New Perspectives on the Cold War

New Perspectives on the Cold War=

Political Science 8810 Spring 2006 = &nb= sp; = &nb= sp; = Robert Legvold (rhl1@columbia.edu)<= /b>

Office hours, Wednesday 4:15= -6:00

1226 = International Affai= rs Building=

Requ= irements: class participation and a 25-30 page paper that either (a) explores a major event or series of events shaping the direction of the Cold War and, using = the new materials, evaluates the contending interpretations of this event or th= ese events or (b) sheds light on a major area of controversy about some fundame= ntal aspect of the Cold War, including the theoretical assumptions underlying the controversy. For seminar credit, students are expected to write a 50= page paper that does both.

In terms of the major events= now worth re-examining, some would include:

1. The original Berlin crisis

2. The Korean War

3. The origins of the Sino-Soviet conflict

4. Soviet intervention in Hungary in 1956 and, indirectly, in Poland.

5. The Cuban missile crisis (although already over-worked= )

6. The Vietnam war =

7. Soviet interventionism in the T= hird World in the 1970s

8. Afghanistan

9. Poland and Solidarity

10. Many candidates from the Gorbachev era.

In terms of basic controvers= ies, some examples:

1. The Waltz proposition: (Did) similarly positioned stat= es (hegemons) behave similarly?

2. Essentialism versus interaction: Was the core of the p= roblem in the essence of one or the other superpowers or in their interaction?

3. Was the Cold War avoidable?= Who was to blame, if either?

4. Did ideology matter?

5. Did nuclear weapons keep the peace? =

6. Did the superpowers converge in their approach to nucl= ear weapons or did the Soviet Union believe = and continue to believe that it could "fight and win a nuclear war?" =

One = book has been ordered for the course: John Lewis Gaddis’ The Cold War: = A New History. It should be available at the Colum= bia University Bookstore. It is the basic background reading for the course.

I. Introduction (January 17)=

II. Overview (January 24)

    &= nbsp;

John Lewis Gaddis, The Cold War: A New Hist= ory, Prologue and Chapters 1, 2 and 3.

George Kennan’s “= ;Long Telegram” (1946) available on the Internet at: http://www.mthol= yoke.edu/acad/intrel/longtel.html

and NSC-68 (1950) available on the Internet at: http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/nsc-hst/nsc-68.ht= m

Mic= hael Mandelbaum, The = Ideas that Conquered the World: Peace, Democracy, and Free Markets in the Twenty-first Century, chapter 2.

Robert Jervis, “Was the Cold War a Security Dilemma?” J= ournal of Cold War Studies, Vol. 3, No. 1 (Winter 2001), pp. 36-60.

III. The Origins and Early Years of the Cold War

<= o:p>

T= he Views from Washington and Moscow (January 31)

Melvyn Leffler, A Preponderance of Power: National Security, the Truman Administration, and t= he Cold War, chapters 1-3.

Robert Jervis, "The End of the Cold War on the Cold War?" Diplomatic History, vol. 17, Fall 1993, pp. 651-60).

Vladislav Zubok and Constantine Pleshakov, Inside the Kremlin's Cold War: From Stalin to Khrushchev, chapters 1-3.

Vla= dimir O. Pechatnov, "The Big Three after World W= ar II," Working Paper No. 13, Cold War International History Project, 25 pp. http:= //www.wilsoncenter.org/topics/pubs/ACF17F.PDF

Geo= ffrey Roberts, “Litvinov’s Lost Peace, 1941-45,” Journal of Cold War Studies= , Vol. 4, No. 2 (Spring 2002), pp. 2= 3-54.

CIA= ’s Analysis of the Soviet Union, 1947-1991, “Origins of the CIA’s Analysis of the Soviet Union,” Doc= uments 1-5, on the Internet at: http://www.odci.gov/csi/books/princeton/index.ht= ml

Edu= ard Mark, "Revolution by Degrees: Stalin's National-Front Strategy for Europe, 1941-47," Cold War International Histo= ry Project, Woodrow Wilson, Center, Working Paper No. 31.   http://wwics.si.edu/topics/pubs/ACFB11.pdf<= /span>

The Korean War (February 7)

William Stueck, The Korean= War: An International History, chapter 1.

Tho= mas Christensen, Useful Adversaries: Grand Strategy, Domestic Mobilization, and Sino-Amer= ican Conflict, 1947-1958, chapter 5.

Shen Zhihua, “Sino-Soviet Relations and the Origins of the Korean War: Stalin’s Strategic Goals= in the Far East, Cold War Studies, <= span class=3DGramE>Spring 2000. Available under the e-journal links on Co= lumbia Library web page.

New Evidence on the Korean War--articles and documents in Cold War Internati= onal History Project Bulletin, issues 6-7, Winter 1995/1996, pp. 30-122.

IV.&= nbsp;         The Eisenhower Administration:

    &= nbsp; Eisenhower and Khrushchev: Allies, Adversaries, and Nuclear Weapon= s (February 14)

James McAllister, No Exit: America and the German Problem, chapters 1 and = 5.

Spencer Ma= wby, Containing Germany: Britain a= nd the Arming of the Federal Republic, Introduction and chapter = 3.5

    &= nbsp; Berlin and Nucle= ar Weapons (February 21)

Marc Trachtenberg, A Constructed Peace: The Making of the European Settlement, 1945-1963 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998), chapters 5-6.

Campbell<= /span> Craig, Destroying the Vi= llage: Eisenhower and Thermonuclear War (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998), pp. 41-120.

Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952-1954<= /u>, Vol. II, Part I, pp. 490-5= 97.

Eisenhower and Khrushchev and Their Allies (February 28)

        &= nbsp;   John Lewis Gaddis, The Cold War, Chapters 4 and 5.

            = ;            = E. Bruce Geelhoed and Anthony O. Edmonds, Eisenhower, Macmillan and Allied Unity, 1957-196= 1, Chapters 1-3, pp. 41, 61-69.

    &= nbsp;           &nbs= p;       Hope M. Harrison, Driving the Soviets Up the Wall: Soviet-East German Relations, 1953-1961, Chapters 2 and 3, pp. 9-138.

V. The Rise and F= all of Détente and Strategic Arms Control

Overview (March 7)

Paul Schroeder, "Did the Vienna Settlement Rest on a Balance of Power?" American Historical Review, vol. 97, June 1992, pp. 683-706.

Robert Jervis, "A Political Science Perspective on the Balance of Power and the Concert," Ibid., pp. 716-24.

Hen= ry Kissinger, Diplomacy, chapter 19.

Henry Kissinger, Years of Upheaval, chapter 22.

Ray= mond Garthoff, Détente and Confrontation (re= v. ed., Washington: Brookings Institution, 1994), chapters 3, 17-19, 28.

Deb= orah Larson, Anatomy of Mistrust: U.S.-Soviet Relations D= uring the Cold War, chapter 5.

Aleksandr Savely= ev and Nikolay N. Detinov, The Big Five: Arms Control Decision-Making i= n the Soviet Union (Westport: Pr= aeger, 1995), pp. 1-81.

Documents from Musgrove Conference of the Carter-Brezhnev Project.= Two Items: Portions from transcript of the Conference; Selected Documents. Request folder: SALT II and the Growth of Mistrust."

Afghan= istan (March 21)

Sarah Mendelson, Changing Course: Ideas, Politics, and the Soviet Withdrawal from Afghanistan, chapter 3 ("Escalati= on in Afghanistan, 1979-1980: A Case of Old Thinking").

Odd= Arne Westad, "The Road to Kabul= : Soviet Policy on Afg= hanistan, 1978-1979," in Westad, ed., The Fall of Detente: Soviet-American Relations during the Carter Years, chap= ter 5.

Ray= mond Garthoff, Détente and Confrontation, ch= apter 26, pp. 977-1075. Documents: "The Soviet Union and Afghanistan, 1978-1989," Cold War International History Project Bulletin, Is= sues 8-9 (Winter 1996/97), pp. 133-84.

Doc= uments: "The Soviet Union and Afghanistan, 1978-1989," Cold War International History Project Bulletin, Is= sues 8-9 (Winter 1996/97), pp. 133-84.

        =     Accounting for the Failure of Détente (March 28)

Odd Arne Westad, "The Fall of Détente and the Turning Tides of History," in= Westad, ed., The Fall of Détente, chapt= er 1.

Georgi Arbatov, The System= : An Insider's Life in Soviet Politics (New York: Times Books, 1992), pp. 190-254.

Doc= uments from the Carter-Brezhnev project: (folders on reserve in Lehman Library: "Failure of Detente" [Item 30 on "Libr<= /span> Reserves] and "Documents on the Failure of Detente [Item 21 on "Library Reserves]).

V. The End of the Cold War

Realism and its Alternatives (April 4)

    &= nbsp;       John Lewis Gaddis, The History of the Cold = War, Chapters 6 and 7 and Epilogue.

William C. Wohlforth and Step= hen G. Brooks, "Power, Globalization, and the End of the Cold War: Reevaluati= ng a Landmark Case for Ideas," International Security, vol. 25, no. 3 (Winter 2000-01),

pp. 5-53. (Link from Columbia computers: http://mitpress.mit.edu/journals/pdf/isec_25_03_= 5_0.pdf)

= 220;Ideas, International Relations, and the End of the Cold War,” Journal of = Cold War Studies, Vol. 7, No. 2 (Spring 2005), articles by: Nina Tannenwald, Robert English, Andrew Bennett, and Willi= am Wolforth.

Deborah Larson, Anatomy of Mistrust, chapters 6-7.=

Ric= hard Ned Lebow and Thomas Risse= -Kappen, eds., International Relations Theory and the End of the Cold War, chapters 1-2, 6, 8-9 (all but chapter 1 are also available in Internatio= nal Organization, vol. 48, Spring 1994).

<= span style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'>    Explaining the Gorbach= ev Foreign Policy Revolution (April 11)

Robert English, Russia and the Idea of the West, chapter 6

Ana= toly Dobrynin, In Confidence: Mos= cow's Ambassador to America'= s Six Cold War Presidents (New = York: Times Books, 1995.), pp. 544-639.

OR Mikhail S. Gorbachev, Memoirs (London: Transworld, 1996), pp. 401-551.

Cold War International History Project (CWIHP) Bulletin, Issues 12/13, pp. 5-29 and 49-52. Available on the Internet at: http://wwics.si.edu/index.cfm?topic_id=3D1409&am= p;fuseaction=3Dlibrary.Collection&class=3DNew%20Evidence%20on%20the%20E= nd%20of%20the%20Cold%20War

        =        Ending the Cold War and The German Questi= on (April 18) =

Don Oberdorfer, The Turn (New York: Poseidon Press, 1991), pp. 107-386. <= /p>

Tuomas Forsberg, “Economic Incentives, Ideas, and the End= of the Cold War: Gorbachev and German Unification,” Journal of Cold W= ar Studies, Vol. 7, No. 2 (Spring 2005), pp. 142-164.

Raymond Garthoff, The Great Transition: American-Soviet Relations and the End of the Cold War, chap= ters 12-16. <= o:p>

Mat= thew Evangelista, Taming the Bear, chapter 12.

Philip Zelikow and Condoleezza Rice, Germany United and Europe Transfor= med.

Tho= mas Kappen, "The Cold War's Endgame and German Unification (A Review Essay)," International Security, vol. 21, S= pring 1997, pp. 159-85.

VI. Conclusion (April 25)