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President Bill Clinton and Russian President Boris Yeltsin.

The First Draft of the Ukraine War’s History

Washington’s policy-makers showed themselves more wicked and feckless than their Vietnam- and Iraq-era predecessors.
by Scott McConnell via The American Conservative on February 19, 2025
NATO leaders in the 1950s sitting together at a conference.

Ill-Suited to Reality: NATO’s Delusions

It has suddenly become popular to cast NATO as the first benign military alliance in history, without concealed politics.
by Tom Stevenson via London Review of Books on July 25, 2024
Vladimir Putin with Bill Clinton

I Tried to Put Russia on Another Path

My policy was to work for the best, while expanding NATO to prepare for the worst.
by Bill Clinton via The Atlantic on April 7, 2022
Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and US secretary of state James Baker in the Kremlin, Moscow, February 9, 1990.

‘A Bridge Too Far’

Even the most ardent advocates of NATO expansion after the implosion of the USSR realized that it had limits—and one of those limits was Ukraine.
by Fred Kaplan via New York Review of Books on March 11, 2022
Vladimir Putin sitting with three Russian military officials.

Ignored Warnings: How NATO Expansion Led to the Current Ukraine Tragedy

NATO expansion - the trigger for Russia's attack on Ukraine?
by Ted Carpenter via 1945 on February 24, 2022
Bill Clinton and Vladimir Putin pose for a photo op in Auckland, New Zealand, in 1999.

How We Got From the Cold War to the Current Russian Standoff (and It’s Not All on Putin)

Yes, the Russian leader is an authoritarian aggressor. But different decisions at key points by the U.S. might have made him less so.
by Jordan Michael Smith via The New Republic on January 28, 2022
Photo of NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky

America’s Generation Gap on Ukraine

A decade or two ago, opposing NATO expansion to Ukraine was a position espoused by pillars of the American establishment. What happened?
by Peter Beinart via The Beinart Notebook on January 24, 2022
Picture of Yalta revealed behind torn paper

The Post-World War II System Was Always Fragile

Franklin Roosevelt warned that even in peacetime, America’s obligations to the world would continue.
by Julian E. Zelizer via Foreign Policy on May 12, 2025
French Gen. Jean de Rochambeau and American Gen. George Washington giving the last orders in October 1781 for the battle at Yorktown.

How Allies Have Helped the US Gain Independence, Defend Freedom and Keep the Peace

Why should a country want or need allies? President Donald Trump and his followers seem to disdain the idea. So did George Washington.
by Donald Heflin via The Conversation on February 20, 2025
Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu in the White House.

Trump’s Gaza Plan May Mark the End of the Postwar Order

Although the West has long tolerated forced expulsions when convenient, its postwar framework at least nominally rejected them. Now the US is endorsing it.
by Dirk Moses via Jacobin on February 16, 2025
Charles Gates Dawes.
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History Shows How Dangerous 'America First' Really Is

In the 1920s and 1930s, the U.S. tried America First. This philosophy helped lead to World War II.
by Cyrus Veeser via Made By History on September 10, 2024
An image of George Kennan with some of his letters superimposed over his face.

Kennan’s Warning on Ukraine

Ambition, insecurity, and the perils of independence.
by Frank Costigliola via Foreign Affairs on January 28, 2023
Noam Chomsky

“Every Time We Build Up Our Military Budget, We’re Attacking Ourselves”

Noam Chomsky discusses the hypocrisies of US empire and why if we really wanted to build a decent society, we’d immediately slash the massive military budget.
by David Barsamian, Noam Chomsky via Jacobin on June 17, 2022
A tank on a city street.

