In the 1960s, in the depths of the Cold War, the world was viewed in terms of a zero-sum game:…
Observing the Fiftieth Anniversary of VJ-Day in Japan
How to commemorate an important anniversary of the country in which you’re posted when it marks a low point in…
Thailand’s Bloodless Coups d’état
When a country undergoes internal conflict and something as dramatic as a coup d’etat, the results can often lead to…
When Friends Spy on Friends: The Case of Jonathan Pollard
Former Navy intelligence analyst Jonathan Jay Pollard delivered over 800 highly classified documents to the Israeli government over a 17-month…
Operation Storm — The Battle for Croatia, 1995
After the fall of Yugoslavia in the early 1990’s, the Balkans descended into a bloody ethnic and sectarian conflict. Although…
Redesigning the Foreign Service Exam
The Foreign Service Exam is one of the most selective of its kind in the United States. Of the thousands…
The Foreign Service Exam – Finding a More Diverse FSO
The process to become a Foreign Service Officer is long and grueling. If you successfully pass the Foreign Service Officer Test…
The Neutron Bomb — A Negotiating Dud
The neutron bomb, a low-yield thermonuclear weapon which would be especially lethal to enemy ground troops but would not seriously…
Modern Turkey’s History of Military Coups
The July 2016 attempted coup d’état in Turkey was the latest in a series of military interventions in the nation’s…
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.…