Search

Begin New Search Topic Soviet Union

1. Perspectives on Afghan Refugee identity in Pakistan

Author:
Muhammad Najam Ud din Farani
Publication Date:
07-2020
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Political Studies
Institution:
Department of Political Science, University of the Punjab
Abstract:
Afghan refugees in Pakistan are a classical example of refugee-war nexus. They have been historically conditioned by wars and internal conflicts inside Afghanistan. The conflict within Afghanistan which has historically conditioned Afghan refugees has spanned for more than four decades. This study is an attempt to contextualize history, demographics, institutes, national policy and different factors that have conditioned the identity of Pakistani Afghan refugee community. This study also attempt to explore different perspectives on the identity of Afghan refugee community inside Pakistan.
Topic:
Refugees, Conflict, 9/11, Identity, and Soviet Union
Political Geography:
Pakistan, Afghanistan, and South Asia

2. Beating the Americans at Their Own Game: An Offset Strategy with Chinese Characteristics

Author:
Robert O. Work and Greg Grant
Publication Date:
06-2019
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Center for a New American Security
Abstract:
During the Cold War, the U.S. military relied on technological superiority to “offset” the Soviet Union’s advantages in time, space, and force size. Our military-technical edge allowed the U.S. Joint Force to adopt force postures and operational concepts that largely compensated for the Soviet military’s numerical conventional advantage without needing to match it man-for-man or tank-for-tank. After the Cold War ended, this same military-technical advantage provided the U.S. military a decisive conventional overmatch against regional adversaries for over two decades. Now, however, the “rogue” regional powers that have preoccupied U.S. attention for so long have been replaced by two great powers with substantially greater capabilities. A resurgent and revanchist Russia and a rising, increasingly more powerful China are taking aggressive actions that threaten regional security and stability and challenge the existing international order. Without question, of these two great-power competitors, China poses the greater challenge over the long term. Since about 1885, the United States never has faced a competitor or even group of competitors with a combined Gross Domestic Product (GDP) larger than its own. China surpassed the United States in purchasing power parity in 2014 and is on track to have the world’s largest GDP in absolute terms by 2030. In comparison, our Cold War adversary, the Soviet Union, was hobbled by unsustainable economic contradictions that ultimately crumbled under pressure. At the height of its power, its GDP was roughly 40 percent the size of the United States’. If that is not concerning enough for U.S. strategic planners, Chinese technological capabilities are growing as rapidly as its economic power. The Soviets were never able to match, much less overcome, America’s technological superiority. The same may not be true for China—certainly not for lack of trying. Indeed, China is keenly focused on blunting the U.S. military’s technological superiority, even as it strives to achieve technological parity, and eventually technological dominance. Chinese strategists do not explicitly describe their aims in this manner. Nevertheless, after considering what the Chinese military has accomplished technologically in little more than two decades and what they plan to do in the decades to come, any objective assessment must at least consider the possibility that the U.S. Joint Force is close to becoming the victim of a deliberate, patient, and robustly resourced military-technical offset strategy. The purpose of this paper is to describe this strategy and outline its key lines of effort.
Topic:
Defense Policy, Cold War, National Security, Military Affairs, and Soviet Union
Political Geography:
Russia, China, Asia, North America, and United States of America

3. U.S.-Russian Relations, 1989-2019: Self-Awareness and History

Author:
Bruce Jackson
Publication Date:
12-2018
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Hudson Institute
Abstract:
U.S.-Russian relations, though currently intractable, are nevertheless the most discussed subject in American foreign policy today. In fact, our impressions of how relations with Russia are going are central to how we demarcate our own history. “After the wall fell” and “post-Soviet” are ways of telling historical time. And it is also how the current generation refers to the beginning of modern times, in much the same way as an earlier generation used “post-war” as shorthand for when normal life resumed after the war. The ability to make sense of the recent past should help us understand where we are and where we are going. The meaning of “post-war” seems clear to us today: It connotes the aftermath of sacrifice, accomplishment, and a certainty about the historical role and significance of the World War II generation. “Post-Soviet” does not have the same historical clarity. The words that evoke our present circumstances convey a sense of uncertainty, persistent conflict, political stasis, and historical confusion. The significance of the present remains elusive for those of us living in the first decades of the 21st century. America has spent slightly more than a century worrying about Russia without great success. Relations today between the U.S. and Russia are still as bad as they have ever been. If we look closely at the period 1989 to 2019, what significance do we find in our recent past and what does this tell us about the meaning of the present? Do we find a common history that puts the challenges of the present in the proper perspective? Or does where we come from make where we are now even more baffling? Strictly speaking, U.S.-Russian relations are a cluster of epistemological problems. What do we think we know about the events that occurred between 1989 and 2019? How much confidence should we place in our interpretation? What are the implications of how we see our recent past for how we judge our present circumstances? Why do we currently find our conjectures so unsatisfactory at the personal level and from a policy perspective? Is there another way to look at the last thirty years that connects the events from the pre-history of modern times more closely with what we see in the present? For example, why does post-Soviet Russia look so much like Soviet Russia in 1989 when Western Europe today looks so unlike the confident and self-assured Europe after the fall of the Berlin Wall?
Topic:
International Relations, History, and Soviet Union
Political Geography:
Russia, Central Asia, Eurasia, and United States of America