U.S. Deliberation During Hungary’s 1956 Uprising Offers Lessons on Restraint

As the war in Ukraine worsens, there’s little debate about Western policy choices. This is a mistake.
by Branko Marcetic via Current Affairs on June 1, 2022
Military facility destroyed by shelling near Kyiv, Ukraine

Was it Inevitable? A Short History of Russia’s War on Ukraine

To understand the tragedy of this war, it is worth going back beyond the last few weeks and months, and even beyond Vladimir Putin.
by Keith Gessen via The Guardian on March 11, 2022
Picture of intersections

What Infrastructure Really Means

Making sense of current fights over a word we borrowed from the French long ago.
by Peter A. Shulman via The Atlantic on July 13, 2021

The Shoals of Ukraine

Why has Ukraine been a stumbling block for U.S. foreign policy since the end of the Cold War?
by Serhii Plokhy, M. E. Sarotte via Foreign Affairs on January 4, 2020

Is This the End of the American Century?

Has Trump permanently damaged the credibility of the presidential office?
by Adam Tooze via London Review of Books on April 4, 2019
Demonstrators advocate for a nuclear arms freeze.

The Peace Movement Won the INF Treaty. We Must Fight to Preserve It.

In the 1980s, millions of antinuclear activists took to the streets, forcing Western governments to respond to our demands.
by David Cortright via The Nation on November 14, 2018
Title screen of the film "1983: The Brink of Apocalypse."

Standing on the Brink: The Secret War Scare of 1983

Remembering a time when a toxic cocktail of threats, fear, and misunderstanding nearly led us down the path to Armageddon.
by Jill Kastner via The Nation on May 31, 2018
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The Year The World Almost Blew Up – And Nobody Noticed

On November 9, 1983, the Soviet Union nearly ordered a full pre-emptive nuclear strike against the US and Western Europe.
by Taylor Downing via HNN on May 27, 2018

What Happened to the “Free World”?

Pundits can't seem to define what exactly the term refers to. Turns out it was developed for a very particular historical moment.
by Peter Slezkine via The New Republic on May 22, 2018
Screen capture of President Clinton at his desk, addressing the nation.

Bill Clinton Justifies Kosovo Intervention

President Clinton’s address revealed the strength of NATO and publicly signaled a post-Cold War shift in U.S. foreign policy.
via Voices & Visions on March 24, 1999
Gail "Hal" Halvorsen interacts with children in West Berlin
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How a Cold War Airlift Saved Berlin With Food, Medicine and Chocolate

A Soviet blockade around Berlin cut the city off from the West. But in 1948 U.S. and British pilots began to fly food, fuel and medicine to the Allied sectors.
via Retro Report on March 20, 2025
A drawing of a Viking ship approaching Greenland.

The Long Struggle for Greenland

Throughout its history, the vast Arctic island has been viewed by competing powers as a strategic prize and geopolitical asset.
by Paul Lay via Engelsberg Ideas on January 8, 2025
1999 Yugoslavian stamp depicting a NATO jet launching a missile at an oil refinery.

Stamps Capture Unchanging Face of U.S. Violence Abroad

Countries have also used their postal systems to fight back against aggression.
by Matin Modarressi via Foreign Policy in Focus on January 6, 2025
Spock and Kirk in a scene from Star Trek.

Star Trek’s Cold War

While America was fighting on the ground, the Federation was fighting in space.
by Tom Nichols via The Atlantic on December 26, 2024
A row of nuclear missiles aimed at a cloudy sky.

The Forgotten Epidemic

The bishops once used their influence to encourage nuclear disarmament. Can they do so again now?
by Alexander Stern via Commonweal on December 21, 2024
St. Basil's Cathedral spire about to pierce the world like a balloon.

Why Would Anyone Want to Run the World?

The warnings in Cold War history.
by John Lewis Gaddis via Foreign Affairs on June 7, 2024
Richard and Pat Nixon plant a tree on the White House lawn on Earth Day, 1970.

The “Carbon Dioxide Problem”: Nixon’s Inner Circle Debates the Climate Crisis

A collection of records from the Nixon Presidential Library and other sources on the internal debates Nixon advisors were having about climate change and environment.
by Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Henry Kissinger, Hubert Heffner, U. Alexis Johnson, Rachel Santarsiero via National Security Archive on April 26, 2024
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