The U.S., U.K. and USSR: A Troubled War-time Alliance Evolves Into Cold War
About this event
The U.S., UK, and USSR: A Troubled War-time Alliance Evolves Into Cold War — What It Tells Us About Leadership and Its Absence
During the Second World War the world’s two leading democracies, the U.S. and the UK, allied with one of the world’s two leading totalitarian tyrannies, Stalin’s USSR, to defeat the other, Hitler’s Germany. This unnatural alliance determined the outcome of the war but it quickly dissolved once the Nazi threat was removed. The alliance was replaced by the Cold War, which defined the international system for the next 45 years. This course will look at the wartime alliance to ask how and why it began, operated, and ended. It is not intended to be a comprehensive history of either WW II or the origins of the Cold War but rather an examination of the critical choices that leaders on all sides took and what lessons they might hold for our country today.
Sell has written a book on the end of the Cold War and this course stems, in part, from a desire to explore one of its possible origins. His book, From Washington to Moscow: US–Soviet Relations and the Collapse of the USSR, was based on interviews, memoirs, and other material by participants, as well as his own experience. As he states, “I have been struck by the wisdom that Western leaderships generally displayed during the Second World War and the early formative days of the Cold War. Not everything was perfect or successful, of course, but the contrast with the current administration, which is dismantling the national security structure that the U.S. and its allies created to win the Cold War, is obvious. How it happened that they came to lead the U.S. is less so. What can be said — and done — about this?”
Instructor Louis Sell focused on the USSR, the Balkans, and nuclear arms control during his long Foreign Service career. He witnessed the collapse of Yugoslavia and the USSR and conflicts that followed. His two books are From Washington to Moscow: US–Soviet Relations and the Collapse of the USSR and Slobodan Milosevic and the Destruction of Yugoslavia. He is one of the founders of the American University in Kosovo and taught at the University of Maine at Farmington. Louis speaks Russian and Serbo-Croatian.
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Location
St. Andrew's Episcopal Church
11 Glidden St.
Newcastle
USA
Event Contact(s)
Louis Sell
Instructor
Registration Info
Registration is required and it opens Tuesday, March 3, 2026 at 8:00 AM
Payment In Full In Advance Only
You must be an active CSC member to register for this course.
Registration cancellations will be accepted until Saturday, April 4, 2026 at 11:45 PM
Cancellation Policy:
A member may cancel a course registration up to 3 days prior to the start of class and will receive a course credit that can be used for a future registration. No refunds will be given.
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