Is President Biden’s trip to the Middle East all about oil or is it about other national security considerations? After reading many analyses, I’ve concluded that at least four issues (probably five) are at play. I’ll discuss those shortly. But first, let me just say that I’m very aware of the elephants in the room — human rights and whether Biden should be in the Middle East at all.  Since he’s already made the trip, I’m not going to spend time rehashing the controversy. Instead, let’s discuss why he decided to go in the first place.

Russian and China in the Middle East

If you really want to get in the weeds, you might think about reading an article recently posted on the Trends Research site. You can access it here. 

In short, the feature argues that Biden needs regional support for the global anti-Russia coalition that pits the West against Putin and, to a lesser extent, against China. He’s especially concerned that  two of the Middle East region’s strongest US partners (Saudi Arabia and Israel) declined to join the anti-Putin coalition.

Iran enters the picture here as well. Along with the lack of success in the US-Iran nuclear negotiations, Iran, by some accounts is, moving ever closer to Russia. Recent reporting by the AP News Service, details plans for Putin’s visit to Iran in coming days with Turkey’s Erdogan attending as well. There is also contradictory reporting regarding a sale of hundreds of Iranian drones to the Russians.

Moreover, reportedly, Saudi Arabia has been broadening its ties with Beijing. The nation is one of the three top markets for Chinese construction projects ranging from the Green Dragon metro line in Mecca to desalinization plants and the extension of the Internet in other areas of the country.

According to The New York Times, to counter the Internet penetration

Last week, Riyadh and Washington quietly signed a memorandum of understanding to cooperate on building a next-generation 5G cellular network in Saudi Arabia. That is designed to box out Huawei, China’s 5G champion.

Military Sales

Economic concerns are also front and center.

Saudi Arabia, America’s biggest arms customer, is currently banned from purchasing US offensive weapons due to its actions in Yemen.

Even under existing restrictions, the United States began stepping up its military support for Saudi Arabia earlier this year . . .

Washington approved missiles and anti-ballistic defense system sales to Saudi Arabia . . . and the United States sent Patriot missiles this year as well – all deemed by U.S. officials to be defensive in nature.

The Biden administration has also maintained backing for the Saudis to receive a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system first approved in 2017 to counter ballistic missile threats.

The Boeing Company, in particular, has been a strong partner with the Saudis, benefiting from both robust civilian and military sales.

Defense Pact

Recently, I started coming across rumors that President Biden was intent on developing some sort of NATO like defense organization to increase US influence in the Middle East. I didn’t take this very seriously because I’d just finished reading Brad Thor’s new book Rising Tiger. The thriller centers its intrigue around the formation of a similar organization in Asia, designed to counter China’s growing influence. Proposed members included Japan, India, the US, and Australia.

I took a second look when I heard about the Quad, a partnership that moves Thor’s fiction into the realm of reality. The relationship joining Australia, India, Japan and the US was founded, at least partly, in response to growing Chinese influence in the Pacific.

Imagine my surprise this morning when Ellie Geranmayeh of the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) was quoted as arguing against the creation of a similar Gulf-Israeli Defense Pact. Here’s a quote:

During his visit to Israel and Saudi Arabia this week, President Joe Biden is widely expected to offer US political and military support for the development of a regional security partnership between Israel and Arab countries. But there is a risk that – rather than strengthening regional security, which Biden claims is the goal of his trip – further militarisation of the Israeli-Arab relationship, with the explicit aim of countering Iran, will lead to new violence in the Middle East.

As reported this morning, I2U2 is a new partnership between the governments of India, Israel, the United Arab Emirates and the United States. The name refers to the first letters of the four countries’ names in English. The New York Times states:

Analysts say that I2U2 bolsters the United States’ efforts to contain China’s influence in Asia and the Middle East, reassure Middle Eastern leaders of Washington’s commitment to the region and establish better ties between its allies in different parts of the world.

The initiative is considered a companion project to the Quad, a four-way partnership joining together Australia, India, Japan and the United States that was founded partly in response to growing Chinese influence in the Pacific.

It looks like, in this case, fact is catching up with fiction.

Oil

Given the current worldwide inflation situation,  most observers conclude that the actual purpose of the trip is to convince Saudi Arabia to “speed up the flow of oil to America’s pumps.” Still, even if the Saudis agree to increase production, this will not be a quick fix. As IAEA Executive Director Fatih Birol recently noted:

The whole energy system is in turmoil following the February invasion of Ukraine by Russia, at the time the biggest oil and natural gas exporter . . .

Birol goes on to say:

The world has never witnessed such a major energy crisis in terms of its depth and its complexity . . . .  we might not have seen the worst of it yet — this is affecting the entire world.

Given such reporting, we shouldn’t be surprised if Biden hopes to solidify commitments from Saudi Arabia (as well as other Gulf State producers) to produce more oil to bring prices down and keep up the economic pressure on Putin.

The Nuclear Debate Takes Center Stage

Meanwhile, at least in Israel, the Iran nuclear debate is giving oil a run for its money. It’ll be interesting to see which is more central when Biden arrives in Saudi Arabia.

The Chinese have helped the Saudis build a uranium processing plant (supposedly for use in peaceful nuclear reactors), but Mohammed Bin Salman  said as long ago as 2018

If Iran develops a nuclear bomb, we will follow suit as soon as possible.

Watch or Read: All About Oil

(Some of the resources below are affiliate links. If you decide to purchase, Cold War Studies will receive a small bonus. Your price is not affected, and we greatly appreciate the support.)

Some of you may want some resources to watch or read. Here are some ideas, primarily dealing with oil.

If you just want an entertaining film, and are okay mixing fact and fiction, carve out some time to watch or rewatch Lawrence of Arabia. The movie is one of the most celebrated epics in film history.
More serious viewers will want to take a look at the recent series on PBS Frontline titled Big Oil.

