The End of the Cold War on the Cold War?

Melvyn P. Leffler. A Preponderance of Power: National Security, the Truman Administration, and the Cold War .     

Wars as Dividing Lines? Rethinking the Significance of the Sino-Japanese War in Twentieth Century China

Historical periodization frequently takes wars as turning points—as ruptures that signify the end or beginning of an era. At the same time, front lines have often been taken as boundaries that contain the activities of one side or the other. Thus, discontinuity and disjuncture rather than continuity and fluidity have often been the points of emphasis among historians who have taken war events as turning points, or who have seen lines of combat as impermeable. A new focus on the Sino-Japanese War period has begun to reveal ways in which that moment served not as an interruption but as a part of longer term processes of change and development that characterized China’s mid-twentieth century. It also permits us to gain a deeper understanding of the fluidity of human movement and socio-economic interaction that frequently crossed both political and military boundaries and to think about similarities, linkages, and differences between various Chinese spaces. The aim of this paper is to consider ways in which the new generation of scholarship on the Sino-Japanese War period offers new ways of thinking about continuity, change, similarity and difference across both temporal and physical boundaries that have served as the parameters for much of the earlier scholarship on the period. To this end, the paper examines recent literature on the Sino-Japanese War period, as well as literature that crosses that period, to examine ways in which this historiography has challenged conventional periodizations and political and geographical delineations.     

Sousveilling the ‘Global War on Terror’

This article theorises what it means to challenge official regimes of surveillance in the War on Terror by further developing the notion of ‘sousveillance’. In particular, we focus on the performative dimension of surveillance by attending to its sites of struggle, particularly where alternative and counter-performances work to disrupt and dislodge official regimes of vision. These potent counter-performances have become important flashpoints for discussion in the ongoing negotiation of security state power since the onset of the War on Terror. The article begins by considering what it means to call surveillance ‘performative’ and how such official performances have had a documented chilling effect on free expression and democratic deliberation. It continues by exploring Steve Mann’s notion of ‘sousveillance’, or the view from below, as a theoretical resource for understanding counter-visual performances that otherwise challenge authoritarian surveillant practices. Finally, the article illustrates these dynamics through a number of sousveillant performances that have provoked new deliberative spaces in the context of the War on Terror.     

Imperial Outposts and the War Beyond: Singapore,Hong Kong and the British Empire’s Land Force Contribution to the Korean War

Histories of the British Empire’s strategic outposts in the Far East have traditionally focused on their traumatic loss to the Japanese adversary during the Second World War. Only in the past decade-and-a-half have historians begun to examine the post-Second World War importance of these outposts to the continued defence and security of Britain’s empire in the Far East. In taking this line of historical enquiry still further, the article examines how Singapore and Hong Kong were used to project British military power, specifically army deployments, across the Far East, and far beyond the imperial frontier, in support of Britain’s involvement in the 1950–53 Korean War and therefore in pursuit of the empire’s foreign and defence policy objectives. It adopts an essentially operational analysis to this end, relying on operational and army ‘ground-level’ sources from the records of the Colonial, Foreign, and War Offices at the British National Archives. It uncovers the hidden workings of the mechanisms of imperial military power projection through strategic outposts, which ranged from training to logistical support to the exercise of command and control, and how these mechanisms and outposts were utilised by the British Far Eastern land forces involved in the Korean War. In so doing, the article sheds much valuable and original light on the historical importance of these strategic outposts to imperial defence.     

Is the Philippine “War on Drugs” an Act of Genocide?

Since the newly elected Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte took office in June 2016, more than 7,000 deaths have been linked to his ongoing “war on drugs.” Despite international condemnation of extrajudicial and vigilante killings, the statistics show no sign of slowing down and the administration remains firm in eradicating people engaged in illegal drugs. This article inquires whether the Philippine “war on drugs” is an act of genocide using Gregory H. Stanton’s stages of genocide. Based on data drawn from news articles, policy issuances, government briefings, public speeches and available drug-related statistics, this article argues that Duterte’s rhetoric and policies satisfy the stages of classification, symbolization, dehumanization, organization, polarization, preparation, extermination and denial. The analysis in this article hopes to send a message to the international community, civil society and the Philippine government that the human rights situation related to the “war on drugs” in the Philippines needs to be addressed immediately. It also aims to demonstrate the utility of Stanton’s stages in identifying early warning signs of genocide.     

North Korea’s Response to US Army Propaganda Leaflets during the Korean War

This study examines a particular aspect of the history of North and South Korea’s bbira (propaganda leaflets), focusing on North Korea’s propaganda strategies in response to US propaganda during the Korean War, including perceptions of propaganda leaflets targeting North Koreans and counterstrategies used against them. The research herein analyses Munhakyesul, the leaflets during the Korean War, and the leaflets held by the DMZ Museum. The findings of this study reveal characteristics of and differences between the psychological tactics used by North Korea and the US during the Korean War, as exhibited through the use of these propaganda leaflets.     

