I’ve just finished reading Missing by Thomas Hauser.  First published in 1978, the book tells the gripping story of Charles Horman, a young American who disappeared shortly after Chile’s successful military coup on September 11, 1973. With CIA involvement, General Augusto Pinochet came to power, soon ordering the mass arrest of thousands of leftist dissidents and other suspected opponents. Based on real events, the book is most accurately  described as an exceptionally detailed work of creative non fiction.

After Horman vanishes, and unable to uncover satisfactory information from his home in New York, Horman’s father, Ed, a patriotic American businessman, travels to Santiago, Chile.  Officials in the American embassy there, led by the ambassador himself, offer to help him search for the son he believes has simply disappeared. The author goes on, however, to present evidence of the arrest and murder of Horman as well as proposing US involvement in the actual coup.

At the end of Missing, Ed Horman is left with three questions:

• Was Charles Horman executed by the Chilean military?
• Was there a United States cover-up?
• Did anyone in the American military, diplomatic, or intelligence community have foreknowledge of – or perhaps order – the execution of Charles Horman?

Unfortunately, Charles Horman’s experience was commonplace in the Southern Cone of the mid 1970s. “The disappeared,” as the missing and executed were most often called, can be counted in the thousands. Military regimes in Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, Chile, and Argentina rounded up those suspected of affiliations with leftist movements and put them in concentration camps and secret detention centers where they were tortured, interrogated, executed, and secretly buried.**

Argentina

The Argentine armed forces set up their version of a bureaucratic authoritarian state in 1955. The military’s goals were:

• to eliminate any revolutionary threat
• to hold down wages
• to encourage foreign investment.

Official policy also included a commitment to anti-communist repression. To counter the above forces, the Argentine military turned to brutality. Killing began in the late 1960s and escalated throughout the 1970s. The military responded with deathsquads that claimed the lives — or disappeared — at least 9,000 and, perhaps, as many as 30,000 people.

This anti-communist terror was officially called the Process of National Reorganization by the military junta that ruled Argentina from 1976 to 1983. More commonly known as the Dirty War, it was a comprehensive campaign aimed at eliminating communists and others seen as “subversives.”

You can read much more about military repression in Argentina in our post titled  Cold War Argentina: The Dirty War.

Chile

In September 1973, Chilean army tanks rolled into the streets of Santiago, removing the country’s democratically elected president, Salvador Allende, from office. The military dictatorship that claimed power governed by decree for the next 17 years.

The Chilean coup turned out to be the bloodiest coup in the history of Latin America. Thousands of supporters of the Popular Unity coalition were herded into the Santiago soccer stadium. As in Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay, many of the detainees were subject to torture and murder, their bodies transported to mass graves.

The Chilean dictatorship was basically a bureaucratic-authoritarian regime, except that the leader of the 1973 coup, General Augusto Pinochet, had a leading role unparalleled in Brazil or Argentina. Chile had become the epitome of the Latin American trend toward military dictatorship.

You can read more about Chile in the post titled Cold War Chile. It’s Cold War Studies’ most popular post ever. And if you want more background on bureaucratic authoritarian regimes, read our post titled Bureaucratic Authoritarianism.

Brazil

In April 1964, with the knowledge and collaboration of American officials, and with US naval support standing offshore, Brazilian generals seized control of their country. The new regime was intended to be transitory but it gradually became a full dictatorship, ruling Brazil undemocratically for the next twenty years.

Repression against opponents, including urban guerrillas, was harsh, but not as brutal as in other Latin American countries. Due to extraordinary economic growth, known as an “economic miracle,” the regime reached its highest level of popularity during the years of repression.

You can read more about this period of time in Brazil’s Military: Repression to Ruin or in Military Rule in Cold War Brazil.

Uruguay

Formed in 1964, the Tupamaro urban guerilla movement, was directly inspired by the example of the Cuban Revolution.

In 1967, the Uruguayan president declared martial law to fight the Tupamaros. The military began a gradual takeover which was completed in 1973. The Tupamaros were quickly cornered once torture penetrated their cover.

By the end of the 1970s, Uruguay had more political prisoners, relative to its size, than any other country in the world.

You can read more about this in our post titled Cold War Military Repression in Uruguay.

