U.S.-Soviet relations during the Cold War were marked by increasing tension. Emerging from WWII as the two strongest countries, competition…
Introducing American Culture to Tokyoites
Renate Coleshill was born in Germany and went on to work for the U.S. Foreign Service in a number of…
Do You Hear the People Sing?—Democratic Promotion in Haiti, Mozambique, and Iraq
E Pluribus Unum. The average American will unwittingly encounter these very words on a daily basis and hardly give them…
A Failure of American Ideology?—The Spread of Communism in South America and the International Sphere
The United States’ war on Communism has crucially shaped much of our foreign policy today. Since the First Red Scare…
Leveraging a Unique Perspective in Manila Amid Heightened Tensions
Robert H. Stern’s life as a Foreign Service Officer (FSO) took him in many different directions all across the globe.…
Keeping the Skies Open: Defending the Open Skies Treaty
The checkered history between Russia and the United States was arguably the most transformational relationship for world events in the…
A City Torn Apart: Americans in Berlin
A U.S. army tank manned by a defecting soldier crashed straight through a Berlin Wall checkpoint manned by Russian troops.…
“Dining is the Soul of Diplomacy”
Lord Palmerston, a former British prime minister and three time foreign minister, once famously noted, “Dining is the soul of…
An Unconventional Leader—Pope Francis Transforms the Vatican
White smoke billowed from the Vatican, indicating that the College of Cardinals had cast their ballots. Jorge Mario Bergolgio, a…
The Felix Bloch Affair: An Unsolved Case of Cold War Espionage
In 1989, French counterintelligence agents watched Felix Bloch as he dined in Paris with known Soviet spy “Pierre Bart.” Bloch…