The Study Of America's Yugoslavian Policy During Tito's Period

The U.S. Yugoslav policy during the Tito's period consisted of an important part of the U.S. foreign policies in the Cold-war era. The ideological differences engulfed the East and West into the fierce contradictions and conflicts in the mid- and late 1940's, and led to a half-century cold war subsequently. Under the clear boundary of interests between the East and West, some Third World countries became both the objects of the "counterespionage" staged by and the potential "allies" sought for by the U.S. and the USSR because of their delicate geo-location and attitudes. And the Yugoslavia under the Tito's reign was such a country.The Socialist People's Republic of Yugoslavia (or SPRY), a nation which pursued the communist ideology and implemented the socialist system in the domestic politics, its relations with the United States experienced twists and turns during the Tito's reign. Tito, supported by Great Britain and the United States in the World War II, had a bad relation with the West after the war. But the situation was changed after the Tito-Moscow dispute in 1948; however, it stayed in a low level again because of the improvement of the Soviet-Yugoslav relation after Nikita Khrushchev came into power and that caused the United States to suspect Tito's foreign policy trend in mid 1950's; at last the U.S.-Yugoslav relation was improved again and underwent all-round development as a result of Soviet's invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. Recollecting the development of the U.S. Yugoslavian policy during those 35 years, the Soviet-Yugoslav relation was the important factor that always influenced greatly U.S. Yugoslavian policy.While outlining the development of the U.S. Yugoslavian policy during the Tito's period, this article analyses the main content in the U.S.-Yugoslav relations and the important factors that influenced this policy. That includes two "eternal" topics: the cooperation in the economic and military field and the Soviet-Yugoslav relation, which is the main "variable" that influenced the U.S. Yugoslavian policy. Besides, it discussed the Yugoslavian domestic development. At last, the Non-Alignment Movement that rose up in the 1960's and 1970's added some new elements to the policy at that time.The meaning of recollecting and researching the U.S. policy toward Yugoslavia during the Tito's period not only helps people understand how the United States gave a balance between the ideology and the Cold-war interests (long-term and short-term objective), and dealt with a communist country during the Cold-war era; but also it provides one aspect for us to learn how a small country could survive between great countries, even to enlarge its diplomatic rooms, especially in the high confrontation atmosphere in the Cold-war. For China, currently, the lessons and experience from Yugoslavia no doubt will be quite useful for our future activities about how to develop the relations with the United States while we are in the premise of achieving our socialist goal.