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Scholars have rarely acknowledged that international oil companies first entered the Middle East to sell oil rather than to seek sources of it. The arrival of American kerosene in 1864 began this understudied preamble to the region's oil history, with Standard Oil dominating the Ottoman market until the 1880s. Russian oil then flooded the market and pushed Standard Oil out by the 1890s, though Standard had regained a foothold before World War I. This article draws two major conclusions from this market battle. First, the competition for the Ottoman market demonstrates that it was the contest for oil markets, more than the fight for oil sources, that led to the global oil industry's cartelisation in the early twentieth century. Second, this study shows how an American multinational pressured the United States government to expand its regional presence, thus helping to elucidate the deepening of American engagement with the Middle East. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Going beyond the external functions of a diplomat this article places itself within the New Diplomatic History field and engages with an intricate aspect of the diplomatic self, that of duty. By telling the story of Christos Xanthopoulos-Palamas, one of the most prominent Greek diplomats, it examines how diplomatic duty is rationalised and imported in the realm of politics under authoritarian rule. Based on memoires, archival material, published diaries and the press of the time, this study follows Xanthopoulos-Palamas' career and examines how the experienced diplomat justified his cooperation with the regime of the colonels despite his distaste for their antidemocratic practices. The belief in a concept of duty to the nation that surpasses the ephemeral existence of political structures and thus compelling him to strive to keep the 'national aircraft' afloat is at the core of his rationalisation behind his decision to get involved in domestic politics during the dictatorship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For the 20 years before the outbreak of the Pacific War, Great Britain based its grand strategy in the Far East around the presence – and potential – of the Singapore Naval Base. The Americans, for a time, agreed in the project's potential in the face of increasing Japanese belligerence. This analysis examines the place of the Singapore Naval Base in Anglo-American planning for the defence of Southeast Asia. It focuses on British efforts to lobby the Americans to deploy the Pacific Fleet to Singapore to deter Japan, the evolution of American plans for the defence of the Far East, and how all these interacted. It argues that the British desire to use the Pacific Fleet as a deterrent force based at Singapore, and the American assessments of how the Pacific Fleet would actually fight Japan from Singapore, represented a conceptual disconnect they could not overcome until faced with imminent hostilities. Scrutinizing the discussions and plans related to this understudied episode provides additional understanding not only how the aspirant allies viewed the growing threat from Japan, but also how they viewed each other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Foreign Office diplomats recognised the danger to British security posed by Adolph Hitler’s accession to the chancellorship of Germany in January 1933 but differed on how to meet this challenge. This article reproduces the hitherto unpublished draft instructions prepared by Owen O’Malley, a ranking official at the Foreign Office, for the newly appointed ambassador to Germany, Sir Eric Phipps, on taking up his posting in autumn 1933. Sir Robert Vansittart, the permanent under secretary, who took a sceptical but not entirely hostile view of O’Malley’s proposals, minutes O’Malley’s suggestion of a clear warning to Hitler, accompanied by the opening of negotiations with Nazi Germany recognising its enhanced position and the justice of some of its claims. Vansittart did not forward the draft memorandum to the foreign secretary, Sir John Simon, and there is, as far as I know, no copy of this in the public archives. Included is additional information on the clashes between the two men on how dictators should be treated as well as biographical information on the careers of the three men involved in this debate. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This analysis shows the importance of a problem of maritime law in an on-going debate between two interpretations of Wilsonian neutrality that have competed in various guises since the end of the First World War: can British blockade actions in that war be justified by American Civil War precedents? It proves that reliance on the “Civil War precedents” to justify Britain’s blockade measures was disingenuous from the beginning. British diplomats first used it in October 1914, and Woodrow Wilson embraced it to defend his mild response to British violations of neutral rights to incensed American citizens despite continuous protests from the State Department. Whilst all politicians involved knew the comparison was wrong, historians have embraced it as a justification of Britain’s illegal blockade ever since Arthur S. Link claimed it as the key to understanding Wilson’s neutrality policy. