Latest Publications

Targeting Iraq, Part II: War and Occupation, 2004-2011

Comprised of some 2,200 documents dating primarily from the conclusion in 2004 of the Coalition Provisional Authority’s administration of Iraq, thus restoring Baghdad’s titular sovereignty, through the 2011 U.S. military withdrawal, this collection covers efforts to reestablish Iraqi security and stability and restore a functioning economy and system of governance following decades of regional conflict, sanctions, invasion, and occupation. Topics include U.S. efforts to suppress violence arising from resistance to its presence in Iraq and from competition for power and monetary advantage; and Washington’s attempts to influence Iraq’s political and economic decision-making including leadership choices, the adoption of a new constitution, privatization, and oil legislation. The documents address military strategy, as well as political and human rights issues such as prisoner abuse, contracting and contractor malfeasance, misspent resources, corruption, and the divergence between American objectives on one side and Iraqi realities and the outlook of its people on the other.

The Afghanistan War and the United States, 1998-2017

Covering the key periods of the 20-year U.S. war in Afghanistan, this timely collection provides researchers with a trove of revealing primary documents, chiefly from the Bush and Obama years.  Largely the product of decades of Freedom of Information Act requests and appeals, these records obtained from the State Department, CENTCOM, the Defense Intelligence Agency, and other agencies detail many of the problems that bedeviled the American-led occupation, including reconstruction efforts, diplomatic relations with the Afghan government, Pakistan's double-sided games, Taliban-al Qaeda relations, corruption, and narcotics.

Upcoming Collection

U.S. Foreign Policy in the Carter Years, 1977-1981: Highest-Level Memos to the President

This unusual collection of highest-level foreign policy materials from the Jimmy Carter administration features every declassified daily or weekly memo to the president from National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski and from Secretaries of State Cyrus Vance and Edmund Muskie; as well as every available meeting record of the National Security Council's two subgroups – the Policy Review Committee and the Special Coordination Committee. Many of the records have the president’s own handwritten notations. Topics cover the gamut of foreign policy issues during this pivotal period, notably the conflict in the Middle East, the Iran hostage crisis, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, SALT talks with Moscow, the opening of diplomatic relations with China, the Nicaraguan revolution, energy, and a growing U.S. emphasis on global human rights.

For publication in 2024-2025

• U.S.-Russia Relations: From the Fall of the Soviet Union to the Rise of Putin, 1991-2000

This curated collection of documents covers the formative period of U.S.-Russian relations from the birth of the new Russia in December 1991 through January 2001. It captures the highest peaks of cooperative relations under presidents Boris Yeltsin and Bill Clinton as well as the first notes of discord under Vladimir Putin. The product of years of archival research and hundreds of targeted Freedom of Information Act requests, this unparalleled collection features a full set of memoranda of conversations between Yeltsin, Putin, and Clinton; correspondence between the top leaders; hundreds of high-level memos from members of the Clinton administration; and analyses and assessments of the defense capabilities of the new Russia. Among other core topics, the set closely tracks negotiations on nuclear arms reductions, nonproliferation, and the withdrawal of nuclear weapons from Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan and their dismantlement in Russia. The collection also covers the Russian wars in Chechnya and Russian participation in peacekeeping in the former Yugoslavia. A large number of documents deal with one of the most controversial issues in U.S.-Russian relations—the expansion of NATO to Eastern and Central Europe.

• U.S. Nuclear Nonproliferation 2, Part II: The Nixon-Ford Years, 1969-1976

This wide-ranging collection of declassified U.S. government records covers a key period in the history of U.S. nuclear nonproliferation policy, from the Nixon presidency, when nonproliferation was considered a low priority, through the Ford years, when the issue rose to greater prominence.  Records featured in the collection illustrate how President Richard Nixon’s indifference toward nonproliferation issues shaped his position on the ratification of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) and his accommodation of Israel’s secret nuclear weapons program.  The collection covers U.S. policy toward the creation of URENCO—the Western European gas centrifuge project—and the expansion of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s safeguards program.  The set also documents the impact of India’s peaceful nuclear explosion (1974)—which made nonproliferation a higher priority in U.S. policy—and the resulting creation of the Nuclear Suppliers Group. Other records reveal persistent efforts by the U.S. to persuade Taiwan, Pakistan, and South Korea to abandon their nuclear weapons programs and encourage more governments to ratify the NPT.  The product of years of archival research and targeted declassification requests, this document set will be of great value to researchers exploring the U.S. government’s complex efforts to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons.