Idi Amin Dada, who came to be known as the “Butcher of Uganda,” rose to officer rank in the Ugandan…
Kyrgyzstan After Independence – An Unfulfilled Promise
After the collapse of the USSR, Kyrgyzstan, despite its isolation and lack of development, was considered to be one of…
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…
Agent Orange and the Vietnam War
In 1961, United States forces in Vietnam began to use chemical herbicides and defoliants on South Vietnamese crops, bushes, and…
The Extra Special Relationship: Thatcher, Reagan, and the 1980s
The “special relationship” between the United States and the United Kingdom has served to unite the two nations over the…
Sputnik, The Ugly American, and the Push to Improve FSI Language Training
In the depths of the Cold War, the USSR in 1957 launched Sputnik, the first satellite to orbit the earth.…
How Did We Get Here? A Look Back at the Creation of the European Union
Welcome to Part I of our crash course on the formation of the European Union (EU). Each treaty signed between 1948…
The Battle to Create the Foreign Service Institute
The art of diplomatic relations and negotiations is as old as civilization itself. However, the State Department did not have…
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…
Laying It Between the Lines: Music Diplomacy in Shanghai
“But if I really say it/ the radio won’t play it/ unless I lay it between the lines.” This song…