Even when the situation seems most dire, the development process is never static. Bottom-up, local efforts help make the process…
Deserted in the Panama Canal, Exploring the Rose City, and Travelling the Globe in Forty Days: Firsthand Accounts from George Hermann in the Foreign Service
Foreign Service Officers are posted to positions abroad for terms of one, two, or three years depending on locality, demand,…
Ousted from Office for 47 Hours: the Failed 2002 Venezuelan Coup
Coups often do not go exactly as planned. While some result in military despotism and others in democratic reforms, some…
The 2012 Egyptian Elections: A Democratic Dilemma
In June of 2012, Elizabeth Jones found herself being transferred to the Near East Bureau in the Department of State.…
Lessons from Haiti: Why Security-Only Interventions Fail
Haiti has been plagued with instability for much of its existence, despite being the second country in the Americas to…
The Iran Hostage Crisis: Diplomatic Drama and Legal Innovation
Next to Pearl Harbor and 9/11, the Iranian seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran on November 4, 1979 and…
Communist Containment in the Middle East: Emergence of the Central Treaty Organization (CENTO)
The 1950s can be described as a decade filled with some uncertainties, but many prosperities. The Cold War had just…
CORDS Alumnus Gives Perspective on U.S. Role in Vietnam
Should the United States ever have gone to war in Vietnam? Nearly fifty years after the last American troops were…
Working as a Woman in Intelligence: Alice Shurcliff
Unlike many women’s stories that highlight the immense challenges women face, Alice Shurcliff highlights in her oral history advantages she…
Senegal’s Locust Plague in the late 1980s
The year is 1986. A Senegalese farmer walks out in his field a short while after the drought season has…