Banking on Military Assistance: Czechoslovakia's Struggle for Influence and Profit in the Third World 1955-1968

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F00216208%3A11210%2F21%3A10419661" target="_blank" >RIV/00216208:11210/21:10419661 - isvavai.cz</a>

Result on the web

<a href="https://verso.is.cuni.cz/pub/verso.fpl?fname=obd_publikace_handle&handle=91JXfOAuFm" target="_blank" >https://verso.is.cuni.cz/pub/verso.fpl?fname=obd_publikace_handle&handle=91JXfOAuFm</a>

DOI - Digital Object Identifier

<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07075332.2020.1763422" target="_blank" >10.1080/07075332.2020.1763422</a>

Result language

angličtina

Original language name

Banking on Military Assistance: Czechoslovakia's Struggle for Influence and Profit in the Third World 1955-1968

Original language description

In the 1950s, Czechoslovakia launched an ambitious program of military assistance to countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Driven by the desire to obtain political influence and hard currency, the program involved the delivery of arms, military technology, and training to select clients. However, Czechoslovakia faced many challenges, as the country struggled to offer quality training to Third World partners and to control foreign soldiers who often challenged military discipline and social order. Moreover, Prague also struggled to make the program commercially viable, as arms sales and student numbers dropped in the early 1960s. This paper reconstructs the inception, structure, operational challenges, and debates surrounding the key objectives of the Czechoslovak military training program for the Third World in the 1950s and 1960s. In particular, it focuses on the &apos;tug of war&apos; waged by key stakeholders running the assistance program, which set political and geopolitical interests against commercial gain. By interrogating the challenges of Czechoslovakia&apos;s military assistance programs to the Third World, this paper provides a rare insight into Prague&apos;s foreign policy at a crucial juncture, when it fashioned a new, activist role in the Third World. It challenges the assumption that this highly sensitive area of Czechoslovak foreign policy was defined either by politics or by commercial interests, rather arguing that it was shaped by a constant struggle between these two often competing priorities.

Czech name

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Czech description

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Type

J_imp - Article in a specialist periodical, which is included in the Web of Science database

CEP classification

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OECD FORD branch

60101 - History (history of science and technology to be 6.3, history of specific sciences to be under the respective headings)

Project

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Continuities

I - Institucionalni podpora na dlouhodoby koncepcni rozvoj vyzkumne organizace

Publication year

2021

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

Name of the periodical

International History Review

ISSN

0707-5332

e-ISSN

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Volume of the periodical

43

Issue of the periodical within the volume

1

Country of publishing house

CA - CANADA

Number of pages

19

Pages from-to

90-108

UT code for WoS article

000533748500001

EID of the result in the Scopus database

2-s2.0-85085033312