Example international relations dissertation topic 6:

A reappraisal of the Cuban Missile Crisis.

This dissertation presents a revisionist interpretation of the Cuban Missile Crisis. In so doing it re-evaluates the foreign policies pursued by both the Soviet Union and the United States and proposes that it should, at best, be interpreted as a representing only a limited diplomatic success for Kennedy’s presidency. Accordingly, it suggests that whilst direct armed conflict between the Soviet Union and the United States was avoided, the longer-term results of the crisis left Kennedy’s wider Latin American policies in tatters and also strengthened the Soviet position in southern Europe, through the removal of the Thor and Jupiter missiles in Turkey.

Suggested initial topic reading:

• Dallek, R. (1983). The American style of foreign policy. New York: Knopf.
• Furensko, A. and Naftali, T. (1997). One hell of a gamble: Khrushchev, Castro, Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis: 1958-1964. London: John Murray.
• Pope, R.R. (1982). Soviet views on the Cuban Missile Crisis: Myth and reality in foreign policy analysis. Washington, DC: University of Illinois .