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Since 2005, European and French foreign policy towards Iran have been caught between the change of Iran policy under Republican and Democrat administrations, on the one hand, and the Islamic Republic nuclear diplomacy on the other hand. To illustrate this argument, the article will provide a detailed history of Iranian-French relations, particularly pertaining to nuclear technology. The French discourse on a future nuclear Iranian threat reflects the dominant discourse within Western nuclear-weapon states on the nuclear 'other'. Therefore, this article aims to shed light on the growing gap between France's official nuclear ideology and the reality of internal and diplomatic developments of the Iranian nuclear program. I will deconstruct the official discourse produced in France on the Iranian quest for nuclear power to explore the complexity of the factors determining Iran's nuclear choices and the conclusion of the 2015 Nuclear Deal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despatching ground forces – the Field Force – to the continent constituted a cardinal element of British grand strategy from early 1934 to early 1938. In winter 1933-1934, through the Defence Requirements Sub-Committee [DRC], senior Foreign Office and Treasury officials, working with the Chiefs of Staff, advised the Cabinet to begin moderate rearmament – ultimately £52 million – with a deadline of 1939. Central to DRC recommendations was the Field Force to underwrite British maintaining the European balance of power through military support for France and the Low Countries to deter possible German aggression. When reporting in February 1934, the DRC identified two adversary Powers requiring improved British defences: Germany, the 'ultimate potential enemy', and Japan, of lesser importance. The War Office immediately began creating the Force, built around four divisions. In 1935, given the Abyssinian crisis, Italy joined the list of potential adversaries, and the Cabinet approved almost £400 million DRC-recommended additional defence spending, again, by 1939. The government guided by the Foreign Office monitored the balance; and War Office planning now centred on a 16-division Field Force. However, in May 1937, Neville Chamberlain rose to the premiership and initiated a defence review requiring more spending – £1.625 billion in two tranches: 1939 and 1941 – but eliminating the Field Force. Eschewing the balance, Britain would rely on powerful air and naval forces to maintain national and imperial security. However, after Germany's conquest of Czechoslovakia in March 1939 and a darkened continental milieu, the Field Force was reborn to underpin British strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Beginning with the publication of An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States in 1913, Charles Austin Beard gained fame and notoriety as a historian by writing about the power of money over politics and policy. In his analysis of American history, he did not make an exception for the Second World War or the Cold War. Those conflicts, too, had an economic subtext. Yet, in his two most famous books dealing with the dawn of the American Century, American Foreign Policy in the Making, 1932–1940: A Study in Responsibilities (1946) and President Roosevelt and the Coming of the War, 1941: A Study in Appearances and Realities (1948), he focused narrowly on Roosevelt's foreign policy decisions. These books contributed to the impression that in his later years he had moved beyond the economic interpretation of history. A leading public intellectual, Beard also wrote numerous magazine articles about the motives behind America's interwar, wartime, and post-war foreign policy. His journalistic first draft of history crucially supplements the last books that he published and shows him to have retained the view that there is no politics without economics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For the past decade, a cruel and bloody civil war has wracked Syria. The conflict, and especially its military and humanitarian aspects, has been surveyed extensively. But like every war, that in Syria involves a 'soft conflict' in addition to the military confrontation. By this is meant the religious, educational, social, and cultural actions undertaken by the Shi'ite axis – the Syrian regime and its allies, Iran and Hezbollah – vis-à-vis the Sunni majority in the country. For Bashar Assad, a member of the Alawite sect, and his Shi'ite allies, the Sunnis pose a real threat, which can best be countered by converting them to Shi'ism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses the failure of American democracy promotion in Egypt before and during the 2011 Arab Spring, through a comparison with successful American support for democratic transitions in allied authoritarian regimes during the 1980s, executed through a combination of top-down diplomatic pressure and bottom-up democracy building by non-governmental organisations (NGOs). In Egypt, American policymakers misjudged the stability of the Mubarak regime and relaxed top-down pressure for liberalisation before the Arab Spring, while greater implementation of bottom-up democracy programs by United States government agencies resulted in the obstruction of these programs by the Mubarak regime and American policymakers. The case of Egypt illustrates the importance of American policymakers' perceptions of regime stability for the priority which Washington accords to democracy promotion in policy towards allied authoritarian regimes, and the impact of American government control of bottom-up democracy programs on democracy building in allied authoritarian states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article assesses President Gerald Ford's two major tours of Asia that saw him visit Japan, South Korea, China, the Philippines and Indonesia in 1974 and 1975. The trips were intended to reemphasise American commitment to longstanding allies in the Pacific, shore up recent gains in relations with Beijing, and boost his image with voters at home. On the first two points, Ford was broadly successful, but his moderate diplomatic achievements did not translate into electoral success. In assessing both the impact of his diplomacy and failure to leverage this domestically, the article demonstrates the importance of presidential diplomacy in furthering American interests, the power of the media in shaping the narratives of diplomatic travel, and the interconnected nature of domestic and foreign affairs. It also adds depth to our understanding of an often-overlooked administration and its impact on a region of crucial strategic importance to American foreign relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This analysis revisits the State Department's initial handling of the infamous Belmonte-Wendler letter during May-September 1941. Previous scholarship has focused heavily on the decision by British intelligence to forge and then share that letter as a means to spur American entry into the Second World War, with little disagreement among scholars about this side of the story. In comparison, however, the understanding of the State Department's handling of the letter has become thoroughly muddled over time, with scholars regularly offering wildly inconsistent accounts, even despite only citing the same small handful of primary documents. Based on exhaustive archival research in records either overlooked by previous studies or since declassified, this assessment marshals a trove of fresh evidence to paint the most complete or accurate picture of who in the State Department knew the letter was a forgery, when and how they made this determination, and what they did to cover it up. