The Journal of Cold War Studies features peer-reviewed articles based on archival research in the former Communist world and in Western countries. Articles in the journal draw on declassified materials and new memoirs to illuminate and raise questions about numerous historical and theoretical concerns: theories of decision-making, deterrence, bureaucratic politics, institutional formation, bargaining, diplomacy, foreign policy conduct, and international relations.
Editor's Note
Journal of Cold War Studies, Vol. 21, No. 4: 1–3. https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/10.1162/jcws_e_00904?ai=s7&ui=s96v&af=Tamp;af=T
Articles
In the Service of World Revolution: Vietnamese Communists’ Radical Ambitions through the Three Indochina Wars Tuong Vu Journal of Cold War Studies, Vol. 21, No. 4: 4–30. The terms “decolonization” and “Cold War” refer to specific processes and periods in the international system, but they do not capture the full agency of local actors such as Vietnamese Communists. Based on recently available archival materials from Hanoi, this article maps those terms onto Vietnamese Communist thinking through four specific cases. The declassified materials underscore the North Vietnamese leaders’ deep commitment to a radical worldview and their occasional willingness to challenge Moscow and Beijing for leadership of world revolution. The article illuminates the connections (or lack thereof) between global, regional, and local politics and offers a more nuanced picture of how decolonization in Southeast Asia in the 1950s–1980s sparked not only a Cold War confrontation but also a regional war. https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/10.1162/jcws_a_00905?ai=s7&ui=s96v&af=Tamp;af=T
Leaving Afghanistan: Enduring Lessons from the Soviet Politburo Katya Drozdova and Joseph H. Felter Journal of Cold War Studies, Vol. 21, No. 4: 31–70. https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/10.1162/jcws_a_00906?ai=s7&ui=s96v&af=Tamp;af=T
Operation “Denver”: The East German Ministry of State Security and the KGB's AIDS Disinformation Campaign, 1985–1986 (Part 1) Douglas Selvage Journal of Cold War Studies, Vol. 21, No. 4: 71–123. There has been much debate in recent years about the role of the East German Ministry for State Security (Stasi) in the disinformation campaign launched in the early 1980s by the Soviet State Security Committee (KGB) regarding the origin and nature of acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS). The KGB's operation, codenamed “Denver” by the Stasi (not “Infektion,” as many online sources now erroneously assert), claimed that AIDS was deliberately devised by U.S. biological warfare specialists for the U.S. government to spread in minority communities in the United States. Based on the available evidence, the Stasi's role in the AIDS disinformation campaign was limited in 1985–1986 to (1) keeping watch over Soviet-East German scientist Jakob Segal, who propagated a variant of the KGB's thesis; (2) helping to arrange for the publication and distribution of a brochure with Segal's thesis at the Non-Aligned Movement summit in Harare in 1986; and (3) facilitating Segal's interviews with certain journalists. Just as important for the ongoing formulation and spread of the KGB's AIDS disinformation was a cycle of misinformation and disinformation that arose between U.S.-based conspiracy theorists—especially Lyndon LaRouche and his followers—and authors and publications espousing Moscow's preferred theses regarding AIDS. https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/10.1162/jcws_a_00907?ai=s7&ui=s96v&af=Tamp;af=T
Inspiration, Subversion, and Appropriation: The Effects of Radio Free Europe Music Broadcasting Filip Pospíšil Journal of Cold War Studies, Vol. 21, No. 4: 124–149. During the Cold War, young people in Eastern Europe were often seen as mere recipients and reproducers of Western popular culture. This article examines the role of musical programming in broadcasts by Radio Free Europe (RFE) to Czechoslovakia, focusing on the content, impact, and audience reactions. The article shows that the audience took an active part in the cultural exchange and helped shape the programming on RFE and other Western radio stations. Drawing on RFE's own records as well as archival collections in Prague, including former State Security files, plus memoirs and recollections of former RFE employees and their listeners, the article highlights RFE's impact over time in Soviet-bloc societies, as well as the shifts in thinking, cultural preferences, and behaviors of different strata or groups within these societies. https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/10.1162/jcws_a_00908?ai=s7&ui=s96v&af=Tamp;af=T
The Northern Front in the Technological Cold War: Finland and East-West Trade in the 1970s and 1980s Niklas Jensen-Eriksen Journal of Cold War Studies, Vol. 21, No. 4: 150–174. This article shows how the United States and the Soviet Union competed technologically in northern Europe during the final decades of the Cold War. The article highlights the U.S. government's ability to enlist neutral countries, and even vulnerable neutral states like Finland, into Western technology embargoes against the Soviet Union. Yet, the Finnish case also demonstrates that determined small countries and their companies were not simply helpless actors and could protect their political and commercial interests. Finland exported high-technology goods such as electronics and telecommunications equipment to the Soviet Union, even though Finland itself was dependent on technology flows from the United States. In fact, the Finns managed to get the best of both worlds: their country was an important player in East-West trade, but at the same time it was able to modernize its economy and strengthen trading links with the U.S.-led Western alliance. https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/10.1162/jcws_a_00909?ai=s7&ui=s96v&af=Tamp;af=T
At Home among Strangers: U.S. Artists, the Soviet Union, and the Myth of Rockwell Kent during the Cold War Kirill Chunikhin Journal of Cold War Studies, Vol. 21, No. 4: 175–207. After World War II, Soviet institutions organized many exhibitions of the American artist Rockwell Kent that bypassed the U.S. government. Promotion of Kent's work in the USSR was an exclusively Soviet enterprise. This article sheds new light on the Soviet approach to the representation of U.S. visual art during the Cold War. Drawing on U.S. and Russian archives, the article provides a comprehensive analysis of the political and aesthetic factors that resulted in Kent's immense popularity in the Soviet Union. Contextualizing the Soviet representation of Kent within relevant Cold War contexts, the article shows that his art occupied a specific symbolic position in Soviet culture. Soviet propaganda reconceptualized his biography and established the “Myth of Rockwell Kent”—a myth that helped to legitimate Soviet ideology and anti-American propaganda. https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/10.1162/jcws_a_00910?ai=s7&ui=s96v&af=Tamp;af=T
The United States and Neutral Countries in Europe, 1945–1991 Mikael Nilsson Journal of Cold War Studies, Vol. 21, No. 4: 208–230. The post-Cold War era has led to a proliferation of scholarship on U.S. policy toward four neutral European countries—Austria, Finland, Switzerland, and Sweden—during the Cold War. This article provides a survey of the latest literature on U.S. policy toward these four countries as well as general comments about the U.S. government's approach to European neutrality from 1945 to 1991. https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/10.1162/jcws_a_00912?ai=s7&ui=s96v&af=Tamp;af=T