Despite evident US–Soviet disputes (and near nuclear conflicts), what played a key role in preventing a further exacerbation of tensions between the US and Soviet Union was the fact that both Moscow and Washington possessed a significant number of common interests in restraining the rise of potential political-economic challengers and military “threats” based on their alliance and initial collaboration during World War II.

Preventing the possibility of major power war between the US and Soviet Union had much more to do with the collaborative aspects “double containment ” 1 of potential rivals in the midst of rivalry at the end of World War II, than it did with the rise of so-called bipolarity and the threat of MAD . Yet what could result in major power war in the not-so-distant future—and what is largely responsible for Russian alienation from the US and Europeans—is that the major elements of overt legal, tacit, or inadvertent collaborative aspects of US–Soviet “double-containment” of potential political-economic rivals and threats have almost completely broken down in the post-Cold War era since German unification.

This chapter will examine more closely how the US–Soviet relationship dealt with essentially three centers of major power and influence whose political-economic and military power capabilities were held in check by joint US–Soviet power and influence during the Cold War: A divided Germany/Europe, China (which has thus far remained divided between the PRC and Taiwan), as well as with a truncated Japan, which “lost” the Kuril Islands/Northern territories to the Soviet Union at the end of World War II. It will likewise discuss the ongoing ramifications with respect to state sovereignty of designating the Germany, Italy, and Japan as “enemy states” in the UN Charter.

And finally, as it primary focus, after analyzing the complex US–Soviet rivalry in the wider Middle East (including Afghanistan ), in which the US sought, but failed, to sustain hegemony over the Israeli-Saudi-Iranian strategic triangle after the 1979 Iranian revolution, the chapter will examine why China shifted from the Soviet side to the US side in a forging a NATO-Japanese-Saudi-Chinese “encirclement” that threatened major power war in the period 1978–1985. Chapter 8 will then analyze the reasons for China to shift back toward Russia after 1986.

Elements of US–Soviet Collaboration

It is often argued that the ability of the two powers, the US and Soviet Union , to separately dominate the global system through a rough partition of the planet is what prevented the Cold War from becoming a “hot war.” It simplified terms, the basic argument was that bipolarity plus nuclear weaponry equaled peace between the major powers. 2 Yet what was more fundamental in preventing the Cold War from becoming a hot war was not so much US–Soviet “bipolar” controls over their respective spheres of security and influence and alliances in international system, nor was it the threat to destroy each other with atomic weaponry given the threat of mutual assured destruction (MAD) .

More important than the above two factors in sustaining a relative peace during the Cold War (in addition to sheer luck) were elements of overt, tacit, and inadvertent collaboration between Washington and Moscow with respect to a certain number of common concerns, interests, and threats. These common concerns were accompanied by a number of unilateral actions which tacitly or inadvertently served the respective interests of the two so-called superpowers. In this perspective, a potential nuclear war was prevented during the Cold War by the fact that the so-called superpowers engaged in both overt and tacit cooperation that permitted each side to contain, or at least restrain, the power capabilities of their potential rivals and perceived threats for as long as possible. One can also argue that a sense of mutual empathy between Kennedy and Khrushchev and between Reagan and Gorbacheve developed over time in that both sides feared the possibility of nuclear war due to misperception, miscalculation, accidents, and loss of command and control. But these feelings of mutual empathy would not survive the post-Cold War period.

The primary common US–Soviet interest—which Moscow generally held much more strongly than did Washington particularly in regard to Germany—was to prevent the rise of a potentially militant Germany and Japan as future “threats” in the aftermath of the horrors of World War II and World War I, among other conflicts. As the Russian population had suffered the brunt of these wars, Moscow was generally more sensitive than Washington during the Cold War toward Germany and Japan.

It was primarily Moscow which sought to prevent either Germany or Japan from ever again posing any form of future political-economic challenge or military “threat” that would seek to undermine Soviet allies or interests in some way or the other. This is largely because the US did not see either post-World War II Germany or Japan as immediate threats and felt confident that it could “contain” both West Germany and Japan in US-led alliances in the long term. Stalin, however, was not so confident.

Germany/Europe and the Collaborative US–Soviet “Double Containment”

The roots of collaborative “double containment ” stem from the US–Soviet alignment first against Nazi Germany and then against Imperial Japan during World War II. Here, Moscow did the brunt of the fighting in Eastern Europe , as the US was reluctant to move into Berlin and Prague. While Churchill had wanted the US to attack Germany through the Balkans and Eastern Europe, so as to check Moscow’s expansion into that region, Stalin had wanted the US to attack through France as early as 1941. The US did attack through Italy in 1943 and France in 1944. Once in Germany itself, General Eisenhower sought a clear line of demarcation so as to prevent US and Soviet forces from clashing over Czechoslovakia where there was no conclusive agreement at that time.

One of the reasons that the US did not drive a harder bargain with Moscow at Yalta over Soviet claims to Eastern Europe was that US still hoped (prior to the certain “success” of the A-bomb) that Moscow would enter the war against Japan. Washington only began to get tougher with Moscow at the Potsdam conference , just after the A-bomb was tested. At the July–August 1945 Potsdam conference, it was clear that both sides were in deep disaccord over Poland, Bulgaria , and Romania , as well as the Allied administration of Germany and Soviet expansion into Asia. The US refused a Soviet role in the reconstruction of fascist Italy . And the US would not recognize the Soviet occupation of the Baltic states, which the Soviets continued to claim. During both the Yalta and Potsdam conferences , Moscow had tried to revise the 1921 Treaty of Riga , which had ended the Polish-Soviet war and which had partitioned the disputed territories in Belarus and Ukraine between Poland and the Soviet Union. Moscow based its claims to the Baltic region, in part on the 1721 Treaty of Nystad with Sweden after the Great Northern War which had symbolized the rise of Russian regional hegemony over that of Sweden . 3

As the Cold War evolved, a more or less clearly demarcated division of Germany/Europe into US and Soviet spheres of security and influence became evident. The internationally recognized US–UK–French and Soviet partition of Germany in years after 1945 would consequently help to create a general stability, at least in Europe—the prime factor that had worked to prevent the Cold War from becoming a hot war. At this point, Moscow possessed a near-equal role in keeping one of its major historical rivals in Europe, Germany, “down.”

But the Soviet role would diminish step-by-step over time, particularly following the establishment of NATO in 1948 and German membership in NATO by 1955—as NATO would, in effect, back the German unification demands on Bonn ’s terms. The formation of NATO would then by followed by formation of the Warsaw Pact in 1955 in response to West German membership in NATO—thus closing a door to a possible diplomatic compromise over a proposed “neutral ” Germany at that time.

At the immediate end of World War II, both the US and Soviet Union were concerned with the possibility that Nazi revanchism was not completely eliminated. US–French–British and Soviet four-power rule accordingly gave the allies direct control over West Germany and Soviet Union direct control over East German affairs. Although these treaties did not provide Moscow with full control over the affairs of West Germany or West Berlin, Moscow nevertheless hoped to keep East Germany —and indirectly, West Germany and Europe—through Four-Power controls—as weak as possible.

Given the fact that the two sides possessed opposing geostrategic visions with respect to West Germany’s future as a political-economic actor, continuing US–Soviet rivalry led to the 1948–1949 Berlin Crises —just after Allied Control Council had broken down in March 1948, leading to the joint partition of Germany. The Soviet Union tried to block US, French, and British access to Berlin for 318 days after the three powers had unified their zones economically and had created a unified currency for West Germany. Moscow feared that an economically powerful West Germany could eventually become a militarily powerful country at a maximum or else begin to outclass East Germany economically at a minimum, thereby causing socio-political dissent and opposition movements inside East Germany. At the same time, the 1948 Berlin Crisis helped divert US attention toward Europe and away from support for Chiang Kai-chek who was losing out to Mao Ze Dong . Mao had been backed by Moscow, after Chinese forces sieged Changchun, Chongqing, and Chengdu in 1948–1949. Mao’s advances forced Chiang to flee to Taiwan, which had been previously controlled by Japan from the 1894–1895 Sino-Japanese war until the end of World War II. 4

Despite the Berlin blockade, the founder of the US containment policy, George Kennan , nevertheless believed that it was still possible to compromise with Moscow over Germany—largely in support of the views of German Social-Democratic leader Karl Schumacher against those of German Christian Democratic leader Konrad Adenhauer , who had opposed the option that Germany could be unified under a neutral basis. Kennan argued that despite, or because of, the probability of long-term confrontation and arms race —that the US should explore the prospects for a limited withdrawal of US, British, and Soviet forces from the heart of Germany. This would have led to the establishment of a disarmed and neutralized German state, with the country still “double contained” (in my terms) by means of a modified four-power control. 5

From Kennan’s viewpoint, a neutral yet unified Germany would have proved more stable and less threatening than West Germany within NATO—particularly as the latter continued to demand unification with East Germany on West German terms. Bonn also sustained its revisionist demands to Polish and Czech territory until 1990; Bonn also possessed unstated unofficial claims to Kaliningrad, which also exacerbated tensions with Moscow. And a major conventional and nuclear arms race could have been prevented.

Moscow did finally agree to the end of the Berlin blockade, but this did not prevent Berlin from becoming a hot issue during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis —as Moscow later threatened Washington with the use of force on both geostrategic focal points, Berlin and Cuba. Moscow was able to use both of these pressure points (deployments of nuclear missiles in Cuba, coupled with threats to Berlin) as strategic leverage intended to force the US to withdraw its nuclear weaponry from Turkey and Italy. In contemporary circumstances, Moscow has similarly been pressuring the US and NATO through its control over Kaliningrad and Crimea today. As to be argued, although the option was not implemented then, Kennan’s proposal to make a unified Germany “neutral” appears to possess relevance with respect to Ukraine today (see Chapters 9 and 10).

West Germany Enters NATO

In Europe, the formation of NATO in 1948–1949 as regional system of defense was seen by Moscow as a means to potentially circumvent the Soviet veto in the UN Security Council . 6 The complex UN–NATO interrelationship—in which NATO obtained its legitimacy from Article 51 of the UN Charter—would effectively permit the US and its allies to act outside of the UN framework in situations of collective defense. At the same time, the US and NATO needed to report to the UN Security Council once hostilities began. From the US perspective, NATO would provide defense against feared Soviet efforts to subvert or attack Western Europe.

Given the fact that the US did not want to pay for European defenses alone, Washington began to call for the re-militarization of West Germany in 1950 in effort to counter Soviet military pressures after the 1948–1949 Berlin crisis and at the time of the 1950–1953 Korean War. This led to a debate, initiated by France, as to whether the US and NATO—or a European Defense Community (EDC)—should oversee European defenses. Yet the debate over the appropriate defense role of West Germany in a new Europe resulted in checking the possibility of forging the French-proposed EDC —as it was not clear whether it would be possible to “contain” West Germany under an integrated all-European defense command structure. Ironically, it was the French Senate itself which vetoed French Prime Minister René Pleven plans for the EDC—in fear that the proposal would create a super-national force above the French national state, and that Germany might be given undue influence in that body. (In post-Cold War circumstances, the concept of the EDC has been proposed once again, but this time by France and Germany, following the UK’s decision to exit the European Union . In the past, the UK had generally opposed all-European defense proposals (see Chapter 10).

With the failure of proposals to establish an all-European defense force (which were generally supported by Washington), NATO assumed the primary role of “containing” the ambitions of Western Europe, while also “containing” Moscow. This meant that Germany would need to be integrated into NATO so that Bonn would not rearm. West Germany’s later membership in NATO in 1955 then represented a unilateral means by which the US/NATO had hoped to restrain West German military capabilities and prevent Bonn from pursuing irredentist claims —if not to develop nuclear weaponry.

Despite Soviet (and French) criticism of NATO, West German membership in NATO actually served the interests of both the Soviet Union and France. NATO membership for West Germany helped to reassure Moscow (and Paris) that West German power capabilities would remain “double contained” under a NATO defense umbrella—and prevent West Germany from acquiring a finger on the nuclear trigger. 7 Both Washington and Moscow hoped to prevent Bonn from pursuing its potential irredentist claims to former German territories then controlled by Poland, Czechoslovakia , and Russia (Kaliningrad/Königsberg ). Moreover, in order to prevent a new Anschluss, the US and Soviet Union , for example, had both checked the possibility of German unification with Austria through the Austrian State Treaty , signed by the US, Soviet Union, UK, and France, that established Austrian neutrality by July 1955.

By 1954–1955, Germany made a declaration in the Article of Accession to NATO that it would accept the broad obligations of the Article 2 of the UN Charter. The latter urged states to refrain “from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or the political independence of any state.” 8 This gave the UN Security Council —and hence Moscow—a collaborative role in the “double containment ” of West German sovereignty through the UN—even if West Germany became a member of NATO.

By 1956, as both sides began to consolidate their controls over Western and Eastern Europe respectively, Khrushchev began to implement a policy of US–Soviet “peaceful coexistence” and de-Stalinization —in which liberalization then opened the doors to the Hungarian insurrection . That insurrection was given only limited support by the CIA , which, in effect, misled the anti-Soviet opposition about the extent of US assistance. The Berlin question would then resurrect itself again in the period 1959–1961, but it would be “settled” by the building of the Berlin Wall . As the strong West German political-economy became a magnet attracting Germans from eastern Germany, the Berlin wall was able to stop the flow of refugees from the Soviet bloc to the more affluent West.

In 1961, even NATO nuclear strategy developed around the theme of collaborative elements of US–Soviet “double containment ” of West Germany and other European powers. This was indicated by NATO’s 1961 “Proposal to Prohibit Further Diffusion of Nuclear Weapons”: “We believe it would be in Soviet interests to have an agreement under which individual NATO nations would not acquire nuclear weapons which they could use independently. In other words, the USSR should prefer a controlled to uncontrolled spread of nuclear weapons.” 9 In effect, NATO only opposed the spread of nuclear weapons as long as it was not in control of those weapons—and assumed that that Moscow would acquiesce to NATO nuclear controls in an unstated collaborative role. But Moscow was not entirely in agreement: It depended on where NATO missiles were to be deployed.

NATO’s deployment of nuclear weapons in Italy and Turkey would subsequently lead to the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962—roughly a year after Moscow would begin building the Berlin Wall . Moscow would threaten both geostrategic focal points, Berlin and Cuba. Yet behind the scenes, neither country truly wanted either West Germany or China to adopt a French “Gaullist” strategy—and thus to develop an independent nuclear capability. Moreover, US and Soviet interests tacitly coincided when, Beijing tried to take advantage of the Cuban Missile Crisis to attack India, but the US and Soviet Union both backed India diplomatically at the time against China. This tacit US–Soviet cooperation took place—despite the almost simultaneous US–Soviet clash over Cuba and Berlin.

The UN-Backed “Double Containment”

The formation of the United Nations helped to sustain US–Soviet dialogue—much as Secretary of State George C. Marshall had replied to critics of the UN at the beginning of the Cold War . The fact that Germany, Italy, and Japan were (and still are by the UN Charter) considered “enemy states” 10 by international law (and that Germany was legally divided by the February 1945 US–French–UK–Soviet agreement Yalta accords until 1989–1990) helped to legitimize US–Soviet collaboration.

