One reform to fix them all. What could be more ideal than this? Unfortunately, such a dream will forever lie…
The State Department Under the Red Scare: McCarthy’s Campaign
The inauspicious rise of Joseph McCarthy began in 1950, when the Wisconsin senator was asked to give a speech at…
Money for Secrets: Making a Deal with a KGB Agent
Benedict Arnold. Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. Mir Jafar. All of these individuals have something in common: they all betrayed their…
National Elections Under Protest
As the United States watches its 2020 election season drag on longer than most presidential elections, the highly charged partisan…
Nettling the New Guard—PNGed out of Singapore
Singapore’s story of economic success under the leadership of Lee Kuan Yew has catapulted the nation to the status of…
Living Through History with a Historian—Witnessing Monumental Societal Change in the Soviet Union from the 60s to the 90s
American diplomats and their families abroad become accustomed to living through exciting or harrowing events; but occasionally their lives provide…
Phoenix from the Ashes—Reform Efforts on the Foreign Assistance Act
In a world as technologically advanced and reliant as ours, one would expect adaptation to be a staple component of…
Fighting Where the “Wango-Wango Bird Couldn’t Get”—U.S. Diplomats and the Ecuador-Peru Boundary Dispute
In 1895, the United States intervened in a long-standing border dispute between Great Britain and Venezuela, forcing its resolution—and forcing…
CORDS: A New Pacification Program for Vietnam
The Vietnam War was one of the most challenging and complex conflicts of the Cold War era. As the conflict…
A Growing Community: The Early Days of EU Enlargement
When people think of the European Union (EU), they think of Brexit. They think of the rise of nationalism and…