Temas de relações internacionais, de política externa e de diplomacia brasileira, com ênfase em políticas econômicas, viagens, livros e cultura em geral. Um quilombo de resistência intelectual em defesa da racionalidade, da inteligência e das liberdades democráticas. Ver também minha página: www.pralmeida.net (em construção).
1) 168 trabalhos, ou seja, 14
trabalhos por mês, ou um trabalho completo a cada 2,14 dias (não estão
contabilizados trabalhos incompletos ou em curso de redação).
Aproximando-se o final do ano, resolvi recuperar uma pequena parte da minha produção acumulada nos últimos anos, ou melhor duas últimas décadas. Preparei recentemente cinco livros em formato Kindle, que agora divulgo de forma concentrada. Outros já se encontram à disposição na Amazon, mas estes são os recentes. Paulo Roberto de Almeida
Vivendo com Livros: uma loucura gentil, Brasília, Edição de Autor, 2019, 265 p. Publicada em formato Kindle (ASIN: B0838DLFL2). Tem mais, antes, e haverá outros... Bom 2020 a todos... Paulo Roberto de Almeida
28 anos desde a extinção da então moribunda União Soviética, criada em 1921, depois que os bolcheviques conseguiram afastar (eliminar seria o termo exato) seus adversários políticos, vencer as tropas russas brancas, resolver as pendências com os marinheiros (Kronstadt), ucranianos e georgianos, e sobretudo a Polônia, assumindo então o papel e os espaços geográficos do finado império czarista (com alguns ajustes; entre 1940 e 1945 Stalin ainda incorporaria novos territórios). Mesmo Francis Fukuyama, ao escrever "The End of History?", em 1989, não acreditava, ou não imaginava que a poderosa URSS pudesse desaparecer; ele só concebeu ajustes de mercado naquele gigante de pés de barro. Como diria Duroselle, Tout Empire Perira, inclusive o americano, e depois o chinês. Os povos querem ser livres, e esse nacionalismo provocará novas guerras... Paulo Roberto de Almeida
É extinta a União das Repúblicas Socialistas Soviéticas
Em 31 de dezembro de 1991, foi extinta a União das Repúblicas Socialistas Soviéticas
31 dez, 2019, Opinião e Notícia (deixa de funcionar, como a URSS, nesta data)
URSS começou sua abertura no governo de Gorbatchev, que culminou no fim do país em 1991 (Ilustração: Reprodução/Internet)
Após a morte de Josef Stalin, líder que conduziu o país à vitória na Segunda Guerra Mundial e ficou no poder de 1922 a 1953, a URSS passou a ser governada por Nikita Kruchev, que promoveu a descentralização da administração do país, antes concentrada nas mãos de Stalin. Kruchev e conseguiu manter o país em desenvolvimento no período.
Seu sucessor, Leonid Brejnev, deu seguimento ao seu modelo e também passou grande período no poder, mas ao fim de sua administração o país já entrava em crise. Após a saída de Brjnev, Andropov e Constantin Tchernenko assumiram o governo soviético. A situação social, política e econômica do país se agravou e a população começou a se incomodar com a situação.
Em 1985, Mikhail Gorbatchev assumiu o governo da URSS e trouxe ideias inovadoras de reformulação econômica (Perestroika) e política (Glasnost). O país passou a dar sinais que desejava o fim da Guerra Fria. Em 1986 Gorbatchev se reuniu com o presidente americano Ronald Reagan e deu início ao projeto de desarmamento.
No último dia de 1991, deixou de existir a União das Repúblicas Socialistas Soviéticas (URSS). O país, que protagonizou a Guerra Fria contra os Estados Unidos, entrou em crise financeira após a morte de Stalin; no fim da década de 80, os países-membros começaram a reivindicar a independência em relação ao governo central de Moscou e em dezembro só restavam Turcomenistão e Cazaquistão na URSS. Até que no dia 31 de dezembro de 1991 o país foi extinto.
Em agosto de 1991, a maior parte do países que compunha a União Soviética passou a pedir pela independência, o que logo se tornou uma realidade. O país se desmembrou e formou diversos outros, que formaram um bloco conhecido como Comunidade dos Estados Independentes (CEI). Oficialmente a URSS deixou de existir no dia 31 de dezembro de 1991.
1) Comments, in lieu of Book review, by W. Gregory Perett
From: W. Gregory Perett, George Washington University December 31, 2019, in H-Diplo
I am new to H Diplo. A couple of my colleagues at George Washington University recommended it as the most effective way to reach those interested in diplomatic history regarding a questionable representation of the role of George Kennan in post-World War II diplomacy.
The book in question is Phillips Payson O’Brien's _The Second Most Powerful Man in the World: The Life of Admiral William D. Leahy, Roosevelt’s Chief of Staff_ (Penguin, 2019).
