The first active American involvement in the Kurdish unrest took place in 1942 in Iran. American strategy in the aftermath of the Second World War, which was designed to prevent Soviet expansionism towards the Persian Gulf, triggered the collapse of the first Kurdish political entity Mahabad Republic in 1946. These American involvements were not analysed in scholarly in the literature although they established the pillars of America's Kurdish policy. The creation of the Mahabad Republic in January 1946 drew American interest more towards the Kurdish separatist movements, while the geopolitical considerations appeared during the crisis continued during the Cold War era. Therefore, there is congruence between trace of American foreign policy and classical geopolitical thinking in this case. This article aims to illustrate foundation of America's Kurdish policy based on British and American archives. America's Ambassador to the Soviet Union, Averell Harriman, played a significant role, which should be noted in this context.
With the successful handover of Hong Kong in 1997, the UK under the newly elected Labour government sought to engage in a 'new chapter' of relations with China. Despite much effort, the stated goal of a 'thick relationship' was not fully realised during this time. To understand the process more closely, this article focuses on the policies adopted by the Labour government under Tony Blair with a focus on his trip to China in October 1998. Using recently released Cabinet Office documents, it shows how perceptions played an important role in forging an approach that was too narrow in scope to address the more difficult challenges that emerged such as human rights and the NATO bombing of the Chinese embassy. The conclusion is that these policies were not sustainable to set the path towards a deeper partnership.
Can individual diplomats clear the path to d & eacute;tente between adversaries? The litany of failed overtures between the United States and Cuba, and the sheer duration of official hostility from the Dwight Eisenhower administration to Barack Obama's second term, present compelling puzzles about peacemaking. Were structural obstacles insurmountable, or did failures stem from personnel and process? I analyse a negative case through archival research, presenting a revisionist account of Che Guevara's August 1961 meeting with Kennedy staffer Richard Goodwin. During a crucial opportunity for conflict resolution between the Bay of Pigs and the Missile Crisis, the personal characteristics of diplomatic envoys (not domestic opposition, mistrust, or incompatible preferences) chiefly explain the failure to negotiate a modus vivendi. Further, although the Kennedy administration, the press, and scholars have downplayed this encounter while emphasising continued U.S. covert operations against Fidel Castro, I argue that the Goodwin-Guevara meeting held significant promise, that its failure affected regional security and the Cold War in Latin America, and that it offers lessons for analysts and practitioners of international conflict resolution.
While the close relationship between the British state and Sultan Qaboos bin Said of Oman (reigned 1970-2020) is widely recognised in the scholarship, the present article explores an aspect of the relationship that has hitherto attracted limited attention: the British role in Qaboos's education and development from the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s. Using a range of largely unexamined primary sources generated by the Arabian Department of the UK Foreign Office, it reveals what a 'British education' consisted of and implied in the case of Qaboos bid Said. It concludes that the British state understood the potential value of exerting an influence over the only son of Sultan Said bin Taymour, and strove to capitalise on its access to Qaboos during a formative period in his life. However, it is argued that the British state's handling of Qaboos's education reveals a lack of power, cohesion, and sometimes of interest. The article shows that the overwhelming influence over Qaboos's education was his father, the sultan. At crucial moments, the Foreign Office failed to cooperate smoothly with other interested institutions, including the Shell oil company. Moreover, the Foreign Office's commitment to the project of educating Qaboos oscillated in intensity and by the time Qaboos returned to Oman in 1964, British attitudes regarding their achievements with the would-be ruler were, at best, ambivalent.
The article describes and reevaluates the actions of US diplomat Henry Kissinger towards the Israeli nuclear weapons program, while serving as US National Security Advisor under the Nixon administration, in 1969. The article challenges standard historical interpretations to do with Kissinger's attitude and approach towards nuclear nonproliferation by delineating his proactive, and at times, aggressive response in support of US concerns and suspicions about an advancing program of Israeli nuclear weapons development in the late 1960s.With this case study as its focus, the article puts forward a reassessment of the historiographical concensus by seeking to add a greater understanding of the nuances of Kissinger's approach to this issue, and also by highlighting underexplored areas regarding his motivations, namely idealistic strains of Kissinger's thought.
To understand the implications of the influence of the military in American foreign policy we need an understanding of the military mindset, one that goes beyond analysing parochialisms. Here the theory of military realism is used to analyse President Ulysses S. Grant's approach to foreign affairs. Despite his reputation as a fighting general, Grant was a strategic thinker who consistently sought alternatives to force in foreign policy, in part because his military realist perspective emphasised the unpredictable nature of force as a tool of statecraft. Though at times Grant's military realism and political inexperience were liabilities in foreign policy.
American resentment regarding the United Nations Organization has not been confined to recent decades. Anti-UN sentiment, in fact, was already perceptible during the early Cold War period: several personalities and organisations of the Truman era, as well as a number of newspapers, denounced the world forum. Who were the main detractors of the UN during the years 1945-1952? How did they justify their acrimonious position? Did they deserve the label of 'isolationists'? What was their impact? The primary objective of this article is to shed some light on the issues at hand and provide answers to these essential questions.