In addition, I recently discovered the 8 part series on YouTube based on Daniel Yergin’s The Prize. There are wonderful historical photographs, lots of interviews, and the narration is by Donald Sutherland. Yergin himself is on screen at times. Of course, you can always read the book if you prefer. It’s listed below, along with other books from our 2020 post After the Cold War: 18 Good Books About Oil.

The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power.By Daniel Yergin.

The End of Oil: On the Edge of a Perilous New World. By Paul Roberts.

Petromania: Black gold, paper barrels and oil price bubbles. By Daniel O’Sullivan.

Oil, Dollars, Debt, and Crises: The Global Curse of Black Gold. By Mahmoud A. El-Gamal and Amy Myers Jaffe.

Hubbert’s Peak: The Impending World Oil Shortage (New Edition). By Kenneth S. Deffeyes.

Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy. By Matthew R. Simmons.

The Myth of the Oil Crisis: Overcoming the Challenges of Depletion, Geopolitics, and Global Warming
By Robin M. Mills.

Inside the Kingdom: Kings, Clerics, Modernists, Terrorists, and the Struggle for Saudi Arabia. By Robert Lacey.

Thicker Than Oil: America’s Uneasy Partnership with Saudi Arabia. By Rachel Bronson.

Good Governance in the Middle East Oil Monarchies. See Oil Monarchies: Domestic and Security Challenges in the Arab Gulf States. By F. Gregory Gause III.

Petrostate: Putin, Power, and the New Russia. By Marshall I. Goldman.

The Oil and the Glory:The Pursuit of Empire and Fortune on the Caspian Sea. By Steve LeVine.

The Vital Triangle: China, the United States, and the Middle East. By Jon B. Alterman and John W. Garver.

China’s International Petroleum Policy (Energy and Security). By Bo Kong.

The Big Rich: The Rise and Fall of the Greatest Texas Oil Fortunes. By Bryan Burrough.

The Age of Oil: What They Don’t Want You to Know About the World’s Most Controversial Resource. By Leonardo Magueri.

Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr. By Ron Chernow.

You might want to take a look at the excellent and free publications from the International Energy Agency.

______________________________________________________

Feature photo by Pat Ryan (Flickr)

Earth Month 2022 ended just a couple of days ago, so I decided to give it a late sendoff by talking a little bit about the environmental impact of war and its associated activities.

I mentioned this briefly at the end of the post on The Lorax: Ted and the Truffula Trees, but it definitely deserves more of a spotlight.

To start, I’d like to highlight some points from a recent New York Times article: A ‘Silent Victim’: How Nature Becomes a Casualty of War. It’s certainly worth a read.

According to The Times:

Wars destroy habitats, kill wildlife, generate pollution and remake ecosystems entirely . . . There are exceptions. Wars can make landscapes so dangerous or inhospitable to humans . . . that ecosystems have a rare opportunity to recover . . . .

I’ll give you some examples of both scenarios, but let’s start with the destruction associated with the environmental impact of war. These examples are from The Times article.

• In 2011, scientists reported that levels of lead and copper were still elevated in the soil in certain areas around Ypres, a major World War I battlefield in Belgium.
• During the Vietnam War, the US military sprayed toxic defoliants – most notably Agent Orange – over wide swaths of jungle to thin out forests and deprive enemy forces of cover.
• After civil war broke out in Angola in 1975, the country suspended anti poaching patrols. At the same time, the conflict increased access to automatic weapons. The result was a drastic increase in hunting that reduced the number of buffaloes, antelopes, and other target species.
• During Mozambique’s civil war (1977-1992), the population densities of nine large herbivores – including elephants, zebras, hippopotamuses, and buffaloes – declined by more than 90 percent in Gorongosa National Park. A highly invasive shrub spread through the landscape to fill the vacuum.

The Cold War

In addition to the defoliation in Vietnam, the environmental impact of war and its associated catastrophes occurred frequently during the Cold War years.

Perhaps the most publicized is the meltdown at Ukraine’s Chernobyl nuclear power plant in 1986. Not only did radiation cause deformities in individual animals, it affected entire populations in the more radioactive areas.

Also of note is the food insecurity and economic instability that occurred after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, leading to large increases in poverty rates in Russia. The populations of moose, wild boars, and brown bears also declined, with the population of wild boars decreasing by about 50 percent. A Wildlife Conservation Society spokesperson in Russia stated “we literally ate half of them.”

Nicaragua has seen both renewal and regression. During that country’s civil war, forests along the nation’s Atlantic coast regrew as people fled, abandoning their farms. But as the war wound down, residents returned and deforestation resumed. Twice as much land was denuded as had been reforested earlier.

Repair and Regeneration

National Geographic has a detailed article on Gunkanjima Island (also known as Hashima Island) near Nagasaki titled Abandoned ‘Battleship Island’ Is Crumbling. Can It Be Saved? The article starts by stating:

When humans left, nature prevailed. On Hashima Island, a 16-acre patch of land off the southern coast of Japan, grass and vines and flowers flourish as concrete and steel wither.

There’s a wonderful video to go along with the text.

If you like pictures, you’ll want to take a look at CNN’s photo essay titled Wildlife is flourishing in these demilitarized zones. It discusses changes in the Korean demilitarized zone, the ‘Green Line’, a partition drawn up in the 1960s amid violent clashes between Greek and Turkish Cypriots, and the “Purple Line” border between Israel and Syria that’s patrolled by UN forces.

For more on the Korean demilitarized zone, read the article in The Guardian titled How Wildlife is thriving in the Korean peninsula’s demilitarised zone. The piece noted that “The forces that lock humans out of the DMZ have allowed other species to thrive . . .”

