The summer of 1961 was fraught with tensions between Moscow and Washington. Berlin, which had been a Cold War flash…
“The World Was Tired of Haiti”: The 1994 U.S. Intervention
The United States found itself embroiled in several interventions in the 1990s that focused on upholding basic human rights standards…
Hong Kong Returns to China, Part I
In September 1982, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher went to Beijing to begin a dialogue on the issue of Hong…
George Shultz: “Your Country is the United States”
George P. Shultz was Secretary of State for President Reagan from 1982 to 1989, the longest such tenure since Dean…
“Austria is Free!” Post-War Vienna Escapes the Soviet Bloc
May 15th, 1955, was a momentous occasion for a war-battered Europe, and for the national history of Austria as the…
When the Sudanese Autocrat Met President Reagan and Lost his Job
In 1969, Colonel Gaafar Muhammad Nimeiry (seen right), who three years earlier had graduated from the United States Army Command…
Getting Kosovo Right: Working to Avoid Another Bosnia
Yugoslavia had long been a simmering caldron of ethnic and nationalist tensions. After the death of Yugoslav strongman Josip Broz…
Iraqi Kurds, Operation Provide Comfort, and the Birth of Iraq’s Opposition
In the aftermath of Iraq’s crushing defeat during Operation Desert Storm in February 1991, protesters and rebels in the northern…
Winning the Peace – USAID and the Demobilization of the Nicaraguan Contras
In the 1980s, one of the focal points of U.S. foreign policy was the rise of leftist militants throughout the…
De-Baathification and Dismantling the Iraqi Army
The 2003 American invasion of Iraq, which came not long after the invasion of Afghanistan, proved to be highly controversial,…