Lady Burghersh was a British diplomat's wife whose correspondence from the German states, Switzerland, France and Tuscany, 1813-15, reveals much about women's role in diplomacy during the final years of the Napoleonic Wars. While the major events in Paris and Vienna have received much attention, this article brings the focus to the smaller actors and locations that played an equally important role in shaping diplomatic culture. Aristocrats remained essential to the social functions of diplomacy, especially in Berlin. In financial centres like Frankfurt, aristocratic culture was nonetheless adopted because it was so prevalent. Cultural transactions between the women on the allied side were an important means of maintaining alliances and expressing gratitude for military support. Moreover, the roles of the diplomat and his wife were complementary, and this was expressed in their portraits and busts. This article sheds new light on the transition from bilateral diplomacy between two courts to multilateralism in multiple social forums by 1815, and the function of elite marriage at an international level.
ZANU and ZAPU, the two main Zimbabwean nationalist organisations in UDI era (1965-80) Rhodesia, were made great use of propaganda to pursue their objectives. Right from the start of the Rhodesian crisis the United States figured in their output, and this only increased as American politicians became increasingly involved in trying to find a solution. This article maps out how the nationalists portrayed the USA It argues that they created an image of the superpower which they used to bolster their own ideological positions and to engage with foreign organisations which held similar views. It argues that the nationalists created an image of America as a neo-imperialist, racist state that had no place intervening in the Rhodesian crisis. The Zimbabweans were in particular able to point to the treatment of African-Americans in order to attack the US Government. This depiction appealed to both their backers in the communist bloc and to other liberation movements in places such as the Middle East. The nationalists also sought to discredit African politicians who worked with the Rhodesian state by linking them to America. What is more, accusations against the US continued right until the end of the UDI period, despite the fact that the Carter administration was sympathetic to the cause of African liberation. Ultimately, it shows that the Zimbabwean nationalists' visions of the USA were shaped by a mixture of ideology and diplomatic necessity.
Italian foreign policy during the interwar years is often reduced to the 'road to war' that characterised relations between Italy and its former wartime allies after the invasion of Abyssinia in 1935. It is surprising how little scholarly attention has been dedicated to examining Italian foreign policy prior to this point of rupture. This article aims to explain how and why Fascist Italy cooperated in the post-war order for as long as it did by situating early Fascist diplomacy within the context of the Greater War. Benito Mussolini rose to power preoccupied with rectifying the so-called 'mutilated victory' while the post-war order was still deeply in flux. The 'unfinished peace' resulting from the Treaty of Versailles (1919) offered significant opportunity for the young Fascist regime to pursue further negotiations with the British to bring to fruition the unfulfilled programme of its Liberal predecessors. This article narrows in on negotiations over one outstanding item on the agenda - the Jubaland transfer - to demonstrate that it was precisely these discussions with the British about Italy's unresolved imperial claims that drew the intrinsically revisionist regime into a range of diplomatic exchanges and gave the young Fascist regime a stake in the future post-war order. In practice, Fascist Italy's determination to secure the transfer of Jubaland from British Kenya to Italian Somaliland deeply entangled the new revisionist regime in broader multilateral initiatives concerned with European security, economic reconstruction, and the nature the post-war order as a whole.
This study analyses the 1970 Dawson's Field hijacking crisis, a pivotal event that underscored the increasing vulnerability of Western states to international terrorism. It examines West Germany's response and the collective strategies devised by key Western nations - convened in Bern, including the USA, the UK, France, Switzerland, and Israel - to negotiate the release of approximately 450 hostages held by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). Drawing on previously unexplored German archival materials, newspaper reports, and personal memoirs, this research sheds new light on the complexities of multilateral negotiations during the Dawson's Field crisis. It highlights the nations' - particularly West Germany's - lack of preparedness for the emerging challenges of international terrorism and their tendency to prioritise unilateral solutions to secure the release of their citizens, often at the expense of multilateral cooperation. While the crisis exposed the limitations of international resolve and cooperation in the face of such threats, it also catalysed significant changes in airline security measures and heightened global awareness of the Israel/Palestine conflict. Crucially, the Dawson's Field crisis revealed the inadequacies of ad hoc multilateral responses to terrorism and emphasised the urgent need for strategic approaches. However, it failed to serve as the wake-up call West Germany needed to effectively address the growing challenges of international terrorism.
As to the railway construction in China, Great Britain played a leading role since the very beginning (Shanghai - Woosung Railway, built 1876). The Far Eastern crises of 1897-1898 stimulated the struggle for railway concessions and spheres of influence in China. For a long time, the British government's attitude of refusing to provide direct financial support was a difficult hurdle for British private firms. Despite various obstacles and partial setbacks, the British managed to settle their disputes with Germany (1898), Russia (1899) and France (1905), and the British 'railway policy' achieved its aims.
The article discusses the absence of an official history of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), despite its significant role in British political life and international representation. It highlights the challenges of documenting the complex administrative history of the FCDO, which has existed in various forms since 1782. The task is daunting due to the vast historical records and the potential lack of objectivity from 'in-house' historians, who are busy with editorial and advisory work. Previous attempts by insiders to write the history were often defensive, aiming to justify the current professional culture. These efforts were made during times when the Civil Service faced pressure to prove its relevance amidst social and cultural changes post-World Wars. The article suggests focusing on specific periods, like the World Wars, to make the history more engaging. It also proposes incorporating human stories to enliven the narrative and conducting prosopographic studies of Foreign Office clerks and officials alongside a traditional administrative history.
