This book contributes to the debate about a new German power in Europe with an analysis of Germany’s role in European Russia policy. It provides an up-to-date account of Germany’s “Ostpolitik” and how Germany has influenced EU-Russia relations since the Eastern enlargement in 2004 - partly along, partly against the interests and preferences of new member states. The volume combines a rich empirical analysis of Russia policy with a theory-based perspective on Germany’s power and influence in the EU. The findings demonstrate that despite Germany’s central role, exercising power within the EU is dependent on legitimacy and acceptance by other member states.
The relationship between Germany and Russia is Europe's most important link with the largest country on the continent. This book analyses how successive German governments from 1991 to 2014 have misread Russian intentions, until Angela Merkel sharply recalibrated German and EU policy towards Moscow.
Often written during imprisonment in Allied War camps by former German officers, with their memories of the World War fresh in their minds, The Foreign Military Studies series offers rare glimpses into the Third Reich. In this study Oberst a.D. Wilhem Willemar discusses his recollections of the climatic battle for Berlin from within the Wehrmacht. “No cohesive, over-all plan for the defense of Berlin was ever actually prepared. All that existed was the stubborn determination of Hitler to defend the capital of the Reich. Circumstances were such that he gave no thought to defending the city until it was much too late for any kind of advance planning. Thus the city’s defense was characterized only by a mass of improvisations. These reveal a state of total confusion in which the pressure of the enemy, the organizational chaos on the German side, and the catastrophic shortage of human and material resources for the defense combined with disastrous effect. “The author describes these conditions in a clear, accurate report which I rate very highly. He goes beyond the more narrow concept of planning and offers the first German account of the defense of Berlin to be based upon thorough research. I attach great importance to this study from the standpoint of military history and concur with the military opinions expressed by the author.”-Foreword by Generaloberst a.D. Franz Halder.
Is America in a new Cold War with Russia? How does a new Cold War affect the safety and security of the United States? Does Vladimir Putin really want to destabilize the West? What should Donald Trump and America’s allies do? America is in a new Cold War with Russia even more dangerous than the one the world barely survived in the twentieth century. The Soviet Union is gone, but the two nuclear superpowers are again locked in political and military confrontations, now from Ukraine to Syria. All of this is exacerbated by Washington’s war-like demonizing of the Kremlin leadership and by Russiagate’s unprecedented allegations. US mainstream media accounts are highly selective and seriously misleading. American “disinformation,” not only Russian, is a growing peril. In War With Russia?, Stephen F. Cohen—the widely acclaimed historian of Soviet and post-Soviet Russia—gives readers a very different, dissenting narrative of this more dangerous new Cold War from its origins in the 1990s, the actual role of Vladimir Putin, and the 2014 Ukrainian crisis to Donald Trump’s election and today’s unprecedented Russiagate allegations. Topics include: Distorting Russia US Follies and Media Malpractices 2016 The Obama Administration Escalates Military Confrontation With Russia Was Putin’s Syria Withdrawal Really A “Surprise”? Trump vs. Triumphalism Has Washington Gone Rogue? Blaming Brexit on Putin and Voters Washington Warmongers, Moscow Prepares Trump Could End the New Cold War The Real Enemies of US Security Kremlin-Baiting President Trump Neo-McCarthyism Is Now Politically Correct Terrorism and Russiagate Cold-War News Not “Fit to Print” Has NATO Expansion Made Anyone Safer? Why Russians Think America Is Attacking Them How Washington Provoked—and Perhaps Lost—a New Nuclear-Arms Race Russia Endorses Putin, The US and UK Condemn Him (Again) Russophobia Sanction Mania Cohen’s views have made him, it is said, “America’s most controversial Russia expert.” Some say this to denounce him, others to laud him as a bold, highly informed critic of US policies and the dangers they have helped to create. War With Russia? gives readers a chance to decide for themselves who is right: are we living, as Cohen argues, in a time of unprecedented perils at home and abroad?
The book examines the relationship between national identity and foreign policy discourses on Russia in Germany, Poland and Finland in the years 2005-2015. The case studies focus on the Nord Stream pipeline controversy, the 2008 Russian-Georgian war, the post-electoral protests in Russian cities in 2011-2012 and the Ukraine crisis. The book argues that divergent foreign policy narratives of Russia are rooted in different national identity constructions. Most significantly, the Ukraine crisis and the Nord Stream controversy have exposed how deep-rooted and different perceptions of the Russian Other in EU member states are still influential and lead to conflicting national agendas for foreign policy towards Russia.
ENGLISH TRANSLATION The book is a Russian textbook on geopolitics. It systematically and detailed the basics of geopolitics as a science, its theory, history. Covering a wide range of geopolitical schools and beliefs and actual problems. The first time a Russian geopolitical doctrine. An indispensable guide for all those who make decisions in the most important spheres of Russian political life - for politicians, entrepreneurs, economists, bankers, diplomats, analysts, political scientists, and so on. D.
