Cold War

VAGO'S NOTEBOOK Team from USS Barb that landed at Karafuto, Japan, setting charges that destroyed a Japanese troop train. The attack was the only ground attack on Japan’s home islands during World War II.
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Navy Secretary Ken Braithwaite was on the mark by naming the latest Virginia-class submarine for Barb in memory of Gene Fluckey’s legendary World War II boat. It’s time the Navy continues this tradition and brings back other historic names to the submarine force. Those who served aboard nuclear submarines named for their illustrious World War II predecessors all note the pride what that heritage represented. Each of those boats carried aboard them the flags their namesakes flew in battle, tangible touchstones that instilled pride and esprit de corps in their crews.

Commentary
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Today, NATO advertises itself under version 3.0 — a forward-looking orientation to renewing the strength and readiness of its forces while addressing emerging challenges that confront the Alliance. If versions one and two addressed Cold War challenges and out-of-area operations, this third incarnation reinforces the solidarity of the Alliance through increased readiness, strengthened capabilities and credible deterrence to face new challenges. The Allies are engaging in new domains (space and cyber), reinvigorating the command structure and the political controls governing it, recognizing new competitors (China) and facing old adversaries (Russia) with firmness and resolve. There is much to be optimistic about in NATO’s agenda.

HISF 2019
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Slawomir Dębski, PhD, the director of the Polish Institute of International Affairs, discuses the new book he co-edited with Daniel Hamilton of Foreign Policy Institute, “Europe Whole and Free: Vision and Reality,” with Defense & Aerospace Report Editor Vago Muradian at the 2019 Halifax International Security Forum. Our coverage was sponsored by Boeing and Leonardo DRS.

HISF 2019
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Josef Joffe, PhD, the editor of Die Zeit and a senior fellow at Stanford University’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, discusses the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, what’s been accomplished and what’s next for Europe with Defense & Aerospace Report Editor Vago Muradian at the 2019 Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia, Canada. Our coverage is sponsored by Boeing and Leonardo DRS.

DEFAERO SPOTLIGHT
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On August 20th, 1968, hundreds of thousands of Warsaw Pact troops and tanks invaded Czechoslovakia to end the liberalization of the “Prague Spring,” in what became the largest military action in Europe since the end of World War II. 

Czechoslovakia had been run by a pro-Soviet Communist government since 1948, imposing strict political, social and economic policies. By the 1960s, Czechoslovakia had been undergoing de-stalinization like many Eastern bloc countries, but proceeded more slowly and was accompanied by economic struggles.

In January 1968, following years of pressure for economic reforms and liberalization from academic, literary and student groups, the Czechoslovakian Central Committee unanimously elected Slovak Alexander Dubceck as first secretary. Dubceck quickly embraced popular calls for major reforms, advocating for a move towards personal, political and press freedoms, economic liberalization and increased autonomy for Slovakia in what he described as “socialism with a human face.”

These reforms proved too threatening to Soviet interests, and on orders from Soviet Premier Leonid Brezhniev, Warsaw Pact troops invaded Czechoslovakia overnight from Aug. 20th to 21st, 1968. Though facing no military resistance, citizens across the country protested and resisted, attempting to slow the invading forces with homemade barricades. Dozens of citizens were killed, and ultimately Dubceck and his policies were removed from office. It would take until 1989 for democratic reforms to finally take hold in the country. 

VIDEOS
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Susan Eisenhower, chairman emeritus of the Eisenhower Institute at Gettysburg College, discusses the legacy of the late Gen. Andrew Goodpaster, USA Ret., who served as a top national security advisor to President Eisenhower and recommendations for US-Russia relations with Defense & Aerospace Report Editor Vago Muradian. The Interview was taped at the Atlantic Council think tank in Washington at the conclusion of a Jan. 31, 2017, panel discussion on Goodpaster and his legacy.