War Enemy Research Articles

Onward, Christian Soldiers

Onward, Christian Soldiers W. Taylor Fain (bio) William Inboden . Religion and American Foreign Policy, 1945-1960: The Soul of Containment. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009. xi + 356 pp. Bibliography and index. $85.00. Speaking to an assembly of the National Council of Churches in 1959, President Dwight Eisenhower inveighed against the dangers of communism and invoked the critical role of religion in securing American cultural values and political institutions. The East-West struggle and American spiritual strength, he argued, were inextricably linked. Eisenhower warned his audience that the United States' Cold War enemies embraced "a godless atheism . . . denying all human rights, any kind of human dignity," and he asserted that "every type of free government, is a political expression of some form of religious belief." Shared faith, he concluded, was "the strongest link that we have among the countries of the West" (p. 100). His words reveal the president's belief in the indispensability of a civil religion closely linked to a "diplomatic theology" in waging the Cold War. Clearly, the thirty-fourth president took religion seriously. So does William Inboden in his ambitious, engaging, and largely persuasive examination of the "soul of containment." Until fairly recently, historians of American foreign relations found it difficult, perhaps even distasteful, to grapple with the influence of religious faith on the making of U.S. diplomacy. In Inboden's words, scholars tended "to shift uncomfortably in such cases and either shirk the subject or else probe even deeper, and often in ever more futility, for the 'real' motivation" behind U.S. policies (p. 224). Over the past two decades, though, many diplomatic historians have embraced the premises, tools, and methodologies of their colleagues who practice social and cultural history. Slowly at first, and then with increasing verve, they have worked to balance their concern with traditional forms of power and state relations with approaches that acknowledge the importance of the less tangible, but no less important, determinants of human relations. By 2000, the so-called "cultural turn" in the history of American foreign relations was in full swing. Studies of subjects such as race, gender, class, pathology, emotion, and of the complex ways they shaped the context and content of American diplomacy filled the pages of the journal Diplomatic History, [End Page 529] flew off the university presses, and became staples of the programs at the annual meeting of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations. Andrew Rotter wrote approvingly that the "culture vultures" seemed to be taking over the discipline and that the study of U.S. foreign policy required a stronger engagement with the "webs of significance" that composed American culture. He identified religion as an important filament of those webs. 1 Rotter's endorsement of religion as a valuable prism through which to assess American foreign relations was not without its skeptics. Patricia Hill noted the limits of such an approach and wrote that, although "religion certainly constitutes a category that ought to be considered in the writing of diplomatic history . . . [it] cannot easily be abstracted as a structural component of social order. It cannot therefore be deployed as a category of analysis in the same ways that scholars have wielded gender, class and race." 2 But the door had been opened. In 2006 Andrew Preston called on historians to take up Rotter's challenge to pursue the study of religion's influence on American foreign policy. In what amounted to a manifesto, Preston lamented that "the influence of religion has been relatively neglected and generally unrecognized" by foreign relations historians. The reasons, he noted, were many, including fears of appearing partisan, a proclivity among scholars to explore secular issues, and empirical and methodological difficulties. Taking issue with Hill, Preston argued for a more systematic and sustained engagement with religious topics. He urged his colleagues to acknowledge "the continuing integral role of religion in the formation, execution, and justification of American foreign policy" and concluded that the history of modern American diplomacy demanded a respect for the role of religion, particularly recognition that "intangible, cultural, and value-laden factors were essential to the unfolding of the Cold War." 3 Enter William Inboden. A young member of the State...

After independence, what next for South Sudan?

With a roaring cheer the people of South Sudan welcomed the newest nation in the world. A sea of people waved flags in a blur of colour as the south’s flag was hoisted high into the air on 9 July, marking the historic moment of formal independence from former civil war enemies in the north. Couples embraced and men cried as the new national anthem was sung for the first time ever.

