By the early 1960s, the Sino-Soviet alliance began to show signs of strain. Polemical battles were under way, and shortly these battles were beginning to split the international Communist movement. As the rift intensified during the Cultural Revolution (1966–76), Mao Zedong elevated the Soviet Union to the rank of social imperialists, while the Red Guards harassed the Soviet diplomatic staff, and border incidents reached a new height.

The Hoover Institution Press today released NAFTA at 20, edited by Hoover senior fellow and renowned economist Michael Boskin.  NAFTA at 20 offers a unique compilation of perspectives from US, Canadian, and Mexican economists, historians, and policy makers of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and examines its conception, creation, outcomes so far, and future.

A scholarly and well written article in National Review Online (“The Naval War of 1812: TR’s Forgotten Masterpiece,” April 28, 2018) by a neophyte writer Moshe Wander addresses Theodore Roosevelt’s seminal work The Naval War of 1812 and the effect it had on American thinking about naval rearmament at the end of the 19^th century.

Although Prince Harry’s marriage last week to Ms. Meghan Markle was not a military occasion, the groom and best man wore uniform and more than 250 servicemen from units with storied military histories took part, so I think it’s acceptable to report on it for Military History in the News.

President Biden has promised that by 2022, the residual American military forces will leave Afghanistan. When that happens, it will complete the trifecta of American failure in its three major wars in the last half century: Afghanistan, Iraq, and Vietnam. Having spent years in Vietnam, when I look back, several causes for our failure there stand out.

Last April, Ambassador Robert D. Blackwill, a distinguished diplomat, summarized American policy toward Pakistan. “Every time a new administration in Washington comes to office,” he said, “they get worried about Pakistan, which has a stockpile of nuclear weapons. The US Secretary of State then visits Pakistan and meets the top leadership.

Hoover's Workshop on Totalitarian Regimes studies the history and development of totalitarian regimes in order to understand why they came into being, how they work, and the sources of their durability. By bringing scholars together who study the different regimes, the workshop promotes the comparative study of modes of personal dictatorship, of institutions of coercion and repression, and of the economic and social consequences of totalitarian rule. The workshop's principal resources are the unique and fast- growing holdings of the Hoover Archives on totalitarian regimes in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East.

Hoover fellow Edward Teller has been awarded the nation's highest civil honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Teller and ten other distinguished Americans, including Hoover overseer James Q. Wilson, were honored in a ceremony at the White House on July 23.