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Throughout the 1920s, distrust and contention marked Anglo- Soviet relations, culminating in the diplomatic break in 1927. In 1929, the incoming Labour government successfully pursued its objective of re-establishing diplomatic relations with Moscow, but the follow-up in terms of ambassadorial appointments was far from routine for either side. This analysis shows that internal pressures complicated decisions about whether to appoint career diplomats or choose political figures. Resisting both claims from enthusiastically hopeful Labour backbenchers and criticisms from the left wing media, the British foreign secretary, Arthur Henderson, chose a Russian-speaking career diplomat. On the Soviet side, the first choice was a controversial politician, but then replaced by a financial expert, albeit one tainted as a defeated political opponent of Josef Stalin. Whilst both ambassadors could be considered "professionals," neither was able to have a deep impact on the relationship, which remained troubled. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers one aspect of Britain's "great Eastern crisis" of 1875-1878. It examines in detail the claims that for two months in early 1878, an "inner Cabinet" led by the prime minister, Benjamin Disraeli--Lord Beaconsfield--in effect replaced the foreign secretary, Lord Derby. With the full range of evidence relating to the "inner Cabinet" never previously explored, this analysis assesses the critical diplomatic phase and the way in which that phase was represented in the context of the 1879-1880 general election campaign. It suggests that electoral considerations drove senior Conservative politicians to construct a retrospective narrative of foreign policy, which has in turn affected the historiography. Exploring the story of the "inner Cabinet" addresses unanswered questions about 1878, accounts for the story's later emergence, and at the same time illuminates party-political debate about foreign policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This analysis offers an alternative examination of American interest in India in the mid-1940s and situates the early American attitude to Kashmir into that matrix. The two years from 1945 to 1947, those of the emergence of decolonisation and the Cold War, critically influenced America’s attitude first towards India and then towards Kashmir. It has been commonplace to describe America’s early understanding of the Kashmir conflict as an issue unconnected with the Cold War until 1952–1954. Even those works, which argue for an early presence of an “east-west lens” in the American consciousness, begin from either the Communist triumph in China or the outbreak of the Korean War. This analysis, instead, shows how soon, how much, and how comprehensively various sections of American government looked at Kashmir through an international prism. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Based on oral history accounts of surviving members of Israel[#x02019]s first International Squadron and organisers of the military airlift to Yemen in 1964, this analysis examines the origins of the squadron, its mission to Yemen, and its impact on Israeli foreign policy in Africa. The founding of the International Squadron in 1963 incorporated the Boeing 377 Stratocruiser into the Israeli air force and gave the military and Foreign Ministry the country[#x02019]s first long-distance transport capability. The initial successful military airlift to Yemen in May 1964 opened the possibility for additional clandestine military aid missions to sub-Saharan Africa and Kurdistan and marked the beginning of an era of Israeli [#x0201C]weapons diplomacy.[#x0201D] The Squadron[#x02019]s incorporation of more advanced transport planes during the 1970s presented the Foreign Ministry with the capability of reaching Latin America and Asia, an essential factor in Israel[#x02019]s expanding global arms market and later humanitarian missions. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The political élite of Hungary included a group that expected British and American support for Hungarian revisionist claims after the Paris Peace Conference. Their acknowledged leader was Count István Bethlen, the prime minister from 1921 to 1931 and an adviser to Regent Vice-Admiral Miklós Horthy until 1944. This analysis investigates a largely forgotten member of this group. Antal Ullein-Reviczky, a diplomat and scholar, shifted from being a Hungarian nationalist with an anti-Nazi attitude towards secret efforts to establish political relations with Britain during the Second World War. Press chief of the Foreign Ministry and the prime minister’s office, Ullein-Reviczky’s last appointment was Hungarian minister at Stockholm in 1943–1944. Both the Germans and the British put little trust in a man whose wife was the daughter of a British diplomat, yet who maintained superb connexions in pro-German Hungary. He changed his mind gradually when he realised that the price for revising the Treaty of Trianon was unacceptable. His long journey through international politics made him a significant player in a global drama, also assisting Raoul Wallenberg’s mission to Budapest. It is a political odyssey worth remembering. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The collapse of the Soviet Union posed the greatest non-proliferation problem since the beginning of the atomic age. Would Ukraine be willing to abandon the nuclear weapons on their territory and join the Non-Proliferation Treaty as a non-nuclear weapon state? Based on recently declassified archival sources, this article investigates how the Geoge H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton administrations pursued Ukraine's nuclear dismantlement through a mix of three types of policy action including trilateral diplomacy with Ukraine and Russia, United States financial and technical assistance in the denuclearisation process and a policy to address Ukraine's broader security dilemma. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most scholars writing on Arab-Israeli matters barely address the Egyptian-Israeli autonomy talks, and what has been written largely dismisses them as Egyptian and United States capitulation to Israeli expansion. But a focus on archival documents from the first months of the talks in 1979 demonstrates three points at odds with this conventional narrative. Whilst Egyptian negotiators were ultimately rebuffed, Egypt pushed for significant moves towards Palestinian national self-determination, especially in their proposal of 25 June 1979. Consistent with the Carter Administration's mixed approach, the United States stood in a middle ground during these talks, sometimes siding with Egypt such as with the need for Palestinian representation and other times with Israel such as in discouraging political discussions. Lastly, by explicitly discussing which officials were at the table, we see the United States negotiating approach reinforces a notion from the mediation literature that sustained, high-level engagement is crucial if a mediating country hopes to achieve a breakthrough. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Australian Prime Minister Edward Gough Whitlam has gone down in history as the man who ended two decades of Australian neglect of Asia. Having come to power with the ambitious goal of making a quantum leap in Australia's regional engagement, Whitlam is widely credited with bringing his country closer to Asia. However, such a representation of Whitlam's Asian diplomacy does not quite stand up to a careful examination of the historical record. Whitlam's new course in foreign affairs not only failed to inject new momentum into Canberra's policy of regional engagement, but it also perplexed – or even frustrated – more than one regional actor. It is no coincidence that he spent nearly half of his prime ministership seeking to dispel the perception that Australia was becoming isolationist. Focussing on Whitlam's policy towards Southeast Asia, an area of crucial strategic importance for Australia, this analysis provides a corrective, based on recently declassified Australian, British and American government files, of Australia's regional engagement in the early 1970s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recognition of a claimant polity as a state is a status-related decision with far-reaching political and legal effects. This study addresses the question whether Norway through its foreign minister, Halvdan Koht, entered into a formal diplomatic relationship with the Nazi German satellite of Slovakia in 1939–1940. A claim of recognition complicated Norway's relationship with the representatives of Czechoslovakia in Allied London. Norwegian Foreign Ministry files not previously consulted now make it possible to test and trace the reception and processing of Slovakia's application. Sources also show how minor issues take on significance for bilateral relations in times of high volatility in international life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines whether "invasion scares" before 1914 period had an impact on the course of British strategy. It shows that contemporary observers perceived a clear link between the ways in which British society depicted and understood issues of strategy and the ways in which the state could prepare for and conduct a future war. This was particularly so when it came to the language used to describe issues of security in Britain and the ideological consensus that these discourses reflected. The prominent place of discussions about how to defend the British Isles against invasion before 1914 therefore convinced some observers that Briton's preoccupation with passive defence was rendering the nation vulnerable by robbing it of the capacity to adopt credible policies of deterrence and offensive action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

President George H.W. Bush’s use of personal diplomacy has been a frequently noted but little studied subject in the scholarly literature. For the first time, this analysis examines the transcripts of telephone conversations between Bush and foreign leaders during Operation Desert Shield and Operation Desert Storm to determine the nature and purpose of these communications. Bush used these conversations more to build relationships than to persuade. He valued the contributions of the French president, François Mitterrand, over those of the British prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, and the assistance provided by the Turkish president, Turgut Özal, over that of the Egyptian president, Hosni Mubarak. The tensions of crisis and war did not bring Bush and Saudi Arabia’s King Fahd closer together, and a rupture occurred in his previously close relationship with Jordan’s King Hussein. In this process, public opinion in the United States and abroad remained of paramount concern. