The research results can be divided into two categories: the first is concerned with French decolonisation policy. France turned to decolonisation policy in 1954 over North African issues and this resulted in the decolonisation of overseas territories in Sub-Saharan Africa and, ultimately, in the simultaneous independence of those territories in 1960. The second category deals with the aftermath of the Suez Crisis. Previous works have argued that after the Crisis, Britain was forced to withdraw its troops because of pressure from the United States and international society, and to accept a major decline of influence in the Middle East. However, this research emphasises that Britain was able to minimise the retreat by obtaining support from the United States and the United Nations.

The purpose of this research project is to understand the process through which the Cold War international order began to transform towards the end of the Cold War by examining the relationship between the changes on a global scale known as "globalization" and the changes in the Cold War international order from the collapse of detente to the new Cold War of the early 1980s. As a result of this research project, we have found that the process of globalization which intensified since the mid-1970s had a decisive impact on the outcome of the Cold War by promoting the transformations in the West, accelerating the decline of the East, and dismantling the Third World as an international group, thus engulfing the world in a single neoliberal trend.

This research focuses on the negotiation process on the reopening of the Suez Canal after the Suez Crisis. After the Anglo-French-Israeli military attack, the Canal was reopened as a result of Egypt's unilateral declaration, not an international agreement. Previous works contended that Britain accepted a fait accompli because of American and international pressure. In reality, Nasser's prestige was on the decline due to the stationing of UNEF units in Egyptian territory, and Jordan's decision to remain in the Western Camp. The latter was enabled by economic assistance by the US, which agreed to succeed Britain's role. Rather, Britain succeeded in the containment of Egyptian influence with the help of the UN and the US. Besides, Egypt accepted the compulsory jurisdiction of the ICJ, meaning it accepted a sort of international control of the Canal. These allowed Britain to accept a compromise over the Suez Canal, a decision which was reasonable in economic terms.

This research argues that the decolonisation from the mid-1950s was not aimed at achieving the peoples' political rights, as advocated in Wilson's 14 points, but at promoting economic growth through state machinery. This goal was not, however, accomplished when newly-born countries accepted independence recognised by the colonial powers, i.e. one subject to the Western economies' dominance. Moreover it was in the cases where the colonial powers failed in transferring political power smoothly to local collaborators that the US and the Soviet Union directly intervened in the third world. In other words, the US aim was to prevent the Russians from penetrating influence by taking advantage of the colonial powers' failure. This was in tune with the Imperialism of Decolonization, coined by Louis and Robinson. The cold war era was the one in which the sovereign-state system was transplanted in the dependent areas while the colonial powers, assisted by the US, retaining political influence.

In this research project we have aimed at clarifying a relationship between the Cold War and three accompanying mid to long-term historical developments (alliance politics, decolonization and cultural transformation) during the period between 1940s and 1980s in order to develop a new paradigm to understand the whole picture of the Cold War. For that purpose, we have employed a multi-archival approach, consulting a diverse range of archival resources from various countries such as the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Spain and China. Main result of this research was published in the collection of articles by the members of this research group (Minoru Masuda, Toshihiko Aono, Ryo Ikeda and Yoshiomi Saito (eds), Reisenshi o Toinaosu (Re-examining the History of the Cold War) (Kyoto: Minerva Shobo, 2015). An open workshop was held based on this book and the result of the workshop was used to develop a new research topic.

This research analyses the process whereby Tunisia and Morocco, the French protectorates, gained independence in March 1956. The focus is placed on the way how the suzerain power succeeded in retaining influence by establishing political regimes with local collaborators. France's recognition of independence was caused by the fear that Morocco might enforce neutralist independence by following the Arab neutralism of Egypt, which was pursuing military expansion with the arms deal with the Soviet Union in 1955. Indeed, the French decision on Moroccan independence spearheaded the spate of independence of European dependencies in the post-WWII era. The recognition of Moroccan independence was aimed to prevent the neutralisation of it in the context of the West-East rivalries, and thereby to secure it in the French orbit. Therefore it can be concluded that France's decision was part of Cold War policies in the sense it countered the Soviet influence, which was promoting Arab neutralism.

This research project analyzed the reason why the British government decided to attack Egypt in the Suez Crisis in 1956. Most research agrees that Britain's going to war was the lion's last roar, i.e., Britain tried to resist Third-World nationalism by using force only to suffer a miserable failure. The research concludes that the British did so with the purpose of preventing France and Israel starting war against Egypt because, without British involvement, this would have been a heavy blow to British prestige in the Middle East. Britain had to show Arab countries that it was capable of acting as a police power when Israel attacked Arab. Thus Britain had every reason to attack Egypt in order to prevent chain reactions of the nationalization of oilfields by other Arab countries thereby retaining political control over other Arab countries. This research also examined the British perception of the Soviet threat in the Middle East from 1955 to 1956, and analyses how it contributed to British policies during the Suez Crisis and especially the British decision to go to war against Egypt. Existing research has so far contended that the British aim was to contain Egypt's influence but I argue that the British aim also lay in countering the Soviet's menace to British dominance in the region. The Egyptian-Czechoslovakian arms deal in September 1955 destroyed the Western monopoly of arms supply. Thus Britain feared that the Russians were undermining its political control over those countries. The British decision on the Suez War in October 1956 was motivated by retaining pro-Western Arab countries' credibility that Britain could act as a police force in the Middle East and thereby to prevent them from taking a neutralist course.