Thesis (M.A.) -- Central Connecticut State University, 2009. / Thesis advisor: Jay Bergman. "... in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in History." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 69). Also available via the World Wide Web.

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Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 1999. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 260-265). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 1999. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 260-265). Also available on the Internet.

This study explores the content, context and contradictions in the making of United States' policy for the Indian Ocean region during the decade of the 1970's. In approaching this undertaking, the study will focus on the strategic dimension to policy from both an historical and an analytic perspective. The work explores three major themes: first, that the need to reverse a perceived decline in U. S. power constituted a common ground for U. S. administrations' during the 1970's; secondly, that the approach to this objective found a critical geopolitical focus in the Middle East and Northern Indian Ocean region; and thirdly, that the modalities of regional engagement redefined, in turn, the nature of regional multipolarity . The principal dilemma to be explored for U. S. policy concems the reconciliation of the rising importance of the region to the United States with diminishing U. S. leverage, in an era of diffusion of power and emergent strategic bipolarity. In methodological terms, the research design adapts the controlled comparison case study model developed by Alexander George amongst others. In this context, the class of events under scrutiny is policy - broadly defined - for the Indian Ocean region under differing strategic concepts, with a focus on bureaucratic interaction, organizational process, and military posture. The parallel analysis of macroscopic processes in world economics, inter-state relations and the central balance provides a conjunctural setting for a structured, focused, comparison of source material drawn from Congressional Hearings, policy documentation, reports, interviews and internal departmental and intelligence memoranda. For the source material itself, the research programme has accessed much material recently declassified under FOI legislation and on record in the National Archives, the National Security Archives and the Nixon Presidential library. The ordering of the work is as follows: for the six major chapters, chapter one locates the origins of United States' strategic interest in the Indian Ocean within a critical account of U. S. relations with the existing British power. Chapter's two and three commence the main historical part of the work in considering the Indian Ocean policy of the Nixon administration, in terms of the local application of the 'Nixon Doctrine'. Here, the objectives and restraints for U. S. policy are assessed with reference to two major themes of this study, great power strategic parity and regional multipolarity. These themes are referenced to signal historical developments in the region - the withdrawal of British forces, the changes in the world oil market and the 1971 India-Pakistan and 1973 Middle East wars. The emerging strategic focus on the Indian Ocean for the Ford administration is taken up in chapter four within the parallel perspectives of U. S. military posture and the evolving distribution of power in the region itself. This context leads into the Indian Ocean policies of the Carter administration. Chapter five provides an overview of the U. S. -Soviet naval arms limitation talks (NALT) of 1977-8, while chapter six undertakes a three part exposition of the 'Carter Doctrine'. In this, the emergence of the South West Asia/Indian Ocean region as the focus of great power competition is located within analysis of the Iranian revolution, the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan and the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq war. Although aspects of U. S. regional policy have been subject to a substantial literature, the stance taken here combines an historical analysis with a parallel essay at synthesis -a perspective that locates the region within the overall cast of U. S. national security policy. The study posits a strategic determination for the Indian Ocean policy framework, one whose unifying process accentuated - pari passu - the differentiation of means - In these terms, it concludes that a differentiation of ends, and notably, those involving effective disengagement from the Indian Ocean, was displaced as a possible option.

