spatial patterns of the Chitradurga poligars of central Karnataka, as they were in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The results provide a fresh perspective on this poligar province and illustrate the significant interpretative value of contemporaneous colonial documents for archaeological site survey and spatial analyses in India.

Operation Alba: A Necessary and Successful Preventive Deployment

A major challenge for the international community is to understand when peace support operations are required, appropriate and justified. The euphoria of the early 1990s - when momentous changes in international structures generated the view that the deployment of a handful of 'blue helmets' could provide peace and stability everywhere in the world - is over. Today states are increasingly inclined to consider whether direct military intervention in such conflicts is advisable before a new and more stable situation has emerged. Operation Alba can be understood as a preventive deployment that worked to keep a deteriorating situation in Albania in 1997 from getting potentially much worse. This Italian-led operation owed its success essentially to good timing and sound political and military management.

The Military: A Threat to Democracy?

The military is by its very nature a potential threat to democracy, but in well‐established democracies civilian supremacy has generally been maintained, though there are dangers of excessive military influence. S. E. Finer's seminal 1962 study of civil‐military relations distinguished between the modes and effectiveness of civilian control in mature, developed and low or minimal political cultures. These categories are distinguished in particular by varying degrees of political legitimacy. Finer's conclusion about the prospects for political stability and democracy in most developing countries was pessimistic. But Finer's conclusions can now be challenged, primarily because the nature of civil‐military relations has changed. In mature political cultures like the USA, the threat from the military‐industrial complex has receded. Japan, Germany or France — key examples in Finer's second category — have now become mature political cultures; and Russia (newly in this category) is not, despite its many problems, threatened by direct military intervention. Many countries previously classified within low political culture have moved into the second category, and despite some notable exceptions the military have become more cautious about taking responsibility for government.

The United States, self-determination and the struggle against Bolshevism in the Eastern Baltic region, 1918–1920

Three times in the twentieth century the recession and reassertion of Russian and Soviet power along the Baltic Sea have weighed the balance between American idealistic principles and United States strategic interests, between devotion to the rights of small nations and attention to the needs of great powers. While scholarly surveys of the Baltic states in international affairs have noted some contradictions and compromises in American decision-making, there has been no detailed examination of the first test of American policy, during the Russian Civil War of 1917-1920, when President Woodrow Wilson articulated ideals that have served as touchstones for the rest of the century.1 In the absence of a thorough study, many scholars have held that Wilsonian policy was either forthrightly for the principle of self-determination or solidly for the territorial integrity of the former Russian Empire.2 However, close analysis of the papers of American officials reveals that they were often ambivalent about the two principles, that they divided into opposing factions at the Paris Peace Conference, and that their decisions to support Baltic nationalists and anti-Bolshevik Russians were influenced less by abstract ideals than by desires to contain Bolshevism or overthrow the Soviet government. Although public opposition made direct military intervention against Bolshevism unthinkable and Congress constricted the availability of funds, President Wilson and his advisors did not resign themselves to a policy of passive nonintervention. American officers and diplomats pursued a range of limited and indirect efforts to influence developments in the Baltic region, including delivering humanitarian provisions to anti-Bolshevik Russian forces, withholding such supplies from Bolshevikcontrolled territories, participating in an undeclared blockade of Soviet Russia, approving the retention of German troops on the eastern front

What is the Meaning of Imperialism?

It is indeed strange to come across proposals to jettison the term imperialism when the classic features of imperialism are so central to current affairs. Certainly the end of the Cold War has not made that much difference. The invasion of Panama and the massive war against Iraq should be evidence enough that the nature of the beast has not changed. If anything, the collapse of the regimes in Eastern Europe has opened doors of opportunity for the advanced capitalist countries, and at the same time created space for competitive maneuvers among the major powers as to which of them gets to play the major role in one or another of the "newly opened territories." The steps taken to dominate the old and the new peripheries are, of course, not limited to direct military intervention: a variety of political, economic, and indirect military devices, depending on circumstances, are exploited. Moreover, the United States is not the only player. Other powers—France, Germany, Japan, and England—have in their own ways pursued the goal of controlling or influencing the affairs of former colonies and spheres of influence.This article can also be found at the Monthly Review website, where most recent articles are published in full.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.

