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This article explores the Philippines’ evolving and changing grand strategies in confronting China’s maritime expansion in the South China Sea. From 2010 to 2016, under the Aquino administration, the Philippines challenged China’s extensive claim over the disputed waters by adopting a hard-balancing approach. In 2016, the succeeding Duterte administration pursued an appeasement policy; in 2018, it shifted to a limited hard balancing policy because of (a) continuing Chinese coercive actions against Armed Forces of the Philippines units in Philippines-occupied land features in the South China Sea and (b) China’s failure to deliver on its promised public investments in the country’s infrastructure building programme. President Ferdinand Marcos Jr initially adhered to his predecessor’s strategy of limited hard-balancing. Seeing no change in China’s stance on the maritime issue, he resorted to a hard-balancing policy. He has vigorously supported the steady modernisation of the Philippine military and strengthened the country’s defence ties with the United States and other like-minded security partners while maintaining cordial diplomatic and economic relations with China. This article argues that the Philippines’ evolving grand strategy has the following elements: (a) Admitting that China’s maritime expansion is the quintessential threat to Philippine national security; (b) pursuing a policy of maintaining the status quo in the West Philippine Sea/South China Sea; (c) acknowledging the urgency to shift the focus of the Philippine military from internal security to territorial defence; and (d) fostering its alliance with the United States and its security partnerships with other American allies and partners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Educational institutions have had the pending task of knowing what really happens in their classrooms, which professors make a real difference, which students would need help to improve their performance, and even more importantly, how to manage the enormous amount of information gathered each year. To address this problem, in this paper we propose the use of retrospective data from 210 undergraduate courses in Spain, which equals 1,320 European credits, 10,500 students, and four complete academic years (18/19, 19/20, 20/21, 21/22) to generate a monitoring tool or automatic dashboard with which to try to optimize the operation of such institutions and help them to make (even more) optimal decisions. To do this, all courses were grouped into ten typologies or categories: (1) if they were 'soft skills'/'hard skills' courses, (2) if they were taught in the 1st, 2nd, 3rd or 4th academic year, (3) if the professor was male or female, (4) whether the course was taught in English or not, (5) whether the professor was internal and permanent staff of the university or an associate professor with a temporary contractual relationship with the institution, (6) whether his/her main professional activity was teaching, therefore being more academic-oriented or this was rather a hobby and a complementary professional activity, therefore being more practical-oriented, (7) their age, (8) if several professors shared the course or only one taught it, (9) if it was a semester or annual course, (10) and if it was taught during the Covid-19 period or outside of it. Our results show that, despite the existence of numerous types of methodologies to achieve the desired student motivation, there would only be one category that would generate significant differences in the grades of the students: if they were ‘soft skills’/’hard skills’ courses. However, on the contrary, there would be much more types of courses (and professors) which would affect the preferences and valuation of the student to the teaching received (and effectively paid by him/her). That is, despite reaching the same academic results, students do value one type of professors better than others. Likewise, through this work it is intended to demonstrate the non-existence of the "false belief" that better evaluations received by professors are since they give higher grades to their students, regardless of its dispersion. In this way, it is intended to prevent possible atypical behaviors by professors. Thus, this paper gives light to (re)consider which variables should actually matter in educational institutions, analyzing its teaching-learning processes, management and even the retention of its key players.

Background: Victims of physical/sexual violence or sexual abuse commonly experience defense responses that result in feelings of guilt and shame. Although trauma-focused interventions are effective in treating post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms, the presence of trauma-related shame and guilt can potentially hinder the process of disclosure during treatment, thus diminishing their overall effectiveness. It is hypothesized that providing psychoeducation about common defense responses will reduce feelings of shame and guilt, thereby increasing receptivity to trauma-focused treatment. Objective: This paper describes the rationale, study design, and methods of the BLAME-LESS study. The effects of a brief online psychoeducation program will be compared with a waitinglist control group. The intervention aims to reduce feelings of trauma-related shame and guilt that adolescents experience regarding their own defense responses during and after physical/ sexual violence or sexual abuse. Methods: Adolescents (12 – 18 years old) with a history of physical/sexual violence or sexual abuse who suffer from trauma-related feelings of shame and guilt can participate in the study. The study follows a two-arm RCT that includes 34 participants. The primary outcomes includes trauma-related feelings of shame and guilt. The secondary outcomes includes PTSD symptoms, anxiety and depression symptoms, traumatic cognitions, readiness to disclose details of memories of the trauma, and motivation to engage in trauma-focused therapy. Assessments take place after screening, at baseline, two weeks after allocation to the intervention or waiting-list, and, only for the waiting-list participants, seven weeks after allocation to the intervention. Conclusions: There is a need for treatment approaches that target trauma-related feelings of shame and guilt. A recently developed brief online psychoeducation program on defense responses during and after trauma offers victims of physical/sexual violence or sexual abuse a free and accessible way to obtain reliable and valid information. The proposed RCT will evaluate the effectiveness of this online psychoeducation program. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why do national governments choose to transfer some of their administrative, political, and fiscal powers to regional authorities? This article develops and tests a nationally focused strategic account: decentralization is a targeted means to bolster a governing party's national-level electoral strength by appeasing the voters of threatening ethnoterritorial parties in national parliamentary elections. Statistical analyses of decentralization across the subnational regions of Western European countries confirm that governing parties transfer additional competencies to regions in which an ethnoterritorial party threat exists, when the government is legislatively vulnerable. In contrast, if a government is not dependent on a region for maintaining national parliamentary control, the presence of a strong ethnoterritorial opponent will not motivate the government to decentralize. These findings help to explain patterns of asymmetrical decentralization across regions within a country and why governing parties decentralize competencies to subnational governments that they do not expect to control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The significantly enduring traditional Kasena-Nankana Bayaase or Bayaaro institution is one of the profound cultural institutions that serve its communities' spiritual and mortal needs in diverse ways. A pall-bearer ritually fortified to execute indigenous morturary and burial practices. This ritual, per its very nature and function, may appear unenticing but is indispensable when it comes to preparing the dead for final travel, and the appeasement of Mother Earth. This institution has since not received deeper scholarly attention and is currently facing challenges resulting from enculturation, sheer neglect, and conflict with adherents of the Christian faith. While the expected harm to face when a deceased person's mortals and spirits are not properly and customarily interred has been the major discussion of some scholars, there is still the need to offer deeper traditional and cultural insights into this institution, considering the increasing erosion of most indigenous cultural institutions and with that, the unpalatable resultant effects. The paper scrutinises some of the key traditional practices, challenges, and services of the Bayaa institution through a Focus Group Discussion (FGD) of six seasoned Bayaase of high ranks within the Kasena-Nankana speaking areas of Navrongo. The study shows that the increasing Christian population and its 'strange' doctrines regarding traditional burial rites conflict with the age-long traditional practices of the Bayaase. The paper will show that from the dialogue with the Bayaase, it emerged that being subservient to traditional authority and incorporating elements of traditions that do not require traditional sacrifices are seen as one of the means for peaceful co-existence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Stockholm syndrome or traumatic bonding (Painter & Dutton, Patterns of emotional bonding in battered women: Traumatic bonding. International Journal of Women’s Studies, 8(4), 363–375, 1985) has been used in mainstream culture, legal, and some clinical settings to describe a hypothetical phenomenon of trauma survivors developing powerful emotional attachments to their abuser. It has frequently been used to explain the reported ‘positive bond’ between some kidnap victims and their captor's, although scarce empirical research has supported this assertion. It has been used in various situations where interpersonal violence and mind control are reported and where clear power differentials exist, such as in child sexual abuse, intimate partner violence, human trafficking, and hostage situation scenarios. Objective: We propose replacing Stockholm syndrome with ‘appeasement,’ a term that can be explained through a biopsychological model (i.e. Polyvagal Theory) to describe how survivors may appear emotionally connected with their perpetrators to effectively adapt to life-threatening situations by calming the perpetrator. Conclusion: We believe the term appeasement will demystify the reported survivor experiences and will, in the eyes of the public, victims, and survivors, provide a science-based explanation for their narratives of survival that may initially appear to be contradictory. By understanding the potent reflexive neurobiological survival mechanisms embedded in appeasement, individuals and families can operationalise their survival from a perspective that supports resilience, a healthy long-term recovery, and normalises their coping responses as survival techniques.

This letter to the editor aims to address claims made by Bailey et al. [2023. Appeasement: Replacing Stockholm syndrome as a definition of a survival strategy. European Journal of Psychotraumatology, 14(1), 2161038] about the history of the concept of appeasement in relation to mammalian survival responses as well as the fawn response, by offering a brief overview and analysis of the literature. Appeasement in political and foreign policy, social justice, ethology, psychology, and communication studies (multiple mammalian and avian species) feature elements of coregulation. The original conceptualisation of the fawn response may result in the misperception that it is unrelated to coregulation. Appeasement and coregulation can occur whether the vulnerable party initiating the appeasement is in a state that supports affiliative, distress, or shutdown behaviour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the development of the national questions arising in the Czechoslovakian state since its formation in November 1918: the Germans residing in the Sudeten region of Western Bohemia, the industrial region of Těšín/Zaolzie in Upper Silesia, claimed by Poland, and Subcarpathian Ruthenia/Transcarpathia, claimed by Hungary, and how they ultimately led to the First Czechoslovakian Republic's isolation, partition and destruction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Arts for Linguistic & Literary Studies is the property of Thamar University and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This letter to the editor aims to address claims made by Bailey et al. [2023. Appeasement: Replacing Stockholm syndrome as a definition of a survival strategy. European Journal of Psychotraumatology, 14(1), 2161038] about the history of the concept of appeasement in relation to mammalian survival responses as well as the fawn response, by offering a brief overview and analysis of the literature.

