After the 1985 Geneva Summit, where President Ronald Reagan and leader of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, met for the first…
Brexit — Now What?
The decision by referendum of the British electorate to depart the European Union — after a campaign in which facts…
Kleptocracy and Anti-Communism: When Mobutu Ruled Zaire
Born to a modest family, Joseph-Desiré Mobutu prospered in the Force Publique, the army of the Belgian Congo. Mobutu became…
Get While the Getting’s Good: Departing Communist China
The decision to close an embassy and order departure of diplomatic personnel is a signal of last resort that bilateral…
Kyrgyzstan After Independence – An Unfulfilled Promise
After the collapse of the USSR, Kyrgyzstan, despite its isolation and lack of development, was considered to be one of…
“A Box Sealed for 70 years” — Opening U.S. Embassy Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan
A mountainous country in Central Asia, Kyrgyzstan was ceded by China and formally incorporated into the Russian Empire in 1876.…
Resolving the Czechoslovak Gold Dispute
As the Third Reich annexed the Sudetenland and Poland and the German war machine pushed through the Eastern Front towards…
Bad Blood: The Sino-Soviet Split and the U.S. Normalization with China
In the 1960s, in the depths of the Cold War, the world was viewed in terms of a zero-sum game:…
Observing the Fiftieth Anniversary of VJ-Day in Japan
How to commemorate an important anniversary of the country in which you’re posted when it marks a low point in…
Jesse Helms: The Senator Who Just Said No
Jesse Alexander Helms, a five-term Republican Senator (1973- 2003) from North Carolina, was known not only for his conservative beliefs…