On August 13, 1961, Berlin woke up to a shock: the East German Army had begun construction on the infamous…
Dean Acheson – Architect of the Cold War
Dean Gooderham Acheson served as Secretary of State under President Truman from 1949-1953. Noting his enormous influence, historian Randall Woods…
The Search for Peace in Southern Africa – Oil, Angola, and the Proxy Wars
During the Cold War, the United States and the USSR engaged in a zero-sum game throughout the globe; while mutually…
The Vietnamese Boat People
After the United States withdrew from South Vietnam in 1975, communist North Vietnam quickly took over and established the Socialist Republic…
The Paris Peace Conference — 1946
At the Paris Peace Conference, which lasted from July to October 1946, negotiators from the United States, Soviet Union, United…
India and Pakistan on the Brink: The 1998 Nuclear Tests
In May 1998, India conducted its first nuclear bomb tests since 1974 at the Indian Army Pokhran Test Range. Known…
Kashmir and the 1965 Indo-Pakistani War
In the summer of 1965, India and Pakistan returned to the battlefields of Kashmir in a renewed attempt to establish…
Former Russian FM: “We need each other now more than ever”
In the wake of the terrible tragedy of Malaysian flight 17, which was shot down over Ukraine on July 17,…
A Never-ending Tragedy — The Onset of the AIDS Crisis in Africa
The spread of AIDS in Africa in the 1980s and 90s presented unique challenges for U.S. diplomats suddenly faced with…
Why We Stuck with Maliki — and Lost Iraq
To understand why Iraq is imploding, you must understand Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki — and why the United States has…