The use of an incomplete information game model to explore the strategic characteristics of the carrot and stick approach to coercive diplomacy shows that the dynamics of this manipulative bargaining tactic are much more nuanced than standard atheoretical accounts suggest. One unexpected finding is that when information is incomplete, there always exists a deterrence equilibrium under which no attempt is made to overturn the status quo. An all-out conflict or an unsuccessful fait accompli is also possible, but only when information about preferences is not common knowledge. Incomplete information, then, is a double-edged sword, sometimes enhancing the prospects for peace and at other times making conflict more likely. We use a special case of the Carrot and Stick Game model to shed theoretical light on the Munich crisis of 1938, a manufactured crisis if there ever was one. Hitler's last-minute about-face was motivated by his newfound belief that the British, French, and Czechs intended to resist his planned military invasion of the Sudetenland and his preference to avoid an all-out war. While his preference was unchanged in 1939, his beliefs were not; as our model suggests, the consequences were more than predictable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fanon's Vision of Embodied Racism for Psychoanalytic Theory and Practice is a self-exploration of appeasement as a body defense that moves beyond the binary into the subconscious and preconscious states, going further still into the fabric of American caste. Scholars like Fanon, Hardy, and Knoblauch boldly explored how hierarchal structures of race and racism live in our interstitium. In this way, we must all examine ourselves and how we have been complicit in systems of oppression, and are subjects of a white ideology. This self-examination begins with interrupting the patterns of appeasement and enactment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Ayer: Revista de Historia Contemporánea is the property of Asociacion de Historia Contemporanea and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article examines the impact of the Ukraine-Russia War on Philippine foreign policy. It observes that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine created the widespread idea that China might emulate its strategic partner on how to deal with an irredentist claim by using force against Taiwan. This alarmed the Duterte Administration at the time it was shifting policy towards China from appeasement to limited hard balancing. This policy aims to constrain China’s maritime expansion in the South China Sea by building up the Philippine military’s external defence capabilities, maintaining its alliance with the United States, and making security arrangements with other middle powers like South Korea, Japan, and Australia. The outbreak of the Ukraine-Russian War further pushed the Duterte administration to this policy of limited hard balancing towards China. This was shown by President Duterte’s decision to strengthen the country’s security relations with the U.S. In conclusion, the article notes that the current Marcos Administration has followed its predecessor’s footsteps in applying a policy of limited hard balancing policy towards the revisionist powers in the 20th century.

Despite a growing literature on niche parties, little is known about whether and how these parties are responsive to policy competition. Drawing upon data on regionalist parties' programmatic strategies across Western Europe from 1971 to 2009, I find that these niche parties are more ideologically flexible than previously posited when facing governmental policy appeasement. While they do not shift to a more extreme issue position following increases in a region's decentralization level, regionalist parties do broaden their issue agenda. Issue diversification, however, is limited to those parties whose goals are being met; dissatisfied secessionist parties do not expand their issue emphases after decentralization reforms short of independence. Supported by emerging evidence of similar agenda diversification among appeased green and radical right parties, these analyses further our understanding of niche parties as strategic actors and offer new explanations for variation in the effectiveness of mainstream party tactics towards them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The presumption of innocence, the prohibition against pretrial punishment, and the right to an impartial jury—constitutional bedrocks of the American criminal justice process—are potentially threatened by the practice of "perp walks." Justice officials, politicians, and the news media have cited public demand as one justification for this controversial practice. Yet, this justification lacks an empirical basis. Drawing from work on procedural fairness, the present study suggests compensatory justice as a framework for understanding why some American citizens might support perp walks. We extend research on public attitudes towards perp walks with data from an internet survey of 1000 U.S. adults. We find that perp walks are not supported by a majority of the public and that attitudes towards perp walks are influenced by perceptions of the pros and cons of perp walks as well as of the legitimacy of the justice system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Shortly after becoming the Philippines' 16th president in mid-2016, Rodrigo Roa Duterte had unraveled his predecessor's agenda of standing up to China's expansive claims in the South China Sea. He distanced his country from its long-time treaty ally and gravitated toward China which is resolute in reconfiguring the global commons in the Asia-Pacific region. He also set aside the 2016 UNCLOS decision on the South China Sea dispute favorable to the Philippines. His appeasement toward China contrasted sharply with the late President Benigno Aquino III's balancing strategy. President Duterte reoriented Philippine policy alarmed both the US and Japan. Consequently, Washington and Tokyo shored up their respective security ties with the Philippine military. The effort was aimed to prevent the Philippines from being pulled into China's orbit. Moreover, the US is the hub while Japan and the Philippines are spokes in the San Francisco System of alliances. This article concludes that the 1950 San Francisco Peace Conference not only established the series of US bilateral alliances in Asia, but also laid down the foundation of regional order and security which outlives the Cold War, and prevailed way beyond the second decade of the 21st century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Stockholm