Known as the ‘Giant of Africa,’ Nigeria stretches across the continent like a patchwork quilt, sewn together from dozens of…
Making the World a Safer Place — Nuclear Arsenals and the Fall of the USSR
Imagine what Europe would be like today if Belarusian strongman Aleksandr Lukashenka were able to threaten his neighbors with nuclear…
Consular Tales from Croatia — The Good, The Bad, and the Bianca Jagger
The Bosnian War spanned from April 1992 to December 1995 and was a result of ethnic tensions that boiled over…
The Lockerbie Bombing and Its Aftermath
On December 21, 1988, Pan American flight 103 flying from London Heathrow to JFK Airport in New York exploded over…
The Civil War in China, Part II –The Dixie Mission and Losing China
After attempting to convince Washington that a civil war in China was imminent and that the Communists would be the…
The Civil War in China, Part I – The Bureaucratic Fight in Washington
Oftentimes the greatest foreign policy struggles are not with the host government but rather with the government bureaucracy back home.…
Constance Ray Harvey, Diplomat and World War II Heroine
The life of Constance Ray Harvey at times sounded like something from the movie Casablanca. During World War II, after tours in…
Stalin’s Legacy: The Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict
Nagorno-Karabakh is a highly contested, landlocked region in the South Caucasus of the former Soviet Union. The present-day conflict has…
After D-Day — Life in Paris After Liberation
The Allied invasion of France under the Supreme Command of General Dwight Eisenhower began on D-Day, June 6th ,1944. As…
A Completely Lawless Place – Beirut and the Assassination of Ambassador Meloy and Robert Waring
The Lebanese Civil War was a 15-year conflict that took the lives of more than 130,000 people. Throughout the early…