The Potsdam Agreement was the August 1945 agreement between three of the Allies of World War II: the United Kingdom, the United States, and the Soviet Union. A product of the Potsdam Conference, it concerned the military occupation and reconstruction of Germany, its borders, and the entire European Theatre of War territory. It also addressed Germany's demilitarisation, reparations, the prosecution of war criminals and the mass expulsion of ethnic Germans from various parts of Europe.
The foreign relations of the Russian Federation is the policy of the government of Russia which guides its interactions with other nations, their citizens, and foreign organizations. This article covers the foreign policy of the Russian Federation since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in late 1991.
United Nations Security Council Resolution 242 (S/RES/242) was adopted unanimously by the UN Security Council on November 22, 1967, in the aftermath of the Six-Day War. It was adopted under Chapter VI of the UN Charter. The resolution was sponsored by British ambassador Lord Caradon and was one of five drafts under consideration.
Brinkmanship is the practice of trying to achieve an advantageous outcome by pushing dangerous events to the brink of active conflict. The tactic occurs in international politics, foreign policy, labor relations, contemporary military strategy, and high-stakes litigation. The maneuver of pushing a situation with the opponent to the brink succeeds by forcing the opponent to back down and make concessions. That might be achieved through diplomatic maneuvers, by creating the impression that one is willing to use extreme methods rather than concede.
The Azerbaijan People's Government was a short-lived unrecognized secessionist state in northern Iran from November 1945 to December 1946. Like the unrecognized Republic of Mahabad, it was a puppet state of the Soviet Union. Established in Iranian Azerbaijan, the Azerbaijan People's Government capital was the city of Tabriz. Its establishment and demise were a part of the Iran crisis, which was a precursor to the Cold War.
After the Russian Revolution, in which the Bolsheviks took over the old Russian Empire in 1918, they faced enormous odds against the German Empire and eventually negotiated terms to pull out of World War I. They then went to war against both domestic and international enemies in the bitter civil war. Tsarist Russia was reorganized as the Soviet Union in 1922 with Vladimir Lenin in charge. At first, it was treated as an unrecognized pariah state because of its repudiating of tsarist debts and threats to destroy capitalism at home and around the world. By 1922, Moscow had repudiated the goal of world revolution, and sought diplomatic recognition and friendly trade relations with the capitalist world, starting with Britain and Germany. Finally in 1933, the United States gave recognition. Trade and technical help from Germany and the United States arrived in the late 1920s. After Lenin died in 1924, Joseph Stalin, became leader. He transformed the country in the 1930s into an industrial and military power. After the appeasement policy of Britain and France, the Soviet Union shifted from a strategy of antifascist collective security to one of national security. By signing the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact with Germany in August 1939, relations improved and the Soviet Union delayed the German invasion while occupying nearby territories in Eastern Europe. Despite repeated warnings that Hitler planned to invade, Stalin was caught by surprise in June 1941 when Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union and reached the outskirts of Leningrad and Moscow. However, the Soviet Union proved strong enough to defeat Nazi Germany, with help from its key allies.
The United Nations Security Council veto power is the power of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council to veto any "substantive" resolution. They also happen to be the nuclear-weapon states (NWS) under the terms of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). However, a permanent member's abstention or absence does not prevent a draft resolution from being adopted. This veto power does not apply to "procedural" votes, as determined by the permanent members themselves. A permanent member can also block the selection of a Secretary-General, although a formal veto is unnecessary since the vote is taken behind closed doors.
The Moscow Conference of Foreign Ministers, also known as the Interim Meeting of Foreign Ministers, was the meeting of the foreign ministers of the United States, represented by James F. Byrnes, the United Kingdom, represented by Ernest Bevin, and the Soviet Union, represented by Vyacheslav Molotov. The meeting was held in Moscow from 16 to 26 December 1945 to discuss the problems of occupation, establishing peace, and other Far Eastern issues. The conference followed Allied World War II conferences including those at Cairo, Yalta and Potsdam. The communiqué, issued after the conference on December 27, 1945, contained a joint declaration that covered a number of issues resulting from the end of World War II.
The Iran crisis of 1946, also known as the Azerbaijan Crisis in the Iranian sources, was one of the first crises of the Cold War, sparked by the refusal of Joseph Stalin's Soviet Union to relinquish occupied Iranian territory, despite repeated assurances. The end of World War II should have resulted in the end of the Allied joint occupation of Iran. Instead, Pro-Soviet Iranians proclaimed the separatist Azerbaijan People's Government and the Kurdish separatist Republic of Mahabad. The United States pressure on the Soviet Union to withdraw is the earliest evidence of success with the new strategy of Truman Doctrine and containment.