syndrome or traumatic bonding (Painter & Dutton, Patterns of emotional bonding in battered women: Traumatic bonding. International Journal of Women's Studies, 8(4), 363–375, 1985) has been used in mainstream culture, legal, and some clinical settings to describe a hypothetical phenomenon of trauma survivors developing powerful emotional attachments to their abuser. It has frequently been used to explain the reported 'positive bond' between some kidnap victims and their captor's, although scarce empirical research has supported this assertion. It has been used in various situations where interpersonal violence and mind control are reported and where clear power differentials exist, such as in child sexual abuse, intimate partner violence, human trafficking, and hostage situation scenarios. Objective: We propose replacing Stockholm syndrome with 'appeasement,' a term that can be explained through a biopsychological model (i.e. Polyvagal Theory) to describe how survivors may appear emotionally connected with their perpetrators to effectively adapt to life-threatening situations by calming the perpetrator. Conclusion: We believe the term appeasement will demystify the reported survivor experiences and will, in the eyes of the public, victims, and survivors, provide a science-based explanation for their narratives of survival that may initially appear to be contradictory. By understanding the potent reflexive neurobiological survival mechanisms embedded in appeasement, individuals and families can operationalise their survival from a perspective that supports resilience, a healthy long-term recovery, and normalises their coping responses as survival techniques. Changing and redefining how victims are viewed and portrayed in mainstream media. Appeasement emphasises the asymmetry and adaptive strategy used to regulate and calm the captor, thus minimising potential injury and abuse. Stockholm syndrome does not reflect the survivor's experience nor does it acknowledge the negative impact that the label has on the survivor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Agonistic behaviors are crucial and ubiquitous among animals for the competition of limited resources. Although the study of aggression has been a popular topic, plenty of studies focused on model organisms, and typically on crayfish and lobsters for crustaceans. Variations of the agonistic behaviors and the underpinning eliciting cues of other crustaceans therefore have not been fully explored. In the present study, we targeted Stenopus , a genus of shrimp-like crustaceans that displays prominent agonistic behaviors when encountering conspecifics of the same sex owing to their monogamous social structure. Using S. hispidus (Olivier, 1811) and S. cyanoscelis (Goy, 1984) as representatives, we characterized their agonistic behaviors and fighting pattern, conducted experiments to investigate the contribution of visual, olfactory and tactile cues to inducing aggression, and examined the effects of antennal and antennular ablation on their agonistic interactions. A total of seven agonistic behaviors were documented, where antennal entwining and tactile contact is the major driver and seemingly important cue, respectively, in inducing agonistic behaviors in Stenopus. Although ablation of antennae and antennules did not inhibit fighting, behavioral changes, such as the prolonged agonistic interactions and the delayed establishment of dominance were observed, suggesting a reduction of aggressiveness. A comparison of agonistic behaviors with other crustaceans showed that certain features appeared to be unique or distinct in Stenopus , including the potential functional overlap of antennae and antennules, a higher aggressiveness of the fighting behaviors, and the exhibition of crouching behavior by submissive individuals. The present study provides a crucial background understanding for subsequent research on Stenopus and paves the way for its establishment as another crustacean model for studying aggression. • Seven agonistic behaviors of Stenopus are systematically characterized. • Antennae and antennules are crucial in triggering their agonistic behaviors. • Ablation of antennae and antennules appeared to reduce their aggressiveness. • Tactile contact appeared to be essential in inducing their agonistic behaviors. • Stenopus stands out as another potential crustacean model for studying aggression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Problems of World History is the property of Institute of World History of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article situates the Philippines-U.S. alliance within the changing U.S. grand strategies from Barrack Obama's rebalancing to Asia to President Joe Biden's continuance of the Trump Administration's strategic competition with China. Upon President Obama's announcement of the rebalancing policy in 2011, the Philippines already figured prominently in the American security agenda in Asia, particularly with the intensification of the Philippines-China territorial dispute in the South China Sea. In 2016, President Rodrigo Duterte effected a major shift in Philippine foreign policy by distancing the country from the U.S. and gravitating toward China. The Trump Administration, however, saw the Philippines as a crucial ally in its geostrategic competition with China. Consequently, Washington adopted a policy of strategic patience to bring Duterte onside the U.S. rather than pushing him to China's embrace. This scheme stabilized the two countries' security relations and ensured the Philippines' commitment to the U.S. system of bilateral alliances. In conclusion, the article argues that given the Philippines' close security ties with the U.S. that often clash with China's strategic interests and close Philippines-China diplomatic/economic relations, it will be difficult and challenging for President Duterte to pursue an independent foreign policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Appeasement by giving lands is one of the ways of important appeasement in the Abbasid era in general and in the first or second era in particular, especially with the existence of many large lands which was obtained by the Abbasids whether from the lands of fugitives or the new cities they build. And even though these divisions were at the beginning a way to bring loyalists from the abbasid family,the leaders and the poets but ultimately led to considerable economic damage when the Abbasids caliphate lost control over the fate of things , the division were lost when the authority of the state was weakened.

