On April 6, 1994, the presidents of Rwanda and Burundi were assassinated when their plane was shot down near Kigali airport and crashed into the grounds of the Rwandan presidential residence. The incident ignited genocide by the majority Hutus against Tutsis and against those supporting peace negotiations to bring Rwanda out of civil war. An… Read More "Fleeing Rwanda to Survive, then Returning to Rebuild, 1994"
Teaching the Foreign Service to Speak Foreign Languages
The Foreign Service Institute (FSI) is the primary training institution to prepare American diplomats to advance U.S. foreign affairs interests, teaching, among other things, the languages of the countries where Foreign Service Officers will serve. At the National Foreign Affairs Training Center in Arlington, Virginia, FSI’s School of Language Studies provides 25 hours of classroom… Read More "Teaching the Foreign Service to Speak Foreign Languages"
The Long, Incomplete Road for the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty
The movement to limit or even prohibit the testing of nuclear weapons has been around almost since the dawn of the nuclear age itself. Concern over harming the environment and causing widespread damage to human life led to the Limited Test Ban Treaty in 1963 and the 1974 Threshold Test Ban Treaty, which limited underground… Read More "The Long, Incomplete Road for the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty"
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 Law of the Sea issued a non-binding decision in July 2016 in favor of the Philippines) in many ways is reminiscent of the potentially far more serious clashes over the Taiwan Straits, the first of… Read More "China’s Fight for Tiny Islands — The Taiwan Straits Crises, 1954-58"
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 there were roughly six discrete Yugoslav conflicts, the first major war was the Croatian War for Independence. Starting in 1991, when Croatia declared its independence as a nation-state, the war was fought between forces loyal… Read More "Operation Storm — The Battle for Croatia, 1995"
The Marooned Law of the Sea Treaty
The Law of the Sea Treaty (formally known as the Third United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, or UNCLOSIII) is a 17 part agreement which was adopted in 1982 and which establishes a comprehensive set of rules governing oceans. Specifically, it defines the rights and responsibilities of nations regarding their use of the… Read More "The Marooned Law of the Sea Treaty"
The United States found itself embroiled in several interventions in the 1990s that focused on upholding basic human rights standards and encouraging democratic regimes to flourish, from Somalia to the Balkans to America’s own backyard in the Caribbean. Despite Haiti being the second nation in the Western Hemisphere to proclaim independence, it has suffered from… Read More "“The World Was Tired of Haiti”: The 1994 U.S. Intervention"
How Did We Get Here? A Look Back at the Creation of the European Union
Welcome to Part I of our crash course on the formation of the European Union (EU). Each treaty signed between 1948 and 2007 brought Europe one step closer to today’s EU. Back in the aftermath of World War II, a group of European countries decided that the Dunkirk Treaty of 1947, which the UK and France… Read More "How Did We Get Here? A Look Back at the Creation of the European Union"
We Don’t Give a Dam — The Feud Over Financing the Aswan High Dam
Egypt’s agriculture has always depended on the water of the Nile; the river’s perennial floods, while critical in replenishing the fertile soil, constantly threatened to wash away a season’s harvest. The Aswan High Dam was built to regulate the river’s flooding as well as to create hydroelectric power and a reservoir for irrigation. Its planning… Read More "We Don’t Give a Dam — The Feud Over Financing the Aswan High Dam"
Towering Infernos – The Kuwait Oil Fires
A 2010 Time Magazine article rated it as the third worst environmental catastrophe in history, right behind Chernobyl and Bhopal. As Operation Desert Storm drew to a close, with Kuwait liberated and the Iraqi Army all but destroyed, Saddam Hussein would not concede defeat. Like a cornered rat, he inflicted one more blow on Kuwait’s ecology and… Read More "Towering Infernos – The Kuwait Oil Fires"