James Graham Wilson is a Supervisory Historian on the U.S. Division of State, specializing in Chilly Warfare historical past. Since 2011, he has labored within the Division’s Workplace of the Historian, the place he has compiled ten volumes within the International Relations of the USA (FRUS) sequence—4 of which have been declassified and printed as of April 2025. Along with his editorial work, he has served on non permanent assignments throughout the Division and has supported each lively and retired policymakers in varied capacities. Wilson earned his Ph.D. from the College of Virginia in 2011 and holds a B.A. from Vassar School (2003). The complete FRUS sequence is accessible at historical past.state.gov.
The place do you see essentially the most thrilling analysis/debates occurring in your discipline?
I feel essentially the most thrilling analysis within the discipline of diplomatic historical past is utilizing archival proof to sort out particular moments of contingency all through time and area. I’m drawn to Francis Gavin’s thought of creating a historic sensibility as a self-discipline, and his encouragement of policymakers to suppose traditionally. Particularly within the age of Generative Synthetic Intelligence (GenAI), we’ve all obtained a universe of proof at our fingertips, and the emphasis goes to be on questions and follow-up questions. That may be a scaled-up model of what has all the time me. Whether or not it’s diplomatic historical past or worldwide relations, it’s thrilling to me to consider how everybody can have interaction with the previous in a approach that improves their skilled and private lives.
How has the way in which you perceive the world modified over time, and what (or who) prompted essentially the most vital shifts in your pondering?
Since 2011, I’ve had the super alternative to work on the International Relations of the USA sequence. This implies I spent my days going by means of still-classified U.S. authorities paperwork thirty years and older. This has actually modified my understanding of the world. I respect the magnitude and sheer variety of tough issues that policymakers encounter.
If I needed to slender it right down to an individual or factor, I might say that going by means of an unredacted folder overlaying the lifetime of the USA nationwide safety advisor is quite a bit completely different than what I used to be doing in graduate college. There I used to be usually on the lookout for one factor. For example: what was that individual studying concerning the Soviet Union? And there could also be a paper or a briefing for sooner or later, and that paper has been declassified. After which that paper or briefing is one thing I can draw on to try to develop a degree a couple of change over time. Nevertheless, from the attitude of the one that had the job — say, Brent Scowcroft, since I’ve been engaged on the George H.W. Bush administration these previous few weeks — every day was coping with a sequence of issues, practically all of which have been scary, and doubtless none of which have been solvable.
Your e-book traces Paul Nitze’s affect on U.S. nationwide safety coverage throughout a number of a long time. What drew you to Nitze as a topic, and what’s his legacy in Chilly Warfare historiography?
I used to be drawn to Nitze due to his longevity in influencing U.S. nationwide safety insurance policies. I can hint the precise second again to 10 years in the past, once I attended a seminar on the Wilson Middle in Washington D.C. the place Frank Costigliola was discussing the diaries of George Kennan, who continues to generate super consideration for his function in shaping U.S. insurance policies throughout the Chilly Warfare. And at varied moments when Costigliola was describing what Kennan thought and wrote about U.S. insurance policies on the peak of Vietnam – or, say the Euromissiles debates within the late Nineteen Seventies and early Nineteen Eighties – I believed to myself: sure, however Paul Nitze was really within the authorities working to help the president on these issues. It didn’t imply that he, Nitze, obtained every part proper. However he was within the area working the problems. That’s tougher to do than what Kennan did, which from 1950 onward was mainly to criticize – nonetheless elegantly – these figures in energy. How did Nitze obtain this? How did he keep related for thus lengthy? These are among the questions I wished to deal with.
How did Nitze’s strategic pondering evolve over time, and in what methods did he stay constant in his strategy to nationwide safety?
Central to his technique pondering was the notion that the USA needed to protect overwhelming power — a “preponderance of energy,” as he referred to as it. He got here to this view whereas drafting the Pacific Warfare Report for the Strategic Bombing Survey after Imperial Japan surrendered in 1945. He concluded that Japan had attacked the USA in December 1941 as a result of its leaders decided that the USA was weak. It had let its forces atrophy within the late Thirties, and that weak point was provocative. Subsequent years strengthened this view. It was U.S. nuclear and standard superiority — a minimum of, in accordance with Nitze — that compelled the Soviet Union to again down within the Cuban Missile Disaster of October 1962. From Nitze’s perspective, once more, the world turned a extra harmful place as soon as that superiority evaporated.
