Few nations in Asia have remained truly independent in the past several millenia. Even the powerful nations of China and India have been under foreign occupation for long periods of time. The people of Afghanistan, on the other hand, have been around to witness the great conquerors over many centu...

The causes and reasons for the decline and ultimate collapse of the Soviet Union are many and of a vastly varying nature. Yet, despite the various schools of thought on this issue, these causes can generally be placed into two differing scopes, those being the domestic and international arenas. M...

When the Soviet Union fell in 1991, due to many pressures both internal and external, the ex-soviet satellites were given their independence, much to Russia's dismay. A new trend towards sovereignty made it difficult for the largest country in the world to deny it's former members the right to se...

Abstract This essay concentrates on two representatives of the dissident movement in the Soviet Union in the 1960s and in the 1970s--Andrei Sakharov and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. The essay introduces the history of the dissident movement in the Russian Empire under the Tsars and in the Sovie...

Preface: How has the ninth edition been updated? In this updated edition, certain chapters have in added in light of the attacks of September 11, 2001. There was a chapter added on the foreign policies of Clinton and Yelstin-Putin also, an introduction to the beginnings of George W. Bush's...

The Rise of Communism in Russia Unless we accept the claim that Lenin's coup that gave birth to an entirely new state, and indeed to a new era in the history of mankind, we must recognize in today's Soviet Union the old empire of the Russians -- the only empire that survived into the mid 1980s (Lut...

The persecution, deportation, and general abuse of those who call themselves Chechnyans, has been a heavy burden to bear over the last few centuries. Ethnically and religiously these people from the Caucasus are markedly different from their expansionist Russian neighbors. Centuries of miscommunicat...

Introduction Geopolitics is the applied study of the relationships of geographical space to politics. Geopolitics, therefore, concerned with the reciprocal impact of spatial patterns, features, and structures and political ideas, institutions, and transactions. The term 'Geopolitics' has origi...

Unless we accept the claim that Lenin's coup that gave birth to an entirely new state, and indeed to a new era in the history of mankind, we must recognize in today's Soviet Union the old empire of the Russians -- the only empire that survived into the mid 1980s (Luttwak, 1). In their...

It has been a 'splendid little war' wrote John Hay to Theodore Roosevelt after the fall of Santiago. Little, the Spanish-American War was; it was over in barely four months. Splendid? Maybe for those at home, reading the headline about its lucky victories. But for those men who fo...

The methods that Russia has used to deal with the break-away Republic of Chechnya has caught the eye of the world media, and not without good cause. This dynamic portion of the former Soviet Union is seen as a predecessor of things to come from other pieces of the dead communist giant. So many diffe...

"In addition to the children in the United States who need families, there are countless thousands of homeless children in countries scattered around the globe" (Klibanoff 166). Consequently, private adoption agencies are expanding their adoption services by entering into the international arena....

Dominique Tappy 7F - 04 October 2000 The Origins of the Cold War The Cold War was a struggle between conflicting universal values. In the West, the concepts of a market economy and a multi-party democracy were cherished as necessity. In the East, single party statism and a command administrativ...

COLD WAR When World War II in Europe finally came to an end on May 7, 1945, a new war was just beginning. The Cold War: denoting the open yet restricted rivalry that developed between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, a war fought on political, economic, and propag...

The victorious forces at the end of the war divided Germany into four zones. They also divided Berlin into four zones. Each of the victorious nations controlled one zone and one sector of Berlin. The Allies (Britain, America and France) ran their zones differently to the areas controlled by Russia...

An ancient Roman expression states, "Igitur qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum"; "Therefore whoever wishes for peace, let him prepare for war". Throughout much of the twentieth century, nations have attempted to resolve conflicts and ensure peace. The most preeminent conflicts...

As WWII ended, the world remained in total disarray. Actual battles on land, sea and air transposed into a new type of war and with new players. USSR ruler Joseph Stalin depicted the globe as a ball cut in half: imperialist and capitalist regimes on one side and the Communist and progressive wor...

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF EUROPE AFTER WORLD WAR II Even while World War II war still being fought, leaders of the Allied powers began thinking about how to reconstruct Europe after the war. Winston Churchill of Britain, Franklin Roosevelt of the United States, and Joseph Stalin of the Soviet Union a...

The Russian Orthodox Church's history and development, which established it as an arm of the Tsarist state and an instrument of the perpetuation of Russia's unequal class system and anti-reform policies, made it a necessary object of destruction for the security of the Bolshevik revolution. The my...

Joseph Stalin was the soviet communist leader who's passing molded an era, and whose iron rule determined the lives of millions of people. Considering that he shaped the direction of post-World War II Europe, we may regard him as the most powerful person to live during the 20th century. Josep...

With all of the changes going on within America, and the prosperity and production that came with the industrial revolution, the temptation to stray from the foreign policy that Washington set out a hundred years before was very great. The Americans now entered a time where they were in a position...

In 1991 the Soviet Union collapsed as a nation state. Although, in retrospect, this seemed the likely outcome after years of economic stagnation, political corruption, and most importantly, the collapse of all pro-Soviet communist regimes in Eastern Europe by 1989, no one expected it (Pa...

The Influence of the Cold War and the Space Race On the Evolution of Today's Technology A few hundred key inventions have marked mankind's progress from the Stone Age to the Space Age. What were these inventions? Who made them possible? Where would the world be today if the space r...

Joseph Stalin was the soviet communist leader who's passing molded an era, and whose iron rule determined the lives of millions of people. Considering that he shaped the direction of post-World War II Europe, we may regard him as the most powerful person to live during the 20th c...