The Solidarity Movement. Perestroika and Glasnost. The fall of the Berlin Wall. All of these movements, policies, or events had…
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…
Beginning of a Beautiful Friendship: The 1951 Treaty of Peace with Japan
The San Francisco Peace Treaty, signed by 48 nations on September 8, 1951, officially ended Japan’s position as an imperial power,…
Algeria’s Struggle for Independence
The modern-day People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria is now a proud, sovereign state in North Africa that readily influences the…
The Long, Incomplete Road for the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty
The movement to limit or even prohibit the testing of nuclear weapons has been around almost since the dawn of…
When Archaeology Meets Diplomacy: The Dig at Herculaneum
When Vesuvius erupted on August 24, 79 AD, it famously engulfed the Roman town of Pompeii and, less famously, the…
“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.…
Admitting the Shah to the U.S.: Every Form of Refuge has its Price
Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran, departed Iran on January 16, 1979, fleeing political unrest led by the Ayatollah…
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…
The Neutron Bomb — A Negotiating Dud
The neutron bomb, a low-yield thermonuclear weapon which would be especially lethal to enemy ground troops but would not seriously…