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In March 1983, President Ronald Reagan established the Strategic Defence Initiative [SDI], a research effort to develop the technologies for land- and space-based missile defence. This programme quickly unleashed anxieties about an arms race in space. Superpower military space activities were of significant concern to Britain because they had direct bearing on two key areas of its national security: space-based intelligence collection and the credibility of its nuclear deterrent. This analysis argues that the uses of space for military and intelligence purposes was an essential, though often invisible, aspect of the Anglo-American relationship during the Cold War. Despite the opposition of her senior advisors to SDI, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher maintained that the programme was necessary to stay ahead of the Soviet Union in an intensifying high-technology competition. Rather than opposing the expanded militarisation of space, she believed it required careful management to further British national security interests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ronald Reagan entered the White House in 1981 as the president who promised to confront the foreign enemies of the United States. Whilst the Soviet Union remained the single greatest threat to the United States, the 1979 hostage crisis in Iran dramatically raised concerns over international terrorism. Reagan's approach to this threat was unequivocal – those responsible would be subject to "swift and effective retribution". In 1983, one of the most devastating acts of international terrorism in American history confronted Reagan – the bombing of the Marine barracks in Lebanon. Despite Reagan's earlier pledge, those believed to have been responsible for this attack – Iran and its surrogate, Hezbollah – avoided punishment. This analysis explains the discrepancy between Reagan's rhetoric and his actions by examining how strategic imperatives related to the Cold War helped deter a military reprisal against both Iran and Hezbollah. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars have long debated when the Palestinian Liberation Organisation [PLO] first accepted the international consensus on a two-state settlement as a resolution to the Israel-Palestine conflict. This analysis contributes to the debate by closely examining PLO diplomatic support for a draft United Nations [UN] Security Council resolution along the lines of the two-state consensus in January 1976, its passage prevented by an American veto. Drawing upon declassified documents in American, UN, and British archives, this analysis argues that the record of negotiations at the Security Council strongly indicates that by the mid-1970s, the PLO was ready to accept the terms of a two-state settlement, even as the United States and Israel persistently rejected a negotiated settlement inclusive of Palestinian self-determination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is widely thought that Japan's involvement in multilateral conflict-resolution diplomacy began at the 1989 Paris international peace conference aimed at ending hostilities in Cambodia. However, in 1970, Japan was engaged in the Jakarta conference, a gathering of Asian and Pacific countries attempting to resolve a Cambodian conflict that erupted in that year and in the follow-up initiatives. This analysis draws on declassified diplomatic documents to show that although those efforts failed, Tokyo gained much from its debut in an international effort to resolve a conflict in Asia: expansion of its regional role, co-operation with Southeast Asian countries, and valuable peacemaking experience. This examination of that history elucidates the features and limitations of Japanese peacemaking diplomacy and examines international reactions to those efforts and the manner in which that experience shaped Japan's role in Southeast Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In January 1964, the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, appointed Robert Birley, former headmaster of Eton College, as a visiting professor. This analysis examines how Birley used this role, and his relatively secure position as a high-profile British figure, to speak out against the apartheid state. His professorship took place during a time of strained Anglo-South African relations; having become a republic and left the Commonwealth in 1961, South Africa appeared to be slipping ever further from the 'British world'. To combat this course, London attempted to use cultural diplomacy, particularly in the form of academic and educational exchanges, to imbue future leaders with a more positive view of Britain. This analysis demonstrates that whilst Birley's professorship was independent from this policy, he was in regular contact with British officials, and his actions correlated with their aims. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Agnes Smedley is one of the more fascinating figures in the history of Sino-American relations. Albeit once the subject of two excellent biographies, and alternately celebrated and reviled in the United States, she nevertheless remains a relatively obscure figure. As the Sino-American relationship now occupies a crucial place in international politics, it is worthwhile to revisit the career of this ardent feminist and political pilgrim. Amidst the maelstrom of revolution and Sino-Japanese war, she professed faith in a better future. Both her perspicacity and illusions were striking, as she sought to discern – and explain to Americans – the churning reality of her preferred homeland, China. Questions confronting Smedley still linger in the twenty-first century as Beijing and Washington try to accommodate each other's ambitions and rival conceptions of human society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This analysis considers some of the methods and purposes of gathering intelligence in sixteenth-century diplomacy. Regular despatches from ambassadors provided a steady stream of information, but of particular importance was the development of the formal relation, the relazione, pioneered in Venice and subsequently imitated elsewhere. Two imitations by English authors – Robert Beale and Daniel Rogers – are evaluated, one with a critical relationship to the evolution of an emerging genre of advice literature on travel, the ars apodemica. By the close of the century, the