The evolution in Nitze’s strategic pondering, I might say, got here within the type of the potential for a grand cut price with the Soviets on nuclear issues. Right here is the place I argue within the e-book that in 1985, the “strategic idea” he put forth to Ronald Reagan performed a major function in integrating strategic offensive forces and strategic defenses over three five-year intervals. This serves as the premise for the Reagan and Gorbachev interactions at Reykjavik in October 1986. All this was an evolution in Nitze’s personal pondering — a minimum of from my perspective — as a result of early on within the Chilly Warfare, I don’t suppose he regarded a take care of the Soviets as doable.
How did Nitze’s means to navigate completely different bureaucratic cultures form the insurance policies he helped craft, and what does this inform us concerning the function of people in shaping U.S. nationwide safety establishments?
I feel that Nitze benefitted from his experiences on Wall Road throughout the Thirties. It actually helped that he made some cash — simply as vital was that he grew to be comfy round hard-charging personalities. He had no drawback arguing his case in entrance of them. Furthermore, he discovered to be resilient after enterprise offers collapsed — and that is one thing that occurred with the top of his funding financial institution, Clarence Dillon, who was by all accounts a tough individual. So, throughout Nitze’s experiences working in quite a lot of authorities roles throughout World Warfare II, he was ready each to face up for himself and in addition transfer on when he made his case and misplaced. He was additionally a generalist who knew a bit about economics, protection issues, and international coverage. All of this helped him carve out a profession in nationwide safety and construct out the federal government establishments that emerged with the Chilly Warfare. When it comes to particular people, there was nice alternative to be entrepreneurial, particularly as a result of the Nationwide Safety Act of 1947 didn’t create a cadre of nationwide safety professionals who may transfer throughout authorities businesses to do the types of issues that Washington wanted. Lately, it has turn into commonplace for folk to maneuver between authorities and thinktanks and roughly hint the steps of their mentors. When Paul Nitze was setting out within the mid-Forties, that trajectory didn’t but exist.
Nitze was central to key paperwork like NSC-68, and was later concerned in arms management negotiations. How did he reconcile his help for army power along with his participation in arms discount efforts?
One of many arguments I make within the e-book is that Nitze embraced this idea of “pressure between opposites.” There was concord on this pressure — concord that produced music. That may be a metaphor, after all — but it’s a guiding one. What a person can aspire to do is maintain two conflicting concepts in a single’s head and never be paralyzed by inaction. For Nitze, as soon as the USA misplaced its strategic superiority over the Soviet Union throughout the Sixties, he devoted a lot of the Nineteen Seventies and Nineteen Eighties to redressing that state of affairs. Definitely, he wished to revive U.S. power, and he exhorted everybody to acknowledge the Soviet nuclear buildup. On the similar time, he additionally wrote about how strategic stability may take the type of cellular ICBMs the place neither Washington nor Moscow would have an incentive to launch a primary strike. That was not the identical factor as U.S. preponderance, nor was the strategic idea that he put ahead to Ronald Reagan in 1985 that I feel paid off with Mikhail Gorbachev.
Your e-book attracts on newly declassified paperwork and in depth archival analysis. Have been there any findings that challenged your preliminary assumptions about Nitze?
I used to be shocked about his function within the Dwight Eisenhower administration. Right here, I’m nonetheless not even certain the right way to characterize it. I had not beforehand identified that Secretary of State John Foster Dulles provided him the job of Assistant Secretary of Protection for Worldwide Safety Affairs (the job he would later maintain beneath President John F. Kennedy) – and that Nitze had already arrange store on the Pentagon when Dulles withdrew the supply. Within the eight years that adopted, Nitze criticized the Eisenhower administration, and his criticisms typically led the administration to (reasonably) change course. Greater than that, nonetheless, Nitze saved his safety clearances and continuously suggested Dulles, who didn’t have many different folks on whom he may name. As Director of Coverage Planning, Nitze had gone by means of plans for utilizing atomic weapons throughout the Korean Warfare. He may discuss by means of grave issues of that kind with Dulles; few others may. And Nitze participated in all kinds of army and intelligence commissions all through the Eisenhower period; he additionally labored on research that Congress commissioned from him. In sum, I assume my assumption at the beginning of the e-book was that Nitze was an “in-and-outer.” But, because the Fifties particularly illuminate, he was by no means actually “out” of presidency.