Stalemate: The War of Attrition and Great Power Diplomacy in the Middle East, 1967-1970 (review)

128 SHOFAR Summer 1993 Vol. 11, No. 4 quantity and quality of data is due in no small measure to the richness of documentation from the Cairo Geniza and to the impressive corpus of publisned Geniza research by Goitein, Mann, Assaf, Gil himself, and many others. Gil describes PalestinianJewry from within and without. The complexities ofcommunal organization are carefully delineated, as are the ongoing relations between it and the rest of world Jewry. Gil emphasizes the elements ofJewish communal continuity in the land from the days of the Second Commonwealth to the Islamic Middle Ages. The Palestinian Yeshiva was, as he repeatedly points out, not the heir but the living continuation of the Sanhedrin. The final brief chapter (pp. 826-837) surveys the event that not only marked the end of nearly five centuries of Muslim rule in Palestine, but constituted the death blow for its autochthonous Jewish community. The Crusader conquest totally transformed the demography of Palestine and brought to a disastrous close the period that Gil has so admirably reconstructed. Scholars will debate many of the points made by Gil, but none who deal with this period will be able to ignore his work. Norman A. Stillman Judaic Studies and History Departments State University of New York, Binghamton Stalemate: The War of Attrition and Great Power Diplomacy in the Middle East, 1967-1970, by David A. Korn. Boulder, co: Westview Press, 1992. 326 pp. $36.00. The War ofAttrition ofMarch 1969 to August 1970 between Israel and Egypt, which has been regarded as a passing event in the course of the Arab-Israeli Wars, is the one most disregarded by researchers. But the War of Attrition was a major confrontation and acquired a unique character distinguishing it frol]l the other wars for two main reasons: the special type of war it was, and Soviet direct military intervention in the war. David A. Korn's book on the War of Attrition is an important contribution to the understanding of this chapter of violence in the Arab-Israeli conflict. Based on interviews with Americans, Israelis, and Egyptians as well Book Reviews 129 as on documents that were never published, including his personal notes from the period he was a deputy chief and the chief of the political section at the American embassy in Israel from 1967 to 1971, the book offers a very detailed account of the events between 1967 and 1970. There are two main sections in this book-the first (the first four chapters) describes the background of the War of Attrition, while the second (the remaining ten chapters) gives the account of the war itself. In the first section Korn reviews the problems created by the Six-Day War that led to the War of Attrition. The Six-Day War had had decisive results on three levels, and therein lay the seeds of the War of Attrition. The most momentous result was the new territorial situation that was seen from the start by all parties concerned-Israel, the Arab States, and the superpowers -as a situation that would have to be altered. The second outcome of the Six-Day War was the decisive gap in the relative military power ofIsrael and Egypt, given the overwhelming Israeli victory in the war. The third outcome was a central function of the other two: the increased involvement of the superpowers, mainly the Soviet Union, in the Arab-Israeli conflict. At the close of the Six-Day War both sides to the conflict, Israel and Egypt, sought to find a political solution to the crisis created in the war's aftermath, but the kind and shape of the political solution was conceived of in different fashion by each side. While Egypt insisted that Israel get out of all the territories occupied in the Six-Day War but would not agree to give Israel full peace even if it did withdraw, Israel aspired to gain full peace with its Arab neighbors while still retaining some of the territory it captured from them in the Six-Day War. The international attempts, including Gunnar Jarring's mediating efforts and U.S.-Soviet exchanges, failed not only to resolve the conflict but also to...

Intervention in the 1980s: U.S. foreign policy in the Third World

Part 1 Introduction: concepts, relevance, themes, and overview, Peter J.Schraeder. Part 2 Origins of intervention: evolution of the interventionist impulse, Lloyd C.Gardner low intensity conflict doctrine, Michael T.Klare the globalist-regionalist debate, Charles F.Doran. Part 3 Tools of intervention: economic and military aid, Doug Bandow economic sanctions, Kimberly A.Elliott covert intervention, Harry Howe Ransom paramilitary intervention, Peter J.Schraeder direct military intervention, Ted Galen Carpenter. Part 4 Constraints on intervention: the domestic environment, Jerel A.Rasati government and the military establishment, Stephen Daggett the structure of the international system, Harry Piotrowski international law, Christopher C.Joyner. Part 5 Case studies: Iran, Eric Hooglund the Philippines, Richard J.Kessler Nicaragua, Peter Kornbluh Grenada, Tony Thorndike South Africa, R.Hunt Davis Jr and Gwendolen M.Carter. Part 6 Conclusion: US intervention in perspective, Peter J.Schraeder.