aspects to which the private traveller was to direct their attention mirrored the information to be contained in relazioni for the purposes of the state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conservative leaders may have had a decisive impact on the decision by the Liberal government to enter the Great War in August 1914. In a seminal article of 1975, Keith Wilson argued that their readiness to fight “cut the ground … from beneath the feet of the non-interventionists” in the Cabinet. Those ministers who had hitherto opposed war now recognised that continued divisions could bring the government’s collapse, in which case the Unionists, probably in a coalition with pro-war Liberals, would take office and enter the conflict anyway. Since Wilson’s essay, important light has focussed on Unionist thinking by works that look at the July Crisis as part of a longer party history. This analysis provides a detailed investigation of the actions of Unionist leaders in the days immediately leading to war. It resolves some of the main contradictions in the primary evidence, argues that the possibility of a coalition was very real and demonstrates that one key player—the first lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill—subsequently tried, with some success, to disguise his activities. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In 1898 Governor William Bradford's early history of the Plymouth Colony was returned to Massachusetts through diplomatic, and sub-diplomatic, efforts. This marked an important stage in the growing Anglo–American rapprochement. It also illustrates an early episode of cultural diplomacy, as well as of repatriation of a cultural object. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Lindsay Aqui has therefore produced a first rate historical account that should be a standard text on any teaching relating to the UK and Europe. While the book follows a well-trodden path of scholarship that seeks to account for UK government policy towards the Community in the 1960s and 1970s, Aqui offers a more nuanced understanding of UK government policy. [Extracted from the article]

Much controversy exists over the making of Europe's security architecture after the end of the Cold War, specifically how and why the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation [NATO] emerged as the preferred solution to the continent's security conundrum, and where this development left Russia. These questions have puzzled historians and political scientists. Crucially, they also continue to resonate politically, as the Ukraine crisis of 2021/22 shows. For more than 15 years, the Vladimir Putin government has propagated the view that Western governments reneged on binding pledges made to Moscow in 1990 during German unification diplomacy that NATO would never expand beyond Germany into Central and Eastern Europe, or even what had been theSoviet space. As well as accusations of Western betrayal, Russian leaders have also talked of an expansionist American agenda, all of which supposedly culminated in 'nothing, but [the wilful] humiliation' of Russia. Existing scholarship has largely fixated on Russo-American 'Great Power' relations. By exploring the competitive co-operation within the Boris Yeltsin-Bill Clinton-Helmut Kohl triangle, this article depicts the push-and-pull factors within and between East and West, and especially inside the Alliance, as these three leaders set out to secure a post-Wall Europe together that was far more complex and multi-layered than hitherto appreciated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The United States and the Soviet Union concluded two sets of strategic arms limitation talks – SALT I and II – during the 1970s. Drawing on recent revisionist scholarship, this analysis assesses the success of SALT I and SALT II's relative failure and I by framing Soviet-American strategic arms control in the 1970s as an exercise in co-operative competition, the pursuit of competitive strategies through nominally co-operative means. Whilst SALT I achieved a temporary balance between the co-operative and competitive elements of arms control, SALT II's demise was in large part due to the fundamental contradictions at the heart of both superpowers' use of strategic arms limitation as an instrument of co-operative competition. The analysis concludes by assessing the implications of this analysis for strategic arms control in a new era of great-power rivalry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Heath-Nixon years, 1970–1974, have been widely characterised as marking a low point in Anglo-American relations, even the end of the so-called 'special relationship'. Overall, historians and commentators have tended to point the finger at Edward Heath, the British prime minister. As a committed Europhile, Heath is said to have deliberately downgraded relations with Washington in pursuit of membership of the European Economic Community [EEC], making the old habits of transatlantic co-operation impossible. Drawing on material from both sides of the Atlantic, this analysis presents a different perspective. Far from marking a transformation of British foreign policy, Heath's determination to join the EEC stood as part of a longstanding effort to reinvigorate Britain's place in the world, including the alliance with Washington. Moreover, when it came to diplomatic relations, largely, it was the nature of policy-making under President Richard Nixon – assisted by his chief advisor, Henry Kissinger – that undermined the old patterns of co-operation. As the White House set out to transform international relations, overhaul the global economic order, and impose its Cold War rivalry on regional crises, London was left feeling impotent, marginalised, and even double-crossed – all of which fuelled the case for Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