In what methods did Nitze’s views conflict or align with contemporaries like George Kennan? What do these dynamics reveal about U.S. strategic debates throughout the Chilly Warfare?
As I write within the e-book, there’s a beautiful second in 1946 the place Nitze tries to impress upon then Underneath Secretary of State Dean Acheson how the Harry Truman administration must take critically rising indicators of Soviet ambitions. And Acheson tells Nitze he’s overthinking the state of affairs. Shortly after that, Kennan writes his Lengthy Telegram, and Nitze’s former mentor (no much less), James Forrestal, tells everybody in Washington to learn it. Kennan was a greater author than Nitze. There and elsewhere, it paid off.
But, Kennan left DC in 1950 and by no means actually commanded White Home consideration once more. Students paid consideration to him. That is partly as a result of he wrote great historical past books. But, he was additionally contrite about how his views had been distorted by subsequent U.S. policymakers. That was not likely an apology on his half — it was extra that he regretted that his successors obtained him improper. Nonetheless, there was a broader acknowledgment on Kennan’s half that the nation had gone within the improper course in waging the Chilly Warfare. I suppose Nitze would have additionally stated that the nation went within the improper course when leaders didn’t hearken to him. A key distinction between him and Kennan, by way of strategic debates, is that Nitze all the time thought the U.S. ought to wage a worldwide Chilly Warfare, even when Kennan was advocating for concentrating on a number of key strategic areas. Particularly after the Chilly Warfare heated up within the so-called Third World within the Fifties and Sixties, I feel the hole widened between (1) the place to maintain litigating what the U.S. may have accomplished in a different way within the late Forties; and (2) the right way to virtually forestall communism from spreading into the Nineteen Seventies. Nitze and Kennan remained associates — but I feel it’s clear which one was on which facet of that debate.
What about Nitze’s alignment with former secretary of state Henry Kissinger? Do you could have any insights into their dynamic?
With regards to Nitze and Kissinger, I’m simply glad that the time period “frenemy” has gained sufficient respectability that I can use it within the e-book. I feel it actually captures their dynamic. As with Kennan, Kissinger was a greater author than Nitze. Undeniably, he possessed a facility for utilizing humor to diffuse conditions. Not like Nitze, Kissinger was additionally prepared to make use of flattery. You’ll by no means discover Nitze speaking to a president the way in which that Kissinger spoke to Nixon. Lyndon Johnson tried to see if Nitze would, and he was not . (It’s value noting right here that whereas Nitze as soon as turned down the job of nationwide safety advisor, he by no means obtained a cupboard place. Whereas he was a pure contender to be secretary of protection beneath Jimmy Carter, an disagreeable interplay between Nitze and Carter — whom Nitze supported for president — in the summertime of 1976 made certain that might not occur.)
With respect to Nitze, Kissinger, and broader strategic debates, I feel that from 1969 onwards Kissinger (and Richard Nixon) regarded their initiatives with the Soviet Union and Folks’s Republic of China as methods for getting out of Vietnam and decelerating the nuclear arms race. This was completely different from Nitze’s strategy, which I feel was to attempt to resolve issues on their very own phrases. For example, hammering out a nuclear arms settlement required affected person diplomacy and technical acumen; adhering to a political timeline risked negating any potential features. When it got here to the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks with the Soviets, Kissinger famously ran his backchannel negotiations with Soviet Ambassador to the USA Anatoly Dobrynin. The precise U.S. negotiating workforce — which included Paul Nitze — was saved at nighttime. The crucial was to get a deal to bolster President Nixon’s reelection marketing campaign in 1972. And from Nitze’s perspective, this helped be sure that SALT I turned out to be a nasty deal. Which numerous people within the U.S. nationwide safety group additionally believed.
