In 1969, Colonel Gaafar Muhammad Nimeiry (seen right), who three years earlier had graduated from the United States Army Command…
A Crack in the Iron Curtain: Freeing Sharansky
As General Secretary of the Communist Party, Mikhail Gorbachev authorized the release of thousands of Soviet Jews who wanted to leave the…
Getting Kosovo Right: Working to Avoid Another Bosnia
Yugoslavia had long been a simmering caldron of ethnic and nationalist tensions. After the death of Yugoslav strongman Josip Broz…
Winning the Peace – USAID and the Demobilization of the Nicaraguan Contras
In the 1980s, one of the focal points of U.S. foreign policy was the rise of leftist militants throughout the…
Combining Forces to Counter Terrorism — The Birth of S/CT
U.S. inter-agency coordination on countering terrorism was limited, for bureaucratic and technical reasons, prior to the mid-1980s. As hijackings and…
Leveling the Playing Field in the Salvadoran Civil War
The Salvadoran Civil War, lasting from 1979-1992, pitted the military-led government of El Salvador against a coalition of five left-wing guerrilla…
The Stolen Victory and Mysterious Death of Moshood Abiola
In June 1993, Chief Moshood (M.K.O.) Abiola, a Muslim businessman and philanthropist, ran for the presidency of Nigeria and appeared…
Burundi: With Independence Came Genocide
Coordinated attacks in Burundi in recent years left hundreds dead and forced thousands to flee the country. The State Department advised…
I Was So Wrong For So Long: The Art of the Apology
The words “I am sorry” can be difficult to say and sometimes even more painful to accept. Working as representatives…
Transnistria — Life in a Russian Bear Hug
Transnistria is a small breakaway state located between the Dniester River and Moldova’s eastern border with Ukraine. In November 1990,…