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Dean Acheson entitled his memoirs Present at the Creation. Acheson argued that a new world order was created during the few, eventful years when he was US Secretary of State, between 1949 and 1953. His memoirs describe the consolidation of the bipolar, Cold War world – the world which is also presented in this chapter. The chapter aims to show how the Western Bloc, presided over by the USA, became pitted against the Eastern Bloc, dominated by the USSR. It records the formation and consolidation of the bipolar rivalry that dominated world affairs for
eastern European regimes and led to the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the Soviet Union broke off sending any sort of aid to Ethiopia. When the anti-Menghistu troops, brought together in the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front, marched on Addis Ababa the Soviet Union did not intervene. The end of the Cold War not only modified the political context in which the famine had developed – the famine that had led to the largest ever mobilisation in the history of humanitarianism – but it also so deeply influenced the structure of international aid as a
seek to identify longer trend lines. Most of all, it will search for ideational trends. Whereas the previous chapter discussed the post-Cold War world with an emphasis on traditional issues of material interests and capabilities of power, this chapter will focus on the ideational changes that followed the unexpected end of the Cold War. The chapter will begin by exploring the consequences of the Soviet collapse. It will first note its impact on neighbouring countries and also trace some of its effects on regions farther afield. 1 The chapter will then
UN doctrine of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P), which reiterated the obligations of the international community in cases of mass violations of human rights within individual states, 4 causing mixed reactions. What further attracted my attention from the beginning in this discussion led by scholars and journalists was the reflection on the consequences that the establishment of humanitarian interventions, after the end of the Cold War, had had on the way of operating international aid. The most critical commentators have underlined how some humanitarian
T HE Cold War ended dramatically on 26 December 1991 when the collapsed Soviet Union dissolved itself. Ironically, in late 1991 British forces were just returning from the war to help liberate Kuwait from Iraqi occupation, where they had fought with their airpower and heavy metal very much in Cold War style. It was as if anti-Soviet battle routines had been transposed out of NATO and tested by the allies in the open territory around Basra. Britain created a full division for the operation and
Europe, the Anglosphere and, in this case, local neighbourhood. The memory of twentieth century conflict is the ‘third pillar’ on which Anglosphere thinking rests and a major point of intersection between Englishness and Euroscepticism, but one that again occludes England. It positions Anglosphere countries on the side of ‘right’ in the pivotal conflict of the twentieth century against Nazism, totalitarianism and militarism; a conflict remembered as a straightforward contest between good and evil compared to the more complicated memories of conflicts of the Cold War
Of course, many factors, both internal to Germany and external (see Chapters 10 , 11 ) have influenced the development of the political system of the Federal Republic. Together with the prior-history and history of the Federal Republic ( Chapter 1 ), and the process of reunification ( Chapter 2 ), the most important have been the Basic Law itself, providing a constitutional basis for the political system, and the Federal Constitutional Court, charged with the task of interpreting that Basic Law. The economy, the division of Germany and the ‘cold war’ and the
performance of the Soviet economy or in the increasing tensions in Soviet society and in the emergence of strong, charismatic leaders. The collapse of the USSR triggered many events and many discussions. They cannot all be captured in a single chapter. Only the most basic events and the most central discussions will be covered here. The chapter will first discuss the two superpowers – the unravelling of the Soviet empire and the reactions of the USA. It will then focus on the way American statesmen and scholars perceived the post-Cold War world – and pay particular
retards what is sometimes a mutually desired collaboration. The fundamental problem marking the Brazil–US bilateral relationship is a clash between the political perceptions of both sides and the accompanying expectations of what the other side should do. In this context history matters, with Brazil pointing to repeated US failures to provide promised assistance such as development aid after World War Two or substantive economic growth support throughout the Cold War period. For its part the US points to repeated Brazilian refusals to assist with what Washington saw
ones. The EU will become an entity of secondary importance unless it can redesign itself as a force concerned to identify and defend a European common good. This involves burying the Cold War with national states who view a supra-national Europe as both threatening and unworkable. Reviving economic activity that gives hope to millions trapped in stricken economies is surely the imperative need of the moment. Providing for a generation traumatised and dispossessed by war was viewed as a compelling goal by the first architects of European integration. But the current