Lessons from the Cold War - Melvyn Leffler

Complete video at: http://fora.tv/2008/07/22/Cold_War_Legacies_and_Contemporary_Dilemmas

Melvyn Leffler, Edward R. Stettinius professor of American History at the University of Virginia, examines the ongoing legacy of the Cold War and its lessons for American foreign policy.

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Melvyn Leffler discusses Cold War Legacies and Contemporary Dilemmas as a part of American Foreign Policy: Leadership and Dialogue during the 2008 Chautauqua Institution morning lecture series.

Melvyn P. Leffler is Edward R. Stettinius professor of American History at the University of Virginia where he is also co-chair of the Governing America in a Global Era program at the Miller Center of Public Affairs. Dr. Leffler served as Dean of the College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at UVA from 1997 - 2001.His most recent book, For the Soul of Mankind: The United States, the Soviet Union, and the Cold War, was published in September. It has been called "a masterful account of the Cold War by a distinguished historian in full stride" in a recent Foreign Affairs review.

The author of many books on foreign affairs, Dr. Leffler was awarded the Bancroft Prize in 1993 for A Preponderance of Power: National Security, the Truman Administration and the Cold War. He is currently editing a three volume Cambridge History of the Cold War and beginning work on a book on George W. Bush and American foreign policy.

Dr. Leffler served in the Office of the Secretary of Defense during the Carter administration, where he worked on arms control and contingency planning as a fellow of the Council on Foreign Relations. He was president of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations in 1993; a Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars from 2001 - 2002; and a Henry Kissinger Fellow at the Library of Congress from 2004 - 2005.

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[lacifazekas]

Answer to Intelligent Creature: Yes it is....the bulying nation just has to know how to bully, and has to keep the demands of the society in the Bullied nation at least at the minimum...... Prof. AJR Groom said it in Camterbury in April 2009....I think that is true..... and also war is a way of diplomacy as well

[freankieG]

i take his class... amazing prof

[IntelligentCreature]

the points he made were excellent!!!

now we know that diplomacy is possible when 2 powerfull nations are at each other's throats...

not so much when one nation is bullying around the other...with that intention...

in such a case, diplomacy is not even an option...

[JohnR22926]

I assume he's referring to Iran when he says "the adversary". I have no problem with establishing formal diplomatic relations with Iran...but we don't take the first step from a position of weakness. Now that the war in Iraq seems to have stabilized a bit, maybe now is the time for the US to take the initiative.