New insights into Mao’s initial strategic consideration towards the Korean War intervention

The argument that the US army’s crossing of the 38th parallel compelled China’s intervention has been widely accepted in the West. However, as the US manoeuvre posed a major threat to the political and ideological foundations of the CCP regime in the early period of the Korean War, Mao Zedong wanted to send troops to assist North Korean’s quick victory. However, this was not realised because of Stalin’s negative position. Mao’s stance shows that his overriding criteria for intervention was not whether US forces would cross the 38th parallel, but whether their dispatch helped to solidify the CCP regime and if the preconditions for victory existed.     

Beyond the everyday? Rethinking place meanings in tourism

ABSTRACT

Existing tourism scholarship on place meanings seems to retain an underlying assumption of a contradiction between tourist places and the mundane world. In contrast, this paper contends that the production of the meanings of tourist places is also closely related to everyday life. To make its case, it interrogates the creation of meanings of two scenic sites of Tianya Haijiao and Nanshan in Sanya, a famous coastal destination in southern China. Although both scenic sites have been recently developed, their significance stems from historical and cultural meanings in traditional Chinese culture, which are frequently communicated in people's daily conversations and practices. Besides, the meanings of the tourist sites are neither fixed by legitimate discourses nor dominated by tourism publicity; they are continuously shaped by wider socio-spatial events in mundane societies and re-interpreted through tourism mobilities in accordance with tourists’ everyday concerns. This paper echoes the ‘new mobilities turn’ in tourism studies and contributes to the discussions of the mundaneness of tourist places.     

Will the ‘global war on terrorism’ be the new Cold War?

The Bush administration is trying to persuade itself and everyone else that the ‘global war on terrorism’ (GWoT) will, like the Cold War, be a ‘long war’ requiring sustained mobilization against an implacable foe. It has had some success in projecting this idea, and if it takes root the GWoT could indeed become a durable, dominant, unifying idea that would enable Washington to reassert and legitimize both its special claims as the sole superpower and US leadership of global security. The question is: how likely is this to happen? By looking at the surrounding events and contexts that could support or undermine the elevation of the GWoT to the status of the new Cold War, the author argues that it is not all that likely. Many factors could undermine it, not least that most of the strategies on off er corrode the liberal values that they are supposed to defend.     

Stuck in the past? British views on the Spanish army’s effectiveness and military culture, 1946–1983

After the Civil War the Spanish army functioned as a guardian of domestic order, but suffered from antiquated material and little financial means. These factors have been described as fundamental reasons for the army’s low potential wartime capability. This article draws on British and German sources to demonstrate how Spanish military culture prevented an augmented effectiveness and organisational change. Claiming that the army merely lacked funding and modern equipment, falls considerably short in grasping the complexities of military effectiveness and organisational cultures, and might prove fatal for current attempts to develop foreign armed forces in conflict or post-conflict zones.     

‘History Has Begun a New Chapter’: US Political-Opinion Journals and the Outbreak of the Korean War

In the pages of the United States’ leading political-opinion journals, different ideological camps had very different answers to the issues raised by the outbreak of war in Korea in the summer of 1950. Left liberals placed a great deal of blame for the outbreak of war on South Korean President Syngman Rhee, while conservatives and hawkish liberals used the occasion to lambast President Truman and Secretary of State Acheson. Hawkish liberals welcomed the possibility of a global showdown with Communism, while conservatives disapproved of US intervention in Korea for reasons both political and constitutional. In sum, the debate that dominated the pages of US opinion journals in the first weeks and months of the Korean War was both heated and robust, and exposes the ideological fault lines of the early cold war. To wit, hawkish liberals held positions that anticipated the birth of neoconservatism some two decades later. And conservative voices utilised their newfound platforms in The Freeman and The American Mercury to attack the Truman administration on a whole host of foreign-policy issues, revealing in greater detail than has previously been shown the role that international affairs played in the birth of the New American Right.     

Has the Cold War returned to East Asia?

The rise of a non-democratic China as the world ‘s second largest economy, still officially subscribing to Communism or ‘Socialism with Chinese characteristics’ as its ideology1^?1 In Xi Jinping's first speech as the new Chinese leader, after assuming his position as Party Secretary at the 18^th Party Congress in November 2012, he declared that, “we will ensure that our Party will remain at the core of leadership in advancing the cause of socialism with Chinese characteristics”. Xinhua report on 19 November 2012. http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2012cpc/2012-11/19/content_15939817.htm. By adopting the term “Socialism with Chinese Characteristics” – zhongguo tese de shehui zhuyi, the Chinese Communist Party has argued that it has not abandoned socialism by introducing foreign capital and the opening up the Chinese economy to market forces. See for example a report on Deng Xiaoping's remarks to visiting Japanese delegation in 1984, “Build Socialism with Chinese Characteristics” People's Daily, 30 June 1984. http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/dengxp/vol3/text/c1220.html., has raised the spectre of the return of the Cold War to Asia with the United States and China on opposing sides, with China backed by Russia, its former Cold War ally. But to what extent are there historical parallels between the Cold War and the current East Asian international relations system?