After the Second World War, President Harry Turman's administration developed a strategy to block the spread of Soviet Communism into the Middle East and help maintain the flow of Middle Eastern oil to the West. Often referred to as the Postwar Petroleum Order (PPO), the policy changed frequently from administration to administration, but the overall goal remained: containment of Soviet Communism. However, differences between Lyndon Johnson and Gamal Abdel Nasser would lead to the collapse of the PPO.

A Vietnamese Ministry of Public Security publication offers more clues of North Korea’s involvement in the Vietnam War

In the late 1990s, both the Vietnamese and North Korean governments began making very limited public disclosures regarding the participation of North Korean military personnel in combat operations against US and allied forces during the Vietnam War.

Soviet voters used inscriptions on ballots to express a variety of emotions toward the current state of affairs

North Korean military provocations derailed Seoul’s plans to host the 1970 Asian Games

Sporting events on the Korean Peninsula have a tendency to become highly political.

Most recently, the PyeongChang Winter Olympics allowed South Korea and North Korea to calm tensions on the peninsula and to deliberate over a possible reunification sometime in the future. Simultaneously, the Games served to illustrate South Korea’s respectable position within the international community and North Korea’s status as an outsider.

Vladimir Petrov and Evdokia Petrov inside the safe house in which they were held following their defection to Australia in 1954.

In the run-up to the 1956 Olympic Games, Australia’s security agency, ASIO, expected that the KGB would infiltrate the event