diplomatic history

• 
• 10/18/2020
  

  "The Silent Guns of Two Octobers" Reviewing a New History of the Cuban Missile Crisis

  by Sheldon M. Stern

  Longtime JFK Library historian Sheldon Stern offers a review of a new book on the diplomatic resolution of the Cuban Missile Crisis. 

• 
• 3/1/2020
  

  “He Could Get Squishy on Democracy”: Bill Clinton’s Perception of Vladimir Putin According to Recently Public Documents

  by Stephan Kieninger

  Newly available Clinton Presidential Library files give readers novel insights and fascinating impressions of Putin’s KGB heritage, his manners, his style, his shrewdness and his ways of manipulation. 

• 
• SOURCE: Tom Dispatch
  2/9/20
  

  World War III’s Newest Battlefield

  by Michael T. Klare

  U.S. Troops Head for the Far North

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  2/5/20
  

  The United States and Saudi Arabia aren’t allies. They never have been.

  by Ellen R. Wald

  One of our key ideas about the Middle East is wrong.

• 
• SOURCE: Tom Dispatch
  1/23/20
  

  The American Chaos Machine: U.S. Foreign Policy Goes Off the Rails

  by Danny Sjursen

  President Trump’s rash, risky, and repugnant decision to assassinate Iranian Major General Qassem Suleimani on the sovereign soil of Iraq was only the latest version of what has proven to be a pervasive state of affairs.

• 
• SOURCE: Madman of Chu
  1/19/20
  

  Imagining an Iranian Spring

  by Andrew Meyer

  The recent brush with war between the US and Iran underscores the persistent question of US-Iranian relations: will the two countries ever reach a point of mutual toleration ever again?

• 
• 1/12/20
  

  Do Morals Matter in Foreign Policy?

  by Joseph S. Nye, Jr.

  Examining 14 presidencies since 1945 shows that a radically skeptical view of morality is bad history. Morals did matter.

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  1/8/20
  

  War with Iran is not inevitable — but the U.S. must change course

  by Kelly J. Shannon

  The relationship between the countries, once friends and allies, has soured — because of U.S. aggression.

• 
• SOURCE: NY Times
  12/29/19
  

  How a Chase Bank Chairman Helped the Deposed Shah of Iran Enter the U.S.

  The fateful decision in 1979 to admit Mohammed Reza Pahlavi prompted the seizure of the American Embassy in Tehran and helped doom the Carter presidency.    

• 
• 12/19/19
  

  2020 Will Be More Turbulent Than 2019, Unless…

  by Alon Ben-Meir

  The year 2020 will most likely be as turbulent if not more so than 2019 due mainly to the lack of American leadership and the rush of other powers, especially Russia, China, and to a lesser extent Turkey and Iran, to fill the vacuum the US is leaving behind.

• 
• 11/26/19
  

  Legalize Torture? It’s Tortured Logic

  by Sam Ben-Meir

  The Report is largely about another single-minded individual, Daniel J. Jones (Adam Driver), lead investigator of the Senate Intelligence Committee, who spent five arduous years doggedly uncovering the CIA’s suspect detention and interrogation program following the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

• 
• 11/24/19
  

  The Mysterious Assassination That Unleashed Jihadism

  by Thomas Hegghammer

  The story of Abdallah Azzam suggests that a root cause of modern jihadism was the collapse in respect for religious authority among young Islamists in the late 1980s.

• 
• SOURCE: Foreign Policy
  10/30/19
  

  The United States Overthrew Iran’s Last Democratic Leader

  by Roham Alvandi and Mark J. Gasiorowski

  Despite a campaign of historical revisionism in Washington, the archival record makes clear that the U.S. government was the key actor in the 1953 coup that ousted Mohammad Mosaddeq—not the Iranian clergy.

• 
• 10/27/19
  

  1949: A Crucial Year for America, Russia, China and the World

  by Kevin M. Shanley

  It’s valuable to revisit three events of global importance from 70 years ago and reflect on how global events intertwine with personal histories.

• 
• SOURCE: NY Times
  10/21/19
  

  This Is the True End Of Pax Americana

  by Ian Buruma

  Mr. Trump is taking a wrecking ball to the world order.

• 
• 10/20/19
  

  The Greatest Danger in the Kurdish Crisis

  by Zaman Stanizai

  If the heavy-handedness of the Turkish military is any indication, Erdogan seems to be bent on the ethnic cleansing and relocation of Kurds in northern Syria and resettling their lands along the Turkish border with Arab Syrian refugees currently residing in Turkey.

• 
• 10/20/19
  

  A History of Influencing Presidential Children to Change Policy

  by Aaron Coy Moulton

  How Dominican Dictator Rafael Trujillo used the ambassador to the Dominican Republic's son to try to influence American foreign policy.  

• 
• SOURCE: Newsweek
  10/17/19
  

  Historian Brad Simpson Says He's Never Read a Letter As Unhinged As Trump's To Erdogan

  Among those on Twitter voicing their bemusement, was U.S. foreign relations expert Brad Simpson, an associate professor at the University of Connecticut.

• 
• SOURCE: Chris Riback's Conversations
  10/4/19
  

  Isaac Stone Fish: Where Do US-China Relations Go Next?

  by Chris Riback

  As the 2020 campaign heats up, several key questions will be asked and debated, including: How did we get here – and where do China and US-China relations go next?

• 
• 10/6/19
  

  The Middle East: Must We Fight Forever?

  by Harlow Giles Unger

  Almost 235 years have elapsed since John Adams warned against America’s first military involvement in the Arab world. The United States today seems well on the way to fulfilling Adams’s prophecy that we will “fight them forever.”