This article is an expanded version of a paper delivered first at the International Conference of Editors of Diplomatic Documents in London, April 2017, and then, in a slightly revised form, at the Institute for Historical Research, London, in October 2024 for its seminar series Official History: Past, Present and Future. Dame Lillian Penson (1896-1963) played a crucial yet underrecognized role in editing British Documents on the Origins of the War, a documentary series initiated by the British government to counter German narratives about the origins of the First World War. Initially brought in as an assistant for archival research, Penson's responsibilities expanded significantly, undertaking research which the principal editors lacked time to perform. By the mid-1930s, Penson had become the central coordinator for the project, effectively forming an editorial triumvirate alongside the official editors, G.P. Gooch and Harold Temperley.
The study of the end of empire through the production of official histories has been a challenging undertaking due to the sensitivities and controversies that accompanied imperial deconstruction. The choice of editors also affected the ways in which the demission of empire was reflected. Although the quasi-official British Documents on the End of Empire represented a progression from previous official histories by incorporating documents drawn from a wider range of Whitehall departments, its shortcomings were exposed by the revelation that thousands of files, the so-called 'migrated files', generated by the colonial administrations themselves, had been clandestinely held by the FCO.
A product of war and subject to competing demands of officialdom and expectations of academia, 'official history' in Great Britain has a conflicted past. The tension between these two was often more apparent than real. If anything, as this survey of the Official History Programme and related scholarly endeavours from c. 1906 until the 1970s shows, Whitehall shared an interest in 'competent and honest history'. Relations between officialdom and academic historians were complex and multifaceted, but both sides benefited from official history as an exercise in policy advice. History, and especially diplomatic history, is an 'impure' type of scholarship in that it has practical insights to impart; and in this way official historians helped officials and their superiors to seek new, and perhaps better, perspectives and understanding of present-day problems. Equally, official history has always been a form of public engagement. It is in the public sphere that policy decisions are debated - whether in the here and now or in the future - and ultimately legitimised. And here, too, historical perspectives can be of use.
This article explores a persistent dilemma in official history: whether officials should be protected from the loss of anonymity when their confidential advice is published. Since FOI (2000) the problem has recurrd,from its interwar precedent with the publication of British Documents on the Origins of the War (1926-38). Its most controversial voice was that of Sir Eyre Crowe, whose minutes were later used by German revisionists to claim that British ministers were 'prisoner' to Germanophobic Foreign Office officials. Crowe's case illustrates how publishing private advice can distort intentions and implicate officials in enduring political and historiographical battles about 1914.
British official accounts of the Berlin crisis of 1948-49 initially focused on one of its thematic dimensions: the Berlin airlift. Until academia began investigating this Berlin crisis in the United Kingdom (UK), the phenomenon was predominantly studied through the lens of American actors. Access to UK government documents marked a significant academic milestone. Nevertheless, research continued to focus on Americans. A primary source collection from Britain's Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Berlin in the Cold War, 1948-1990, in Series III of Documents on British Policy Overseas) stands out within the global network of official, authorised, and academic productions. This paper argues that this collection, published in 2009, presents new methodological and ontological perspectives. Employing the interpretive approach formulated by Mark Bevir and Roderick Rhodes, the paper explores the chains of interpretations established, endorsed, or communicated by official historical accounts, government documents, and academia. The rationale of British official sources regarding the Berlin crisis of 1948-49 will be outlined first. The second part will then delve into the academic interpretations of the 1948-49 Berlin crisis after the British government archives were declassified. The final section addresses the novel research questions raised by the 2009 volume on the Berlin crisis. Therefore, the adjectives 'official' and 'authorised' used in the paper include publications commissioned or sponsored by British government departments and declassified government sources.
The New START Treaty is a nuclear arms reduction agreement between the United States and Russia, signed in 2010 and in force since 2011. It limits the number of strategic nuclear missile launchers and warheads each country may deploy. This article evaluates the treaty's attribution to world nuclear safety and highlights its shortcomings, such as the abstention of modernised, conventional, and hypersonic weapons. The article argues for the correction of the mentioned drawbacks. Furthermore, it considers the participation of China in the prolongated version of the treaty in 2026.
In 1929, Herbert Hoover welcomed Ramsay MacDonald to the United States (the first British prime minister to visit), and two years later, in 1931, he welcomed Pierre Laval (the second French premier ever to visit). Historians have downplayed these visits as inconsequential, but at the time, they were seen as major events that were political and personal successes for the leaders involved. Furthermore, they provide a new perspective on Hoover's foreign policy leadership. In the second half of the twentieth century, leader-to-leader diplomacy became a common and expected part of the US presidency, but it was unusual in Hoover's time. Thus, he was a forerunner of the practice, experimenting with a new form of diplomacy that would become a key part of how future American presidents engaged the world.
