On September 1st, 1969, a group of young Libyan military officers overthrew the Libyan royal family and established the Libyan…
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…
Igniting Iraq’s Invasion of Kuwait – Loans, Land, Oil and Access
Iraq invaded Kuwait on August 2, 1990 largely for economic reasons, but the contiguous Gulf countries had long-standing territorial conflicts…
Anwar Sadat and the Camp David Negotiations
The Camp David Accords, which were negotiated over a period of twelve days in 1978 between Egyptian, Israeli, and American…
The Rise to Power of the Butcher of Uganda
Idi Amin Dada, who came to be known as the “Butcher of Uganda,” rose to officer rank in the Ugandan…
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…
Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea — The CIA Mission to Raise a Soviet Sub
In March 1968, a K-129 Soviet nuclear submarine cruising in the Pacific Ocean mysteriously disappeared from Russian radar. Following an…
China’s Fight for Tiny Islands — The Taiwan Straits Crises, 1954-58
Recent disagreements over Beijing’s claim to the South China Seas (in which a tribunal constituted under the UN Convention on the…
![Finale of the Persian Monarchy and Prelude to the Iranian Revolution](https://adst.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Revolution-1-1.webp)
Finale of the Persian Monarchy and Prelude to the Iranian Revolution
Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran, departed Tehran on January 16, 1979 to seek medical treatment and to escape…
Persistence, Vision and Luck: Creating a Center for Diplomatic Training
Can you imagine the bureaucratic struggles involved in persuading the Department of Defense to hand over acres of prime real…