February 2022
Commentary
U.S. Diplomats Recall Challenges, Opportunities after the End of the Soviet Union
Pioneer Diplomacy in Newly Independent Kazakhstan by Jackson McDonald
Public Diplomacy in Newly Independent Kazakhstan by Renee Earle
Launching USAID in the New Independent States by Desaix Myers
From Soviet State to Independent Estonia by Patricia H Kushlis
Captive Nations Once, NATO Allies Now by Beatrice Camp
Rebuilding Diplomacy: DACOR Conference Summary by John Harbeson and Keith McCormick
Considering a Career with the State Department by George Sibley
Eyewitness
Books for the Baltics by Bob Baker
Where in the World Is Barbados? by Jonathan B. Rickert
ADST Moments in Diplomatic History
The Soviet Union fell just as quickly as it had risen sixty-nine years prior, and with its dissolution came a great deal of local and regional transformations.
“Kazakhstan made the decision, I think a very wise one, to get rid of its weapons.”
Links
Dissolution of the USSR and the Establishment of Independent Republics, 1991
https://2001-2009.state.gov/r/pa/ho/time/pcw/108229.htm
When the Soviet Union disintegrated in December 1991, it left behind in Central Asia five new countries that were without coasts on world oceans: Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan. The United States moved very quickly to establish diplomatic relations and set up embassies in each of their capitals.
https://daviscenter.fas.harvard.edu/insights/coast-bohemia-us-and-central-asia-early-1990s
In Memoriam
Phyllis Oakley had to resign from the foreign service in 1958 when she married. She rejoined in 1974, going on to a distinguished career that included positions as Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees, and Migration and Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research.
https://adst.org/OH%20TOCs/Oakley-Phyllis-E1.pdf
Charles Stuart “Stu” Kennedy created the Foreign Affairs Oral History Collection after he retired from a 30-year foreign service career. As Director for Oral History at the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, he personally interviewed more than 1,000 retired American diplomats, some of whose careers date back to the 1920s. https://adst.org/inside-foggy-bottom/turning-the-tables-an-interview-with-adsts-own-stu-kennedy/