From the Russian revolutions of 1917 to the end of the Civil War in 1920, Woodrow Wilson's administration sought to oppose the Bolsheviks in a variety of covert ways. Drawing on previously unavailable American and Russian archival material, David Foglesong chronicles both sides of this secret war and reveals a new dimension to the first years of the U.S.-Soviet rivalry. Foglesong explores the evolution of Wilson's ambivalent attitudes toward socialism and revolution before 1917 and analyzes the social and cultural origins of American anti-Bolshevism. Constrained by his espousal of the principle of self-determination, by idealistic public sentiment, and by congressional restrictions, Wilson had to rely on secretive methods to affect the course of the Russian Civil War. The administration provided covert financial and military aid to anti-Bolshevik forces, established clandestine spy networks, concealed the purposes of limited military expeditions to northern Russia and Siberia, and delivered ostensibly humanitarian assistance to soldiers fighting to overthrow the Soviet government. In turn, the Soviets developed and secretly funded a propaganda campaign in the United States designed to mobilize public opposition to anti-Bolshevik activity, promote American-Soviet economic ties, and win diplomatic recognition from Washington.

"Standing on a Volcano: The Life and Times of David Rowland Francis is a biography of a fascinating man, and a long-needed major reassessment of a controversial and important figure in U.S.-Soviet Relations."--BOOK JACKET.

Secret Wars is the first book to systematically analyze the ways powerful states covertly participate in foreign wars, showing a recurring pattern of such behavior stretching from World War I to U.S.-occupied Iraq. Investigating what governments keep secret during wars and why, Austin Carson argues that leaders maintain the secrecy of state involvement as a response to the persistent concern of limiting war. Keeping interventions “backstage” helps control escalation dynamics, insulating leaders from domestic pressures while communicating their interest in keeping a war contained. Carson shows that covert interventions can help control escalation, but they are almost always detected by other major powers. However, the shared value of limiting war can lead adversaries to keep secret the interventions they detect, as when American leaders concealed clashes with Soviet pilots during the Korean War. Escalation concerns can also cause leaders to ignore covert interventions that have become an open secret. From Nazi Germany’s role in the Spanish Civil War to American covert operations during the Vietnam War, Carson presents new insights about some of the most influential conflicts of the twentieth century. Parting the curtain on the secret side of modern war, Secret Wars provides important lessons about how rival state powers collude and compete, and the ways in which they avoid outright military confrontations.

This magisterial work on American diplomacy by a veteran journalist and historian is the first complete history of the U.S. Foreign Service American Statecraft is a fascinating and comprehensive look at the unsung men and women of the U.S. Foreign Service whose dedication and sacrifices have been a crucial part of our history for over two centuries. Fifteen years in the making, veteran journalist and historian Moskin has traveled the globe conducting hundreds of interviews both in and out of the State Department to look behind the scenes at America's "militiamen of diplomacy." As the nation's eyes and ears, our envoys pledge a substantial part of their lives in foreign lands working for the benefit of their nation. Endeavoring to use dialogue and negotiation as their instruments of change, our diplomats tirelessly work to find markets for American business, rescue its citizens in trouble abroad, and act in general as "America's first line of defense" in policy negotiations, keeping America out of war. But it took generations to polish these skills, and Moskin traces America's full diplomatic history, back to its amateur years coming up against seasoned Europeans during the days of Ben Franklin, now considered the father of the U.S. Foreign Service, and up to the recent Benghazi attack. Along the way, its members included many devoted and courageous public servants, and also some political spoilsmen and outright rogues. An important contribution to the political canon, American Statecraft recounts the history of the United States through the lens of foreign diplomacy.

Dr. Bolton demonstrates that the supposed rivalry between Marxist-inspired movements and capitalism has always been an illusion. He shows that the ultimate goal of capitalism is to create a worldwide collectivist society of consumers, and Marxism is merely one means of attaining this. He traces this idea back to Plato, through the Illuminati, the Freemasons, the French Revolution, and Communism.

How does a democratic government conscript citizens, turn them into soldiers who can fight effectively against a highly trained enemy, and then somehow reward these troops for their service? In Doughboys, the Great War, and the Remaking of America, Jennifer D. Keene argues that the doughboy experience in 1917–18 forged the U.S. Army of the twentieth century and ultimately led to the most sweeping piece of social-welfare legislation in the nation's history—the G.I. Bill. Keene shows how citizen-soldiers established standards of discipline that the army in a sense had to adopt. Even after these troops had returned to civilian life, lessons learned by the army during its first experience with a mass conscripted force continued to influence the military as an institution. The experience of going into uniform and fighting abroad politicized citizen-soldiers, Keene finally argues, in ways she asks us to ponder. She finds that the country and the conscripts—in their view—entered into a certain social compact, one that assured veterans that the federal government owed conscripted soldiers of the twentieth century debts far in excess of the pensions the Grand Army of the Republic had claimed in the late nineteenth century.

Ask an American intelligence officer to tell you when the country started doing modern intelligence and you will probably hear something about the Office of Strategic Services in World War II or the National Security Act of 1947 and the formation of the Central Intelligence Agency. What you almost certainly will not hear is anything about World War I. In World War I and the Foundations of American Intelligence, Mark Stout establishes that, in fact, World War I led to the realization that intelligence was indispensable in both wartime and peacetime. After a lengthy gestation that started in the late nineteenth century, modern American intelligence emerged during World War I, laying the foundations for the establishment of a self-conscious profession of intelligence. Virtually everything that followed was maturation, reorganization, reinvigoration, or reinvention. World War I ushered in a period of rapid changes. Never again would the War Department be without an intelligence component. Never again would a senior American commander lead a force to war without intelligence personnel on their staff. Never again would the United States government be without a signals intelligence agency or aerial reconnaissance capability. Stout examines the breadth of American intelligence in the war, not just in France, not just at home, but around the world and across the army, navy, and State Department, and demonstrates how these far-flung efforts endured after the Armistice in 1918. For the first time, there came to be a group of intelligence practitioners who viewed themselves as different from other soldiers, sailors, and diplomats. Upon entering World War II, the United States had a solid foundation from which to expand to meet the needs of another global hot war and the Cold War that followed.

With the centennial of the First World War rapidly approaching, historian and bibliographer James T. Controvich offers in The United States in World War I: A Bibliographic Guide the most comprehensive, up-to-date reference bibliography yet published. Organized by subject, this bibliography includes the full range of sources: vintage publications of the time, books, pamphlets, periodical titles, theses, dissertations, and archival sources held by federal and state organizations, as well as those in public and private hands, including historical societies and museums. As Controvich’s bibliographic accounting makes clear, there were many facets of World War I that remain virtually unknown to this day. Throughout, Controvich’s bibliography tracks the primary sources that tell each of these stories—and many others besides—during this tense period in American history. Each entry lists the author, title, place of publication, publisher, date of publication, and page count as well as descriptive information concerning illustrations, plates, ports, maps, diagrams, and plans. The armed forces section carries additional information on rosters, awards, citations, and killed and wounded in action lists. The United States in World War I: A Bibliographic Guide is an ideal research tool for students and scholars of World War I and American history.

The USA's contribution to the making of the USSR was accidental. In the belief that the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic could not survive, American statesmen strove to keep the former Tsarist empire intact for a non-communist successor regime in the face of attempts by other powers to carve out spheres of influence in both European and Asiatic Russia. In this manner, they unwittingly facilitated the formation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. This book shows the importance of the 'Russian question' at the Washington Conference and throws light on the emergence of the 'Versailles-Washington' system of international relations.