Destabilization and Intervention in Latin America and the Caribbean

For Latin America and the Caribbean, 1979 was another turning point: The Cuban Revolution celebrated its twentieth anniversary; the New Jewel Movement came to power in Grenada in March; and the Frente Sandinista de Liberacion Nacional (FSLN) defeated the Somoza dictatorship in July. The political and economic paths pursued by the revolutionary leaders in these countries confirmed the worst fears of many policymakers, businesspeople, bankers, and trade union leaders in the United States. They became convinced that not since the 1962 Cuban missile crisis had U.S. security and economic interests in the Caribbean and Latin America in general been endangered so seriously. The cordial political and material relations forged between Grenada and Cuba and Nicaragua and Cuba, as well as the growing Eastern bloc trade by the two newest members of the so-called Marxist triangle, were as conclusive proof as was needed of the alleged and oft-repeated dangers of Soviet/Cuban expansionism in America's backyard. Events in the Caribbean and Central America have been of concern to national policy since the Monroe Doctrine (1823), and a fear that foreign powers might gain a foothold in adjoining territories is a preoccupation that dates from at least 1811 (Connell-Smith, 1974: 46). Considering direct military intervention alone, the Caribbean has suffered the presence of U.S. troops on its shores and soil more than any other region. Even prior to 1898 and the Spanish-Cuban-American War, U.S. troops had landed in the Caribbean and Mexico more than thirty times (U.S. Congress, 1969). Then there are the better-known and longer military occupations of this century: Panama, 1903-1914; the Dominican Republic, 1903, 1905, 1916-1924, 1965-1967; Cuba, 19061909, 1912; Honduras, 1907; Nicaragua, 1909, 1912-1925, 1926-1933; Haiti, 1915-1934; and Grenada, 1983; among others. Of course these interventions were due to geography and economics, but that is just the

Africa's Rising Status in American Defence Policy

Since the last American troops withdrew from Vietnam during 1975, the strategic value of Africa to the United States has steadily risen. As a result of the renewal of cold-war hostilities between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. and an escalating series of crises for American foreign policy in the Third World, the African continent is now a principal battlefield for competition involving the United States, Western Europe (particularly France), Cuba, and the Soviet Union. After the end of the Vietnam war, direct American military intervention in Africa was precluded for a short time by legislative restraints – notably the ‘Clark Amendment’ of December 1975 that blocked involvement in Angola – and by the public's reluctance to become entangled in another military commitment overseas, a phenomenon often referred to in Washington as the ‘Vietnam syndrome’. Furthermore, the United States lacked the military capacity to engage in such adventures, having suffered such heavy losses in Indochina and being preoccupied with the creation of a new all-volunteer army. Over the past five years, however, two Administrations in Washington have worked assiduously to ‘cure’ the so-called ‘Vietnam syndrome’ and restore America's military position abroad.