State response to assassination conspiracies is a reality behind diplomacy. This examination analyses British and American responses to assassination from the late 1960s to the mid-1980s. It argues the United States and Britain began with very different cultures of assassination. The 1980s was a period of structural convergence driven by practical collaboration: it had little to do with a longstanding 'special relationship', the Second Cold War, or relations between Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When, in March 1940, two Jewish emigré physicists, Otto Frisch and Rudolf Peierls, composed a memorandum on the technical feasibility of an atomic weapon, few would have envisaged the significance of this six-page document. The technical blueprint for an atomic weapon, at the time assumed to be well beyond the realm of the possible, was to have a significant impact on the Anglo-American nuclear relationship, as it enabled British and American scientists to discuss at eye-level, the direction of nuclear weapons development, as it moved from theory to implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Between 1913 and 1917, Colonel Edward House, President Woodrow Wilson's closest friend and advisor, undertook several missions to Europe. Serving to shape House's attitude to American neutrality, House's advice deriving from these trips was extremely influential upon Wilson's foreign policy. This analysis examines the influences on House's advice, arguing that his pro-Allied stance evolved during this time and influenced Wilson's ultimate decision to have the United States enter the war on the Allied side. The primary influence on House's attitude was his relationship with British foreign secretary, Sir Edward Grey. Several factors drew the two men together. They meshed with House's pre-existing views on global geopolitics expressed in his novel, Philip Dru. Previous scholarship that has investigated House's trips to Europe tends to gloss over the intricacies of the House-Grey relationship. Whilst the two men shared a close friendship, examination of their correspondence and the observation of others suggests that Grey's diplomatic goal was to establish close Anglo–American relations, and that a close connexion with House furthered that aim. This connexion re-enforced House's pro-Allied attitude that, in turn, contributed to America's entrance into the war. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Jammu and Kashmir dispute of 1947–1949 between India and Pakistan became the first inter-state conflict to be discussed at the United Nations Security Council. This analysis looks at the views of the government and the delegation of Great Britain, one of the five permanent members of the Security Council, on Kashmir through the year of 1948. It argues that the British attitude was determined more by Imperial and Commonwealth strategic and ideological imperatives in South and Central Asia and the Middle East and less by the merits of the cases of the disputants. Operating within the twin backdrop of decolonisation and the Cold War, the British official mind juggled Kashmir's accession to India, India's complaint of aggression against Pakistan, and Pakistan's demand for a plebiscite in Kashmir with an eye to their own hopes and fears in a region that it understood as the key vantage on Communism and Islam. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Diplomatic correspondence between Washington and the American Embassy in Islamabad published by the National Security Archive shows that during the last 35 years of the twentieth century American diplomacy toward Pakistan faced a mutually de-escalating relationship. Pakistan wanted American economic and military assistance as well as support in its conflicts with India. The United States was ready to aid Pakistan, but only so far as Islamabad respected American demands. These focused on containing Soviet influence in the region and, more recently, fighting al-Qaeda and the Taliban. The United States also asked Pakistan to refrain from manufacturing nuclear weapons. To enforce this policy, successive American administrations showered Pakistan with sanctions. These sanctions were lifted again and again, because they undercut American diplomatic influence with the Pakistani government. Washington did not intend to support Pakistan in its conflicts with India. Pakistan let down the United States by not using its leverage over the Taliban to capture Osama Bin Laden. Mistrust resulting from this roller coaster relationship should have warned American diplomats not to take Pakistan's support in the war in Afghanistan against al-Qaeda and the Taliban for granted. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Although very much an international novice, Canada secured election to the League Council in September 1927. It did not, on the whole, have a notable impact on its proceedings. Its people, too, were little moved by its presence at Geneva. And while its Prime minister enjoyed his one visit to the League, his scepticism about it remained undimmed. Nonetheless, its three-year Council term had a number of important consequences. It engineered what was on the face of it a significant amendment to League procedures regarding minorities. The experience and horizons of its Department of External affairs were widened. It became accepted that a Dominion—or India—should always sit on the Council. Its status—and that of the other Dominions—as states equal with Britain was underlined. And by demonstrating that it was not in Britain's pocket, Canada's political standing was greatly enhanced. Internationally, it had arrived. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses the administration of U.S. President Richard Milhous Nixon, focusing on European relations in 1973 under the leadership of Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Kissinger announced 1973 as the Year of Europe initiative, which backfired as European leaders saw the program as the U.S.'s way to garner additional international power at the expense of its European allies. Other topics considered include rising interest in the European Community, the impact of the Yom Kippur War on Western relations, and the role of French Foreign Minister Michel Jobert in spoiling American-European relations.