“The Sun of World Poetry”: Pushkin as a Cold War Writer

“The Sun of World Poetry”: Pushkin as a Cold War Writer Olga Voronina The Spell of the Spectacle: The Pushkin Celebrations of 1949 The festivities dedicated to the 150th anniversary of Pushkin’s birth, lasting from mid-April through early July 1949, were the second-greatest mass spectacle of the early Cold War after the Victory Parade. Echoing the sumptuous Pushkin Celebrations of 1937, the postwar jubilee was well rehearsed and artfully engineered. It included such preliminaries as an All-Union Pushkin Conference at the Institute of Russian Literature of the Academy of Sciences; a Joint Session of the Academy’s Literature and Language, and History and Philosophy Departments; the reopening following the restoration of the Pushkin memorial apartment, and the laying of the foundation of the Pushkin monument in Leningrad; the post-renovation inauguration of the Pushkin estate in Mikhailovskoe, in the Pskov region; and the opening of a Pushkin obelisk in Zakharovo, near Moscow. In the course of three months, Pushkin scholars around the country reportedly delivered 219 public lectures, while Leningrad curators conducted 300 excursions around the Pushkin Museum. Twenty-seven thousand people took part in these activities; 10,000 more gathered for a meeting at the Pushkin monument in Moscow a day before the poet’s birthday. These statistical data were documented in the Proceedings of the Anniversary Celebrations published by the Academy of Sciences. According to Konstantin Simonov, then laureate of four Stalin Prizes and editor-in-chief of Novyi Mir, the scope of the jubilee underscored the greatness of the “Stalin era, which for the first time in the history of humanity made […] Pushkin’s oeuvre the common property of all the people.”1 Although this was a common trope regarding other pre-revolutionary writers as well, Simonov’s speech had distinctive political relevance. He delivered these words on 6 June 1949, at the Pushkin Session at the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow, with Stalin present. Sitting in the presidium, the Generalissimo [End Page 63] again was the obvious other hero of the occasion. And yet there was a big difference between 1937 and 1949 concerning the nature of Stalin’s “glory.” After the war, Simonov and other speakers addressed their eulogies to Stalin the winner, laying words at his feet like the Victory Parade soldiers had laid the banners of the conquered enemy. War rhetoric permeated the Pushkin Celebrations of 1949. But however productive it is to consider the jubilee a spectacle of national recovery from war wounds,2 it was the Cold War that served as its underlying “trauma” and informed the speakers’ and journalists’ choices of arguments and tropes. Speaking of Pushkin’s “significance for the entire world,” Stalin’s ideologues, first and foremost, were referring to the geopolitical delineations recently established on a global scale. They also took into account the ongoing campaign against “servility toward the West” (nizkopoklonstvo pered zapadom),3 which was aimed at rooting out fascination with foreign arts and literature among Soviet citizens and curbing their awareness of Russia’s indebtedness to the Western cultural heritage. Seeking to detect and destroy the new “inner adversary” in Soviet society, the “servility” campaign had erected a wall between the Soviet intelligentsia and the people. My goal is to trace rhetorical outlines of these ideological boundaries [End Page 64] and compare them to Pushkin’s ideas about Russia’s relationship to Europe and a writer’s place within his or her society. Two keynote speakers at the Pushkin Session at the Bolshoy, Simonov and Aleksandr Fadeev, evoked Cold War alienation paradigms in their presentations. The first to speak, Fadeev attacked the “enemies of our socialist country, the enemies of their own nations, the lackeys of bourgeois culture, who […] cover their […] dependence on their coaches, the imperialists, with shrieks about ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy.’”4 These words, borrowed from newspaper editorials, were a standard contribution to the Soviet project of defining the external Cold War enemy. The other object of Fadeev’s concern was the Soviet intelligentsia, whom he believed to be exceptionally fortunate but not always vigilant or politically zealous. Only in the Soviet Union, Fadeev said, “do the people treat the intelligentsia so kindly and surround them with such love...

Living With the Sins of Their Fathers: An Analysis of Self-Representation of Adolescents Born of War Rape

Children born of war rape continue to be a taboo theme in many post-war societies, also in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BH). This study is based on in-depth interviews with eleven adolescents born of war rape in BH. The main goal is to present how these adolescents represent themselves and their life-situations. On the basis of the research we identify four key themes: 1) their continued sense of hostility even after the end of the war; 2) the internalized guilt; 3) the role reversal; and 4) the role of reconciling the war enemies. The analysis of life-stories shows new identifications of traumatic events and trauma. More than half of the interviewed girls suffer severe psychological and physical abuses. The research argues that there are three crucial factors influencing girls' self-perception: the role of the mothers, mothers' economic situation and general social exclusion.

Stretching the umbrella: NATO's eastern expansion

This article discusses how obtaining membership in NATO has played a role in advancing Western values in former Warsaw Pact countries over the last 20 years. The author elaborates on why it was desirable for these post-Communist governments to attain NATO membership, and how the membership of these former Cold War enemies has since fundamentally expanded the strategy of the organisation. Analysis points to the conclusion that the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 on the US compelled NATO to evolve again in its strategy and priorities, and once again triggered NATO expansion.