This US–UK–France–Soviet “double containment ” of Germany, Italy, Japan was thus formally enshrined in the UN Charter that had continued years after the fact to refer to the latter countries as “enemy states” (Articles 53, 77, and 107 of the UN Charter). These joint US–Soviet accords operated though the Allied Control Council (which had broken down in March 1948 leading to the joint partition of Germany), plus the 1947 Paris Peace Accords , which dealt with Italy and other Axis powers . Keeping Germany and Japan “down” as sovereign powers was also achieved in large part through the implementation of “pacifist” constitutions and through arms control measures, such as the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty , which only permits the permanent members of the UN Security Council to be considered as nuclear weapons states by international law . The “pacifist” constitutions of both Germany (since 1994) and Japan (since 2015) have, however, begun to evolve to permit both Germany and Japan to participate in UN and Allied military activities beyond self-defense—thereby raising Russian and Chinese concerns.

The status of the former German, Italian and Japanese Axis powers in the UN has continued to impact their ability to deal with Russia and China as sovereign states. This is because their legal designation as “enemy states” in the UN Charter presses these states to look back to the US for diplomatic supports as they are technically not sovereign states in the eyes of China and Russia. In particular, the “enemy state” status impacts Germany and Italy’s ability to negotiate with Russia over Ukraine . It also impacts Japan’s ability to negotiate with Russia over Kuril Islands, among other issues—including the ability of Japan to negotiate with China over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands .

To illustrate why the UN Charter has continued to impact Germany and Japan, Moscow has cited both UN Article 107, which justifies action taken by the Allied powers against the former World War II enemy states, and the 1945 Yalta Treaty , to justify its territorial claims to the disputed islands off Hokkaido seized by Soviet troops at the end of World War II. The UN General Assembly had expressed its intention to remove the enemy state clauses in 1995—but nothing since has been accomplished. 11 In effect, the US, UK, France, Russia, and now the People’s Republic of China, which only became a permanent member of the UN Security Council in the 1970s in replacing Taiwan, have continued to “double contain” the potential diplomatic and political ambitions of Japan as well as those of Germany and Italy in Europe as well.

Collaborate Aspects of Double Containment in Asia

The deeper roots of US conflict with both Japan and Russia before World War II and before the Cold War began in Asia and not in Europe. The US–Japanese conflict began when Commander Perry’s black ships threatened to burn the city of Edo in 1853 (after the devastating British Opium Wars with China)—if Japan did not begin to trade with the US—an ominous forewarning of the later firebombing of Tokyo and the dropping of the two atomic bombs .

The American “Open Door” policy toward China in 1900 then represented a political-economic threat to Imperial Japan and Tsarist Russia in addition to Imperial Germany , more so than to Great Britain and France , for hegemonic influence over a highly unstable China after its defeat by Japan in the 1894–1895 Sino-Japanese war. China had appeared to be rising in the late nineteenth century due to its 1861–1895 Self-Strengthening movement even after the Opium Wars with Great Britain at the beginning of Chinese century of “humiliation .” Yet China’s defeat by Tokyo in 1895 then led Japan to become the regional hegemonic challenger to the US in the Indo-Pacific .

By 1940, after its invasion of Manchuria , Japan began to formulate its co-prosperity sphere in opposition to the US while reaching a modus vivendi with the Soviet Union—but also seeking to align with the 1936 “Rome-Berlin axis” against the US. Give its inability to access the global market during the Great Depression , Japan opposed US efforts to place an embargo on its oil imports and other products. Tokyo furthermore feared that Hawaii would be used as a naval base once Japan seized Singapore and the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia ), which was then fourth-largest exporter of oil in the world, after the US, Persia , and Romania . 12

In response to both the Nazi German and Imperial Japanese threats, the US strengthened its rapprochement with Soviet Union through Lend Lease and despite Stalin’s purges and Soviet expropriation of industries, among other disputes, which included Soviet spying and support for American Communists inside the US (see Chapter 10). While aligning with Stalin against Nazi Germany, Washington delayed its entrance into the ongoing global war until December 1941 after the Japanese attacks at Pearl Harbor , in a strategy derived from Tokyo’s attack on Russia’s Port Arthur in the 1904–1905 Russo-Japanese war.

The US decision to rapidly drop two atomic bombs (which were still in the experimental phase) on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 (after the horrific napalm firebombing of Tokyo in March) represented a knight’s forked attack intended to defeat Japan and check Soviet advances. In addition to crushing Japan to prevent additional loss of American lives if an attack on the mainland proved necessary, and in the predetermined belief that diplomacy would fail, Truman wanted the A-Bomb to “contain” further Soviet advances in Asia into China and Korea and particularly toward Japan. In February 1945, at Yalta, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin had promised to break the Soviet–Japanese neutrality pact and to attack Japan three months after Germany’s surrender. The allies then forewarned of a potential joint attack against Japan in the July 26, 1945 Potsdam Declaration —in promising “prompt and utter destruction”—if the Japan did not surrender unconditionally.

As agreed by Roosevelt and Stalin, the US and Soviet Union had initially determined to engage in a joint conventional war against Japan. The US War Department had considered permitting the Soviet Union to occupy Hokkaido and even part of Honshu, Japan’s largest island. This option had meant that Moscow needed to illegally break its 1941 neutrality pact with Japan. Moscow then declared war on August 8–9, 1945 on Tokyo in accord with its “allied duty” based on the February 1945 Yalta and the July–August 1945 Potsdam accords. This largely unexpected shift from Soviet neutrality to Soviet attack shocked the Japanese leadership who had hoped that Moscow could broker a peace deal with the US. In fact, the Soviet attack on Manchuria and northern Korea, coupled with the seizure of the Kuril Islands, plus the expected Soviet invasion of the northern island of Hokkaido, may have impelled Japan to announce its surrender by August 10—more so than the US atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki . 13

Yet in large part due to the fact that the US had developed an atomic capacity, the Truman administration did not want to see Japan partitioned between the US and Soviets as had been the case for Nazi Germany. In addition to the fact that the costly A-bomb project had to be justified before Congress, the development of the A-bomb presented the opportunity for Washington to put an end the war as soon as possible, ostensibly with a minimum of US deaths, regardless of the previous deal at Potsdam between Washington and Moscow.

While Washington and Moscow kept a wary eye on one another in dividing Germany and Europe, what represented the first major act of the US containment of the Soviet Union was the fact that on August 18, 1945, President Truman bluntly opposed the Soviet demand to attack Hokkaido , as originally foreseen. Then, only two days before its planned August 24, 1945 landing on Hokkaido, Stalin opted to pull out of the operation. 14 This decision was most likely taken to sustain good relations with the US after the war. Moscow was probably not willing to engage in the high costs of occupation of Japan—while it concurrently wanted to develop a nuclear weapons capability in an effort to reach military-technological parity with the US.

Instead of seizing the island of Hokkaido as initially planned, Moscow seized the four “northern territories” or Kuril Islands: Kunashiri, Habomai, Shikotan, and Etorofu. In addition, Stalin was able to seize the Manchurian territories taken by Japan but claimed by China and then moved into North Korea in a collaborative “double containment ”—even though he could have taken the whole peninsula. Here, however, the Soviet Union played a lesser role in the collaborative “double containment” of the potential rise of Japan than it did in the case of a divided Germany. Nevertheless, Moscow sustained a military presence on the Kuril Islands intended to pressure Japan and counter the US–Japanese military alliance.

Given the US occupation of Japan, tight US–Japanese ties were countered by the 1950 Sino-Soviet alliance after Mao came to power in China in 1949 and refused US overtures. Beijing and Moscow joined forces due to the fact that Washington had given reluctant support to Mao’s rival, Chiang Kai-chek , who, once installed on Taiwan, continued to plot to take over the Chinese Mainland. At the same time, in 1949, the US also believed that Mao might prove to be like Yugoslav leader Marshall Tito, and like Tito, he would take a more neutral stance—and not align with Stalin.

