With the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989, the long-awaited reunification between East and West Germany began. A…
The 1985 Mexico City Earthquake
On the morning of September 19, 1985, an 8.1-magnitude earthquake hit the western states of Mexico and including Mexico City. …
ADST is On the Air!
(From Left to Right): The U.S. Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon, after a bomb attack in 1983; Marine Corps Sgt. Clayton…
Ambassador Skip Gnehm on the Middle East
The Middle East has been a complicated, if not violent, region for millennia, which has only been exacerbated by recent…
Scotland, A Land Apart
Scotland can trace its links to the United Kingdom to more than 400 years ago, when James VI, King of…
“The State Department has always been a whipping boy”
Charles “Chip” Bohlen (August 30, 1904 – January 1, 1974) served in the Foreign Service from 1929 to 1969 and…
Counterinsurgency in Eastern Afghanistan 2004–2008
Back to Memoirs and Occasional Papers Counterinsurgency in Eastern Afghanistan 2004–2008: A Civilian Perspective After the 2001 ouster of the…
Turning the Tables: An Interview with Stu Kennedy
In this interview with the Foreign Service Journal, Charles Stuart Kennedy talks about his Foreign Service career and pioneering work creating American…
“It wasn’t supposed to happen here” — 9/11, Before and After
September 11, 2001 left an indelible mark on American history when nineteen members of al Qaeda carried out the deadliest…
“Military overreach cannot be offset by diplomatic incapacity”
2014 marks the 100th anniversary of the start of World War I, the devastating “war to end all wars.” While…