This article looks at relations between Britain, the United States and Canada in the years leading up to the Second World War in order to ascertain the extent to which a North Atlantic Triangle can be said to have existed at the outbreak of war in September 1939. Drawing upon the author’s contention that an Anglo-American ‘tacit alliance’ was formed against Germany, Italy and Japan during President Franklin Roosevelt’s second term, it argues that the Canadian Prime Minister, William Lyon Mackenzie King, played an important part in this development by virtue of Canada’s position as the northern neighbour of the United States and the senior Dominion of the British Empire and that this ‘tacit alliance’ went hand in hand with a ‘North Atlantic Triangle’ between these three governments. The article first analyses the evolution of Mackenzie King’s relationships with Franklin Roosevelt and Neville Chamberlain in the 1930s. It then examines three key elements in the triangular relationship between Canada, the United States and Britain in 1938–9: the conclusion of an Anglo-American trade agreement in 1938; British appeasement policy and Roosevelt’s role during the Munich crisis of 1938; and the British Royal Visit to the United States in June 1939.

After five years of pursuing a policy of appeasement towards China, the Philippines is incrementally and reluctantly shifting to "limited hard balancing." The goal is to constrain China's revisionist agenda in the South China Sea. This strategy entails building up the Philippine military's territorial defence capabilities, maintaining its alliance with the U.S., and forging security partnerships with other middle power like South Korean, Japan, and Australia. During his six-year term, the late President Benigno Aquino III stood up to China's expansive claim in the South China Sea. When Rodrigo Roa Duterte assumed the presidency in June 2016, he unravelled his predecessor's balancing policy towards China. Nonetheless, recent developments such as the People's Liberation Army Navy's hostile moves against the Armed Forces of the Philippines units on Philippine-occupied islands in the South China Sea and the delays in the promised Chinese public investments in the country prompted the Duterte Administration to review the appeasement approach and to mull over on a limited hard balancing policy. In conclusion, this article contends that the Duterte Administration is at the crossroads, figuring out if it will continue its appeasement stance or adopt a limited hard balancing policy towards China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current state of the relations between Russia and the 'West' presents curious similarities with the '30s appeasement of Germany. These include the change in the international order, the (late) emergence of a system-challenger after an 'intermediary' period that followed the change, the conduct of the challenge and the reactions of the direct custodians of the system. Similarly in both cases, a cycle of escalation-empathyappeasement defines the interactions between the system and its challenger, creates a centrifugal effect among third actors and deteriorates the system. The similarity necessitates a theoretical effort to define the phenomenon as to its genesis, processes and its end from a systemic perspective, through the comparison of the two cases yet beyond a purely historical angle that has been almost the only one in dealing with the appeasement. In other words, this article engages in two theory-developing case studies centred on the German Reich and contemporary Russia to understand the theoretical value of appeasement as a specific mode of interactions in international politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The developments of the Spanish Civil War in 1936–1939, including its international aspects, have been thoroughly studied both in foreign and in Russian historiography. However, the introduction of new research approaches, in this case imagology, allows us to revisit even the well-established views. The paper examines the сreation and subsequent development of the image of Great Britain in the Soviet press in the context of the Spanish Civil War. The research draws on publications in the Soviet ‘Pravda’ and ‘Izvestiya’ newspapers, as well as in the ‘Ogoniok’, ‘Za rubezhom’ and ‘Agitator’s Sputnik’ magazines. The study reveales a rather ambiguous position of the Soviet press in relation to the British policy in Spain. Several topics played a key role in creating the image of the ‘Foggy Albion’ in the Soviet press. The leitmotif of publications of the Soviet journalists was the image of the empire in decline. In this regard, the Soviet press emphasized the acquiescence of the British government faced with aggressive actions from Francoists backed by Germany and Italy, as well as its inability to protect national interests of its own state. Parallel to this, the image of Great Britain as a split society was created. The Soviet journalists stressed that passivity of the government caused mounting criticism from both political left and right. At the same time, they praised the work of the civil society and volunteers in support of the republic. Finally, the Soviet media bashed London for its gradual drift from non-intervention towards appeasement and even direct inducement of aggressors. The author concludes that the image of Great Britain created in the Soviet press was intended to convince the Soviet public opinion in the fallacy of the British policy. In the face of an impending global war, London was portrayed as an unreliable ally, prone to concessions to aggressors.