A history of the German invasion of Russia in 1941, in the light of archival material. It challenges the view that Stalin was about to invade Germany when Hitler made a pre-emptive strike, arguing that Stalin was actually negotiating for peace in order to redress the European balance of power.
19. Bartow, O.: A View from Below: Survival, Cohesion, and Brutality on the Eastern Front. Part IV: Soviet Politics and War Strategy, 1941. 20. Gorodetsky, G.: Stalin and Hitler's Attack on the Soviet Union. 21. Hoffmann, J.: The Soviet Union's Offensive Preparations in 1941. 22. Kirshin, Y.Y.: The Soviet Armed Forces on the Eve of the Great Patriotic War. 23. Bonwetsch, B.: The Purge of the Military and the Red Army's Operational Capability during the "Great Patriotic War". 24. Chor'kov, A, G.: The Red Army during the Initial Phase of the Great Patriotic War. 25. Harrison, M.: "Barbarossa": The Soviet Response, 1941. 26. Pinkus, B.: The Deportation of the German Minority in the Soviet Union, 1941-1945. 27. Volkogonow, D.A.: Stalin as Supreme Commander. Part V: Germany and the Soviet Union in International Politics. 28. Schönherr, K.: Neutrality, "Non-belligerence", or War: Turkey and the European Powers' Conflict of Interests, 1939-1941. 29. Petracchi, G.: Pinocchio, the Cat, and the Fox: Italy between Germany and the Soviet Union, 1939-1941. 30. Menger, M.: Germany and the Finnish "Separate War" against the Soviet Union. 31. Krebs, G.: Japan and the German-Soviet War, 1941. 32. Kimball, W.F.: "They don't come out where you expect": Roosevelt Reacts to the German-Soviet War. 33. Kettenacker, L.: Great Britain and the German Attack on the Soviet Union. 34. Bourgeois, D: Operation "Barbarossa" and Switzerland. 35. Wegner, B.: Facing the Global War: Germany's strategic Dilemma after the Failure of "Blitzkrieg".
With the creation of the Franco-Russian Alliance and the failure of the Reinsurance Treaty in the late nineteenth century, Germany needed a strategy for fighting a two-front war. In response, Field Marshal Count Alfred von Schlieffen produced a study that represented the apex of modern military planning. His Memorandum for a War against France, which incorporated a mechanized cavalry as well as new technologies in weaponry, advocated that Germany concentrate its field army to the west and annihilate the French army within a few weeks. For generations, historians have considered Schlieffen's writings to be the foundation of Germany's military strategy in World War I and have hotly debated the reasons why the plan, as executed, failed. In this important volume, international scholars reassess Schlieffen's work for the first time in decades, offering new insights into the renowned general's impact not only on World War I but also on nearly a century of military historiography. The contributors draw on newly available source materials from European and Russian archives to demonstrate both the significance of the Schlieffen Plan and its deficiencies. They examine the operational planning of relevant European states and provide a broad, comparative historical context that other studies lack. Featuring fold-out maps and abstracts of the original German deployment plans as they evolved from 1893 to 1914, this rigorous reassessment vividly illustrates how failures in statecraft as well as military planning led to the tragedy of the First World War.
Fiona Hill and other U.S. public servants have been recognized as Guardians of the Year in TIME's 2019 Person of the Year issue. From the KGB to the Kremlin: a multidimensional portrait of the man at war with the West. Where do Vladimir Putin's ideas come from? How does he look at the outside world? What does he want, and how far is he willing to go? The great lesson of the outbreak of World War I in 1914 was the danger of misreading the statements, actions, and intentions of the adversary. Today, Vladimir Putin has become the greatest challenge to European security and the global world order in decades. Russia's 8,000 nuclear weapons underscore the huge risks of not understanding who Putin is. Featuring five new chapters, this new edition dispels potentially dangerous misconceptions about Putin and offers a clear-eyed look at his objectives. It presents Putin as a reflection of deeply ingrained Russian ways of thinking as well as his unique personal background and experience. Praise for the first edition: “If you want to begin to understand Russia today, read this book.”—Sir John Scarlett, former chief of the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) “For anyone wishing to understand Russia's evolution since the breakup of the Soviet Union and its trajectory since then, the book you hold in your hand is an essential guide.”—John McLaughlin, former deputy director of U.S. Central Intelligence “Of the many biographies of Vladimir Putin that have appeared in recent years, this one is the most useful.”—Foreign Affairs “This is not just another Putin biography. It is a psychological portrait.”—The Financial Times Q: Do you have time to read books? If so, which ones would you recommend? “My goodness, let's see. There's Mr. Putin, by Fiona Hill and Clifford Gaddy. Insightful.”—Vice President Joseph Biden in Joe Biden: The Rolling Stone Interview.
