Haiti has long been plagued by coups d’état and regime changes, leading to long-time political instability and weak governance. In…
The ACDA-USIA Merger into State — The End of of an Era
As the Cold War began to go into full swing, the United States soon realized the need for distinct agencies…
“The Cold War Was Truly Over” — The 1986 Reykjavik Summit
After the 1985 Geneva Summit, where President Ronald Reagan and leader of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, met for the first…
Brexit — Now What?
The decision by referendum of the British electorate to depart the European Union — after a campaign in which facts…
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…
Virtual Student Foreign Service Interns 2016-2017
Blair Boyd Blair is a senior linguistics major at Macalester College in Minnesota. She hopes to use this internship as…
China’s Fight for Tiny Islands — The Taiwan Straits Crises, 1954-58
Recent disagreements over Beijing’s claim to the South China Seas (in which a tribunal constituted under the UN Convention on the…
Bad Blood: The Sino-Soviet Split and the U.S. Normalization with China
In the 1960s, in the depths of the Cold War, the world was viewed in terms of a zero-sum game:…
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…
Hong Kong Returns to China, Part II
As the formal handover of Hong Kong to China approached, many grew concerned about Beijing’s intentions. Tens of thousands of…