And, finally, the UN Environmental Program documents how “many people think the area around the Chernobyl nuclear plant is a place of post-apocalyptic desolation. But more than 30 years after one of the facility’s reactors exploded, sparking the worst nuclear accident in human history, science tells us something very different. You can read the article here.

The Ukraine Today

Unfortunately, the environmental impact of war and its associated defense activities continues. Thanks to The Times, we know some of the areas affected by Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine. That country is in an ecological transition zone, home to vibrant wetlands and forests as well as virgin steppe. According to The Times, Russian troops have already entered or conducted military operations in more than one-third of the nation’s protected natural areas.

The Black Sea Biosphere Reserve on Ukraine’s southern coast is a haven for migrating birds.

The reserve is also home to the endangered sandy blind mole rate, the Black Sea bottlenose dolphin, rare flowers, countless mollusks, dozens of species of fish . . .

Recent military activity in the area sparked fires large enough to be seen from space. So while we are shocked and saddened by the human cost of the war, the environmental toll adds to our distress.

Herds of herbivores, including endangered saiga antelopes and Przewalski’s horses, roam in the Askania-Nova preserve, which is currently occupied by Russian forces . . .

The Environmental Impact of War Continues

We just have to turn on our televisions or stream the news on one of our many devices to see the devastating effects of armed conflict. A 2009 study points out that from 1950 to 2000, more than 80 percent of the world’s major armed conflicts took place in biodiversity hot spots  . . . (Thor Hanson: independent conservation biologist)

Dr. Hanson’s take home message:

 . . . if we were concerned about biodiversity and conservation in the world, we need to be worried also about conflict and patterns of conflict.

Unfortunately, many living in today’s world aren’t getting the message.

Do you have thoughts? Scroll down and leave a comment.

_____________________________

Photographs:

Featured image: Chernobyl by Nick Beresford (UNEP)

Hashima Island by C K Leung on Flickr

Cyprus Buffer Zone by Jpatokal – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5516209

Korean DMZ by Morning Calm Weekly Newspaper Installation Management Command, U.S. Army 

Ukraine Biosphere by Elena Pleskevich on Flickr

Abandoned soviet military base. Laima Gutmane. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Skrundas_armijas_pilsētiņa_-_an_abandoned_soviet_military_base_in_Skrunda_-_panoramio_(23).jpg

NOTE: This post was written when the Ukraine and Russia clashed in 2014. I’m publishing it again because the information remains useful.

I don’t often post about current events, so I haven’t mentioned the stand-off in the Ukraine. But I thought some factoids might be enlightening. Since I don’t write much about the Ukraine or Russia, I’ve drawn heavily from newspaper articles published in previously “nonaligned” nations. That said, let’s get started.

(Photo by Yerevanci, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons)

The Collapse of the Soviet Union

The collapse of the Soviet Union left the Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Armenia with territorial disputes, ethnic and linguistic clashes,  disfunctional economic and trade patterns, and strategic dilemmas.

The Ukraine had a central position in the former USSR. Leading Soviet political figures were Ukrainian, its Donbass region was an industrial hub, and the Slav “big three” that ended the USSR consisted of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus.

After Soviet disintegration, the Ukraine continued economically along Russian lines, dominated by oligarchs:

• the oligarchs are Ukrainian
• Ukrainian policy is independent
• the Ukraine gained World Trade Organization (WTO) membership in 2008
• the country is dependent on Russia for energy
• Russian gas pipelines to Europe pass through the Ukraine
• Russia has few alternative routes to Europe.

Ukrainian Independence

The Ukraine has been independent for 22 years and has worked toward embracing all its regions and citizens:

• Ukrainian governments have straddled ethnic and geographic divisions
• conflicts between the Russians and Ukrainians who share the country have been rare.

East Ukraine is politically, religiously, linguistically, culturally, and economically close to Russia:

• 25% of Ukraine’s 45 million population are ethnic Russians
• Russian is widely spoken in parts of the east and south
• in some areas, including Crimea, Russian is the main language
• regions where Russian predominates almost exactly match those that voted for President Yankovich in 2010
• the 2010 election was deemed free and fair by the West.

Western Ukraine is agricultural, closer to Poland, and speaks Polish and Ukrainian:

• in religion it is a mixture of Orthodox Christianity and Catholicism
• the area murdered Poles by the hundreds after World War II when they occupied the area; that is forgotten in Poland’s quest for markets and Kiev’s quest for Europe.

Crisis Begins in the Ukraine 

The Ukrainian crisis began in November 2013 when Ukraine’s cabinet announced postponement of a proposed association agreement with the European Union:

• Russia feared the move would preclude Ukrainian membership in its own Eurasian Customs Union
• Russia threatened to impose higher energy prices
• the European Union failed to provide a financial package that would balance Russia’s actions
• President Yankovich played for time
• anti-government protestors, supporting closer ties with the EU, called for the president’s resignation and occupied Independence Square (Maidan Nezalezhnosti)
• the US and the EU backed the protesters
• the protest spread across the country
• public buildings in the Western Ukraine were occupied
• hundreds of people were injured in the violence and about 100 people were killed
• in February, the EU brokered an agreement with President Yanukovic that was rejected by the protesters
• parliament (the Rada) voted to oust the  president and hold new elections in May
• since this time, all official policy has been decided in consultation with protesters in the Maidan.

 Ukraine’s Interim Government

The interim government projects itself as both pro EU and pro US and it posits itself as anti-Russian. Some of its actions have proved inflammatory:

• the interim government disbanded the Berkut paramilitary muscle men and they are now in  the employ of anti-Kiev groups in the East and Crimea; in effect, they’ve become a freelance group of mercenaries
• the government de-recognized the official status of the Russian language, offending the nation’s Russian speakers
• efforts to establish control in Eastern Ukraine backfired, leading to violence, the hoisting of the Russian flag, ripping up of the Ukrainian flag, and burning effigies of the Maidan and its supporters.

