The Service Historique de la Défense, the Centre d’Histoire de Sciences Po, Paris, and the Sir Michael Howard Centre for the History of War, King’s College London, are organizing an international conference on the military and strategic impact of the end of the Cold War (late 1980s-early 1990s). It will take place at Sciences Po, Paris.

Students and scholars who want to join the conference virtually are invited to register.

 

Programme

December 13 

08:30 Welcome 

• Nathalie Genet-Rouffiac (Service historique de la Défense)
• Marc Lazar (Centre d’Histoire de Sciences Po)
• Joe Maiolo (King’s College London)

Introductory remarks: Paul Lenormand (SHD / Sciences Po, Paris)

09:00 - 10:30 Access to sources and intelligence records: studying the end of the Cold War 

• Chair: Barbara Zanchetta (King’s College London)
• Simon Graham (The University of Sydney): “Reading Transformations in International Order through Intelligence Sources: Declassification, Access and Ethics”
• Raphaël Ramos (Université Paul-Valéry Montpellier 3, CRISES): “US Intelligence and the End of the Cold War: A Pyrrhic Victory?”
• Anna Sofie Schøning (Royal Danish Defense College): “Letting the Sources Speak: Can Oral History Advance post-Cold War Military History?”

11:00 - 12:30 The collapsing Warsaw Pact and the new regional order in post-communist Europe 

• Chair: Paul Lenormand (SHD / CHSP)
• Simon Miles (Duke University): “The Last Days of the Warsaw Pact”
• Amélie Zima (Université Panthéon-Assas, Centre Thucydide): “How to End Soviet Domination in Central Europe? Between Strategies of Cooperation and Logics of Differentiation”
• Dionysios Chourchoulis (Hellenic Open University & Ionian University): “The shift of the Balkan military balance and the emergence of post-Cold War regional order, 1989-1991/2”

Lunch break

14:00 - 15:30 The Soviet world in trouble (14:00-15:30)

• Chair: Sabine Dullin (Sciences Po, Paris)
• Jeff Hawn (LSE): “Russia’s Reluctant Praetorians: Understanding the Role of the Russian Military in the 1993 Constitutional Crisis”
• Sophie Momzikoff (Sorbonne-Université, UMR SIRICE): “A 'Fifth Column?' The Issue of Soviet Army Veterans in the Baltic States, 1991-1994”
• Sophie Gueudet (Norwegian Institute of International Affairs): “Frozen conflict or ever-lasting status quo? The unfinished business of self-determination disputes in the post-Soviet area”

16:00 - 17:30 NATO, European Defense and the Transatlantic relationship in question

• Chair: Mario Del Pero (Sciences Po, Paris)
• Davis Ellison (King’s College London): “Alliance Politics and the End of the Cold War: Revisiting NATO through Civil-Military Relations”
• Guillaume de Rougé (Université Catholique de l’Ouest - Bretagne Sud / CIENS ENS-Ulm): “The Genesis of European Defence: French plans for a European Rapid Reaction Force, 1990-1993”
• Arun Dawson (King’s College London): “A ‘Trojan Horse’?: American Statecraft and Transatlantic Collaboration on the Joint Strike Fighter, 1991-1995”

Keynote speech (17:45-18:45): “A New Bargain? NATO, Transatlantic Security and the End of the Cold War” by Jussi M. Hanhimäki (Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva), author of Pax Transatlantica: America and Europe in the Post-Cold War Era (New York: Oxford University Press, 2021)

Dinner

 

December 14 

08:30 - 10:00 Space and nuclear issues after the end of the bipolar order 

• Chair: Col Richard Gros (MINARM/CESA) 
• Mariana Budjeryn (Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center): “Structure amid Change: The Global Nuclear Order and the Soviet Collapse”
• Olga Dubrovina (University of Padua): “Russia-ESA-NASA in the 90s: Between Past Difficulties and Present Challenges”

10:30 - 12:00 Germany: merging two worlds, redeploying forces 

• Chair: Emmanuel Droit (Sciences Po, Strasbourg)
• Jéronimo Barbin (ZMSBw): “La réorganisation des politiques de défense en Allemagne réunifiée”
• Susan Colbourn (Duke University): “Taking Apart the Nationale Volksarmee”
• Christian Jentzsch (Universität Potsdam & ZMSBw): “From the Baltic to the Indian Ocean – The Federal German Navy´s move from “brown water” to “blue water” operations 1987-1996”

Lunch break

13:30 - 15:00 World of nukes: a challenge to the Cold War legacy? 

• Chair: Joe Maiolo (King’s College London)
• Robin Möser (University of Leipzig): “Disarming Apartheid: The End of South Africa’s Nuclear Weapons and Accession to the NPT, 1988-1993”
• Jong Ung Cheon (King’s College London): “The collapse of the Soviet Union and the disappearance of an obstacle, North Korea's nuclear weapons crossed the Rubicon River”
• Benoît Pelopidas (Sciences Po Paris), Hebatalla Taha (Leiden University) and Tom Vaughan(Aberystwyth University): “Nuclear pasts and futures at the end of the Cold War”

15:30 - 17:00 Global changes at the turn of the 1990s 

• Chair: Walter Bruyère-Ostells (SHD / Sciences Po Aix, UMR 7064 Mesopolhis)
• Souleymanou Amadou (Université de Douala): “Dynamique de la présence militaire chinoise au Cameroun : de la confrontation sous maquis à la mise en place d’un partenariat stratégique post Guerre froide (1958-2012) [Chinese Military Involvement in Cameroon: from Maquis to the post-Cold War strategic partnership (1958-2012)]”
• Barbara Zanchetta (King’s College London): “Defending the Kingdom: America’s Uneasy Partnership with Saudi Arabia and the Transition to the Post-Cold War Era”
• Flavia Gasbarri (King’s College London): “A Second Chance: the Unipolar Moment and the Creation of a UN Permanent Military”

Conclusive remarks: Mario Del Pero (Sciences Po, Paris)

Scientific Committee:

• Walter Bruyère-Ostells (SHD)
• Mario Del Pero (Sciences Po, Paris)
• Sabine Dullin (Sciences Po, Paris)
• Flavia Gasbarri (KCL)
• Paul Lenormand (SHD)
• Joe Maiolo (KCL)
• Céline Marangé (SHD)
• Guillaume Piketty (Sciences Po, Paris)
• Barbara Zanchetta (KCL)