1st Edition

The Cold War Is Overagain

By Allen Lynch Copyright 1992
    208 Pages
    by Routledge

    208 Pages
    by Routledge

    In this book, Allen Lynch challenges the common wisdom that the revolutionary events in Eastern Europe in 1989 and in the Soviet Union in 1991 marked the end of the cold war. Instead, he argues that the cold war was actually resolved by the early 1970s, as evidenced by the tacit acceptance of a divided Germany and Europe. More recent events thus overthrew not the cold war but the post-cold war order in East-West and U.S.-Soviet relations. And–often to their surprise and consternation–leaders of the governments involved must now face formidable new forces created by German unity and nationalism in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, which were contained efficiently–if at times brutally–by the post-cold war order. In its three sections, the book reviews historical, contemporary, and future-oriented themes, respectively. Lynch begins by exploring the deeper logic of the cold war and how it was resolved by the 1970s. He then presents an overview of recent Soviet domestic and foreign policy processes as they affect East-West relations. The concluding section considers the future, with special emphasis on the implications of a disintegrating USSR for U.S. foreign policy.

    Preface -- A Note on Usage -- Introduction -- The Legacy of the Past -- The Cold War Is Over … Again -- The Nuclear Family: The Management of the U.S.-Soviet Relationship -- Rhetoric and Reality: U.S. Policy Toward Eastern Europe, 1945–1989 -- The Dynamics of the Present -- The Agonies of Reform in Gorbachev’s USSR -- The Conceptual Revolution in Soviet Foreign Policy -- The Transformation of Soviet Foreign Policy -- The Continuing Importance of Ideology -- Challenges of the Future -- Soviet Collapse and U.S. Foreign Policy -- Prospects -- Documents

    Biography

    Allen Lynch was assistant director of the W. Averell Harriman Institute for Advanced Study of the Soviet Union, Columbia University, until May 1992, at which time he became associate professor of government and foreign affairs at the University of Virginia.