The Cold War and the Peaceful Settlement of Disputes: The Relevance of International Adjudication

Authors

Milton Katz

Abstract

In the two decades since the end of World War II, American conduct, whether in the United Nations or the Organization of American States or outside them, alone or in alliance with others, has revealed a consistent pattern of behavior in regard to Soviet Russian or Communist Chinese expansionism. The United States has resisted attempts by the Soviet Union or Communist China to extend their dominion or sphere of control by force or threats of force, or by the support of force or threats on the part of others. If and when peacekeeping measures or measures of pacific settlement coincided with a policy of resistance, the United States used them happily. If peacekeeping and pacific settlement did not coincide with resistance, the policy of resistance prevailed. To American eyes, the policy was fundamentally consistent with the cause of peace with justice and freedom. In the view of the United States, peace with justice and freedom could not be safeguarded against Soviet Russian or Communist Chinese expansionism by peacekeeping measures or measures of peaceful settlement, except within the frame of reference established by unrelenting resistance. The United States was ready to carry resistance to the point of the actual use of force, as in Korea and Vietnam; to the point of an explicit show of readiness to use force, as in the Cuban missile crisis; or to the point of support for the armed force of others, as in Greece.

First Page

95

Recommended Citation

Milton Katz, The Cold War and the Peaceful Settlement of Disputes: The Relevance of International Adjudication, 6 Duq. L. Rev. 95 (1967).
Available at: https://dsc.duq.edu/dlr/vol6/iss2/3