In the process of occupation, Washington soon drew Tokyo into a tight military alliance in the 1951 US–Japan Mutual Security Treaty, revised in 1960, which possessed a NATO-like Article V security guarantee. 15 With the CIA funding the pro-American Liberal Democratic Party, 16 a tight US–Japanese alliance was intended to prevent Tokyo from turning against US interests in the future, while secondarily restraining Japan from potentially engaging in conflicts with its neighbors. A number of crucial issues impacting China, South and North Korea , as well as Russia, caused by Japanese imperialism, remained undiscussed and unresolved. Through its “pacifist” and anti-nuclear constitution, the US–Japanese alliance likewise checked Japan from potentially developing its own nuclear capabilities—and in that sense served Soviet interests in the collaborative “double containment .”

The Question of China

In addition to attempting to check the rise of Germany and Japan, both “superpowers” also hoped to restrain the rise of China, or at least keep it under their respective hegemony in the aftermath of Mao’s victory. It is true that both sides did attempt to bring the People’s Republic of China into a close political-economic and military allegiance during differing phases of the Cold War . But neither the US nor Soviet Union fully supported Beijing ’s demands to unify with Taiwan . Nor did either Washington or Moscow really want to see the rise of a militarily powerful China with nuclear weaponry.

For its part, Moscow had initially hoped to single-handedly “contain” China’s rise to power through the formation of the Sino-Soviet alliance in 1950. Stalin had forged an alliance with Mao despite (or because of) his suspicions that Mao would prove to be a neutral “Titoist” that might not back Soviet interests. For its part, Washington had hoped to “contain” China by aligning with Japan, and to check Beijing’s claims to unify with Taiwan by supporting Taipei militarily. In this sense, both Washington and Moscow were in tacit agreement that Chinese power should be restrained as much as possible.

By the late 1950s, Khrushchev realized that Moscow had made a major mistake in supporting China’s efforts to achieve nuclear power status. Moscow slowly began to shift away from close ties to China at the end of the Korean War in 1953, and more particularly in the period from 1958 to 1986 once China began to develop its own nuclear weaponry—initially with Soviet technical assistance.

Despite the 1950 Sino-Soviet alliance against Japan and allies of Japan, neither the Soviet Union, nor the US, truly wanted to risk the rise of a militarily powerful China—particularly after Beijing —which saw itself forced to intervene in the Korea War once US forces crossed the 38th parallel on September 25, 1950—played such a militant role in backing North Korea . At this time, Mao may have hoped that the Korean War would deflect the US from a defense of Taiwan while direct Chinese involvement on the ground would simultaneously diminish Soviet influence in North Korea . For Stalin’s part, it was hoped that the US focus on Korea would deflect US attention from possible Soviet intervention in Yugoslavia.

In its own acts of preclusive imperialism, Beijing had expanded into Hainan Island in 1950 to counterbalance France’s intervention in Vietnam . Beijing also sought to seize Tibet from India at the onset of the war in order to preclude US support for Tibetan independence . This action then destroyed the neutral buffer between the Soviet Union, China, and India that had been established by the 1907 Anglo-Russian entente . In addition, with Soviet assistance, China absorbed the East Turkestan Republic (established in 1944–1949), now Xinjiang province—in an effort to check pan-Turk, pan-Uighur , pan-Islamist movements in Xinjiang province—seen as backed by Washington. (The pan-Uighur pan-Islamist issue continues to afflict Chinese relations with the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, which is administrated by Han Chinese predominantly. 17 )

While Mao (and Stalin) wanted to continue the Korean War, the new Khrushchev leadership did not. By 1953, a divided Korea suited both Moscow and Washington, more so than it did Beijing . The latter stood to gain an ally against Japan and the US —if Korea had been unified under North Korean leadership. In this sense, a divided Korea effectively checked Chinese ambition which both Moscow and Washington hoped to “contain” at that time.

Stalin’s death led to an armistice that established the demilitarized zone between the two Koreas. 18 And in 1953, the US signed a mutual assistance pact with South Korea. As China also continued to threaten Taiwan , the US signed a bilateral pact with Taipei in 1954, which stated that Taiwan would not attack the Chinese mainland without consulting the US—in a tacit form of “double containment ” with respect to both Taiwan and China. By 1960, the US also forged a mutual defense pact with Japan, while concurrently deploying nuclear weaponry in South Korea. Combined with US trade pacts that opened US markets to its Asian allies, all these actions represented a US effort to single-handedly “contain” South Korea , Taiwan , and Japan against North Korea, the Soviet Union and China, but which tended to support Soviet interests in Asia against China, more so than Chinese interests. At the same time, although the US saw its containment policy as pushing the two Communist countries into direct confrontation, from Beijing ’s perspective, the two so-called “superpowers” were guilty of co-hegemony . 19

Khrushchev in Power

In 1956, Nikita Khrushchev’s doctrine of US–Soviet “peaceful coexistence” and policies of de-Stalinization were furthermore seen as undermining Chinese interests in confronting the US in Asia and in supporting Stalinist-type policies in China. Then in 1959, Khrushchev began to pull out Soviet aid and assistance for China’s nuclear program. Neither Washington nor Moscow wanted China to eventually obtain nuclear weapons as a step toward achieving major power status.

In the 1960s, the two Communist powers began to clash over borders due to Chinese irredentist claims to the nineteenth-century “unequal treaties” signed by Tsarist Russia and China . Even though Stalin returned to Beijing most of the Manchurian territories that had been seized by Japan during World War, Mao continued to claim territories taken by Tsarist Russia in Siberia and the Far East. In the period 1963–1964, US diplomat Averell Harriman advocated cooperation with Moscow to pressure China not to develop nuclear weaponry. Both Moscow and Washington feared that Germany and China would follow in French footsteps and develop an independent nuclear capability if the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) failed to restrain Beijing. After testing its first nuclear weapon in 1964, by 1969, Beijing and Moscow came close to nuclear war in a clash over Zhenbao Island after Chinese PLA forces raided a Soviet border post. 20

Given the Sino-Soviet border clashes, the period of 1953 after the Korean War to 1977—in which both the US and Soviet Union hoped to “contain” a rising China—would represent the height of the collaborative aspects of the US–Soviet “double containment .” But US–Soviet collaboration over China would begin to break down toward the end the Vietnam War. At that time, Henry Kissinger began to play the “China Card” by opening the door to China in 1971–1972. Kissinger acted in part to extricate the US from Vietnam and in part to play Beijing against Soviet global expansionism. 21

China and the Vietnam War

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, China’s position as a rising center of power can be seen in one major factor that is often obscured in discussions as to why the US lost the Vietnam War prior to Henry Kissinger’s rapprochement with Beijing. The fear that China’s threats to intervene militarily in Vietnam —much as it did in the Korean War in 1950—represented a major factor that prevented the US from prosecuting the Vietnam War to the fullest extent possible in North Vietnam . China’s threat to intervene in support of Hanoi accordingly prevented the US from deploying ground forces in North Vietnam . Instead, the US relied on heavy airpower and bombing so as not to provoke a Chinese military intervention as had taken place in Korea.

In seeking a deal with China so that the US could withdraw from the Vietnam War in such a way as to somehow “save face” despite the massive destruction of the country, the Nixon administration opened the doors to trade with an isolated China, while also placing Beijing on the UN Security Council, replacing Taipei. US diplomatic, economic, and technological support for China, despite its one-party Communist government, then began to undermine Soviet unilateral efforts to contain and restrain China.