4. Post-Soviet Tensions: What will 2018 Bring to Nagorno-Karabakh?

Author:
Konstatin Tasits
Publication Date:
01-2018
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
Rethinking Russia
Abstract:
The spikes in violence and instability in Nagorno-Karabakh are far from over, however, experts believe that 2018 will be more stable for the region than 2016 and 2017. Are there any grounds for a diplomatic resolution of the long-standing conflict?
Topic:
Conflict Prevention, Territorial Disputes, Negotiation, and Soviet Union
Political Geography:
Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Nagorno-Karabakh

5. Britain Expels Russian Diplomats for Keeping Geopolitical Status

Author:
Wu Fei
Publication Date:
03-2018
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
Rethinking Russia
Abstract:
UK has far-reaching strategic objectives to expel Russian diplomats for espionage. It has been aggressive to Russia for fear of a huge fall in its geopolitical status. Britain issued an ultimatum to the Russia after Skripal, the former Russian double agent, and his daughter Yulia were found poisoned and unconscious in Britain on 12 March. With no response from Russia, the Britain Prime Minister Theresa immediately announced that they will expel 23 Russian diplomats and command their departure in a week after report to Congress. Russia just indicates that they will take the same move as well.
Topic:
Diplomacy, Intelligence, Geopolitics, and Soviet Union
Political Geography:
Russia, United Kingdom, Europe, and France

6. Journal of Advanced Military Studies: Superpowers

Author:
Ed Erickson, Christian H. Heller, T. J. Linzy, Mallory Needleman, Michael Auten, Anthony N. Celso, Keith D. Dickson, Jamie Shea, Ivan Falasca, Steven A. Yeadon, Joshua Tallis, and Ian Klaus
Publication Date:
09-2018
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Advanced Military Studies
Institution:
Marine Corps University Press, National Defense University
Abstract:
There are a variety of reasons to study geopolitical rivalries, and analysts, officers, and politicians are rediscovering such reasons amid the tensions of the last several years. The best reason to study geopolitical rivalries is the simplest: our need to better understand how power works globally. Power not only recurs in human and state affairs but it is also at their very core. Today’s new lexicon—superpower, hyperpower, and great power—is only another reminder of the reality of the various ways that power manifests itself. Power protects and preserves, but a polity without it may be lost within mere decades. Keith D. Dickson’s article in this issue of MCU Journal, “The Challenge of the Sole Superpower in the Postmodern World Order,” illuminates how fuzzy some readers may be in their understanding of this problem; his article on postmodernism calls us to the labor of understanding and reasoning through the hard realities. Ed Erickson’s survey of modern power is replete with cases in which a grand state simply fell, as from a pedestal in a crash upon a stone floor. Modern Japan, always richly talented, rose suddenly as a world actor in the late nineteenth century, but the Japanese Empire fell much more quickly in the mid-twentieth century. A state’s power—or lack thereof—is an unforgiving reality. This issue of MCU Journal, with its focus on rivalries and competition between states, is refreshingly broad in its selection of factors—from competing for or generating power. Dr. Erickson recalls that Alfred Thayer Mahan settled on six conditions for sea power, all still vital. Other authors writing for this issue emphasize, by turns, sea power (Steven Yeadon, Joshua Tallis, and Ian Klaus); cyberpower (Jamie Shea); alliances (T. J. Linzy and Ivan Falasca); information (Dickson); and proxies (Michael Auten, Anthony N. Celso, and others).
Topic:
Security, Foreign Policy, Defense Policy, NATO, Islam, Terrorism, War, History, Power Politics, Military Affairs, European Union, Seapower, Cities, Ottoman Empire, Hybrid Warfare, Cyberspace, Soviet Union, and Safavid Empire
Political Geography:
Britain, Russia, Europe, Ukraine, Middle East, Lithuania, Georgia, North Africa, Syria, North America, and United States of America