Russia and Former Soviet Union

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New Documents Reveal How a 1980s Nuclear War Scare Became a Full-Blown Crisis
By Robert Beckhusen, Wired, May 16, 2013

The USSR and US Came Closer to Nuclear War Than We Thought
By Douglas Birch, The Atlantic, May 28, 2013

War Scare
Nate Jones, ForeignPolicy.com, May 21, 2013

Nate Jones and Robert Farley Discuss Able Archer 83
Blogging Heads "Foreign Entanglements," May 31, 2013

The 1983 War Scare: "The Last Paroxysm" of the Cold War Part I

Read more about The 1983 War Scare: "The Last Paroxysm" of the Cold War Part I

The Thatcher-Gorbachev Conversations

Read more about The Thatcher-Gorbachev Conversations

Washington, D.C., April 12, 2013 – Margaret Thatcher, the former British prime minister who passed away this week, built a surprising mutual-admiration relationship with the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in the 1980s – including behind-the-scenes agreement against the reunification of Germany, and profound disagreement about nuclear abolition – according to translated Soviet records of key meetings between the two leaders, posted online today for the first time by the National Security Archive at George Washington University (www.nsarchive.org).

Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan Was Not a Grand Design But a Grand Entanglement Resulting from Faulty Intelligence, Excessive Secrecy, and a Paralyzed Leadership, According to Conference of Former Decision-Makers

Read more about Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan Was Not a Grand Design But a Grand Entanglement Resulting from Faulty Intelligence, Excessive Secrecy, and a Paralyzed Leadership, According to Conference of Former Decision-Makers

Washington, D.C., December 21, 2012 – On December 12, 1979, the Soviet Politburo gathered to formally approve the decision made several days earlier to send a "limited contingent" of Soviet forces into Afghanistan. The secrecy was so tight that the leadership hand-wrote the authorization document in one copy and hand-carried it to each Politburo member for signature. The order does not even mention Afghanistan by name and uses cryptic language to entrust Andropov, Ustinov and Gromyko to oversee the implementation of the decision.

Global Competition and the Deterioration of U.S.-Soviet Relations, 1977-1980

Read more about Global Competition and the Deterioration of U.S.-Soviet Relations, 1977-1980

Washington, D.C., November 12, 2012 – The U.S.-Soviet rivalry in the Third World created splits within the Carter administration and fundamental confusion in the Kremlin over the nature of U.S. motives to such a degree that they helped bring about the collapse of superpower detente, according to documents and transcripts from a conference of former high-level American-Russian policy-makers published today by the National Security Archive.

Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan a Case of Mission Creep, According to New Book and Original Soviet Documents

Read more about Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan a Case of Mission Creep, According to New Book and Original Soviet Documents

Washington, DC, October 13, 2012 – Contrary to U.S. myths of a strategic Soviet offensive towards warm water ports on the Persian Gulf or Indian Ocean, it was "mission creep" that led the Soviet Union into its ill-fated invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, according to a new, richly documented account of early Soviet engagement in Afghanistan, published in English and in Russian today by the National Security Archive at www.nsarchive.org.

Soviet Dissidents and Jimmy Carter

Read more about Soviet Dissidents and Jimmy Carter

Moscow, Russian Federation, 18 September 2012 – The first-ever Web publication of previously secret U.S. documents on Soviet dissidents, matched with reports and letters by the dissidents themselves from the Memorial Society Archives in Moscow, illuminate the landmark turning point during Jimmy Carter's presidency in the late 1970s when U.S.

Inside U.S.-Soviet Relations during the Carter-Brezhnev Period

Read more about Inside U.S.-Soviet Relations during the Carter-Brezhnev Period

Washington, DC, August 15, 2012 – High hopes for a "reset" of U.S.-Soviet relations in the late 1970s were shattered by ingrained suspicions and negative international trends to which both sides contributed under President Jimmy Carter and General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev, according to declassified documents and unique "critical oral history" transcripts posted today by the National Security Archive at George Washington University.

The Alexeyeva File

Read more about The Alexeyeva File

Moscow, Russian Federation, July 20, 2012 – Marking the 85th birthday of Russian human rights legend Lyudmila Alexeyeva, the National Security Archive today published on the Web a digital collection of documents covering Alexeyeva's brilliant career, from the mid-1970s founding of the Moscow Helsinki Group (which she now heads) to the current challenges posed by the Putin regime's crackdown on civil society. Today's posting includes declassified U.S.