The Cold War is history

Many conditions were necessary for the end of the Cold War to happen as it did.
In an academic conference, entitled The Cold War is History (iTunes, website), Stanford historian James Sheehan reminds us that even when the Berlin wall fell, reunification of Germany was not a done deal. In fact, there were two enormously important [...]

The Middle East as a game of “Risk”

Want to think about the Middle East in a whole new way? Check out The War in Gaza and Southern Israel: Ramifications for Israel, the Palestinians and the Middle East (website, iTunes), a lecture by Tel Aviv University historian Asher Susser, given at UCLA in February 2009 in the wake of the Gaza war.
Susser describes [...]

Two views of Israel at 61

In honor of Israel’s 61st birthday this week, here are two interesting lectures about the Jewish state.
First, historian and veteran peacenik Tom Segev gives a sobering assessment of prospects for peace in Understanding The Israelis (website). In this University of Delaware talk, Segev comments sadly on the younger generation of Israelis, including his own [...]

You’re invited to free class on global warming

In what may be a first in free open-access education, the University of Pennsylvania is inviting all comers to take part in a course on Sustainable Environmental Policy & Global Politics (website, iTunes, YouTube).
You can download the lectures on iTunes or view them on YouTube and then take part in message boards and blogs at [...]

American Foreign Policy in Historical Perspective

Does this sound familiar?
A new Republican administration comes in. There is an unprecedented attack on American interests in its first year in office. A group of defense intellectuals see this as a big opportunity to turn American foreign policy around. Two wars result, motivated by many different kinds of foreign policy concerns, among them, very [...]

Last chance for UCSD summer session #2

The second summer session at the University of California, San Diego is drawing to a close this week.  If UCSD continues past policy, all of the course podcasts for the summer session will soon disappear from the UCSD podcast website.  So if you’re interested in any of the current classes, now is the time [...]

“The Return of History and the End of Dreams”

Almost 20 years after the end of the Cold War, we can look back and ask, did the promised new era dawn?  Did we achieve the “New World Order” that George Bush I proclaimed? Was the victory of the West “the end of history,” as Francis Fukuyama famously argued?
In a word: no.  Robert Kagan, [...]

A realist’s view of world events

Strategic Forecasting Inc., AKA Stratfor, analyzes world events for clients like Fortune 500 companies and individual subscribers.  You can get a free taste of Stratfor’s analysis in the Stratfor daily podcast (website, feed).
Stratfor’s analysts look at the world through the lens of the “realist” tradition — a way of thinking about the world that runs [...]

Politics and Warfare

Get it while it’s hot!  UCSD doesn’t leave its courses online for very long.  And there is a promising new one: Politics and Warfare (website), taught by UCSD Professor Victor Magagna. While the first lecture apparently wasn’t recorded, the second lecture has been posted and in it Magagna introduces a theoretical framework for studying [...]

The views of Iran’s Supreme Leader

The most powerful man in Iran is not its outspoken president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but the secretive  Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. But it’s not easy to get close to Khamenei to get his opinions on the issues of the day. A few years ago, when Karim Sadjadpour, then of the International Crisis Group, [...]