United Nations Security Council Resolution 3, adopted on April 4, 1946, acknowledged that the Soviet troops in Iran could not be removed in time to meet their deadline under the Tri-Partite Treaty but requested the Soviet Union remove them as fast as possible and that no member state in any way retard this process. If any developments threaten the withdrawal of troops, the Security Council requested to be informed.
United States foreign policy in the Middle East has its roots in the 19th-century Barbary Wars that occurred shortly after the 1776 establishment of the United States as an independent sovereign state, but became much more expansive in the aftermath of World War II. With the goal of preventing the Soviet Union from gaining influence in the region during the Cold War, American foreign policy saw the deliverance of extensive support in various forms to anti-communist and anti-Soviet regimes; among the top priorities for the U.S. with regards to this goal was its support for the State of Israel against its Soviet-backed neighbouring Arab countries during the peak of the Arab–Israeli conflict. The U.S. also came to replace the United Kingdom as the main security patron for Saudi Arabia as well as the other Arab states of the Persian Gulf in the 1960s and 1970s in order to ensure, among other goals, a stable flow of oil from the Persian Gulf. As of 2022, the U.S. has diplomatic relations with every country in the Middle East except for Iran, with whom relations were severed after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, and Syria, with whom relations were suspended in 2012 following the outbreak of the Syrian Civil War.
Relations between Afghanistan and Russia first emerged in the 19th century. At the time they were placed in the context of "The Great Game", Russian–British confrontations over Afghanistan from 1840 to 1907. The Soviet Union was the first country to establish diplomatic relations with Afghanistan following the Third Anglo-Afghan War in 1919. On 28 February 1921, Afghanistan and Soviet Russia signed a Friendship Treaty. The Soviet Union intervened in Afghanistan against the Basmachi movement in 1929 and 1930.
Russia–Syria relations refers to the bilateral relationship between Russia and Syria. Russia has an embassy in Damascus and Syria has an embassy in Moscow. Russia enjoys a historically strong, stable, and friendly relationship with Syria, as it did until the Arab Spring with most of the Arab countries. Russia's only Mediterranean naval base for its Black Sea Fleet is located in the Syrian port of Tartus.
Diplomatic relations between Iraq and the United States began when the U.S. first recognized Iraq on January 9, 1930, with the signing of the Anglo-American-Iraqi Convention in London by Charles G. Dawes, U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom. The historiography of Iraq–United States relations prior to the 1980s is considered relatively underdeveloped, with the first in-depth academic studies being published in the 2010s. Today, the United States and Iraq both consider themselves as strategic partners, given the American political and military involvement after the invasion of Iraq and their mutual, deep-rooted relationship that followed. The United States provides the Iraqi security forces millions of dollars of military aid and training annually as well as uses its military bases.
The sixth emergency special session of the United Nations General Assembly was held between 10 and 14 January 1980 to consider the situation in Afghanistan. As the Soviet–Afghan War began members of the United Nations General Assembly requested the Security Council consider the situation. The USSR veto of a resolution led the other members to invoke the 'Uniting for Peace' resolution to defer the issue to the General Assembly in an emergency special session. It was the sixth emergency special session since the 'Uniting for Peace' resolution was adopted in 1950. The session was dominated by questions of its legitimacy since the Afghanistan government had invited the Soviet intervention in their civil war. Led by the non-aligned members, the session ended with a resolution from the General Assembly calling for the immediate, unconditional and total withdrawal of foreign troops from Afghanistan and the cessation of all outside intervention, subversion, coercion or constraint, of any kind whatsoever, so that its people could freely choose its own economic, political and social systems.
The Imperial State of Iran was the official name of Iran under rule of the Pahlavi dynasty.
The Spanish question was the set of geopolitical and diplomatic circumstances that marked the relationship between Spain and the United Nations between 1945 and 1955, centered on the UN's refusal to admit Spain to the organization due to Francoist Spain's sympathy for the Axis powers, defeated in World War II.
The Helsinki Summit (1990) was a private, bilateral meeting between American President George H. W. Bush and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev that took place in Helsinki, Finland on September 9th, 1990. Due to the vested interests of both the Soviet Union and the United States in the Gulf Crisis' resolution, August 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait was the primary topic of discussion for the leaders during the Helsinki Summit. The concerted efforts at easing American-Soviet tensions in the aftermath of the Cold War was another prominent topic, among other notable current events. At the summit's conclusion, Presidents Bush and Gorbachev produced a document of joint statements that illuminated the areas in which the leaders had committed to aligning their foreign policy goals. The summit was followed by a press conference wherein members of the media questioned Presidents Bush and Gorbachev about the content of their meeting and the justifications for their joint statements.
The United States foreign policy during the presidency of Jimmy Carter (1977–1981) was dominated by the Cold War, a period of sustained geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union.