This paper is an attempt to reassess the role of the Locarno Treaties (1925) in terms of the Versailles-Washington system of international relations evolution. The authors argue that the Locarno Treaties represent one of the turning points in the development of the international order after World War I. The Treaties were not a mere add-on to the Versailles system, in fact, they had replaced it and became the main legal instrument for maintaining security in the region. In order to test this hypothesis and provide a better understanding of how the contemporaries themselves assessed these agreements, the authors examine them within a broader context of debates on the European security issues, which took place in the 1920s.The views of the British elites on this matter are of particular interest here, since it was the British diplomacy that was at the origin of the Locarno Conference in 1925. The paper draws on a wide range of recently declassified archival documents, as well as on the materials of the debates in the House of Commons and publications in the leading British newspapers. It allows the authors to trace the evolution of approaches by the main British political parties to security issues in Europe. A systematic comparison of views of the Conservative and the Labour party representatives on the Geneva Protocol and the Rhineland Pact shows that by mid-1920s the British political elites advocated for an in-depth transformation of the Versailles order, particularly, through the development of an effective mechanism for maintaining international security. On that basis a broad political consensus had arisen, which led to the formation of a new two-party structure (Tory-Labour) after World War I.The study begins with an overview of the political situation in Europe and in Great Britain in the early 1920s. Then, it examines the Labour Party’s draft of the Disarmament Protocol, as well as the principal causes of its failure. Finally, the paper covers the preparatory process for and the progress of the Locarno negotiations. Special attention is paid to the debates in the House of Commons on the conference, particularly, on its outcome document - the Rhineland Pact.

During the interwar years, gendered inequalities in newspaper newsrooms and social prejudice against 'mobile' women combined to force women who wanted to work as foreign correspondents to seek alternative routes to raising their voices on international affairs. Women's reportage can be found in a range of platforms from the mainstream press to early journals of humanitarian communication and literary magazines. When women reported for major newspapers they were often precariously freelance and the gendered nature of their treatment by newspaper hierarchies emphasised their, and all women's, outsider status when it came to international politics. Women's international journalism, often rooted in the humanitarian tradition, concentrated on telling the lives of minor characters and ordinary people, and offers insights into individual human suffering at a time of great international anxiety. Their writing, often anonymous or in overlooked niche publications, represents a missing actor on public opinion at this critical time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since late 2016, the Philippine and U.S. military establishments have effectively circumvented the crisis in the two countries' alliance stemming from the Duterte Administration's appeasement policy toward China. This appeasement policy was designed to foster closer diplomatic and economic relations with China and to distance the Philippines from the United States and its allies (Japan and Australia) relative to the South China Sea dispute. Despite the refocusing of the alliance agenda from external defense and maritime security to counter-terrorism and HADR, the U.S. military succeeded in strengthening the pro-American elements in the Philippine government and the AFP and averted the crisis. This was evidenced by the resumption of warfighting scenarios in the 2019 Balikatan exercises, and Manila's outrage over the persistent Chinese aggression in the South China Sea. In February 2020, however, President Duterte unilaterally abrogated the 1999 Philippines-U.S. Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA). This move triggered another crisis in the alliance. Recently, the Philippines and the United States adopted the November 16, 2021 Joint Vision for a 21st Century United States-Philippines Partnership which reaffirmed their commitment to a security relationship between sovereign equals despite President Duterte's ambivalent attitude towards the alliance. Its urgent task is to ensure that the Philippine-U.S. alliance remains intact, and vibrant in the face of the changing nature of the 21st century Indo-Pacific region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the 1930s, the Quakers in the United States and Britain were energetic and vocal proponents of appeasing the Hitler regime, consistently misreading its intentions and goals. They always accepted appeasement's fundamental premises, contending that wars were caused by misunderstandings among nations that could be avoided by improving communication. They also insisted that many of Germany's grievances were understandable, even justified, in light of the "Carthaginian" peace the Allies had imposed at Versailles, as well as alleged Allied wartime "atrocities," notably Britain's naval blockade of German ports. The Quakers failed to grasp the extent or uniqueness of the Nazi persecution of the Jews. Quaker distaste for Jews' fierce hostility to Nazism was infused with Christian theological antisemitism. Quaker leaders often equated Jews' "chosen people" concept with the Nazi theory of an Aryan master race. They maintained that Jews' vindictiveness rendered them incapable of understanding Quaker efforts to promote reconciliation with the Nazis. In 1934, veteran Manchester Guardian correspondent Robert Dell, one of the most astute analysts of the Nazi movement, mocked "the tenderness of so many Quakers for the Nazi regime." According to Dell, they assumed "there is some good in everybody" and concluded "we must find out what is good in the Nazis rather than what is bad." Throughout the 1930s, Quakers remained wedded to moral suasion in their interactions with the Nazis, seeking to forge friendly ties with the Third Reich by sponsoring meetings between German and British war veterans and encouraging youth from the West to participate in Germany's Nazi-controlled youth hostel movement. The Quakers strongly opposed the boycott of Nazi Germany's goods and services, which Jews in both the United States and Britain heavily promoted -- arguably the most potent weapon available to Jews and their allies to raise public awareness of the Nazi threat and inflict damage on the German economy. Quaker leaders denounced the boycott to Jewish audiences as not only wrong-headed but immoral. They also opposed the Jewish-sponsored mass anti-Nazi rallies and demonstrations on the grounds that, like the boycott, they undermined efforts to promote reconciliation. Taking an "even-handed approach," the Quakers minimized the assaults on and relentless degradation of Jews in German concentration camps, drawing false parallels to the treatment of Nazi insurrectionists incarcerated in Austria and Memel. Like other Western appeasers, they found Hitler's 1935 annexation of the Saar acceptable, even though it quickly led to the obliteration of the region's centuries-old Jewish community. Even after the Kristallnacht in November 1938, the Quakers continued their efforts at moral suasion in meetings with leading Nazi officials in Germany. After the German conquest of Poland, the Quakers agreed to conduct relief work there under the supervision of the Nazi welfare organization NSV, which provided assistance only to "Aryans." Not long afterward, the NSV was engaged in stripping clothing and possessions from Jews murdered by German forces at Babi Yar for shipment to Germany. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article looks at relations between Britain, the United States and Canada in the years leading up to the Second World War in order to ascertain the extent to which a North Atlantic Triangle can be said to have existed at the outbreak of war in September 1939. Drawing upon the author's contention that an Anglo-American 'tacit alliance' was formed against Germany, Italy and Japan during President Franklin Roosevelt's second term, it argues that the Canadian Prime Minister, William Lyon Mackenzie King, played an important part in this development by virtue of Canada's position as the northern neighbour of the United States and the senior Dominion of the British Empire and that this 'tacit alliance' went hand in hand with a 'North Atlantic Triangle' between these three governments. The article first analyses the evolution of Mackenzie King's relationships with Franklin Roosevelt and Neville Chamberlain in the 1930s. It then examines three key elements in the triangular relationship between Canada, the United States and Britain in 1938-9: the conclusion of an Anglo-American trade agreement in 1938; British appeasement policy and Roosevelt's role during the Munich crisis of 1938; and the British Royal Visit to the United States in June 1939. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With Russian troops gathering at the Ukrainian border at the time of writing, Europe and the West are facing a real possibility of a full-scale continental war unprecedented for our generation. The purpose of this paper is to bring forth arguments that the security in the Black Sea area is of vital importance for both the present and future developments in the entire continent. Most recent studies on this topic focus on Russia's intentions in Ukraine and the weak responses coming from the West. Scholars are divided when it comes to Mr. Putin's ultimate goals. While some view the recent developments as a bluff, others are concerned that the troop movements might pave the way for a full invasion of Ukraine which will lead to a domino effect. This paper will focus on qualitative analysis. Mr. Putin's and Russia's intentions in the Black Sea will be analyzed from primary sources (such as Presidential speeches), while scholarly articles, research papers and policy documents will be used to build a bridge between history, politics and current affairs. The focus will be to establish the extent to which the recent developments in the area are a prelude to an 'old' Russian dream of access to the Mediterranean. A compare and contrast approach to appeasement will be used in order to make predictions on the possible outcomes. Our results will show that Mr. Putin is using the Black Sea security as a bargaining chip in his confrontation with the West with the ultimate goal of gaining dominance in the Mediterranean space. This paper will contribute to the recent literature on Eastern European security and how the West continues to misinterpret the dynamics and history of the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The attitude of France towards the Sino-Japanese War that started in 1937 has given rise to various judgments. Officially neutral, France is often presented as having taken, at least morally, a favorable attitude toward China. Yet the French government had officially prohibited the transit of war materiel en route to China across the Indochinese border. This issue became increasingly important as the Japanese blockade of China progressed and conditioned the capacity of Chiang Kai-shek's government to continue the fight. The diplomatic archives of the United States, greatly concerned by the situation in China, shed more light on France's policy in East Asia. By comparing historical accounts produced by contemporaries and historians with the diplomatic archives of the United States, this article intends to bring more evidence relating to the issue of French "neutrality" during the Sino-Japanese War. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is unfortunate to note again today that World War II did not end, it continues in the form of the war of memory. Politicians and scholars who stand as ideological successors of collaborators are trying to rewrite the history of those tragic days, to downplay the role of the Soviet Union in the victory over fascism. They try to revive certain political myths, which have been debunked long ago, that the Soviet Union and the Nazi Germany bear equal responsibility for the outbreak of World War II, that the Red Army did not liberate Eastern Europe but ‘occupied’ it. In order to combat these attempts it is necessary to examine once again a turbulent history of the inter-war period and, particularly, the reasons why all attempts to form a united antifascist front had failed in the 1930s, but eventually led to the formation of the anti-Hitler coalition.The paper focuses on a complex set of political considerations, including cooperation and confrontation, mutual suspicions and a fervent desire to find an ally in the face of growing international tensions, which all together determined the dynamics of relations within a strategic triangle of the Soviet Union — the United States — Great Britain in the late 1930s and early 1940s. The paper shows how all attempts to establish a collective security system during the prewar period had shattered faced with the policy of appeasement, which allowed the Nazi Germany to occupy much of Europe. Only the Soviet Union’s entry into the war changed the course of the conflict and made a decisive contribution to the victory over fascist aggressors. The author emphasizes that at such crucial moment of history I.V. Stalin, F.D. Roosevelt and W. Churchill raised to that challenge, demonstrating realism, common sense and willingness to cooperate. Although within the anti-Hitler coalition there was a number of pending issues, which triggered tensions between the Allies, their leaders managed to move beyond old grievances, ideological differences and short-term political interests, to realize that they have a common strategic goal in the struggle against Nazism. According to the author, this is the foundation for success of the anti-Hitler coalition and, at the same time, the key lesson for contemporary politicians. The very emergence of the anti-Hitler coalition represented a watershed in the history of the 20th century, which has determined a way forward for the whole humanity and laid the foundations for the world order for the next fifty years.

