The Trouble with Peace: The Royal Army Medical Corps’ Cold War Recruitment Conundrums

This article examines the Royal Army Medical Corps’ (RAMC) recruitment problems throughout the Cold War (1945–1980s). It explores why the RAMC experienced difficulties in attracting new personnel, how the army tried to alleviate these shortages, and the impact of chronic understaffing on the quality of military health care for generations of soldiers and their families. It concludes by reflecting on the enduring dilemmas of recruiting professionals in peacetime.     

‘Playing the Game to the Army’: The Royal Army Medical Corps,Shell Shock and the Great War

Abstract

The utilization and role of female combatants in modern armies is a subject generally fraught with half-truths and misinformation. The mobilization of women in supporting roles during the Second World War is generally well understood, but the German use of women as combatants in the last years of the war raises important issues of women's place in the Nazi state and ideology as well as considerations of gender and military service.     

‘Never a Machine for Propaganda’? The Australian-American Fulbright Program and Australia's Cold War

Abstract

Some overlap in personnel between the Australian-American Fulbright board and those advising Menzies on anti-communist legislation and the 1951 referendum, including former Chief Justice J. G. Latham, raises questions about the politicisation of the Fulbright program over this period. A careful reconstruction of the Australian scheme's founding years reveals, however, that the program resisted becoming a simple instrument of Cold War foreign policy. This was thanks to careful groundwork laid by Evatt's Department of External Affairs, ensuring a measure of independence to the Australian board, and board member Latham's strategic defence of the program's educational goals when pressures were felt.     

‘The Danger is Two-Fold’: Decolonisation and Cold War in Anti-Communist Asia, 1955–7

This article examines the intersection between the Cold War and decolonisation in anti-Communist Asia in the 1950s. Drawing on the papers of former South Korean President Syngman Rhee housed at Yonsei University, the article explores both the motivations behind as well as the constraints upon South Korea's efforts to cultivate a military alliance in what it called ‘Free Asia’. Articulating some of the concrete political differences between South Korea and its potential partners in Asia, the article argues that Rhee's hardline views of the Cold War were interwoven with his ambivalence about Japan's reintegration in the post-war world. As a result of this intersection between the Cold War and decolonisation, the South Korean President was unable to achieve consensus with the rest of anti-Communist Asia. In exploring this chapter of South Korean diplomacy, the article calls on Cold War diplomatic history to integrate non-Communist Asia and for the historiography of decolonisation to investigate the legacies of Japan's empire in post-war Asia. It also suggests that scholars ought to reflect more deeply on the interrelationship between the Cold War and decolonisation.     

‘A great list of potential mistakes’: NATO,Africa, and British efforts to limit the Global Cold War

The scholarly consensus on why NATO adopted a ‘non-policy’ towards the non-North Atlantic world rests on the logic of the Cold War. But British diplomats and officials did not see NATO’s policy towards Africa through a Cold War lens. NATO’s ‘non-policy’ towards the world beyond the North Atlantic was not the product of an allied Cold War consensus among the allies. Instead, it was the result of a determined British effort to channel growing pressure for NATO action into a bureaucratic dead-end in an effort to keep the Cold War out of Africa.     

The Silences and Myths of a ‘Dirty War’: Coming to Terms with the Dutch–Indonesian Decolonisation War (1945–1949)1

This article sets out to explore the changing way in which the Dutch decolonisation war with Indonesia fought between 1945 and 1949 is remembered and memorialised in both countries. This is done with special attention to the issue of ‘war crimes’ committed on both sides in a context of asymmetrical warfare. The main argument is that the representation and commemoration of conflicts fought through unconventional warfare is problematic because of the lack of sites of memory, the incoherence of experiences and the problematic categorisation of victims and perpetrators. This inadequacy escapes notice as the content and public status of the remembrance, years later, are primarily determined by the current interests of the governments, not by the experiences of the military and civilians who were directly involved in the fighting.     

Ending Cold War fears: expectation and interpretation in Mass Observers’ responses to the Gulf War, 1990–1991

This article considers responses to the Mass Observation Project’s Gulf Crisis sub-directive. It argues firstly that observers’ responses show how a potential war within Iraq in 1990/1991 was framed by fear of global conflagration and suggests that these fears were rooted in memories of the later cold war. Secondly it argues that the Gulf War was interpreted as a rapid and successful conflict, which dispelled pre-war fears of global conflagration/nuclear war, and demonstrated that the UK could be involved in large-scale modern military conflicts without risking escalation and global catastrophe.     

