Cold War

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  1/25/2023
  

  Canada's Hottest Tourist Attraction Could be the Government's Doomsday Bunker

  Canada's Diefenbunker was decommissioned in 1994, and today is one of the few places where tourists can see the preparations made to preserve government in the event of the unthinkable. 

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• SOURCE: The New Republic
  1/12/2023
  

  Why George Kennan Thought He Failed His Biggest Challenge

  by Patrick Iber

  After urging the United States to firmly oppose the expansion of Soviet influence as a way of bringing the USSR's internal weaknesses to the forefront, Kennan grew disillusioned at the militarized tack later versions of "containment" took. A new book revisits and challenges canonical studies of the diplomatic thinker. 

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• 1/15/2023
  

  Martin Sherwin's "Gambling with Armageddon" Strips away the Myths of Nuclear Deterrence

  by Lawrence Wittner

  As Sherwin points out, “the real lesson of the Cuban missile crisis . . . is that nuclear armaments create the perils they are deployed to prevent, but are of little use in resolving them.”

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• SOURCE: Foreign Affairs
  1/3/2023
  

  The Ghosts of Kennan and Lessons of the Cold War

  by Frederik Logevall

  George Kennan was instrumental in defining the doctrine of containment, but later objected to the bellicosity undertaken in its name. Key parts of his intellectual journey have remained obscure; a new book tries to examine them and draw lessons for foreign policy today. 

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• SOURCE: NPR
  12/17/2022
  

  Energy Secretary: Revoking Oppenheimer Security Clearance Was Wrong

  Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm stated that the revocation of the physicist's clearance after his opposition to the US hydrogen bomb project was the result of a biased process, one historian Kai Bird calls a "kangaroo court." 

• 
• SOURCE: The China Project
  12/7/2022
  

  The 1979 Formosa Incident Sparked Taiwan's Democracy Movement

  by James Carter

  An explainer of the wave of protests that began on December 10, 1979, that disrupted the one-party authoritarian rule of the Kuomintang in Taiwan.

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• SOURCE: ProPublica
  12/3/2022
  

  The Cold War Legacy in America's Groundwater

  The government has failed to regulate or control groundwater pollution from the uranium mines that built America's nuclear arsenal. 

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  12/6/2022
  

  Don Luce, Activist Against Vietnam War, Dies at 88

  Luce helped expose the torture and human rights abuses carried out by the government of South Vietnam, and campaigned against the war after being expelled from South Vietnam as an aid worker. 

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• 12/4/2022
  

  What's New About Putin's Nuclear Threats? Just that the US is on the Receiving End

  by David P. Barash

  From the American perspective, the seeming danger of Putin's nuclear saber-rattling is partly due to the novelty of being on the receiving end. 

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• SOURCE: Labor and Working Class History Association
  11/22/2022
  

  From Solidarity to Shock Therapy: The AFL-CIO and the End of the Cold War

  by Jeff Schuhrke

  The AFL-CIO's leadership saw the emergence of the Polish Solidarity movement in 1980 as an opportunity to advance their anticommunist agenda. Did they also undermine the ability of a post-Soviet left to protect workers' interests against global capitalism? 

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  10/16/2022
  

  A Decision to Declare an Already-Public History Secret is Bad for the Public

  The State Department's official history of US-Soviet relations includes a military intelligence officer's recollection of a 1983 exercise that nearly triggered nuclear war. Why has the government pulled that official history and restricted the original memo? 

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• SOURCE: London Review of Books
  10/13/2022
  

  Understanding Colombia's Truth Commission Report after 60 Years of Civil Conflict

  by Rachel Nolan

  Colombia's armed conflict between government forces, leftist rebels, and paramilitary death squads is the world's longest continuous conflict. The nation's massive Truth Commission report undermines decades of official government narrative about the apportionment of blame for atrocities. 

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• 9/11/2022
  

  Russians' Disapproval of Gorbachev Shouldn't Dominate How He is Remembered

  by Walter G. Moss

  The combination of post-Soviet hardship, resurgent nationalism, and the destructiveness of the Ukraine war have led many Americans to embrace Russians' dim view of Mikhail Gorbachev. A historian of Russia says the leader had his faults, but his furtherance of humane values has been underrated. 

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• SOURCE: The Editorial Board
  8/30/2022
  

  Gorbachev Became a Hero to the West Through Massive Failure

  by Erik Loomis

  Americans need to evaluate Gorbachev outside of their own nationalist perspective, despite feeling that the end of the Cold War was a good thing. The people he affected most see him as a failure. 

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• SOURCE: The Conversation
  8/31/2022
  

  The Contradictory Legacy of Gorbachev and "Revolution From Above"

  by Ronald Suny

  "A great emancipator, Gorbachev left a mixed legacy. He expanded freedom for millions but at the same time unleashed roiling waves of nationalism and left the upturned soil for renewed authoritarianism."

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• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  8/31/2022
  

  Gorbachev Never Understood What He Set in Motion

  by Anne Applebaum

  Sometimes seen as a visionary reformer, Gorbachev may have started the USSR's economic death spiral by restricting the sale of vodka to increase worker productivity. 

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• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  8/31/2022
  

  Gorbachev's Greatness Was in His Failure

  by Tom Nichols

  Gorbachev's personal decency made him the wrong man for his chosen task of saving Soviet Communism from collapse; today his reputation is far higher in the west than in the former USSR. 

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• SOURCE: Foreign Affairs
  8/31/2022
  

  Gorbachev's Vacuum: His Legacy and Russia's Wars

  by Michael Kimmage

  The last Soviet leader failed to intuit the ultimate consequences of the changes he unleashed, from the collapse of the USSR to the revival of Russian imperialsm. 

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• SOURCE: NPR
  7/26/2022
  

  At 75, the CIA is Back to Battling the Kremlin

  The common objectives and concerns that engaged the Central Intelligence Agency at its 1947 founding are familiar to the intelligence community today, showing the continuity of American involvement in other nations' affairs. 

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• 7/8/2022
  

  Is Biden Prepared to Adopt a Truly Progressive Foreign Policy?

  by Leon Fink

  Protecting the so-called Liberal World Order these days puts great emphasis on preserving “order” but very little on what “liberal” can or should mean. The administration risks fumbling an opportunity to connect with new foreign leadership on labor, environment, immigration, and other issues beyond security and the drug war.