To what extent did Nitze share the views of different key Chilly Warfare figures within the Pentagon, akin to Secretary of Protection Caspar Weinberger?
With respect to Nitze and Secretary of Protection Caspar Weinberger, I feel that each males believed strongly that U.S. weak point would provoke Soviet aggression. They each wished to rebuild U.S. power. Whereas they have been additionally cordial with one another — however a fraught relationship between Weinberger and Nitze’s boss, Secretary of State George Shultz —I feel that they have been on completely different sides on two coverage debates.
The primary needed to do with NATO’s 1979 choice to deploy intermediate-range nuclear forces in Europe by 1983, whereas prematurely of that 12 months searching for negotiations to offset Soviet SS-20s, which Moscow had already deployed. Right here I feel Nitze was very involved that Weinberger’s powerful stance — in help of a “zero choice” — may result in the autumn of allied governments and with it the collapse of NATO. Nitze was extra about trans-Atlantic relations, I might say. That’s a part of what motivated him to take his well-known — or notorious — “Stroll within the Woods” out in Geneva, along with his Soviet negotiator, in the summertime of 1982. Whereas they did not provide you with a diplomatic breakthrough, I contend within the e-book that Nitze does nudge President Reagan to reveal some flexibility. Finally, the Soviets didn’t budge.
Throughout the second Reagan administration, Nitze wished to leverage Reagan’s Strategic Protection Initiative to get a grand cut price with the Soviets on strategic offensive arms. Right here, I feel that Weinberger wished to construct a protect in opposition to nuclear weapons, and he regarded that as the nice in and of itself. Nitze was skeptical concerning the feasibility of that. Additionally, since he had performed a lead function in crafting and negotiating the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty, he was understandably extra dedicated to preserving it than Weinberger.
Taking a look at present U.S. international coverage, notably within the context of renewed nice energy competitors, do you see echoes of Nitze’s pondering? What classes, if any, ought to immediately’s policymakers draw from his profession?
The echoes of Nitze’s pondering are in a different way current in efforts to craft an NSC-68 for our time — whether or not to take care of the Folks’s Republic of China, or the implications of Generative Synthetic Intelligence (GenAI), or some mixture thereof. I feel it is very important understand that Nitze and the remainder of his workforce engaged on NSC-68 had in thoughts what nationwide safety must appear to be on this planet of the hydrogen bomb — which, in January 1950, after they have been commissioned to jot down it, didn’t but exist. So, I feel that it is very important sit up for speaking a couple of world the place Beijing possesses the world’s largest economic system, or one the place “Common Synthetic Intelligence” (nonetheless outlined) exists. After which, strategists want to think twice about the right way to combine foundational concepts of what precisely we aspire to guard. That’s a minimum of what Nitze et. al. aspired to do with NSC-68.
From Nitze’s profession, I feel the teachings to attract are fairly clear: you’ve obtained to maintain at it. And also you’ve obtained to concentrate to your bodily and psychological well being. Nitze had super stamina, and this led to a line that obtained caught to him: “my physique does what I inform it do.” Nitze himself thought that was ridiculous, and he complained to Strobe Talbott for writing it in a profile about him in Time Journal. What I discover within the archival papers is that Nitze entered the hospital for exhaustion, throughout the Sixties; and at varied factors all through his profession, he sought refuge within the woods in Colorado or on his farm in Maryland. He had the monetary means to take these breaks. But it’s a part of the mythology that these people from a earlier period have been superhuman. They weren’t. He was additionally absent as a dad — as most likely was each Chilly Warfare determine.
What’s a very powerful recommendation you would give younger Worldwide Relations students?
All the time inform a narrative. I acknowledge that there’s a conventional mannequin for writing books that embrace a concept chapter and subsequent chapters with case research. Do no matter it’s essential do to complete your dissertation, get a job, and get tenure. Work out as effectively the right way to inform a narrative—or else it will likely be very tough for folks outdoors your discipline to have interaction along with your concepts. And that engagement will maintain you wherever you select to go.
Additional Studying on E-Worldwide Relations