‘Navigating sovereignty under a Cold War military industrial colonial complex: US military empire and Marshallese decolonization’

Abstract

As World War II unsettled the global balance of power ushering in a wave of decolonization, the postwar period also saw the expansion of US military imperialism into Micronesia. In this central Pacific region, a new colonial era began rooted in US strategic concerns and mandated under a 1947 United Nations Trusteeship Agreement. During the Cold War, the United States buttressed its nuclear arsenal by testing its deadliest weapons of mass destruction (nuclear and intercontinental ballistic missile) in the Marshall Islands, residing on the eastern edge of Micronesia. This weapons testing program would inform Marshallese struggles towards self-determination, ultimately shaping the contours of Marshallese sovereignty as the region achieved formal decolonization through a Compact of Free Association in 1986.     

Extending modern cartography to the ocean depths: military patronage,Cold War priorities,and the Heezen–Tharp mapping project, 1952–1959

The first comprehensive map of any ocean basin—covering the North Atlantic region—was created in the US in the 1950s. Compiled by Bruce C. Heezen and Marie Tharp, researchers at Columbia University's Lamont Geological Observatory, the Heezen–Tharp physiographic map of 1957 was significant in several respects. It defined the large-scale physiological provinces of the seafloor, and highlighted its major physical features (including the Rift Valley of mid-oceanic ridge, which Tharp discovered). Military funding for oceanographic research in the early Cold War made possible extensive sea voyages that provided these Columbia researchers sea-floor depth profiles and other critical information; military secrecy persuaded Heezen and Tharp to adopt the physiographic approach when national security restrictions made new bathymetric maps ‘born classified’. But overlooked until now is that the Heezen–Tharp map also deeply depended on extensive support from Bell Labs, then laboring to install the first transatlantic telephone lines. Heezen's hope that the map would support the theory of the expanding earth over the resurrected theory of continental drift did not succeed. But the 1957 North Atlantic Physiographic Chart did reaffirm that representations of the seafloor, mediated by new technologies, fundamentally reflected changing motivations for studying the oceans.     

‘Moving a little with the tide’: Malay monarchy and the development of modern malay nationalism

From the early twentieth century, the ideological hegemony of Malay monarchy has been challenged by emerging Malay nationalism. Despite the more radical manifestations, however, nationalism has rarely sought to overturn monarchy. Indeed, monarchy and nationalism have co-existed, sometimes uneasily, until the present. This co-existence has been facilitated by a number of factors, not least the linkages between the two: during the colonial period and beyond many prominent nationalists came from aristocratic, even royal backgrounds, while the Malay Rulers themselves were prepared to give their patronage to conservative forms of nationalism. Mutual interest in maintaining political and religious conservatism, nevertheless, has not prevented periodic disputes between princes and politicians as the two have competed for the loyalty of the Malay community. Despite such controversies, the continuing hold exercised by monarchy over Malays has placed a limit on the extent to which the Rulers have been supplanted by alternative representations of loyalty and identity. The ability of Malay monarchy to ‘move a little with the tide’, moreover, has assisted its weathering of the nationalist challenge during Malaya's transition from colonialism to independence.     

‘The Tent’s Big Enough for Everyone’: online slash fiction as a site for activism and change

This article draws on a piece of wide-scale mixed-methods research (n = 429) that examines how women who write and read male/male erotica feel their involvement with the genre has affected their views on gender and sexuality and their political engagement with gay rights issues. Previous work has looked at how online slashfic communities might provide a safe space for exploring gender performance and sexuality, while other researchers have observed a tension between those who identify as queer themselves and those who only ‘play at queerness’ exclusively within the online environment. However, much of this work has examined the theoretical positioning of such forums as transgressive and/or political. Far fewer pieces have attempted to engage with the women who frequent such sites to ask them about whether their involvement in these online spaces has affected their attitudes and behaviours. This study looks not only at the ways in which online m/m fandoms can act as a safe space for women to explore their sexualities and gender identities, but whether and how these insights connect to women’s real-world lives. Data presented here shows a strong consensus among participants that involvement with explicit slash communities has had a positive effect on their lives, as well as contributing to beneficial changes in their knowledge, attitudes, and practices with regards to LGBTQ+ issues. Overall, slash is seen as a medium which can create better allies, encourage cross-identification, and bring about positive personal changes. To this extent, I argue that explicit online slash sites can act as heterotopias.     