The author makes a good case for Leahy’s influential role, but does so to the exclusion of almost every else in President Franklin Roosevelt’s entourage. The author suggests that even the influence of key foreign policy advisor Harry Hopkins faded during the war, and that Army Chief of Staff George Marshall did not count for much. On many occasions, Leahy outmaneuvers the not-so-bright Marshall. For example, in terms of Marshall’s call for a cross-Channel invasion in 1943 (Roundup), the author notes that Leahy opposed it and made sure that was never official U.S. policy.
My question for the H-Diplo community of scholars involves the role of George Kennan, which is also downplayed.
The author questions the State Department Office of the Historian’s claim that “Kennan ‘formulated’ the containment policy," and that Kennan’s ideas "became the basis of the Truman Administration’s foreign policy” (372).
He argues that "It is a bizarre view, as there is no evidence that President Truman ever read, or was even interested in, the Long Telegram. Leahy was aware of the document but paid it scant attention, not even mentioning Kennan’s existence in his diary until 1947...In truth, Kennan was a marginal figure in White House thinking” (372).
The author then writes that in 1946 Truman called for “one document combining the ideas of the top people in his administration” regarding the U.S.-Soviet relationship. He notes that Leahy “had more influence over its final shape than any other policy maker...The paper that Leahy wrote with his own ideas is one of the most revealing documents he ever produced.” The author includes a discussion of how Leahy organized his thoughts. Leahy analyzed Soviet behavior and then produced a set of policy recommendations, “a more subtle policy than was offered by anyone else close to the president.” The final document “was the real precursor document to the policy of containment...It was also the high point of Leahy’s influence over the road into the Cold War” (398-401).
Leahy’s memo contributing to the final report is reproduced as Appendix C to the book. Amazingly, what is reproduced, in fact, is the Long Telegram, reduced to bullet format. It was not “inspired by” the Long Telegram, it is a summary of the Telegram itself. While some sections are omitted, every single idea that Leahy included is in the precise order used in the Telegram, in always similar and often precisely the same language.
How do the experts on the topic out there react to this line of argument?
I would appreciate some guidance from the community on this point, because I lecture about it.
It is apt that Phillips Payson O'Brien in his new book about Admiral William D. Leahy uses the word "bizarre" in his attempt to debunk the importance of George F. Kennan's Long Telegram. O'Brien asserts that Leahy was the actual author of containment. What is bizarre, however, is O'Brien's claim.
As Perett points out, the 1946 paper that Leahy "wrote with his own ideas" (O'Brien, 400) and that shaped the Clifford-Elsey report was in the main a summation of Kennan's Long Telegram. Leahy's supposedly original report, which O'Brien includes as an appendix in his book, not only uses Kennan's ideas and phrases, but actually puts some of that Kennan phraseology in quotation marks.
One wonders why these quotation marks, as well as the iconic, oft-quoted phrases from Kennan in the Long Telegram, were not recognized as belonging to Kennan and could have been so misunderstood. The question also arises as to what peer-review process the publisher, Penguin Random House, used.
The larger point here is that, as Melvyn P. Leffler in _Preponderance of Power_ (Stanford University Press, 1992) and other historians have pointed out, Harry S. Truman was not closely involved in most of the actual policy-making decisions of his administration. Moreover, while the Long Telegram was widely distributed and influential within the State, War, and Navy departments as well as within the White House, Kennan's highly quotable cable (and his 1947 Mr. "X" article) merely lubricated the movement toward containment that was already underway. Leahy's derivative report and the Clifford-Elsey document were part of that trend.
While I won't venture here a discussion of the book's sensationalist, all-caps claim that Leahy was the "Second Most Powerful Man In The World" in the wartime presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt, I would point out that, as Warren Kimball and others have noted, Roosevelt ran his administration so that no single person could amass that kind of power. Roosevelt jealously kept all the strings in his hands, and part of his skill at manipulating people was to let them think that they were special in some way.
Frank Costigliola University of Connecticut
[Debate will probably resume with other intervenants, PRA]
Within
the framework of this article we attempt to solve the following tasks: 1. to
demonstrate that as early as a few thousand years ago (at least since the
formation of the system of long-distance and large-scale trade in metals in the
fourth millennium BCE) the scale of systemic trade relations grew significantly
beyond the local level and became regional (and even transcontinental in a
certain sense); 2. to show that already in the late first millennium BCE the
scale of processes and links within the Afroeurasian world-system not only
exceeded the regional level, as well as reached the continental level, but it
also went beyond continental limits. That is why we contend that within this
system, the marginal systemic contacts between the agents of various levels
(from societies to individuals) may be defined as transcontinental (note that
we deal here not only with overland contacts, because after the late first
millennium BCE in some cases we can speak about the oceanic contacts—the most
salient case is represented here by the Indian Ocean communication network); 3.
to demonstrate that even prior to the Great Geographic Discoveries the scale of
the global integration in certain respects could be compared with the global
integration in more recent periods. In particular, in terms of demography...