This article examines the shift in Philippine foreign policy under the Duterte Administration, and how this development unravels the volatility of Southeast Asia’s open, global, and liberal maritime order. His predecessor, President Benigno Aquino, challenged China’s expansive territorial claim in the South China Sea throughout his six-year term. However, President Rodrigo Duterte’s actions and pronouncements are undoing the former president’s geopolitical agenda of thwarting China’s expansive design in the disputed waters. He distances the Philippines from the U.S., its long-standing treaty ally, and gravitates toward China. This stance aims to earn China goodwill so that the Philippines can avail itself of Chinese economic largesse particularly the enormous aids and loans from the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Nevertheless, by appeasing an expansionist power, the Philippines becomes complicit in China’s long-term strategy of maritime expansion to ease the U.S. out of East Asia. In conclusion, the paper warns that the Duterte Administration might end up jeopardizing the country’s territorial rights in the South China Sea and losing the trust and confidence of its security partners. More significantly, its appeasement policy on China might eventually lead to the erosion of Southeast Asia’s global, open, and liberal maritime order.

H. G. Fiedler and L. A. Willoughby, the most important officers of the English Goethe Society during the years 1933 to 1945, pursued the goal of peace through stronger Anglo-German ties, which led Willoughby to gestures of support for the Nazi regime. His Jewish colleague William Rose criticized him for inviting poet and Nazi literary official Hans Friedrich Blunck to an EGS reading. Willoughby then channelled his appeasement efforts into his new periodical, German Life and Letters, before abandoning rapprochement in 1937–38. Though he gave a platform to Jewish émigré writers in PEGS before and after the war, and broke with the revanchist writer Hans Grimm, he supported Blunck's denazification and positively reviewed Blunck's untrustworthy memoirs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While most scholarship on appeasement focuses on its later stages in Europe – culminating in the Munich Agreement – policymakers and public intellectuals throughout the early and mid-1930s were exercised by appeasement in a different context. These prominent Britons, concerned by increasing international tensions and conscious of the resentments engendered by having a globe-spanning empire, sought to contrive some way to appease the revisionist powers without betraying their liberal internationalist principles or harming British national interests. At the center of these debates was Arnold J. Toynbee, director of studies at Chatham House. A devoted liberal internationalist, Toynbee was convinced that a durable peace could be built on appeasement in the context of 'the colonial question'. This version of appeasement claimed that German interests and honour could be satisfied by finding some way to return Germany to Africa as an imperial power. But the debates over 'the colonial question' revealed the extent to which British and German conceptions of the issue diverged. They also demonstrated the inability of liberal internationalists to reconcile their commitment to changing an unsatisfactory status quo with their commitment to preventing the forceful revision of that same status quo; 'peaceful change' was therefore elusive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the paradoxical finding that physical pain in certain social situations makes people smile. A number of models have been proposed to explain emotional behaviour, and we tested some important predictions they make regarding the mental antecedents and cognitive properties that could characterize such distress smiles, specifically ones that occur in informal and non-serious social situations. We assessed impulsivity and controllability of the smile, its accompanying emotions, dependence on effortful appraisal, communicative functions, and whether it is goal dependent or stimulus driven. To do this we made students receive and induce physical pain to each other on the upper arm, and varied the following conditions in which the pain was administered: social distance between participants, hierarchical relation between the participants, attentional load, and instructions to make no movements. We also assessed the presence of happiness and amusement (or mirth), and whether they were correlated with the distress smiles. We concluded that the distress induced smile, at least for males in informal social situations, is a goal dependent impulsive behaviour that communicates appeasement and non-hostility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]