The Stability Quotient of Greece's Post-1974 Democratic Institutions

The Stability Quotient of Greece's Post-1974 Democratic Institutions* Theodore A. Couloumbis and Pródromos M. Yannis As we are drawing close to ten years of uninterrupted democratic rule, it is timely and appropriate to assess the stability quotient1 of Greece's post-1974 democratic institutions. It is our view that Greece can no longer be classified as a praetorian state,2 as, it could be argued, was the case in the pre-1967 years of political troubles which led to *Paper presented at the International Studies Association Conference, Mexico City, Mexico, (April 5-9, 1983.) 'Stability here is defined in terms of continuity of constitutional arrangements, permitting national elections at regular intervals among two or more political parties, and involving no direct military intervention in politics. 2Elsewhere we have described praetorianism in Greece as a condition where ". . . political elites [were described] as conflictful, conspiratorial, corrupt, and levantine; the Greek citizens' 'national character' ... as deeply family-centered but without civil consciousness; the . . . political parties ... as personalistic, clientelistic, non-principled, centrifugal, disorganized, short-lived, and numerous; the system of education ... as stiff, archaic, and formalistic; the middle classes as opportunistic and vacillating between authoritarian and democratic patterns of governance; the press as yellow and inflammatory ; the church as ritualistic and socially indifferent." Theodore A. Couloumbis, John A. Petropulos, and Harry J. Psomiades, Foreign Interference in Greek Politics (New York, 1976) p. 143. The literature on military intervention in politics is quite diverse. It ranges from "clinical" studies into the causes of military intervention, such as Samuel P. Huntington's Political Ordei- in Changing Societies (New Haven, 1968) and Morris Janowitz's Military Institutions and Coercion in the Developing Nations (Chicago, 1977) to studies viewing the military as an engine of development and modernization in Third World states such as John J. Johnson, ed., The Role of the Military in Underdeveloped Countries (Princeton, 1962) to studies viewing the military as a conservative and even retrogressive agent in the process of political and economic development such as Eric Nordlinger's Soldiers in Politics: Military Coups and Government (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1977). For a thoughtful and relatively comprehensive review of the literature dealing with the role of the armed forces in societies see, Gwyn Harries-Jenkins and Charles C. Moskos, Jr., "Trend Report: Armed Forces and Society," Current Sociology, 29 (Winter 1981), 1-75. 359 360 Theodore A. Couloumbis and Pródromos M. Yannis the military coup of April 21, 19673 and to the establishment of dictatorial rule from 1967 to 1974. The thesis of this paper is that in the nine-year period (1974— 1983) since the collapse of the dictatorship,4 the democratic structures that have been erected in Greece have taken root and are passing major tests of efficiency and legitimacy.5 To examine the above proposition , we will proceed with an assessment of stability /instability indicators that have been operative since 1974 in an attempt to identify those factors which have contributed to stability and those that have worked in the opposite direction. The post-1974 dramatic departure from previous patterns has been the product of good leadership, structural changes in the Greek society (its political culture and its economic system), and regional reformulations, especially in the troubled post-1974 Greek-Turkish relationship. The smooth transition in 1974—75 from dictatorship to legitimate (not just self-proclaimed) democracy is probably a textbook case. The formula which was used by Constantine Karamanlis, the architect of this transition, could be summarized as follows: "Remove elements of destabilization from past political structures without creating new and 3A sample of the literature on the period of the Greek military junta includes the following works: Keith R. Legg, Politics in Modern Greece (Stanford, CA, 1969); Richard Clogg and George Yannopoulos, eds., Greece Under Military Rule (New York, 1972); Stephen G. Xydis, "Coups and Countercoups in Greece, 1967—1973," Political Science Quarterly, 89 (Fall 1974); Theodore A. Couloumbis, "The Greek Junta Phenomenon," Polity, 6 (Spring 1974), 345-374; and Laurence Stern, The Wrong Horse: The Politics of Intervention and the Failure of American Diplomacy (New York, 1977). following the assumption of power by a government of National Unity headed by Constantine Karamanlis (July 23...

The Soviet Union and the Israeli action in Lebanon

The Soviet Union may have some questions to answer from its friends and allies in the Middle East at the close of the current crisis in Lebanon. Given the massive material and political support Moscow has accorded both Syria and the Palestine Liberation Organization in the past, it is possible that they, or at least groups amongst their supporters and the public at large, expected something more than the virtual inaction of the Soviet Union. An understanding of this inaction, however, lies with the understanding of the nature of Soviet commitment to Syria and the PLO and where this commitment fits into Soviet priorities. When Israeli forces moved into Lebanon, the primary Soviet consideration was that there should not be a general war between Israel and Syria. The reasons for this were numerous: Moscow was fearful of the tlhreat to Damascus itself and to the shaky regime of Assad; it was concerned that the Israeli blow and these threats would be such as to prompt the Syrians to demand direct Soviet military intervention and that an all-out war, similar to previous wars in the region, would develop with the risk of superpower involvement and confrontation. Accordingly, Moscow has always drawn a distinction in the Arab-Israeli context between terrorist actions or battles of attrition, and all-out wars, opposing the latter because of the concern over superpower confrontation. In the present war, these Soviet preferences presumably caused little difficulty between Moscow and Damascus in as much as the Syrians themselves apparently were not interested in all-out war with Israel. Thus it was not a case of Syria pressing to fight and Moscow holding it back, but, perhaps, Syrian pressure on Moscow, possibly from the beginning of hostilities, to press Washington to restrain Israel. The USSR may have been restrained on this score by their general concern over their relations with the United States at this time of important arms talks. There have been rumours that the Syrians were dissatisfied with Moscow's general reticence during the hostilities and in some circles, presumably the military, there was apparently much grumbling over the poor performance of Soviet weapons systems.' While Libyan and Palestinian leaders openly indicated their disappointment that Moscow did not send Syria concrete assistance, such as a contingent of combat troops, the Syrians themselves, at least publicly, couched their demands in political terms.2 They spoke of raising Soviet-Syrian relations to a still higher plane

No Room for Peace: Possible Futures for Indochina

In the perspective of a few thousand years of Indochinese history the decade of direct American military intervention that so wrenched our own country is little more than a minor subtitle in a rather brief chapter. Contrary to the declarations of those who opposed policy and those who made it, the United States neither started nor ended the warfare in Indochina. Although the U.S. inflicted great agony and destruction on some small countries, the suffering yielded no conclusion. Even after their withdrawal, Americans could find no satisfaction in a neat end to a bloody game.