Operation Condor

Many detainees who escaped their home countries to avoid detainment were located, captured, and interrogated through the efforts of Operation Condor, a multinational intelligence organization.

In an investigation of their country’s participation in Operation Condor, Brazilian authorities ordered the declassification of military documents.

The US government has also declassified many long-secret files, but the new information is also confirming a more active cooperation with repressive activity than has previously been acknowledged.

If you’d like to learn more about Operation Condor, you can check out a book by John Dinges, a Columbia University journalism professor. The Condor Years: How Pinochet and His Allies Brought Terrorism to Three Continents is highly rated, and available on Amazon. (As always, if you purchase the book or DVD through our affiliate link on Amazon, Cold War Studies receives a very small donation. Thank you.)

Don’t Like to Read

For those of you who would rather watch than read, you may want to stream The Judge and The General on YouTube. Some of you may find it very uncomfortable viewing for some, but it shows the work of the Chilean judge, Juan Guzmán, who investigated Pinochet. Guzmán had supported Pinochet’s 1973 coup, but in the end held the dictator accountable. One result: in May 2000 an appeals court stripped Pinochet of his immunity as a former president and senator. Before his death  in 2006, he faced more than 100 separate charges of ordering torture and disappearances.

US Involvement

Remember the three questions I listed at the beginning?

• Was Charles Horman executed by the Chilean military?
• Was there a United States cover-up?
• Did anyone in the American military, diplomatic, or intelligence community have foreknowledge of – or perhaps order – the execution of Charles Horman?

As Ed Horman discovered, answers are hard to come by, and readers may have different takes. My suggestion is that you find a copy of the book, read it, and decide for yourself. I bought my copy on Amazon. As the author concludes:

The line between United States involvement in the coup and responsibility for the death of Charles Horman is difficult to draw.

** I’m sure some of you who are familiar with the 1983 Oscar nominated film starring Jack Lemmon and Sissy Spacek are asking “why didn’t you just stream the movie?” Well, that’s what I wanted to do. Unfortunately, the film isn’t available for streaming in the US because of a libel suit filed back in the 1980s. Even though the libel action by three United States government officials was dismissed, the book was out of print for a period of time too. As I mentioned before, I picked up my copy on Amazon.

The film received four nominations at the 55th Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Actor (for Lemmon), and Best Actress (for Spacek). It won Best Adapted Screenplay.

According to Wikipedia, “In 1983, a year after the film’s theatrical release, both the film (then in the home video market) and Thomas Hauser’s book The Execution of Charles Horman were removed from the United States market following a lawsuit filed against Costa-Gavras and Universal Pictures’s (then) parent company MCA by former ambassador Nathaniel Davis and two others for libel. A lawsuit against Hauser himself was dismissed because the statute of limitations had expired. Davis and his associates lost their lawsuit, after which the film was re-released by Universal in 2006 . . . . The film created significant controversy in Chile and was banned during Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship, even though neither Chile nor Pinochet is ever mentioned by name (although the Chilean cities of Viña del Mar and Santiago are).”

If you’re a big spender, you can buy the DVD on Amazon. You can watch the original trailer below.

Featured photo by Pedro Encina (Flickr)

Brazil Photo by Luis Fernando Reis (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.

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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.**

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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.

The Cold War spurred two parallel contests: the arms race and the space race. These stand-offs raised tensions worldwide and gave rise to a sense of anxiety that permeated all aspects of daily life. In the West, even fashion reflected an on-going fear of communist infiltration, alien invasion, spies, and the Space Age. From the bikini to the spacesuit, designers integrated the themes of the day into their couture attire.

The Bikini

On July 5, 1946, the atomic bomb was introduced to the Paris fashion world in the form of the bikini. The new fashion was almost as shocking as the public’s persistent fear of global annihilation. You can read all about the introduction of the Bikini in our post titled It’s July: Bikini Days Are Here.

Space Suits 

The protective clothing of cosmonauts and astronauts inspired fashion designers of the 1960s who were fascinated by the idea of the spacesuit as life-sustaining and protective. They thought that the dangers of modern life could be countered by high-performance clothing that was self-supporting. Also known as astronaut fashion, the success of the Apollo 11 mission in 1969 encouraged couture designers like Paco Rabanne, Pierre Cardin and Thierry Mugler to center entire collections around an intergalactic vision of the future.