Mi Vida: The Manichean Face of Dictatorship

Fidel Castro is one of the few surviving Cold War enemies of the United States. He has witnessed as adversaries ten US Presidents: Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush the Elder, Clinton, and Bush the Younger. Castro is certainly the longest running dictator in the Western hemisphere, and arguably in modern times. He certainly has an acute sense of history, or at least Cuban–American relations, as the ultimate measuring rod of the success of his regime. To be sure, this relationship remains his testing rod from start to finish. Exactly 1 year prior to the anniversary of his movement’s 1959 seizure of power, he announced to a television audience that “In the morning, 49 years of the revolution will be behind us and the 50th year will symbolize half a century of heroic resistance. We proclaim our pride in this record to the world.” His autobiographical potpourri, Fidel Castro: My Life is intended to both share the pride and give his version of events for the historical record. Longevity is indeed the acid test of legitimacy—as it is for all political structures. There is a sense in which Castro’s premature celebration of a half century of rule is quite accurate. For the year 1958 was one in which his guerrilla movement held increased ground in the sparsely populated regions of Cuba, and even more significant, a time in which the decay of the Fulgencio Batista regime became apparent. The entrenched political apparatus had been paralyzed and the Cuban military forces had become incapable of hard fighting. So the claim of the text of this work that it represents a half century review is justified, and should not excite historical purists who date the regime from the entrance of the guerrilla forces on the streets of Havana on January 8th, 1959. Indeed the failed attack at the Moncada Barracks in 1953 is frequently used as the benchmark for the new era. But whatever the dates used by both friend and foe of the regime, this guerrilla group’s seizure of political power must be surely recognized as a major event of the twentieth century—a movement with a rise that, as of this writing, is still awaiting its fall, a fall that Fidel Castro has sworn to prevent from happening. It is assuredly an accident that the autobiographies of both Bill Clinton and Fidel Castro are entitled My Life. Even so and in both instances, the government changes they initiated have had a profound impact on the course of events. One must also note that Castro, like Clinton, has been clever enough to realize that makers of history operate in a climate of public acquiescence if not complete active support. That allows for the first and perhaps most significant observation about Castro’s autobiography: his increasing awareness of the need to reshape the record of his half century into a response to populist aims and nationalist ambitions. Castro’s thundering earlier rubbish that “history will absolve me” has been replaced by endless repetition in which Fidel assures his readers that in past and present, his only concern has been to satisfy the needs and desires of the Cuban people. Behind the absolute dictatorship of Castro family hierarchy lurks a mythic “public opinion” democracy of the people. This perhaps explains Castro’s extraordinary claims that Cuba has never been a nation that harbored political prisoners or ever resorted to illegal measures to extract confessions, even as thousands languish in its places of incarceration. Then again, it was none other than Joseph Stalin in his own autobiography who announced as his primary achievements as absolute Soc (2008) 45:300–304 DOI 10.1007/s12115-008-9092-6

The Black Box: Notes on the Anthropology of the Enemy

AbstractThis article critically revisits the Foucauldian perspective on modernity by exploring the constitutive importance of limits of transparency in relations of power and knowledge. It differentiates between Foucault's Panopticon as a model for modernity, which posits a total visibility of subject under modern gaze, and what I call cybernetic ways of knowing that posit the 'black box' of the inner self that is blocked from visibility. The case in point is a comparative study of two anthropologies – two groups of anthropological cadres – the American anthropologists who in the 1940s were involved in emerging Soviet studies, and Soviet anthropologists of the 1920s and 1930s who took part in Soviet reforms. The article draws attention to similarities in their perspective of images and notions of the enemy: the 'enemy of the people' within Soviet society and the Soviet society as the West's Cold War enemy. In doing so, the aim of this article is to develop an ethnographic perspective on state socialism that does not depend on a foundational dualist distinction between 'Soviet' and 'Western' or 'socialist' and 'capitalist' modernity as a starting point.

Policing the Cold War frontier: The Bedford Incident

This essay examines the use of the allusions to Moby-Dick in The Bedford Incident (novel 1963; film 1965) in reinforcing its application of the frontier trope, which underpins the description of how a US destroyer hunts a Soviet nuclear submarine in the Denmark Strait. In particular it focuses on the construction of the Cold War enemy as an unseen alien who, ironically, comes to resemble its American pursuers.