And by 1978–1980, while the French had already recognized China in 1964, the US (and Japanese) decision to formally recognize China raised Soviet fears of a NATO-Japanese-Chinese “encirclement.” This is particularly true as Washington began to supply Beijing with dual-use technology with both civilian and military applications by 1980. 22 At that time, Tokyo also began to provide significant aid and assistance, starting in 1979, even if Tokyo did not sign an anti-hegemony clause against the Soviet Union once it agreed to Sino-Japanese diplomatic recognition. 23 The so-called China Card resulted in Soviet denunciation of “capitalist encirclement ”—as the Chinese Communist leadership was then depicted by Moscow as “capitalist” roaders.

US–China–Taiwan Relations

Sino-Soviet disputes opened the door to better US–Chinese relations in the 1970s, when the US permitted China, in the midst of the Vietnam War, to become a permanent member of the UN Security Council. This had reversed the US position when Washington had initially refused to recognize China in 1950 at the outset of the Korean War—a factor which helped to provoke both China and Russia—as Moscow had hoped to obtain an ally on the UN Security Council .

At this point, Henry Kissinger sought to “counter-balance” the Soviet–Chinese relationship while likewise “counter-balancing” the China–Taiwan relationship. In reaching out to China in the so-called China card, Washington took measures to defend Taiwan without formally recognizing Taiwanese “independence ”. This approach represented an “constructively ambiguous” policy (in Henry Kissinger’s phrase) that remains highly relevant today in the aftermath of the 1972 Shanghai Relations Act which established the “One China” policy , followed by the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act . 24

The 1972 Shanghai Relations Act is relevant to today because it stated that both sides “wish to reduce the danger of international military conflict”; that “neither should seek hegemony in the Asia–Pacific region and each is opposed to efforts by any other country or group of countries to establish such hegemony ”; and that “neither is prepared to negotiate on behalf of any third party or to enter into agreements or understandings with the other directed at other states.” The 1972 Shanghai Communiqué was accordingly intended to confirm a collaborative US -China “double containment ” and mutual, but “non-aggressive” power-sharing over Taiwan and the region. 25

Nevertheless, Washington did not accept Beijing ’s formulation of the China–Taiwan relationship in which Beijing firmly opposed “any activities which aim at the creation of ‘one China, one Taiwan,’ ‘one China, two governments,’ “two Chinas,” and “independent Taiwan” or advocates that “the status of Taiwan remains to be determined.” 26 In this view, China opposes Taiwanese independence ; but in its (unnecessary) quest for indivisible sovereignty, Beijing also appears to oppose a possible confederation of “one China, two governments.”

For the US part, as an example of what Henry Kissinger called “constructive ambiguity,” Washington declared: “The United States acknowledges that all Chinese on either side of the Taiwan Strait maintain there is but one China and that Taiwan is a part of China. The United States Government does not challenge that position. It reaffirms its interest in a peaceful settlement of the Taiwan question by the Chinese themselves. With this prospect in mind, it affirms the ultimate objective of the withdrawal of all U.S. forces and military installations from Taiwan. In the meantime, it will progressively reduce its forces and military installations on Taiwan as the tension in the area diminishes.” 27

With both US and Soviet backing at the time, Beijing was able to knock Taipei out of the UN Security Council in the early 1970s. Beijing was also able to push Taiwan out of the UN General Assembly. China’s rise to amphibious-core power status has moreover taken place despite (or because of) Beijing ’s efforts to isolate Taiwan. Beijing has been able to pressure many states not to grant Taipei diplomatic recognition, thus reducing trade ties between Taiwan and third countries.

On the one hand, the US has thus far sustained a policy of deliberate ambiguity as to whether it would fully recognize or defend Taiwan. On the other hand, the US has continued to provide sufficient political-economic and military backing for Taiwan so as to sufficiently counter-balance, Chinese military capabilities and pressures, as indicated in the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act .

In effect, the promises of both sides have not been implemented: China has not stopped threatening Taiwan with the use of force, while the US has not yet reduced its military-technological support for Taiwan. And while Washington’s ambiguous position toward Taiwan appeased China at that time, the Soviets did not appreciate closer US–China ties. And as to be discussed, there is a real danger that US support for Taiwan in contemporary circumstances could break the “constructive ambiguity” of the Shanghai Communiqué and “One China” policy (see Chapters 9 and 10).

US–China–Japan

At the beginning of the 1980s, the rise of China as a potential threat to US and Japanese interests appeared to be a long time away. While both Germany and Japan were locked into the NPT treaty, and thus were prevented from developing a nuclear weapons capability, China was not. And China was likewise not locked into other conventional arms control agreements.

In addition to seeking to “counter-balance” China–Taiwan relations, Washington likewise began to press Tokyo to enter in the coalition against Moscow. Tokyo would accordingly begin to augment its defense expenditure in the 1980s—so as to become an “unsinkable aircraft carrier” in the words of then Japanese Prime Minister, Yasuhiro Nakasone . Washington hoped that rising Japanese military power would be somehow able to check closer Russian-Chinese ties and that US support for a militarily strong Japan would somehow draw Beijing away from Moscow and into an accommodation with Washington and Tokyo.

On the one hand, such a strategy did not prove the case—as Beijing and Moscow began to make amends under Gorbachev . On the other hand, Tokyo’s new foreign and defense policy of the early 1980s hoped to show that Japan could become more politically and militarily independent and thus no longer “double contained” by the US—a Japan that could say eventually “no” to American power and influence.

The Breakdown of the Afghan Buffer

While Soviet support for anti-colonialist, anti-capitalist class, and ethno-nationalist, movements had appeared to make gains throughout the world until the late 1970s, following US withdrawal from Vietnam in 1975, the US began to turn the tables on Moscow, particularly from 1978 until 1989. This anti-Soviet approach started with a secret rapprochement with China, coupled with strong support for the Afghan resistance.

In the period 1978–1979, Beijing was being branded by Moscow as a “capitalist roader” given its formal diplomatic recognition by the US on January 1, 1979, while Saudi Arabia and Pakistan had been drafted into a US-led jihad against the Soviet empire . Moscow thus began to fear a NATO-Japanese-Chinese “encirclement” likewise linked to Saudi Arabia. The possibility that the Soviet Union could break out into a two-front war was real in the period 1978–1984, particularly after the US decision to deploy cruise and Pershing missiles in Europe to counter Soviet SS-20 deployments of intermediate range nuclear weapons, and during NATO Operation Able Archer exercises in 1983. The US began its own nuclear weapons buildup at the end of the Carter administration—a nuclear buildup that would be extended by the Reagan administration.

By 1979–1980, the US sought to undermine Soviet interests in Afghanistan by supporting the Afghan mujahidin and by working to make a Soviet military intervention more likely. The Soviet thrust into Afghanistan had, to a large extent, been provoked by the Carter administration itself. National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski had purposely augmented the chances that Moscow would intervene. Washington secretly provided arms to the Islamist Afghan mujahidin opposition in order to fight against the pro-Soviet Kabul government in July 1979, six months before the Soviet invasion. 28 Brzezinski also proposed looking the other way as Pakistan acquired nuclear weaponry. Having then egged on Moscow to invade Afghanistan , Washington began serious contingency planning for a global war involving NATO and China against the Soviet Union . 29

These events in Eurasia took place as Polish General Jaruzelski put the country under martial law in the period December 13, 1981 to July 22, 1983, but did not release many political prisoners until 1986, in an effort to repress the alt-state Solidarity movement. The latter was seen by Moscow, which threatened military intervention, as being backed by the US and Europeans in an effort to undermine the Warsaw Pact . By 1983, as US–Soviet tensions continued to mount, Soviet fears of NATO-Japanese-Chinese-Saudi “encirclement” almost resulted in nuclear war —when the NATO began to engage in Able Archer military exercises.