If you want to dig deeper into Space Suit Fashion, do a search online for Fashioning Apollo. You’ll find multiple PDFs. Click here for a sample. 

You can also find the book, Fashioning Apollo, published in 2011, on Amazon. Adam Gopnik says it’s “The most delightful and memorable new book I read last year…”

(Photo:Jean Shrimpton Space Suit Chic – Harpers Bazaar 1956. Photo by Richard Avedon. Thanks much to Glamour Daze.)

 Future Fashion

Driving the idea of ‘future fashion’ were concerns like conflict, nuclear fall-out, pollution, the need for communication, and the threat of surveillance. The idea was to insulate the wearer from the threat of the new. Such clothing included sci-fi mini dresses and knee boots, tunics and jumpsuits, accessorized with helmets and visors, balaclavas and armor-plating. The look was led by the London designer Mary Quant and was topped off by the helmet like hairstyles of Vidal Sassoon. Want to see more? Click here.

Wearable Technology

To some designers, Cold War science, especially the discipline of cybernetics, provided a way to meld the body with technology. Some thought that the human body would be invaded by mechanical and media technologies grounded in dystopian fantasy. Take a look at Rudi Gernreich’s plastic armor or Diana Dew’s electroluminescent dresses. (Photo courtesy of Pinterest.)

•  Paper Dresses: Fashion in the later 1960s focused on the idea of disposability, leading trend setting throwaway dresses. The military had been toying with the concept of paper clothes for quite awhile as evidenced by this quote in the Chicago Tribune from 1959:

“Much of tomorrow’s wearing apparel may be made out of treated paper, intended for  use a few times, then for discard. The Quartermaster Corps is already investigating the use of such processed paper for parachutes, disposable uniforms, pup tents, and other shelters. It wears well, and its insulating qualities make it usable in all kinds of weather.”

For more on paper fashions, click here.

Synthetic Clothing 

Synthetics became synonymous with affordable clothing, and were associated with modernity and youth. The new materials were crease-resistant, machine-washable, and quick drying. Referred to as “wonder fabrics,” they were most often by-products of chemical research undertaken for military, aeronautical, and space purposes. The new synthetics were also thought to be disposable. Rapid obsolescence was a fundamental characteristic of product design in the US in the 1950s, and clothing was no exception. This phenomenon attracted critics like the author Vance Packer, whose book The Waste Makers was published in 1961. These fabrics were also quite popular in socialist countries.

Jumpsuits: Stretch nylon jumpsuits, PVC boots, and uniform insignia were made popular by television shows like Star Trek (from 1966) and The Avengers (1961-1969). The jumpsuit was unisex, usually made from synthetic materials, and thought to be highly utilitarian. It permitted the body to move freely, so it was perfect for the high kicks and karate moves characteristic of the Emma  Peel character in The Avengers. The body stocking and cat suit were closely related. (The Avengers is available for streaming on Amazon Prime. Here’s a clip from Emma Peel’s first appearance on the show.)

Future Shocked 

By the end of the 1960s concerns about over-consumption, militarism, and the environment were front and center. Gone was the space age optimism of the mid-1960s. This was now replaced in fashion by references to hippie and protest culture, flower power, and the dress codes of marches and ‘sit-ins.’ Reflecting the new reality, in 1970, Alvin Toffler’s book Future Shock hit the bookstores, with its fear of rapid technological change, the breakdown of the family, and the loss of social cohesion. He used some of the fashions of the decade – miniskirts, PVC boots, paper dresses – as signifiers of social decline. Along with other contributors, futuristic fashion lost its sheen.  (Photo by Duchess Flux on Flickr.)

What about fashion in the Soviet Union? Did it reflect the same trends?

In the end, fashion was a trait that was shared by the two superpowers. Russian ethnic prints, pushed in propaganda by the Soviet Union, managed to become popular in the West, and a strong black market was successful in the East. Levi jeans were especially in demand.

After 1956, Soviet magazines could report on Western fashions, new fashion stores opened, and regular fashion and trade shows were held, all in an attempt to create a Socialist counterpart to Western consumer capitalism. Although this is interesting, it’s a story for another day.

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Featured photograph by Nick Maroulis on Flickr.