Leaving earth: space stations, rival superpowers, and the quest for interplanetary travel

Charged with the ever-present potential for danger and occasionally punctuated by terrible moments of disaster, the history of space exploration has been keenly dramatic. The recent disaster of the Space Shuttle Columbia was a sad but certain reminder that space travel is an extraordinarily dangerous occupation. Oddly enough, it often takes a tragic accident to remind us that we still have a presence in space. In the decades between triumph and tragedy we tend to ignore the fact that there have been scores of space pioneers who have risked their lives to explore our solar system. Indeed, the International Space Station is sometimes referred to as a /Alpha,a a moniker that implies that it is our first real permanent presence in space. But this notion is frowned upon by the Russians a and for good reason. Prior to the construction of the controversial International Space Station, a host of daring Russian cosmonauts, and a smaller number of intrepid American astronauts, were living in space for months, some of them for over a year. In this definitive account of mana (TM)s quest to become citizens of the cosmos, noted space historian Robert Zimmerman reveals the great global gamesmanship between Russian and American political leaders that drove us to the stars. Beaten to the Moon by their Cold War enemies, the Russians were intent on being first to the planets. They believed that manned space stations held the greatest promise for reaching other worlds and worked feverishly to build a viable space station program a one that would dwarf American efforts and allow the Russians to claim the vast territories of space as their own. Although unthinkable at the time, the ponderously bureaucratic Soviet Union actually managed to overtake the United States in the space station race. Leveraging their propaganda machine and tyrannical politics to launch a series of daring, dangerous, and scientifically brilliant space exploits, their efforts not only put them far ahead of NASA, they also helped to reshape their own society, transforming it from dictatorship to democracy. At the same time, the American space program at NASA was also evolving, but not necessarily for the better. In fact, the two programs were slowly but inexorably trading places. Drawing on his vast store of knowledge about space travel, as well as hundreds of interviews with cosmonauts, astronauts, and scientists, Zimmerman has superbly captured the excitement and suspense of our recent space-traveling past. For space and history enthusiasts alike, Leaving Earth describes a rich heritage of adventure, exploration, research, and discovery.

Academic Warriors and the Cold War Enemy

Book reviewed in this article: Ron Robin, The Making of the Cold War Enemy: Culture and Politics in the Military-Intellectual Complex

The making of the cold war enemy: Culture and politics in the military‐intellectual complex

The making of the cold war enemy: Culture and politics in the military‐intellectual complex

Reviews of Books:America and Intellectual Cold Wars in Europe: Shepard Stone between Philanthropy, Academy, and Diplomacy Volker R. Berghahn; The Making of the Cold War Enemy: Culture and Politics in the Military-Intellectual Complex Ron Robin

Reviews of Books:America and Intellectual Cold Wars in Europe: Shepard Stone between Philanthropy, Academy, and Diplomacy Volker R. Berghahn; The Making of the Cold War Enemy: Culture and Politics in the Military-Intellectual Complex Ron Robin

Volker R. Berghahn. <italic>America and Intellectual Cold Wars in Europe: Shepard Stone between Philanthropy, Academy, and Diplomacy</italic>. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 2001. Pp. xx, 373. $39.50 and Ron Robin. <italic>The Making of the Cold War Enemy: Culture and Politics in the Military-Intellectual Complex</italic>. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 2001. Pp. xvi, 277. $39.50

Journal Article Volker R. Berghahn. America and Intellectual Cold Wars in Europe: Shepard Stone between Philanthropy, Academy, and Diplomacy. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 2001. Pp. xx, 373. $39.50 and Ron Robin. The Making of the Cold War Enemy: Culture and Politics in the Military-Intellectual Complex. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 2001. Pp. xvi, 277. $39.50 Get access Berghahn Volker R.. America and Intellectual Cold Wars in Europe: Shepard Stone between Philanthropy, Academy, and Diplomacy. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 2001. Pp. xx, 373. $39.50. Robin Ron. The Making of the Cold War Enemy: Culture and Politics in the Military-Intellectual Complex. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 2001. Pp. xvi, 277. $39.50. Walter L. Hixson Walter L. Hixson University of Akron Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The American Historical Review, Volume 107, Issue 4, October 2002, Pages 1251–1252, https://doi.org/10.1086/ahr/107.4.1251 Published: 01 October 2002

An Absent Presence: Japanese Americans in Postwar American Culture, 1945-1960 (review)

An Absent Presence: Japanese Americans in Postwar American Culture, 1945-1960, is an engaging and deeply moving account of how remembering and forgetting the history of Japanese American internment have been fundamental to the postwar articulation of the United States as a democratic nation that was to prevail over its cold war enemies. The state's gross violations left irreparable damage to the nation's self-knowledge. The maintenance of the myth of American exceptionalism and the formulation of the postwar United States as a pluralistic and integrated liberal democracy were contingent primarily on the nation's coming to terms with this indelible trauma. Through her remarkable interdisciplinary command over a variety of texts—social science writings, state-sponsored reports, popular journalism, photo images, fiction, and autobiographies—Caroline Chung Simpson demonstrates how the memory of internment, as a persistent reminder of Japanese Americans' liminality within the U.S. national citizenry, had to be worked through during the crucial years of the 1940s and 50s.