US policy in Afghanistan and Poland was, in part, intended as revenge for Soviet support for the North Vietnamese and for backing other revolutionary or “liberation” movements—for supporting a pro-Soviet coup in Ethiopia , for example. Washington also hoped to foster dissent within the Soviet Union (but it is not certain that Washington elites had truly expected the Soviet Union to implode and disaggregate, only pull its forces out of Eastern Europe). The Nixon-Kissinger rapprochement with China was consequently strengthened by National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski and the Carter administration in 1978–1979—despite strong opposition from Secretary of State Cyrus Vance . Washington formally recognized China in 1979, without mediating between Taiwan and China—so that the latter would renounce unification with Taipei by force. By 1980, the US was selling China military technology, angering Moscow and Taipei.

Despite the fact that Moscow was largely on the defensive, Washington attempted to justify its Afghan strategy based on the scenario that the Soviet thrust into Afghanistan represented a first step toward a possible takeover of the Arabo-Persian Gulf through Baluchistan when Iran was in the midst of its revolution. Even though such a hypothetical scenario appeared extremely far-fetched—why would Moscow struggle through Afghanistan to reach the Arab-Persian Gulf?—Washington began to seriously plan a global war strategy (involving NATO and China) against the Soviet Union. 30 Concurrently, to counter the deployments of SS-20 intermediate range nuclear weapons, in Europe and the Far East (capable of striking both Japan and China), the US began its own strategic and intermediate range nuclear weapons buildup at the end of the Carter administration—a nuclear buildup that would be extended by the Reagan administration.

The first step in such a war plan was to bog Moscow down in Afghanistan. With US backing, Pakistan reluctantly took the political lead in directing many of the Afghan mujahedin, while Saudi Arabia, as an “oasis” state, raised money. Without private funding—which included the funds from Osama Bin Laden’s Islamic Salvation Foundation , which at that time worked closely with the official Saudi General Intelligence Presidency (Istakhbarah)—the Afghan mujahideen might have been contained or destroyed by Moscow. The Saudi “NGO,” Islamic Salvation Foundation, initially raised more money than the CIA or Saudi intelligence. 31

By opening the door to significant private “NGO” financing, generally from the Arab Gulf countries, for the Afghan mujahideen, the US and Saudi Arabia also opened the door to private fundraising for other pan-Islamist causes—that would prove not to be under firm government control. These included Bin Laden ’s Al-Qaeda organization, among others. This indicates a negative aspect of NGOs —which can be manipulated for state and other nefarious purposes.

In addition to backing directly or indirectly differing Afghan factions, in order to co-opt Islamabad into supporting the war effort in Afghanistan , Washington began to look the other way as Pakistan would attempt to acquire nuclear weaponry in its rivalry with India over Kashmir , among other disputed areas. 32 In effect, Washington secretly encouraged Islamabad to develop nuclear weapons despite public efforts to place sanctions on the country in accord with its proclaimed nuclear non-proliferation policy. In a step toward a highly uneven polycentric global system, both India and Pakistan later tested nuclear weaponry almost simultaneously in 1998. And by the time of bin Laden’s assassination in 2011 by the Obama administration , Pakistan would begin to strengthen ties with both China and Russia, threatening to move away for the US as the latter cut assistance due to Pakistan’s refusal/inability to reduce alleged secret governmental supports for the actions of jihadi Islamicists in both India and Afghanistan .

The Question of Domestic Peace in Europe

Despite the fact that the US–UK–French–Soviet division of Germany represented the major factor of overt collaboration with Moscow that helped prevent major power war, not all was peaceful in Europe during the Cold War . In addition to engaging in “spy vs. spy” activities (most notably in obtaining US nuclear weapons secrets at the time of the Manhattan project ), the Soviet Union did provide secret assistance and supports to a number of organizations or political parties and ethno-nationalist movements inside the US and in West European countries that were formally allied with the US. In the US, the Reagan administration uncovered Soviet efforts to implant a nation-wide secret spy ring. In Europe, Moscow provided, for example, funding for the British Labor Party 33 and for Communist parties in France and other countries in Europe. Moscow also assisted the pro-Soviet Portuguese revolution in 1974–1975. Henry Kissinger had feared that if the Portuguese Communist Party seized control in Portugal, Lisbon could leave NATO. If so, the US would develop contingency plans to seize the strategic Azores islands to prevent Moscow from potentially possessing access to those islands. 34 In addition, the anti-state faction, the Italian Red Brigades , may have received funding from “Eastern bloc” countries including Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia , and Bulgaria , plus Libya , in addition to funds from kidnapping and bank robbing. 35

Policy of Rollback

For its part, the US gave secret, yet limited, support to anti-Soviet nationalist-oriented socio-political movements in Eastern Europe (Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968). Washington then intensified anti-Soviet activities in Poland in support of the Solidarity movement and throughout Eastern Europe, plus Afghanistan , in the late 1970s and early 1980s after the period of détente. In effect, in the period 1978–1985, the US began to forge an “encircling” alliance of NATO, Japan, and China, plus Pakistan and Saudi Arabia , among other states, against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. In addition, in accord with the Reagan policy of “rollback,” the US engaged in covert actions in which Washington supported proxy forces against pro-Soviet regimes in Asia, Africa, and Latin America . At this juncture, Moscow had difficulties in supporting their allies in Angola and Nicaragua , for example, while the Cubans represented a drain on Soviet funding. 36

The US also engaged in dangerous covert actions inside the Soviet Union itself. In June 1982, as part of an effort to destroy Soviet technological infrastructure, the CIA sabotaged the computer control systems that the Soviet Union had obtained to automate the operation of a new trans-Siberian gas pipeline . The US had opposed the pipeline which was financed by Great Britain and Germany due to the fact that it promised the Soviets the ability to earn hard currency. (The pipeline issue has returned to the contemporary scene, as the Trump administration has stated that it does not want Germany to become too dependent on Russian energy in its Nord Stream II project 37 (see Chapters 9 and 10).

The sabotage of computer technology by an implanted trojan horse in an early form of cyber-warfare purportedly caused a massive three kiloton explosion that US NORAD satellites, which were observing the Soviet Union at the time, indicated might have been a nuclear explosion. 38 It was not until 1983 that Moscow figured out what had happened: Such destructive sabotage represented yet another factor that could have resulted in a possible war at that time.

Able Archer Exercises

By 1983, coupled with covert US efforts to “roll back” pro-Soviet regimes throughout the world, Moscow’s fear of NATO-Japanese-Chinese (plus Pakistani and Saudi ) “encirclement” almost resulted in nuclear war —when NATO began to engage in Able Archer military exercises that appeared to test Soviet and Warsaw Pact defenses in the Arctic, Black Sea , and Baltic regions. Moscow responded by engaging in Operation Ryan which resulted in an unprecedented high level of alert in the period 1981–1983. 39

Soviet paranoia at the time was illustrated by its apparently accidental shooting down on September 1, 1983 of a Korean airliner—which was purportedly confused for a US spy plane. Later in September 1983, an apparent launch of US Minuteman intercontinental ballistic missiles was detected by the Soviet early-warning system but were fortunately identified as a false alarm.