Ukraine‘s body politic is deeply divided:

• politicians as a whole are discredited and are considered incompetent and corrupt
• unknowns are entering the political arena and destabilizing institutions.

Moscow’s Position

Moscow can’t afford to be passive:

• the Ukraine is crucial to Russian security and to its project to bring a strong Eurasian Union into being
• the number of refugees fleeing to Russia exceeds 150,000
• refugee camps are planned in the Rostov region.

The Crimea

The situation in the Crimea makes waiting for a solution until after May elections impossible:

• the Crimean peninsula was transferred from Soviet Russia to the Ukraine in 1954 as an autonomous province
• this majority Russian speaking region is of prime strategic significance to Russia
• Russia’s Black Sea Fleet has had its base for 200 years at Sevastopol
• after the break-up of the USSR, a lease agreement valid until 2042 has allowed the Russian fleet  to continue operating there in return for Russia supplying discounted natural gas
• according to the terms of its lease, Russia can station 161 aircraft, 388 warships, and 25,000 armed men in Crimea
• After the Maidan’s success in Kiev, the Crimean Rada (parliament) and the local Russian population have taken the path of independence; a referendum is scheduled to take place this month
• forces without official affiliation — Berkut and Russian troops without insignia — have moved to strategic locations
• Putin is sending more forces to safeguard Russian base interests and ethnic Russians.

What Does the Future Hold for Ukraine?

Apart from Crimea, there are other pro-Russian strongholds in Eastern Ukraine, like Donets and Kharkiv. What will Putin do? Will he also attempt to protect these areas militarily?

Future economic stability is questionable:

• Ukraine’s economy is smaller now than it was in 1992
• Russia’s monetary support will be terminated as will Eurasian Union tariff concessions
• Ukraine needs $35 million over the next two years to pay public sector salaries, energy bills from Russia, and to avoid default
• Ukraine has a current account deficit of 8% of GDP and its currency has already lost considerable value
• if the US, EU, and IMF come to Ukraine’s assistance, will they insist on “shock therapy” (stringent conditions including reduction of subsidies for heavy industry and energy? (for more info on proposed EU and US loans, read The New York Times)
• Kiev has said it will accept conditions but protesters are saying “Europe wants us as slaves.”

In today’s world, the years leading up to the end of the Cold War and the years following the destruction of the Berlin Wall have taken on renewed importance. How did the Cold War end? This timeline provides insight.

Note: This timeline is based primarily on two sources: CNN’s series The Cold War (specifically Episode 23,The Wall Comes Down), and Not One Inch: America, Russia, and The Making of Post-Cold War Stalemate by M.E. Sarotte.

Background 

1948: The American Congress approves a generous plan of economic aid to Europe.  (Originally proposed by Secretary of State George Marshall in June 1947.) Read our post M is for Marshall Plan if you’d like the details.

March 17, 1948: A new Western union — a precursor to  NATO — consisting of Britain, France, and the Benelux countries (Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg) comes into being with the Brussels Treaty of March 17, 1948. This in the wake of the de facto Soviet takeover of the Czechoslovak government. 

June 11, 1948: The US Senate responds to the Brussels Treaty with the passage of the Vandenberg Resolution.

June 1948: The Soviets blockade Berlin leading to the Berlin Airlift of 1948-1949.

April 4, 1949: NATO comes into being when the US Senate votes 82 to 13 to ratify the Washington Treaty. The signing takes place in a ballroom in Washington DC.

Denmark, Iceland, and Norway become NATO allies.

Want to read more about the pact building process? Read our post P is for Pact Building.

Article 5 of NATO requires each member to consider an attack on any other member state’s territory as an attack on its own. Read more about Article 5 on the NATO website.

A North Atlantic Council (NAC) – composed of member states’ leaders or their representatives, presided over by a secretary general, is created to be the top policymaking body.

August 1949: The Soviets detonate a nuclear device.

October 1949: The Communists in China prevail in the Chinese civil war.

June 1950: North Korea invades South Korea.

September 9, 1950: US President Harry Truman announces that he is sending substantial ground forces back to Europe to serve under an integrated NATO command structure, but with a US general – Dwight D. Eisenhower.

February 1952: The “Lisbon Goals” set NATO’s structure for burden sharing, spurring decades of debate.

1952: Greece and Turkey become NATO members.

1954: The Allies allow West Germany (along with Italy) to join the original 5-member Brussels pact and what is now called the Western European Union (WEU).

West Germany is also invited to join NATO, but with conditions. The Western powers preserve their right to keep troops stationed in their former occupation zones for  an unlimited time. West Germany also has to renounce the production of any “ABC” – atomic, biological, or chemical – weapons on its territory.  Also, the divided city of Berlin is to remain in a separate category.

1955: West Germany is brought into NATO. In response, Moscow forces the countries of Central and Eastern Europe to join an opposing military alliance known as the Warsaw Pact.

1983: Polish dissident Lech Walesa wins the Nobel Peace Prize for leading the independent trade union called Solidarity. His example inspires other activists.

1985: A reform minded Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev rises to power.

How Did The Cold War End?

December 1988: Gorbachev meets with both George H. W. Bush and Ronald Reagan. It’s agreed that the Cold War must end.

1989: Gorbachev is determined to loosen Soviet control over nations in the Communist Bloc. Although he tells the nations of Eastern Europe that they have the right to choose their own future, he believes that they will not ‘run away’ from Moscow.

• Erich Honecker, East Germany’s ‘head of state,’ relies on Russia to help him hold on to power.
• In Hungary, leaders promise change. After more and more demonstrations, the Communist Party is losing control.

