Black Earth, Red Star: A History of Soviet Security Policy, 1917–1991 - Softcover

Nation, R. Craig

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0801480078 ISBN 13: 9780801480072

Publisher: Cornell University Press, 1993

Synopsis

R. Craig Nation provides the first post-Cold War history of the Soviets' seventy-five-year struggle to maintain an effective national security policy in a hostile world without altogether abandoning the commitment to their original internationalist ideals.

About this title

About the Author:

R. Craig Nation is Professor of Strategy and Director of Russian and Eurasian Studies at the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, PA.

From Publishers Weekly:

In many Westerners' eyes, the Soviet Union maintained an inflexible desire to dominate the world, a policy presumably conditioned by traumatic invasions, messianic Marxism and Russian xenophobic nationalism. Far from being immutable, counters Nation, an associate professor of international studies at Johns Hopkins, Soviet security policy moved through several distinct phases, from Lenin's revolutionary internationalism to accommodation, retrenchment and the competitive coexistence maintained by Brezhnev and his successors. In a highly readable study that challenges conventional thinking, Nation credits Stalin with a post-WW II desire to avoid war with the U.S. at any price. He limns Khrushchev as "a sincere advocate of peace" and argues that Gorbachev sought to transform Soviet-U.S. relations by recognizing global interdependence and by winning the West's sympathy for Soviet reform. America's victory in the cold war, Nation predicts, will be short-lived, as he believes a reformed confederation of former Soviet republics will become a major player in international affairs.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Cornell University Press
• Publication date: 1993
• ISBN 10: 0801480078
• ISBN 13: 9780801480072
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 360