The Making of the Cold War Enemy: Culture and Politics in the Military-Intellectual Complex

The Making of the Cold War Enemy: Culture and Politics in the Military-Intellectual Complex

The Making of the Cold War Enemy: Culture and Politics in the Military-Intellectual Complex

The Soviet detonation of an atomic device in August 1949 sharpened U.S. apprehensions concerning the nation's lack of a viable system of defense against enemy bombers. An imaginative young engineer, Jay Forrester, and his colleagues in the Digital Computer Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (mit) sent a paper to the Research and Development Board in Washington proposing the possible military use of Whirlwind, a computer they were currently developing. This was the seed that grew into a multimillion-dollar, decade-long air defense project. Probably the most important insight to be derived from this book is the detailed play-byplay account of just how Jay Forrester and his cochair, Robert Everett, went about the problem of conceptualizing the development of Whirlwind to cope with the demands of air defense while inspiring large numbers of engineers to solve the many technical problems encountered. To this end they established elaborate systems of record keeping and information exchange to ensure that all were kept abreast of progress in perfecting means for storing both information and the programs for processing that information, in order to achieve the necessary reliability and speed at reasonable cost. In those pre-transistor days, Whirlwind had to rely on thousands of vacuum tubes to deal with an estimated fifty thousand arithmetic and switching operations per second.

The making of the Cold War enemy: culture and politics in the military-intellectual complex

The making of the Cold War enemy: culture and politics in the military-intellectual complex

The American presidents: heroic leadership from Kennedy to Clinton

With its cold war enemies led by dictators who promoted the myth of their heroic leadership, how might democratic America respond? This book looks at how John F. Kennedy confronted this challenge, moulding the narratives of 'consensus history' into the activist rhetoric of the New Frontier. It examines how his image, heroic style of leadership, and legacy - America's war in Vietnam - impacted upon his successors. Covering the period from 1960 to the present and against the background of key contemporary events, the book draws upon a wide variety of sources to illuminate its subjects. After Kennedy, hero, came Lyndon Johnson, casualty of war; Richard Nixon, heroic failure; Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter, faith-healers; Ronald Reagan, star; George Bush, deputy; and Bill Clinton, survivor. From Kennedy's inauguration to Clinton's impeachment hearings, the book examines the development of the character of the contemporary presidency during one of the most fascinating and turbulent periods in its history. Written in an engaging and accessible style, it offers a challenging and provocative synthesis of the subject as well as exploring new ground.

A Politics-Driven Policy Washington’s Cuba Agenda is Still in Place—For Now

The anachronism of U.S. policy toward Cuba grows ever more striking as the Cold War recedes into history. As the United States draws old Cold War enemies into its trade and diplomatic orbit, only Cuba has been left out.

Beyond "Modernization" and "Colonization"

Recent scholarship on foreign relations focuses increasingly on its cultural dimensions. Definitions of “American culture” in such investigations vary greatly, ranging from exports produced by industries situated in the United States, to interactions between “ordinary” Americans and “ordinary” people abroad, to the value systems that Americans bring to their interactions with foreign nations. Frequently, assessments of the impact of American culture abroad employ the term “Americanization.” Although what constitutes “American culture,” “American values,” or “Americanization” has been highly contested, two main interpretive paradigms have emerged to make sense of U.S. foreign cultural relations. The “modernization paradigm” links American culture to economic development and political democratization and presents Americanization as a process by which the United States, through its political, economic, and cultural presence, manages the development of liberal democracies, market economies, and consumer cultures abroad. Constructed in the postwar period, this paradigm builds on a firm belief in the American superiority over totalitarianism, over both the fascist losers of World War II and Cold War enemies. The experiences of postwar Western European countries and especially the democratization and growing wealth of West Germany seem to confirm that U.S. power applied abroad brings peace, progress, and prosperity. Crudely put, this paradigm, which has shaped much scholarship on post-World War II Europe, posits the existence of an American culture that reflects and transports a uniform, democratic American value system.1