1989: Soviet power in Europe unravels. There is a new mood in Moscow. The use of force is discredited, but the Berlin Wall remains in place.

March 1989: Hungarian leaders visit Moscow. They want Gorbachev to okay free multi-party elections, but he doesn’t agree. Soviet troops remain in Hungary, but Gorbachev promises not to use them to crush the citizenry.

Hungary takes down the barbed wire between its country and the West. The Iron Curtain is unraveling. 

Hungary’s boldness is alarming especially to the East German leader, Erich Honecker.

The Poles are also breaking with the Communist system. 

June 1989: The Solidarity Movement in Poland wins 99 out of 100 seats in the elections. (Click here if you’d like to learn more about Solidarity.)

June 16, 1989:  The activist Viktor Orban gains world attention when he makes a passionate speech in Budapest’s Heroes Square. Orban is a spokesman for a group called the Federation of Young Democrats.

July 7-8, 1989: Warsaw Pact Summit in Bucharest. The Eastern Bloc is divided. East Germany and Romania are against reforms and want to intervene in Poland and Hungary. 

July 1989: President Bush visits Poland and Hungary but doesn’t provide any kind of aid.

Secretary of State James Baker assures Soviet Foreign Minister Shevardnadze that the US won’t exploit Soviet problems.

In China, demonstrations in Tiananmen Square end in tragedy.

East Germany is rotting away. A police state, the pollution is overwhelming. The country blocks travel to Hungary.

Hungary agrees to accept refugees from East Germany. People pour into the  country. They also flock to West Germany and Prague.

August 31, 1989: Hungary’s foreign minister informs East Germany’s leadership that, unless they allow travel and immigration freedom, Hungary will open its borders.

September 11, 1989: Hungary opens its borders to those fleeing East Germany without obtaining Moscow’s approval. 

The rift in the Warsaw Pact is obvious for all to see.

September 21, 1989: US Secretary of State James Baker tells Soviet Foreign Minister, Eduard Shevardnadze, that the US does not “desire to stir things up . . .”

October 1989: Gorbachev visits East Germany and can see that its regime is doomed, but Honecker is determined to stamp out all opposition.

In Leipzig, over 70,000 people take to the streets. Russia orders all its military to stand down, and the Leipzig police pull back.

Honecker’s allies desert him and he is voted out of office. Democratic reforms are promised.

November 1, 1989: Egon Krenz, the last Communist leader of East Germany, visits Gorbachev in Moscow.

Street demonstrations continue to grow. A half million people take to the streets of East Berlin.

November 9, 1989: Restrictions on travel to the West are to be lifted, but there is a mix-up as to when the new policy is to go into effect. People rush to see if the checkpoints and the wall are open, but the border guards have no idea what is going on. They give in and open the barriers.

West Berliners throng to the Wall to applaud the East Germans. They begin to demolish the Wall in front of the Brandenberg Gate.

President Bush decides not to “publicly exacerbate Gorbachev’s anxieties by ‘posturing on the Berlin Wall.’” 

November 16, 1989: Hungary requests entry into the European Community (EC), and the leaders of Poland and Yugoslavia indicate that they will soon do the same.

November 28, 1989: West German Chancellor Helmet Kohl calls for a German Confederation, announcing a “ten-point plan.” Gorbachev and Shevardnadze are livid.

December 2-3, 1989: Bush and Gorbachev hold a summit in Malta, the first face to face meeting between an American and a Soviet leader since the Wall came down.

Bush made clear that he doesn’t see the summit as a decision-making forum.

December 19, 1989: Kohl makes an evening speech in Dresden, and announces that his goal is the unity of the German nation. The crowd hails him as “their savior.” Clearly, “the East German regime was collapsing and the crowds were cheering. The moment for unity was now.”

Somebody please tell me: Whatever happened to “The End of History”?

As you may remember, in 1989, amidst the optimism spilling over from Gorbachev’s reforms in the Soviet Union – and even before the fall of the Berlin Wall – Francis Fukuyama’s essay announcing “The End of History” was published in the National Interest (Summer 1989).

Fukuyama wrote: “It is hard to avoid the feeling that something very fundamental has happened in world history.” 

In his essay, Fukuyama celebrated the triumph of Western liberal democracy, the end of ideological violence, the defeat of bolshevism and fascism, even the irrelevance of an updated version of Marxism.

He elaborated:

What we may be witnessing is not just the end of the Cold War, or the passing of a particular period of postwar history, but the end of history as such: that is, the end point of mankind’s ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government.

The state that emerges at the end of history is liberal insofar as it recognizes and protects through a system of law man’s universal right to freedom, and democratic insofar as it exists only with the consent of the governed.

For a while, it seemed that Fukuyama might be right. Gorbachev’s Russia permitted the break-up of the Cold War’s Eastern Bloc/Soviet Union.

 Defections

POLAND: June 4, 1989 – The pro democracy Solidarity movement overwhelmingly wins elections, taking all eligible seats in parliament. Solidarity-led government takes power in Poland in September.

Czechoslovakia: November 24, 1989 – Former leader Alexander Dubcek (ousted in 1968) tells more than 300,000 people in Prague his ideal of “socialism with a human face” is still alive in the minds of new generation. After a day-long crisis session, Communist Party leader Milos Jakes steps down.

Romania: December 22-25, 1989 – Communist leader Nicolae Ceausescu is executed in a popular anti-communist revolt. The first government of the National Salvation Front (NSF) is formed.

Bulgaria: February 2, 1990 – Government resigns after opposition parties refuse to join a coalition until free elections are held.

East Germany: March 18, 1990 – Free elections, ruling Communists lose majority. In October, Germany is reunified and the communist German Democratic Republic ceases to exist.

Hungary: March 25, 1990 – First democratic elections bring democratic opposition to power.

