The State Department invests significant resources in training its incoming consular officers. They learn through courses taught at the Foreign…
Rooted in the Good Earth: White, Protestant “China Brats” in the Foreign Service
A confluence of two rising movements in the early 1800s, Western outreach to China and reinvigorated Christian evangelism, led to…
Brass Tacks and Kashmir: India-Pakistan Military Crises in the 1980s
A crisis between India and Pakistan erupted between November 1986 and March 1987 after India launched the largest-ever military exercise…
Diplomacy in Cold Blood: Fatal Encounters Around the World
An American citizen abroad accused of murder: this is a particular nightmare for consular officers. These cases can become public…
Bodies on the Doorstep: Jamaica in the 1970s
The island country of Jamaica in the Caribbean Sea experienced strong economic growth following its independence in 1962. This economic…
The Thai-tanic: Responding to the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997
Asian countries took a financial hit in 1997, resulting in a crisis that reverberated throughout the world. It began on…
Negotiating the Limited Test Ban Treaty (LTBT)
Due to rising concern about radioactive fallout from increasingly big nuclear tests underwater, in space, in the atmosphere and underground,…
Chipping Away at Czechoslovak Communism: The Helsinki Final Act and Charter 77
The Solidarity Movement. Perestroika and Glasnost. The fall of the Berlin Wall. All of these movements, policies, or events had…
Teaching the Foreign Service to Speak Foreign Languages
The Foreign Service Institute (FSI) is the primary training institution to prepare American diplomats to advance U.S. foreign affairs interests,…
Bombing North Vietnam into Accepting Our Concessions: Christmas Bombings, 1972
President Richard Nixon ordered plans for retaliatory bombings of North Vietnam after talks to end the war in Vietnam broke…