The 1961 Kuwait crisis stands as a key event in the evolution of American strategic thinking on the Persian Gulf. Following Iraqi threats to annex Kuwait, Britain despatched a sizable military force to the Emirate hoping to pre-empt an Iraqi invasion. When the Iraqi invasion failed to occur, Britain was forced to weather a political maelstrom as it struggled to withdraw its forces. Although the United States was largely an observer to the crisis, London's actions required Washington to acknowledge the limits of Britain to meet the political challenges of the Middle East and protect Western interests in the region. This realisation provided the impetus for Washington to diversify its strategy in the Persian Gulf and increasingly seek regional solutions for its security concerns. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Advisory Committee on Problems of Foreign Relations (ACPFR) of Franklin D. Roosevelt's State Department first met in late December 1939 and operated until early Summer 1940. Its previously overlooked deliberations, chaired by the dynamic Under-Secretary of State Sumner Welles, are important in three related areas. First, the ACPFR was an early marker of the Administration's later post-war planning, notably the Advisory Committee on Postwar Foreign Policy. Second, a remarkable swath of issues were discussed surrounding the ongoing conflict, prospects for its end, and the shape of the post-war world, particularly regarding Europe and the consequences of a German victory. The third area of ACPFR importance is in illuminating our understanding of the Roosevelt Administration's thinking on the conflict during the complex atmosphere of the Phoney War. The analysis concludes that although the fruits of Committee's effort would be indirect, they were nonetheless important in later post-war planning efforts that contemplated a breadth of options for the post-war world before American lives were put in harm's way. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

From 1931 to 1941, when China and Japan were at undeclared war, China's propaganda was fairly well-circulated in America through her American friends who played a leading role in shaping American opinions on the Far Eastern crisis. But the United States State Department maintained a neutral stance toward the Sino-Japanese conflict until after 1939 and considered the pro-Chinese opinion not so much a national consensus for policy consideration as a partisan view propped up by propaganda groups. Thus, the State Department guarded its Asian policy from the pressure of propaganda activities and partisan opinions on the Asian conflict, whilst utilising them occasionally as tools of diplomacy toward China and Japan. This article examines the State Department's attitude toward public opinion and propaganda on the Far Eastern conflict from 1931 to 1941 to illustrate how American officials handled partisan opinions on a foreign crisis when most of the information on foreign policy was privately initiated and circulated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From the late 1950s, American officials moved toward a proper appreciation of tensions in the Sino-Soviet alliance. However, prior to Autumn 1962 uncertainty remained in Washington over Beijing's willingness to break with the Kremlin in pursuit of its ideological objectives and national ambitions. This article demonstrates how the Sino-Indian border war in November 1962 and Beijing's response to the Cuban Missile Crisis shaped American understandings of the Sino-Soviet dispute and the China threat. Following developments in Autumn 1962 officials in the Kennedy Administration found cause to believe that China was not only the more militant of the two communist powers, but also that it was the more dangerous. This shift in threat perception had a significant impact on the US national security discourse, reinforcing the conviction of senior officials in Washington that the containment of China required a continued policy of non-engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ten days after announcing its candidature, and amidst some surprise, Canada was elected to a non-permanent seat on the Council of the League of Nations. This article will show how and why this came about. In so doing, it will demonstrate that Canada's election was an important episode from several perspectives. First, it was a milestone in Canada's gradual international coming of age, confirming that it was entitled to all the rights and responsibilities of League membership. Second, it was a significant step in the development of the Commonwealth into an association of equals. And, third, it contributed to the gelling of the emerging group system in elections to the League Council. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the diplomatic implications of United States troop movements in Germany before and after V-E Day. Existing accounts emphasize American good will and Soviet refusal to cooperate, pointing to the example of an American convoy en route to Berlin in June 1945. Citing an “agreement” of which the American convoy commander had never heard, the Russians would allow only one-half of his troops to proceed. The agreement did exist, however, and the episode must be seen against the backdrop of Soviet suspicions regarding Western willingness to withdraw from the Soviet occupation zone. United States President Harry S. Truman did overrule British Prime Minister Winston S. Churchill's calls to link withdrawal to concessions from the Soviets, but he waited two months before doing so. Prior accounts have ignored the delay's effects on Soviet perceptions. The article argues that American actions had the unintended consequence of reinforcing Soviet Chairman Joseph V. Stalin's belief in Western bad faith. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Upon entering office, Carter Administration officials placed a heavy emphasis on integrating human rights into United States foreign policy. They also sought to contain festering Arab-Israeli tensions in the Middle East. The intersection of these two issues was the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This article examines the Administration's attempts to solve that conflict and to bring peace to the region. It argues that policymakers developed a sincere dedication to safeguarding Palestinian rights, but that their understanding of those rights was limited in scope and defined through the lens of United States security and strategic interests. In spite of a good-faith effort to satisfy Palestinian desires while maintaining a constructive relationship with Israel, the Administration ultimately failed to alter the status quo because of regional developments. As Washington's strategic thinking changed, so did the urgency of Palestinian rights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]