Operation Able Archer in November 1983 had been preceded by the US PYSOP operation in 1981, which took place in the same year as major Soviet military exercises. In those psychological games, the US would send bombers straight into Soviet airspace and test Soviet maritime defenses in the Greenland-Iceland-UK (GIUK) Gap, in the Norwegian and Barents Sea , including near the Kola peninsula , as well as in the northwest Pacific near the Kamchatka Peninsula and Petropavlovsk, the only Soviet naval base with direct access to open seas. The US projection of naval and naval air power exposed large gaps in Soviet ocean surveillance and early warning systems . 40

The November 1983 Operation Able Archer exercises involved some 40,000 US and NATO troops. Able Archer envisioned an unlikely scenario in which Blue Forces (NATO) defended their European allies after Orange Forces (Warsaw Pact countries) sent troops into Yugoslavia, before invading Finland , Norway , and Greece . Yet in actual response to these exercises, Moscow fitted Warsaw Pact aircraft in East Germany and Poland with nuclear weapons. And to counter US deployments of Pershing and Cruise missiles, Moscow placed approximately 70 SS-20 missiles on heightened alert, while hiding nuclear-capable Soviet submarines deep beneath the Arctic Sea . 41

US–Soviet Nuclear Weapons Accords

Despite their nuclear and conventional force rivalries, which fortunately did not explode into open warfare, Washington and Moscow nevertheless engaged a series of US–Soviet nuclear weapons limitation accords (SALT I and SALT II , followed by START , among others). The latter represented another significant representation of the collaborative “double containment ” as both sides sought to minimize disputes and ameliorate relations in order to manage the potential for conflict where possible—while also seeking to sustain their superior nuclear weapons dyarchy over all other nuclear powers.

The issue raised here is that both sides resisted deep nuclear weapons cuts—because deep cuts could mean that the US and Soviet Union might lose their hegemony over other nuclear states and over a potential coalition of nuclear weapons states. In addition, both the US and Soviet Union have thus far opposed the possibility that the UK , France, and China, among other nuclear weapons powers, might also become involved in arms control and arms reduction negotiations . This position needs reassessment in contemporary circumstances given the rise of Chinese, Indian, Pakistani, as well as UK, French, and Israeli, nuclear capabilities (see Chapter 10).

In sum, it is true that the US and Soviet Union were in a global competition that sought to expand trade, markets and access to raw materials, by means of forging new alliances and geostrategic positioning, and that both sides sought to develop new and more advanced military technologies for purposes of both defense and sales abroad. Yet despite their ongoing rivalry and efforts to “out gun” the other in terms of building new nuclear and conventional arms where possible, and despite their fierce disputes over more secondary concerns in which the two states generally fought each other through surrogates, the two so-called superpowers sustained key elements of collaboration that were based initially on the defeat of Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy , and Imperial Japan after World War II.

In this perspective, the bicentric US–Soviet relationship during the Cold War —in which Moscow always saw itself as the less powerful actor that was attempting to catch up with Washington’s superior defense and economic capabilities—can be best characterized by a mix of disaccord and collaboration. The fact that the US and Soviet Union possessed a number of common interests helped prevent the real possibility of nuclear conflict. At the same time, that competitive mix of disaccord and collaboration has helped to generate a new, highly uneven polycentric global system once the Soviet Union collapsed.

In this new polycentric global system, in which Moscow plays a substantially reduced global hegemonic role as compared to the Cold War , most of the key elements of collaboration between Moscow and Washington over Germany/Europe have broken down from the Russian perspective, while, in the aftermath of Soviet collapse , Moscow has had virtually no say in the NATO and EU enlargement process, as to be argued in the next two chapters. Washington and Berlin are once again at loggerheads over energy infrastructure links to Moscow as during the Cold War . Moreover, the rise of China and strong US support for Taiwan has risked the breakdown of elements of US–Chinese collaboration over Taiwan as established by the Nixon-Kissinger administration. But once again, in very different and unstable circumstances.

Notes

  1. 1.

    On the analysis of “double containment ,” see Wolfram F. Hanrieder, Germany, America, Europe (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1989). I have redefined Hanrieder’s concept of “double containment” in which the US sought to contain both Russia and Germany—to include the collaborative Soviet role in keeping Germany “down” during the Cold War. In the post-Cold War period, however, the US–Soviet role has shifted from a “collaborative double containment ” to a “singlehanded US double-containment” in which the US has sought to contain Russia and channel the interests of a unified Germany/Europe through NATO enlargement—but now without any overt form of Russian collaboration in containing Germany or in permitting Russian participation in the NATO and European Union “double enlargement.”

  2. 2.

    Kenneth N. Waltz, Theory of International Relations (Waveland Press, 2010); Stephen Walt, The Origins of Alliances (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University, 1987); and John Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (New York, NY: W. W. Norton, 2001).

  3. 3.

    The Swedes were eventually forced to renounce their irredentist claims to Eastern Europe after a series of Russo-Swedish wars (1741–1743, 1788–1790 and 1808–1809), which indirectly permitted the rise of Prussia and Austria, and undermined the 1648 Westphalia accords.

  4. 4.

    In historical terms, the Mao vs. Chiang struggle can be compared and contrasted with the efforts to Zheng Chengogong (Koxinga) to take Formosa (then controlled by the Dutch) in 1661. The Kingdom of Tungning (Formosa/Taiwan) or Zheng dynasty sustained its independence from 1661 and 1683 until Qing Admiral Shi Lang defeated Zheng dynasty forces in 1683 at the Battle of Penghu, seizing Formosa. In contemporary circumstances, Taiwan (backed by the US) has thus far sustained its “independence” since 1949.

  5. 5.

    George F. Kennan , “Letter on Germany,” The New York Review of Books, December 3, 1998, accessed September 7, 2018, http://www.nybooks.com/articles/1998/12/03/a-letter-on-germany/.

  6. 6.

    Hall Gardner, “NATO and the UN: The Contemporary Relevance of the 1949 North Atlantic Treaty,” in A History of NATO: The First Fifty Years, vol. 1, ed. Gustave Schmidt (New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2001).

  7. 7.

    See Hall Gardner, Dangerous Crossroads: Europe, Russia, and the Future of NATO (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1997), l.

  8. 8.

    Hall Gardner, “NATO and the UN: The Contemporary Relevance of the 1949 North Atlantic Treaty,” op. cit.

  9. 9.

    Nigel Chamberlain and Ian Davis, Secret Document Reveals How NATO Became a Nuclear Alliance NATO Watch Briefing Paper No. 45, March 7, 2014, accessed September 7, 2018, http://www.natowatch.org/sites/default/files/briefing_paper_no.45_-_how_nato_became_a_nuclear_alliance.pdf.

  10. 10.

    The UN Charter still refers to Germany, Japan, and Italy as “enemy states”, despite the domestic transformation of these states toward anti-militarism during the Cold War, symbolizing the UN inability to reform itself. At the same time, the apparently inability of Japan to sign a peace treaty formally ending World War II with China, Russia, and other states in the region is indicative of ongoing tensions.

  11. 11.

    Hitoki Den, “U.N. Charter’s Anachronistic Enemy State Clauses,” Japan Times, January 19, 2017, http://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2017/01/19/commentary/japan-commentary/u-n-charters-anachronistic-enemy-state-clauses/#.WYif52QjGRw.

  12. 12.

    Daniel Yergin, The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power (New York, NY: Simon and Shuster, 1990).

  13. 13.

    Air Force General Claire Chennault, the founder of the American Volunteer Group (the famed “Flying Tigers”)—and Army Air Forces commander in China asserted: “Russia’s entry into the Japanese war was the decisive factor in speeding its end and would have been so even if no atomic bombs had been dropped.” Gar Alperovitz, The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb (New York, NY: Vintage Books, 1996).

  14. 14.

    “Translation of Message from Harry S. Truman to Joseph Stalin,” trans. Sergey Radchenko, Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars, August 19, 1945, accessed September 7, 2018, http://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/122333.

  15. 15.

    Japan, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, Japan–U.S. Security Treaty, accessed September 7, 2018, http://www.mofa.go.jp/region/n-america/us/q&a/ref/1.html.

  16. 16.

    Tim Weiner, “C.I.A. Spent Millions to Support Japanese Right in 50’s and 60’s,” New York Times, October 9, 1994, accessed September 9, 2018, http://www.nytimes.com/1994/10/09/world/cia-spent-millions-to-support-japanese-right-in-50-s-and-60-s.html.

  17. 17.