Soviet Union: December 8, 1991 – Russia, Byelorussia (Belarus) and Ukraine create Commonwealth of Independent States and declare that the Soviet Union no longer exists as a legal or political entity. 

• December 21, 1991 – Eight more republics join the commonwealth.
• December 25, 1991 – Gorbachev announces his resignation along with the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Boris Yeltsin takes over.

(The above timeline listing defections from the former communist regime is from Reuters.)

Russia’s Transition to Democracy

A Russian constitution, adopted in 1993, declares the country to be a democratic, federative, law-based state with a republican form of government.

As the 1990s progress, however, the country faces rising poverty, homelessness and unemployment. These economic disruptions harm the prospects of a transition to full democracy.

Vladimir Putin assumes the presidency in 2000, promising stability and security. Although he is not thought to be ideological, he does pledge to strengthen the Russian state and renew its military and arms industry.

Back to Fukuyama

In case you’re wondering, Fukuyama did consider the emergence of alternatives to Western liberalism with religion and/or nationalism the most obvious challengers. But he quickly dismissed the possibility of their success. 

Addressing nationalism, he downplayed the competitive behavior and expansionism of nineteenth century states, dismissing the importance of territorial expansion, and prioritizing economics over geography. Regarding Russia he says

the automatic assumption that Russia shorn of its expansionist communist ideology should pick up where the czars left off just prior to the Bolshevik Revolution is therefore a curious one. 

He goes on to declare:

The Soviet Union, then, is at a fork in the road: it can start down the path that was staked out by Western Europe forty-five years ago, a path that most of Asia has followed, or it can realize its own uniqueness and remain stuck in history.

Unfortunately, Russia’s choice is no longer a guessing game. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has given us our answer. 

For a while, it did seem that we were moving from an ‘ideology based’ to an ‘issue based’ world. Just think about the worldwide popularity of the Western consumer based culture, even in a former communist behemoth like China. There was an expectation among many that the ‘soft power’ of Netflix movies and the drive to acquire Apple watches would lead to an economic transformation that would inevitably lead to political liberalization. Regrettably, this scenario did not play out.

Instead of Fukuyama’s “prospect of centuries of boredom at the end of history”, the world is now facing the increasing likelihood of large-scale conflict and disruption as Putin attempts to reconstruct the land mass of the Soviet Union or even the Czarist holdings of the Russian Empire.

President Joe Biden said recently that Vladimir Putin has “much larger ambitions” than Ukraine and is “out to reestablish the former Soviet Union.” I don’t think any of us knows for sure that this is the case. But it does appear that Cold War terminology is still relevant. Think containment, deterrence, and encirclement. Perhaps it’s time to take another look at grand strategy while we’re at it.**

__________________________________________

Feature photograph by Vasenka Photography, Kiev, Ukraine (from Flickr)

(For those of you who wish to dig more deeply into The End of History, you can read Fukuyama’s full essay here.)  Francis Fukuyama served as deputy director of the State Department’s policy planning staff and as an analyst at the RAND Corporation. This article is based on a lecture presented at the University of Chicago’s John M. Olin Center. 

Some of you may want to help the people of the Ukraine. Here’s a recent New York Times piece on How You Can Help Ukraine.

Maybe you’ve already finished most of your holiday shopping. But in case you haven’t, here’s a selection of books focused on the Cold War timeframe, most drawn from various end of the year ‘best book lists.’ 

Just click the link on the title to buy on Amazon and, of course, many will be available at your local library. The books are listed in no particular order, and include something for every taste — political and cultural history, biography, and social issues during the Cold War years. There are several fiction books as well as a few on the CIA. 

Book descriptions are drawn primarily from The New York Times and amazon.com.

A caveat to the links to reviews. I had no idea that YouTube offered free audio books. Does anyone have prior experience with this? If so, please respond in the comments. I’d love to hear about your experience.

(Please note: the links will take you to Amazon and if you purchase there, Cold War Studies will receive a small donation at no extra charge to you.)

America and Iran: A History, 1720 to the Present
By John Ghazvinian (Alfred A. Knopf)

This book details the long, troubled relationship between the United States and Iran. Drawing on years of archival research, Ghazvinian leads us through a history of US – Iranian relations and concludes that “antagonism between Iran and America is wholly unnecessary.” You can read the review in The New York Times here.

The American War in Afghanistan: A History
By Carter Malkasian (Oxford University Press)

A former civilian adviser in Afghanistan and aide to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Malkasian has written a broad-reaching, authoritative history of America’s longest war, including knowledgeable details on the Afghan part of the story. The Oxford University Press Book Club hosts a discussion of the book. 

The Free World: Art and Thought in the Cold War
By Louis Menand (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)

The Free World is a cultural history of the early Cold War period, from the end of the Second World War to American military intervention in Vietnam. It covers literature, cinema, music, and the arts, both commercial and avant-garde . . . You can watch a discussion of the book at the National History Center here.

Churchill’s Shadow: The Life and Afterlife of Winston Churchill
By Geoffrey Wheatcroft  (W.W. Norton)

Churchill is generally considered one of the greatest leaders of the twentieth century. He led Britain heroically during World War II, but at other times in his life, as recounted in this revisionist biography, he was an imperialist, a racist, a drunk, a neglectful father and, perhaps most of all, a masterful mythmaker. Read The New York Times review.

JFK: Coming of Age in the American Century, 1917-1956
By Fredrik Logevall  (Random House)

In this first of two projected volumes, Logevall demonstrates how, even at an early age and despite his playboy reputation, John Kennedy took a serious interest in politics, forming a cleareyed sense of the world and his nation’s place in it. Watch a discussion of the book at the JFK Library on YouTube.