La participation et les élites dans un système politique en crise : le cas de la Turquie

Elite participation in a political system in crisis: Turkey, by Ali Kazancigil The political system in Turkey is going through a crisis caused by direct military intervention in political life. On the basis of political modernisation theories, military intervention is seen as the reaction of the bureaucratic elites which traditionally dominate the political system to growing political participation and to the rise of "civilian" elites. This reaction stems largely from their prescriptive-political system of values, and also from the threat that these changes represent for their status, prompting them to "block" the system, bring about an institutional "retrogression" and confine participation by the vast majority of people to the functioning of the political system. On this latter point, they are supported by the "civilian" elites, i.e. the industrial bourgeoisie above all. With regard to the struggle between the two elite groups, the civilian elites are growing increasingly powerful as the country becomes more industrialized. In the final analysis, what is at stake in this crisis is Turkey's transformation from a feudal-bureaucratic to an industrialized society dominated by the industrial bourgeoisie. [Revue française de science politique XXIII (1), février 1973, pp. 5-32.]

President Kennedy and United States Policy in Laos, 1961–63

In his short administration, President Kennedy was called upon to deal with several Southeast Asian developments but none that had reached such a high watermark of an international crisis as the question of Laos. As in Berlin, he inherited in Laos a situation aggravated by near-direct armed confrontation between the Soviet Union and the United States. Kennedy's response to that situation was a complex set of policy moves and measures that alternately raised a spectre of large-scale, direct American military intervention and prospects of East-West agreement on Laotian neutrality, only to end eventually on the same note of anti-communist crusade as in the preceding Eisenhower administration.

Soldier and State in Africa

Direct military intervention, aimed at unseating civilian governments and replacing them with ruling councils drawn largely from the army, is a relatively recent phenomenon in Africa. With the exception of the Sudan, where officers led by General Ibrahim Abboud seized control in November 1958, no supplanting of civilian authority by a military junta occurred until 19 June 1965 (Algeria). Then, in rapid succession, the Governments of Congo-Kinshasa (25 November 1965), Dahomey (22 December 1965), Central African Republic (1 January 1966), Upper Volta (4 January 1966), Nigeria (15 July 1966), Ghana (24 February 1966), Nigeria once again (29 July, 1966), Burundi (28 November 1966), Togo (13 January 1967), and Sierra Leone (23 March 1967) fell victims tocoups d'état.

Past and Present of the Vietnam Problem

The direct military intervention of the USA in Vietnam and the bombing of the GDR by the American air force caused the Vietnamese issue to become a world issue again. The Council of Governments is interested in its early resolution and a significant part of public opinion in the world. To the forefront of the common interest aims to restore peace in this part of the world, so that further bloodshed and the spread of war to other countries and parts of the world are prevented. Solutions however, can only be built on such a basis that is acceptable for the Vietnamese nation. A solution that is not acceptable to the Vietnamese nation can only lead to a prolongation or even to the spread of the war, because the Vietnamese after twenty-five years of fighting for independence, they are determined to fight for real independence and they have enough experience, certain strengths and friends to do that. Though the Vietnamese question became a world problem, it still remains primarily a Vietnamese one, a problem that can only be solved in accordance with the authorized national thoughts and political realities of this country.

Security Council

From its 921st through its 923d meetings the Security Council considered the complaint of the government of Cuba that the United States was planning direct military intervention in Cuba.Mr. Wadsworth, the representative of the United States and the first speaker, deplored the fact that because of continued provocation over nearly a two-year period the United States had been forced to break diplomatic relations with Cuba, and denied as false propaganda the Cuban charges that the United States was contemplating a military attack on Cuba. Mr. Roa, the Cuban representative, stated in his opening remarks that Cuba considered the Security Council the proper organ before which to bring its case, and that his country opposed any effort to transfer the examination of its claim to the Council of the Organization of American States. He charged, inter alia: 1) that United States materials had been air-lifted to counter-revolutionary groups in the Cuban mountains; 2) that United States Embassy officials had been engaged in espionage and in conspiracy with counterrevolutionary elements; 3) that false and harmful propaganda against Cuba was being broadcast from the United States, with the support of the United States government; 4) that mercenaries were being trained at Guantanamo Naval Base, with a view to launching a number of small military expeditions against different points of the island; and 5) that destroyers had been placed on the alert in Key West, ninety miles from Cuba. The ultimate objective of these movements, Mr. Roa added, was a military invasion of his country.