‘Our lives,our fortunes,and our sacred honors’: The Kansas Civil War and the revolutionary tradition

New England settlers used the history of the American Revolution in their struggle against the proslavery party in Kansas territory. As the settlement of Kansas became increasingly politicized over slavery, New England settlers drew on the history of their Puritan and Patriot ancestors to legitimize their actions. Although the New Englanders were a minority of the Kansas population, they nonetheless claimed a privileged understanding of the meaning of liberty in the United States. The free‐state political movement used these claims as an effective propaganda tool. The New England settlers, and the free‐state movement, claimed to be acting on the principles of the Revolution. At times, free‐staters argued that their struggle surpassed the Revolution in significance. Eventually, later Kansans concluded that the Kansas Civil War had been, not a revolution itself, but the prelude to a national Civil War of revolutionary significance in its spread of human liberty.     

Archives and Heritage in Singapore: The Development of ‘Reflections at Bukit Chandu’, a World War II Interpretive Centre

On 15 February 2002 a new World War II interpretive centre was opened in Singapore. A colonial bungalow was redeveloped by the National Archives of Singapore to commemorate the Malay Regiment and particularly the officers and soldiers who made a heroic stand against Japanese forces in one of the last battles before the fall of Singapore. This centre, Reflections at Bukit Chandu, has significance in terms of local heritage development, public memory of war, national education initiatives, and also in relation to the changing role of archives in Singapore. This paper serves as an exploration of this heritage site and uses this as a starting point for considering public history in Singapore and importantly a new direction for the National Archives of Singapore, as it played the key role in developing this site.     

‘Talking Itself Out of a Political Future’: Education and Australian Army Engagement with Papua New Guinean Independence, 1966–72

The Australian Army, while having a long association with Papua New Guinea after the Second World War and before independence in 1975, is often conceptualized as a small player in the decolonization process, of interest to scholars because of its cost and potential threat to democratic government. This article examines the Army’s education programme and associated policies in the decade before independence to argue that the institution was acutely aware of looming decolonization, and actively sought to create a national Papua New Guinean military by repurposing policies originally designed to serve Australia’s defence needs, in particular through ‘civic’ education. It embarked on this path without direction from the Department of Territories. While the results of ‘civic’ education are difficult to determine, this article shows that the Australian Army was engaged in the profound shifts occurring around it in Papua New Guinea.     

The ‘Populist’ Right Challenge to Neoliberalism: Social Policy between a Rock and a Hard Place

This article looks at the rise of right populist politics in both developed and developing countries, and its implications for social policy. The author locates the cause for the right populist surge in the legacies of neoliberalism, paying particular attention to the way neoliberal reforms have affected popular attitudes towards politics. The commodification of politics and social services has stoked mass cynicism towards reigning neoliberal elites, creating receptive audiences for populist slogans to ‘drain the swamp’ at the heart of governments. More controversially, the author argues that popular resentments toward neoliberal social policies based on the recognition of the rights of women, minorities, migrants and the poor have made communities susceptible to the racist and misogynist messages of the right populists. Through case studies looking at the United States, Brazil and the Philippines the author argues that the biggest impact of right populists on social policies can be found in their discourses and authoritarian practices of social exclusion.     

The Challenge to ‘Informal’ Empire: Argentina,Chile and British Policy-Makers in the Immediate Aftermath of the First World War

From the late nineteenth century, both Argentina and Chile were integral parts of Britain’s ‘informal’ empire in Latin America. It has been suggested by historians that this ‘informal empire’ came to an end around the mid-twentieth century. By analysing contemporary sources from within the British government and the findings of later economic historians, it is the purpose of this article to contest this viewpoint. It will instead argue that the end of ‘informal’ empire in these countries was a direct consequence of the First World War, and that the decline in British influence in the region was registered by British policy-makers much earlier than has previously been argued.