Catching the Wind: Edward Kennedy and the Liberal Hour
By Neal Gabler (Crown)

Gabler relates how the youngest Kennedy brother overcame ridicule and scandal to become one of the most effective senators in U.S. history. In five decades, Ted Kennedy sponsored nearly 700 bills that became law, and left his imprint on scores of others. Read The New York Times review here.

America on Fire: The Untold History of Police Violence and Black Rebellion Since the 1960s
By Elizabeth Hinton (Liveright)

According to The New York Times, Hinton documents hundreds of often violent urban protests by Black Americans beginning in the mid-1960s, as policing grew increasingly aggressive. Such protests must be understood, she posits, not as riots but as “rebellions” against racial injustice. Read about the book in the Washington Post.

The Family Roe: An American Story
By Joshua Prager (W.W. Norton)

Reporting on the Supreme Court’s most divisive case, Roe v. Wade, and the unknown lives at its heart. Norma McCorvey —known as “Jane Roe,” the woman at the center of Roe v. Wade — emerges as a contradictory figure, one whose views on abortion are as complex as those of her fellow citizens. You can watch a book talk at the NYU School of Law on YouTube.

New York, New York, New York: Four Decades of Success, Excess, and Transformation
By Thomas Dyja (Simon & Schuster)

This capacious account of New York’s recent rise describes the men and women in every facet of life who helped revitalize the city. Yet for Dyja, who sees the need for another reinvention of New York, the city has in many ways fallen prey to its own success. Read a review in The Guardian here.

Three Girls From Bronzeville: A Uniquely American Memoir of Race, Fate, and Sisterhood
By Dawn Turner (Simon & Schuster)

A former columnist for The Chicago Tribune offers a textured portrait of her 1970s childhood on the South Side, where three Black girls with similar aspirations ended up with wildly divergent fates. Watch a talk by the author at the Chicago Humanities Festival on YouTube.

White Malice: The CIA and the Covert Recolonization of Africa
By Susan Williams (Public Affairs)

I have to say that I can’t wait to read this carefully researched account of  CIA interference. The book details how Western powers plundered and sabotaged the interests of newly independent African nations and their leaders. It appears that you can listen to the entire audio book for free on YouTube, but check for yourself. I’m distrustful by nature. Anyway, the link I’ve started listening to is here.

Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties Kindle Edition
By Tom O’Neill (Little, Brown and Company)

A journalist’s twenty-year fascination with the Manson murders leads to shocking new revelations about the government’s  involvement in this riveting reassessment of an infamous case in American history. This book appears to be a free listen on YouTube too. Listen here.

The Recruiter: Spying and the Lost Art of American Intelligence Kindle Edition
By Douglas London (Hachette Books)

According to David Petraeus: “The Recruiter shares many great episodes from London’s life in the National Clandestine Service, excellent insights into the challenges and intricacies of intelligence work, and thoughtful accounts of the complicated relationships he developed with agents and colleagues. In the end, London presents a superb insider’s tale about the state of espionage, the challenges that American intelligence has experienced since 9/11 and Iraq, and what needs to be done in the coming years to ensure that America’s intelligence agencies can provide our country’s national security team with the intelligence they need. The book launch held at the Middle East Institute is on YouTube here.

FICTION

Harsh Times
By Mario Vargas Llosa (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

The true story of Guatemala’s political turmoil in the 1950s. The book is centered on the CIA coup of 1964, rendering the political personal. Read The New York Times review.

Things We Lost To The Water
By Eric Nguyen (Alfred A. Knopf)

This book was on President Obama’s summer reading list. It tells the story of an immigrant Vietnamese family that arrives in the US in 1979 and settles in New Orleans. Watch the Author Spotlight at Politics and Prose Bookstore.

Silverview: A Novel
By John le Carre (Viking)

From the master, my current read. The book centers on the lonely lives of spies and the difficult choices they make. Published posthumously, the book is smart, stylish and relevant as always. Read the review in The Guardian.

Also on my bedside table, some oldies: The Quiet American by Graham Green (only 99 cents on Kindle), and The Ugly American by William J. Lederer and Eugene Burdick.

Want more ideas? Take a look at our book list from Fall 2020.

Photograph by Paul Bench on Flickr

Like many of you I’ve been disgusted and appalled by the recent deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery. They’re just the latest in a long string of racist incidents in the United States. As an individual, I feel powerless, and I’ve struggled with how we in the Cold War Studies community can make a difference. I haven’t come up with any easy answers, but I’ve decided on two baby steps that I hope will lead to more substantive action. 

In today’s post, I’ll pass on some resources that I hope will help us all examine our attitudes and actions. Our community is diverse and international so I know that there’s not ‘a one size fits all’. We’re all in a different place on our social justice journey. But I hope you find something in this listing that is relevant to where you find yourself now and where you want to be. After I lay out some resources, I’ll suggest an action that we might take, targeting especially our American readers.  

Here’s my list. It’s in no particular order, and was recommended to me by the black scholar and activist, Bryan Massingale, the James and Nancy Buckman Chair in Applied Christian Ethics at Fordham University. 

(In full transparency, if you choose to purchase any of these items through our affiliate links, Cold War Studies will receive a small commission. We thank you!)

White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son (2007) is a book by activist and writer Tim Wise that has also been made into a documentary. According to the film site Kanopy, the documentary explores race and racism in the US through the lens of whiteness and white privilege. The reviewer goes on to say that “Wise offers a fascinating look back at the race-based white entitlement programs that built the American middle class.” He argues that our failure as a society to come to terms with this legacy of white privilege continues to perpetuate racial inequality and race-driven political resentments today. You can watch the trailer below. Watch the full film on Kanopy.

