Diplomacy
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Locarno: The Forgotten Conference of 1925 March 05, 2025
Largely forgotten to history, the Locarno Conference of October 1925 was a turning point in the interwar European diplomatic landscape. The conference initiated the re-integration of Germany into the international order and laid the foundations for a...
The Art of the Peace Deal March 05, 2025
Can talks between the US and Russia reach a lasting settlement over Ukraine? So far, argues historian Margaret MacMillan, the signs are not looking good....
Secret Diplomatic History of WW II March 07, 2023
British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain fatefully declares war on Germany on September 3, 1939, signaling the commencement of a Second World War which cost the lives of an estimated 70 million peopleThere are many military historians who are famil...
Covert Subversion Left Spies Suffering Chinese Jails March 07, 2023
In the fall of 1952, two young CIA officers boarded an unmarked C-47 plane in Korea, bound for enemy territory in Manchuria, in northern China. Their mission: to pick up a Chinese agent who had been in China for several months. The Americans planned ...
Teaching Japan's Take on Pearl December 07, 2021
The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor is one of the seminal events of American history. It forced America’s entry into World War II and marked this country’s emergence as a world power and dominant actor on the world scene. Until that time, the US had ...
Cotton Not Enough for South to Lure Europe November 30, 2021
ne hundred and fifty years ago this month, the American Civil War ended, dashing the plans of southern U.S. elites for an independent Confederate States of America.Though Union forces compelled the surrender of the Confederate army in April 1865, the...
Kissinger Lost Site of His Real Mission November 03, 2021
Diplomats are often the heroes of history. They are the men who walk along the edges of battlefields and persuade the belligerents to lay down their arms, turning swords into plowshares. At the dawn of the 19th century, Prince Metternich of Austria f...
Why Didn't Diplomacy Work to End Civil War? July 23, 2021
In February 2, 1865, President Abraham Lincoln and his Irish valet sneaked out of Washington City and took a steamboat down to the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay. The next day he met with three representatives of the Confederacy to discuss ending the Ci...
Joe Kennedy Wasn't a Model Diplomat July 22, 2021
He was manipulative—and manipulated. He was a boor—and a bore. He had gumption—and guile. He was a vicious infighter—and a reflexive appeaser. He was imperious in manner—and impervious to advice. He was the paterfamilias to a political dynasty—and a ...
Where 'Ping Pong' Diplomacy Got Its Start May 03, 2021
n April 1971 a series of table tennis matches between the US national team and the world champions China made history. Then ranked 23rd in the world, the US team was comprised of amateur players, even paying their own expenses to travel to the World ...
Diplomats Are Supposed to Cultivate U.S. Image November 03, 2020
Secretary of State Michael Pompeo raised a few eyebrows in August when he spoke, on foreign soil, to the Republican National Convention. Cabinet members, especially the Secretary of State, are held to a high standard in politics because they are mean...
Another British Betrayal of Poland July 31, 2020
As Britain's ‘First Ally', Poland played a role in most aspects of allied military strategy, not least in relation to underground resistance movements. Hence, Britain's SOE was closely involved with the Polish Underground from 1940 onwards; and SOE's...
WW II: Allies' Missed Opportunity in Italy July 30, 2020
Gen. George S. Patton called it “the unforgiving minute”– that moment in combat when opportunity for success at little or no cost occurs – a moment that must be seized boldly and swiftly or it is lost, with terrible consequences. Such a moment occurr...
China Forces Change in India, Australia Relationship July 27, 2020
Australia’s strategy on engaging India has long revolved around the so-called “three Cs:” cricket, curry, and the Commonwealth.In light of the changing status of bilateral relations in 2020, let’s add a couple more Cs to the list: China, and containm...
Do We Rely Too Much on Military Might? July 01, 2020
When he was defense secretary, Robert Gates would often say there are more people in military bands than in the State Department's Foreign Service. The Pentagon could always get funding, while State was often cut in the budget process.Now Gates has e...
U.S., Iran Seem Unable to Learn From History January 22, 2020
DELHI – During the recent flare-up between the United States and Iran, US President Donald Trump tweeted that he was prepared to bomb “52 Iranian sites (representing the 52 American hostages taken by Iran many years ago).” Some of these targets, he a...
Xi Is Channeling Charles de Gaulle, Not Mao December 04, 2019
The transformation of Xi Jinping is happening before our eyes. With the insertion of Xi Jinping Thought into the Communist Party’s constitution and the possibility that a quarter-century consensus on two-term leaders will be ended, it’s clear that Ch...
Lincoln's Gettysburg Address Sure Got Around November 18, 2019
For Public Diplomacy officers of a certain generation, every ceremony marking the Battle of Gettysburg and the dedication of the cemetery at the battlefield brings back some yesteryear memories.Back when U.S. Information Service libraries and centers...
Spinning the U-2 Spy Plane Incident May 16, 2019
On May 1, 1960, an America U-2 spy plane was shot down in Soviet airspace, causing great embarrassment to the United States, which had tried to conceal its surveillance efforts from the USSR. In 1957, the U.S. had established a secret intelligence fa...
Lessons of Diplomacy and Suez Crisis May 10, 2019
The Suez War of 1956 is rarely included in the pantheon of crises featured in the study of statecraft. Seminal works on strategy, such as Yale historian Donald Kagan's On the Origins of War, typically examine more famous episodes, like the outbreak o...
The Day Truman Ripped Soviet Diplomat Molotov April 23, 2019
When Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov arrived at the White House on this day in 1945 en route to the San Francisco conference that set up the United Nations, he thought he was making a courtesy call on President Harry S. Truman, who had ass...
'Another Fine Mess' in the Middle East April 11, 2019
“Well, that’s another fine mess you’ve gotten us into.”—Laurel and Hardy, c. 1930’s.There is no question that the Middle East Arab-Israeli-oil situation is one of the world’s most enduring and vexing problems. Almost every economically significant co...
Egyptian Citizens Still Have Negative View of Israel March 26, 2019
Five different events are being held in Israel to mark 40 years since the groundbreaking signing on the White House Lawn on March 26, 1979, of the Egyptian-Israeli peace accord.Tellingly, only one commemorative event is being held in Egypt, and that ...
Success of the Shanghai Communique February 27, 2019
On February 28, we celebrate the 45th anniversary of the Shanghai Communique. The 1972 agreement, brokered by Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai, ended 23 years of diplomatic estrangement between the United States and C...
Nixon's China Visit Had Consequences February 21, 2019
The consequences of Richard Nixon's historic visit to China are complex and multi-layered. It would not be an exaggeration to say that, in many ways, the visit changed the tide of history, with ramifications both short- and long-term.On February 21, ...
