Editor's Note

IF 0.7 2区 历史学 Q1 HISTORY Journal of Cold War Studies Pub Date : 2023-02-23 DOI:10.1162/jcws_e_01138
E. De Angelis
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Abstract

The term “global Cold War” has become fashionable over the past two decades. Scholars who use the term, including many who submit manuscripts to the Journal of Cold War Studies, evidently believe that inserting the adjective “global” enhances our understanding of what the Cold War was. In reality, the simpler phrase “Cold War” is sufficient. During most of the time the Cold War lasted, it was a global phenomenon and was perceived as such. The notion that scholars in the 1970s and later decades focused exclusively on the United States and the Soviet Union and ignored the rest of the world is absurd. Both before and after 1989, scholarly analyses of the Cold War took ample account of the East-West conflict’s global scope. Hence, the addition of “global” in “global Cold War” is redundant, roughly equivalent to calling water “wet water” or fire “hot fire.” The Cold War began in Europe at the end of World War II with the division of the continent, especially the division of Germany, and it soon spread to Northeast Asia with the division of the Korean peninsula, the Communist victory in the Chinese civil war in 1949, the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950, and the deepening of territorial disputes between Japan and the Soviet Union. Cold War tensions also quickly spread into the Middle East, where the formation of Israel in 1948, the rise of Arab nationalist governments in Egypt, Syria, and other countries, and the huge importance of the region for global energy supplies became catalysts for East-West conflict. The impact of key events in the Middle East from the 1950s through the 1970s—the Suez crisis of 1956, the Iraqi revolution of 1958, and Arab-Israeli wars in 1967, 1970–1971, and 1973—was greatly exacerbated by the Cold War. The Islamic revolution in Iran in early 1979, the subsequent wave of Islamic radicalism throughout the region, and the decision by Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein to go to war against Iran in 1980—a war that lasted eight years and killed hundreds of thousands—complicated the situation and necessitated realignments, but the Middle East remained a prime arena of superpower competition for the duration of the Cold War. Elsewhere in the world, the spread of the Cold War was facilitated by the process of decolonization and the breakup of European colonial empires in South Asia, Southeast Asia, and Africa. Even though decolonization and the Cold War were separate phenomena, they greatly influenced each other at every stage. Decolonization created opportunities for the Soviet Union and other Communist states, especially the People’s Republic of China (PRC), Cuba, East Germany, and North Korea, to provide weapons, training, and financing to Communist guerrilla forces that were striving to end colonial rule and gain power. The United States, for its part, supported antiCommunist governments in former colonial areas as they waged counterinsurgency campaigns against Soviet-backed guerrillas. These developments, and the seizure of
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在过去的二十年里,“全球冷战”一词已经成为一种时尚。使用这个词的学者,包括许多向《冷战研究杂志》提交手稿的学者,显然认为插入形容词“全球”可以增强我们对冷战的理解。事实上,“冷战”这个简单的短语就足够了。在冷战持续的大部分时间里,这是一种全球性现象,并被视为全球性现象。认为20世纪70年代及以后几十年的学者只关注美国和苏联,而忽视世界其他地区的观点是荒谬的。1989年前后,对冷战的学术分析充分考虑了东西方冲突的全球范围。因此,在“全球冷战”中增加“全球”是多余的,大致相当于将水称为“湿水”或将火称为“热火”。冷战始于第二次世界大战结束时欧洲大陆的分裂,尤其是德国的分裂,并很快随着朝鲜半岛的分裂蔓延到东北亚,共产党在1949年中国内战中的胜利,1950年朝鲜战争的爆发,以及日苏领土争端的加深。冷战紧张局势也迅速蔓延到中东,1948年以色列的成立、埃及、叙利亚和其他国家阿拉伯民族主义政府的崛起,以及该地区对全球能源供应的巨大重要性,都成为东西方冲突的催化剂。从20世纪50年代到20世纪70年代的中东关键事件——1956年的苏伊士运河危机、1958年的伊拉克革命以及1967年、1970年至1971年和1973年的阿以战争——的影响因冷战而大大加剧。1979年初伊朗的伊斯兰革命,随后整个地区的伊斯兰激进主义浪潮,以及伊拉克领导人萨达姆·侯赛因在1980年决定对伊朗发动战争——这场战争持续了八年,造成数十万人死亡——使局势复杂化,需要重新调整,但在冷战期间,中东仍然是超级大国竞争的主要舞台。在世界其他地方,非殖民化进程和欧洲殖民帝国在南亚、东南亚和非洲的解体促进了冷战的蔓延。尽管非殖民化和冷战是不同的现象,但它们在每个阶段都相互影响很大。非殖民化为苏联和其他共产主义国家,特别是中华人民共和国、古巴、东德和朝鲜创造了机会,为努力结束殖民统治并获得权力的共产主义游击队提供武器、训练和资金。就美国而言,它支持前殖民地的反共政府对苏联支持的游击队进行反叛乱运动。这些事态发展,以及
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CiteScore
1.20
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0.00%
发文量
44
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