Just Mercy (2014) is a powerful true story about the potential for mercy to redeem us. Amazon says that the book is a clarion call to fix our broken system of justice—from one of the most brilliant and influential lawyers of our time. Bryan Stevenson is the executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, Alabama, and a professor of law at New York University Law School. He has won relief for dozens of condemned prisoners, argued five times before the Supreme Court, and won national acclaim for his work challenging bias against the poor and people of color. He has received numerous awards, including the MacArthur Foundation “Genius” Grant. The book has also been made into a movie. You can watch the trailer below and the full film on Amazon Prime Video or Apple TV.

I Am Not Your Negro (2016) is a documentary film directed by Raoul Peck, based on James Baldwin’s unfinished manuscript Remember This House. Narrated by actor Samuel L. Jackson, the film explores the history of racism in the United States through Baldwin’s reminiscences of civil rights leaders Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King Jr., as well as his personal observations of American history.  It was nominated for Best Documentary Feature at the 89th Academy Awards and won the BAFTA Award for Best Documentary. You can watch the trailer below. The full movie is available on Amazon.

13th (2016) explores the history of racial inequality in the United States, focusing on the fact that the nation’s prisons are disproportionately filled with African-Americans. It gets its name from the American Constitution’s 13th amendment, which reads: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States.”  You can watch the trailer below. The film is available on YouTube and on Netflix.

White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism (2018) is a New York Times best-selling book that explores “the counterproductive reactions white people have when their assumptions about race are challenged, and how these reactions maintain racial inequality.” I’ve just checked this book out of the library, but haven’t started reading it yet. Have any of you read it? 

If you have suggestions, I’d love for you to enter them in the comments. And, just as an aside, I noticed this morning that Netflix has a good selection of movies that they’ve put in a Black Lives Matter section on their site. You might want to take a look.

Now for the action item. The 2020 elections are coming soon. Regardless of your preferences, I think we can all agree that it’s really important for everyone to vote, so here’s the action item I mentioned earlier. Voter suppression is a ‘hot’ issue and a group called Reclaim Our Vote is tackling that problem. I’m suggesting that you go to their nonpartisan website and check them out. Volunteer if you’re so inclined.They’re  currently working to inform and motivate voters of color in Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, and Texas. You can sign up to make phone calls or send postcards.

My very best wishes to you all. Let’s work together to stand for change!

Photograph by Lisa Reynolds Wolfe

Hong Kong protesters shelter behind a thin barrier – and umbrellas – as police fire tear gas and encircle a group of demonstrators.
AP Photo/Vincent Yu

Paul Monod, Middlebury

Hong Kong may seem like an unlikely place for a revolution. In this relatively affluent and privileged city, young people might be expected to be more concerned with making money than with protesting in the streets. Yet day after day, demonstrators in Hong Kong risk injury and death confronting security forces backed by the massive power of the Chinese government.

Among their demands are democratic elections for the city’s Legislative Council and chief executive. Their desire for fundamental change has mounted, and they increasingly see their own lives as lacking meaning unless circumstances change.

Historians have long argued that revolutions are built not on deep misery but on rising expectations. Since the 18th century, societies, clubs and associations of intellectuals have been seedbeds of radical change in countries throughout the world. They provided leadership for the French Revolution in 1789, the European revolutions of 1848 and the Russian Revolution of 1905.

The situation in Hong Kong is revolutionary, too, although the history of past revolutions may not provide much hope of immediate change.

A look at Hungary

The most compelling parallel to Hong Kong may be the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, which attempted to wrest power from a communist regime. It, too, began with a student uprising in favor of democratic elections.

Within a few days, the communist government resigned and a reformist administration was formed under Imre Nagy, who allowed noncommunists to enter political office. This went too far for communist leaders in the Soviet Union. The USSR invaded Hungary, overthrew Nagy’s regime and secretly put him to death.

As with the Hong Kong protests today, the United States gave little official support to the Hungarian Revolution and was unwilling to offer material assistance. Keeping peace in Europe was of vital importance to U.S. policy in 1956, just as good relations with China are now central.

The Hungarian example may provide little solace to the Hong Kong protesters – except, perhaps, if they consider its long-term consequences.

In October 1989, with Soviet influence in Eastern Europe collapsing, the democratic Republic of Hungary was declared on the 33rd anniversary of the 1956 revolution. Those who died during that revolution are now remembered as martyrs.

In China’s own history

Chinese history supplies a more heartening example of a successful student-led uprising: the Revolution of 1911. It was fomented by young men returning from study abroad, who formed political societies to “revive” their country, often disguised as literary discussion groups.

The 1911 Revolution mobilized networks of intellectuals and students throughout China, but it also drew on other social groups: military officers, merchants, coal miners and farmers. The revolution erupted in many parts of China simultaneously and had various outcomes, from utter failure, to the massacre of ethnic Manchus to declarations of Mongol and Tibetan independence. A provisional government emerged by the end of the year in Nanjing.

The Hong Kong protests, however, are too limited in geographical scope and social support to repeat the success of the 1911 revolutionaries.

The subsequent Chinese revolution in 1949, like the 1917 Russian Revolution, followed Leninist theory and was spearheaded by professional party insiders, not by intellectuals. The communists regarded mass protests as potentially counter-revolutionary and as threats to the new order.

What’s next?

The young protestors in Hong Kong seek to avoid the fate of the student demonstrators of Tiananmen Square in spring 1989. Three decades ago, hundreds, perhaps thousands, of protesters were massacred after the communist government invoked martial law. The pro-democracy agenda of the Tiananmen protesters was vague, and they relied on reformers within the party apparatus, who finally betrayed them.

The Hong Kong crowds are focused on specific changes and lack illusions about the party. They will go down fighting desperately, not standing with faint hope in front of tanks. That may give pause to the forces of repression. As the Communist Party of China and any student of history knows, martyrs are the fuel of future revolutions.

Paul Monod, Professor of History, Middlebury

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.