When Armenia gained its independence after the collapse of the USSR in 1991, it was in dire straits. It was…
Normalizing Ties with Franco: “I don’t have to like the son of a bitch, do I?”
For many people, Spain in the 1930s and 40s was a country of despair, where the dreams of democracy and…
The Seychelles – Gangsta’s Paradise
A country of white sand beaches and palm trees, the Seychelles is an exotic tourist destination. It also happens to…
Responding to the Threat of Mass Atrocities
Drawing on his experiences as U.S. Special Envoy for Sudan and South Sudan, Ambassador Princeton Lyman highlights the decision making trade-offs he…
Books, Defectors, and Song — The Cuban Missile Crisis, as Seen from Moscow
The Soviet Union, in Churchill’s famous words, was a “riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma”; as such it made…
Vietnam, A Look Back
The Vietnam War remains one of the most contentious foreign policy issues in American history. U.S. military involvement was initially…
Bill Burns, A Consummate Diplomat
William Joseph Burns, known as Bill to his colleagues, stepped down as Deputy Secretary of State in October 2014 after…
The Collapse of Order in the Middle East
Will Rogers once observed that “when you get into trouble 5,000 miles from home, you’ve got to have been looking…
Yeltsin Under Siege — The October 1993 Constitutional Crisis
For Russians, it was yet another dramatic confrontation which played out in the streets of Moscow, one which marked the…
Ambassador Skip Gnehm on the Middle East
The Middle East has been a complicated, if not violent, region for millennia, which has only been exacerbated by recent…