    “East Turkestan,” Unrepresented Nations & Peoples Organization (UNPO), December 16, 2015, accessed September 7, 2018, http://unpo.org/members/7872.

  18. 18.

    “If Stalin had not died in March 1953, it is highly possible the Armistice would not have been signed when it was, since Mao was also in no mood to compromise with the Americans during the Armistice talks.” Avram Agov, “North Korea’s Alliances and the Unfinished Korean War,” Journal of Korean Studies 18, no. 2 (Fall 2013), https://doi.org/10.1353/jks.2013.0020.

  19. 19.

    Here, I have revised the concept of collaborative “double containment ” as I had previously developed it in relationship to Taiwan, the Soviet Union and China, in Hall Gardner, Surviving the Millennium: American Global Strategy, the Collapse of the Soviet Empire and the Question of Peace (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1994), 73.

  20. 20.

    W. Averall Harriman, “Letter to President Kennedy” (January 23, 1963) National Security Archive, https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB38/document5.pdf. Robert Farley, “How the Soviet Union and China Almost Started World War III,” National Interest, February 9, 2016, accessed October 11, 2018, http://nationalinterest.org/feature/how-the-soviet-union-china-almost-started-world-war-iii-15152?page=2.

  21. 21.

    Henry Kissinger, The White House Years (London, UK: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1979).

  22. 22.

    On the one hand, Washington willingly sold Beijing dual-use high technology during the Cold War and after so as to try to obtain China’s markets for US firms and sustain a positive US–China relationship. On the other hand, China obtained a significant number of military-technological secrets from the US by clandestine means, in addition to developing their own high-tech capabilities. During the Cold War, the US was purportedly responsible for breaking up to 80% of all CoCom Multilateral Export Restrictions that were broken by the allies; many of those were US high tech sales to China. After the Cold War, the Clinton administration expanded dual use high technology sales to China, such as super computers, for simulated nuclear testing, but which could be used for many other purposes. In the game of spy vs. spy vs. spy, China, Russia, among other countries, are also engaged in major military-industrial espionage in the US and other countries. See John R. Schindler, “The Unpleasant Truth About Chinese Espionage,” The Observer, April 22, 2016, accessed September 23, 2018, https://observer.com/2016/04/the-unpleasant-truth-about-chinese-espionage/. For its part, China was purportedly able to kill or eliminate US CIA informants in China from 2010 to 2012. Mark Mazzetti et al., “Killing C.I.A. Informants, China Crippled U.S. Spying Operations,” New York Times, May 20, 2017, accessed September 23, 2018, https://web.archive.org/web/20170520215353/https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/20/world/asia/china-cia-spies-espionage.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur.

  23. 23.

    Official Development Assistance (ODA) to China began in 1979 and from that time to the present. Japan, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, Overview of Official Development Assistance (ODA) to China, February 1, 2016, accessed September 7, 2018, http://www.mofa.go.jp/policy/oda/region/e_asia/china/.

  24. 24.

    The 1979 Taiwan Relations Act makes “clear that the United States decision to establish diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China rests upon the expectation that the future of Taiwan will be determined by peaceful means; to consider any effort to determine the future of Taiwan by other than peaceful means, including by boycotts or embargoes, a threat to the peace and security of the Western Pacific area and of grave concern to the United States; to provide Taiwan with arms of a defensive character; and to maintain the capacity of the United States to resist any resort to force or other forms of coercion that would jeopardize the security, or the social or economic system, of the people on Taiwan.” Italic emphasis mine. “Taiwan Relations Act (Public Law 96-8, 22 U.S.C. 3301 Et Seq.),” American Institute in Taiwan, January 1, 1979, accessed September 7, 2018, http://www.ait.org.tw/en/taiwan-relations-act.html. What are “peaceful means” and which arms are merely “defensive” can, of course, interpreted very differently.

  25. 25.

    United States of America, Department of State, Office of the Historian, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969–1976, Volume XVII, China, 1969–1972, ed. Steven E. Phillips and Edward C. Keefer (2006), accessed September 7, 2018, Office of the Historian Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969–1976, Volume XVII, China, 1969–1972, https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1969-76v17/d203.

  26. 26.

    United States of America, Department of State, Office of the Historian, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969–1976, Volume XVII, op. cit.

  27. 27.

    United States of America, Department of State, Office of the Historian, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969–1976, Volume XVII, China, 1969–1972, op. cit.

  28. 28.

    Hall Gardner, American Global Strategy and the “ War on Terrorism” (Farnham, UK: Ashgate Publishing, 2007).

  29. 29.

    United States of America, Department of Defence, The Under Secretary of Defence, Memorandum for SECDEF—INFO, by R. W. Komer (College Park, MD: National Archives and Records Administration, 1980), October 10, 1980, accessed September 7, 2018, https://www.archives.gov/files/declassification/iscap/pdf/2010-073-doc1.pdf.

  30. 30.

    United States of America, Department of Defence, The Under Secretary of Defence, Memorandum for SECDEF—INFO, by R. W. Komer, op. cit.

  31. 31.

    Barnett R. Rubin, Afghanistan in the Post-Cold War Era (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2013). Bruce Riedel, “What Wave of Suicide Attacks Means for Riyadh’s Anti-terror Efforts,” Al-Monitor, July 5, 2016, accessed September 7, 2018, http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2016/07/saudi-arabia-suicide-attacks-funding-king-salman-isis.html#ixzz4DqeDBIZF.

  32. 32.

    Bruce Riedel, “What Wave of Suicide Attacks Means for Riyadh’s Anti-terror Efforts,” op. cit.

  33. 33.

    “Anatoly S. Chernyaev Diary – 1976,” National Security Archive, May 25, 2016, accessed September 7, 2018, http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB550-Chernyaev-Diary-1976-gives-close-up-view-of-Soviet-system/.

  34. 34.

    William Burr, “Document Friday: The US Military Had ‘a Contingency Plan to Take Over’ Portuguese Islands!?” Unredacted, November 19, 2010, accessed September 7, 2018, https://nsarchive.wordpress.com/2010/11/19/document-friday-the-us-military-had-a-contingincy-plan-to-take-over-portugal/.

  35. 35.

    “Red Brigades ,” Stanford, accessed September 23, 2018, http://web.stanford.edu/group/mappingmilitants/cgi-bin/groups/view/77.

  36. 36.

    Benjamin B. Fischer, “A Cold War Conundrum: The 1983 Soviet War Scare,” CIA Library, accessed September 23, 2018, https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/books-and-monographs/a-cold-war-conundrum/source.htm#HEADING1-06.

  37. 37.

    George Friedman, Xander Snyder, and Ekaterina Zolotova, “One Way Russia Can Retaliate Against US Sanctions,” Mauldin Economics, LLC (July 31, 2017), accessed September 23, 2018, https://geopoliticalfutures.com/one-way-russia-can-retaliate-us-sanctions/.

  38. 38.

    William Safire, “The Farewell Dossier,” New York Times, February 2, 2004, accessed September 7, 2018, http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/02/opinion/the-farewell-dossier.html?_r=0; see also, David E. Hoffman, “Reagan Approved Plan to Sabotage Soviets,” Washington Post, February 27, 2004, accessed October 10, 2018, https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2004/02/27/reagan-approved-plan-to-sabotage-soviets/a9184eff-47fd-402e-beb2-63970851e130/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.46a97b39eabc.

  39. 39.

    Benjamin B. Fischer, “United States of America, Central Intelligence Agency , Library, A Cold War Conundrum: The 1983 Soviet War Scare,” accessed September 7, 2018, https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/books-and-monographs/a-cold-war-conundrum/source.htm#HEADING1-13.

  40. 40.

    Benjamin B. Fischer, US, Central Intelligence Agency, Library, A Cold War Conundrum: The 1983 Soviet War Scare, op. cit.

  41. 41.

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