This dissertation examines the role Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy played in national security policy during the Kennedy administration, drawing on significant new archival sources made available only in recent years. For decades Robert Kennedy’s involvement in national security affairs from 1961 to 1963 has gone largely unexamined, in part because of a lack of declassified archival evidence documenting his activities as the overseer of covert operations against Cuba. The writing and research presented here offers the only sustained examination of this aspect of RFK’s political life to date, filling a major gap in the historiography. What emerges is a refined understanding of RFK as a major 20th century historical figure challenging conventional narratives characterizing him as an icon of liberalism and a new lens for studying the foreign policy process of the Kennedy administration as a whole. The dissertation shows that RFK was extremely hawkish during his time as attorney general, a sharp contrast to his later reputation. At the president’s behest, the attorney general involved himself in a wide range of national security issues. RFK’s actual influence varied depending on the issue. In some cases he was the driving force behind U.S. policy. In others, he was simply one voice among many in the White House inner circle. In others still, he served as a conduit for sensitive communications to and from the president. Beyond describing RFK’s personal role, the dissertation challenges longstanding notions of the foreign policy process in the Kennedy administration by showing how RFK, the consummate White House insider, often struggled to exercise influence as a policymaker. Most scholarship examining the Kennedy administration argues that President Kennedy crafted foreign policy and national security decisions with a small group of advisers who held enormous influence. But, as RFK’s experiences in this realm demonstrate, structural forces larger than the influence wielded by individual policymakers appears to have played a greater role in the Kennedy administration than the scholarship to date has recognized.

This investigation contributes to studies of post-1945 Europe and the Cold War by examining Franco-Yugoslavian relations in the period 1944–1969. In analyzing the diplomatic, economic, military, and cultural relations between the two countries, this dissertation argues that contrary to dominant narratives, neither the destruction wrought by the Second World War nor the ideological divide imposed by the Cold War swept away pre-1945 structures. Rather than jettisoning their “traditional friendship” that had been forged in the First World War, after the defeat of Nazi Germany France and Yugoslavia revived their many forms of cooperation despite the radically changed political landscape. That each sought to exploit the friendship for its own gain was not surprising. While it has been assumed that France quietly retreated from its sphere of influence in Eastern Europe after 1945, this work argues that until 1966 Yugoslavia was an important site for the reclamation of French power and prestige vis-à-vis the British and Americans. Although Yugoslavia’s claim to international status was its leadership of the Non-Aligned Movement, its security concerns remained in Europe. Consequently, it sought to capitalize upon its friendship with France for a variety of purposes, including to facilitate the legitimation of the new regime and its territorial claims against Italy, insurance against German resurgence, and cooperation on the international stage. Belgrade’s desire for cooperation with France stemmed from the similarities between “Gaullism” and “Titoism.” The crucial ideologically-derived differences between the two, however, precluded any meaningful form of collaboration. In addition to reintroducing ideology into the realism-dominated field of Cold War studies, the evidence in this dissertation – that both France and Yugoslavia remained invested in the “traditional friendship” – demonstrates that the post-1945 political and ideological division of Europe after was porous. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

The thesis sets out to mobilise the concept of strategic culture as a tool to understand German security policy. The main assumptions behind the concept of strategic culture are that security policies emanate from collectively held beliefs and values relating to the use of force and that these values and beliefs emerge over-time and are shaped through formative periods and critical junctures, especially at times of war. Building upon these key assumptions the thesis moves to identify the antecedents of (West) German strategic and then to construct a framework for analysis to apply to aspects of post-Cold War security policy. Three central research questions guide the conduct of the study: What is German strategic culture? Has it changed through the ending of the Cold War? And How does it impact upon behaviour? The thesis holds that Germany has a distinct strategic culture, which emerged in the wake of the Second W orId War and acquired substance and form through the rearming of West Germany in the 1950's. This strategic culture, it is argued, incorporates three types of elements. At its core are beliefs and values relating to the use of force that form its basal fabric, stemming out of this are a range of dispositions or 'security policy standpoints' that actively relate core values to the third element of strategic culture the observable policy manifestations. The thesis identifies (West) German strategic culture through an examination of aspects of the rearming of West Germany which is then presented in the form of a full anatomy of the strategic culture and its constituent parts. Subsequent to this the thesis tackles the issue of change after the Cold War and the relationship between strategic culture and security policy behaviour. These two questions are dealt with through an examination of the transformation of the Bundeswehr since 1990, together with a case study of the· practice of compulsory military service, a policy that has endured since the end of the Cold War. Through its investigation the thesis argues that German strategic culture has persisted after the ending of the Cold War and has come to playa decisive role in shaping security policy behaviour

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