Matthew Connelly | |
---|---|
Awards | George Louis Beer Prize (2002) |
Academic background | |
Education | |
Doctoral advisor | Gaddis Smith Paul Kennedy William Quandt |
Academic work | |
Discipline | International history |
Institutions |
Matthew James Connelly (born November 25,1967) [1] is an American professor of international and global history at Columbia University. His areas of expertise include the global Cold War,official secrecy,population control,decolonization,and methods to predict catastrophic threats. He is the author of Fatal Misconception:The Struggle to Control World Population,A Diplomatic Revolution:Algeria's Fight for Independence and the Origins of the Post-Cold War Era,The Declassification Engine:What History Reveals About America's Top Secrets, and articles on international and domestic politics for The Atlantic Monthly, The New York Times , The National Interest ,and Le Monde . Connelly is also the founder and principal investigator of History Lab.
Matthew Connelly earned his BA in history from Columbia University in 1990,before earning his doctorate from Yale University in 1997. His dissertation,“The Algerian War for Independence:An International History”,written under the supervision of Gaddis Smith,Paul Kennedy,and William Quandt,formed the basis for A Diplomatic Revolution. Prior to his appointment at Columbia University,he taught in the Department of History and Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan. He has also been a visiting professor at the Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris (Sciences Po),the University of Oslo,the University of Sydney,the London School of Economics,and the Fundação Getulio Vargas.
He is also the co-director of the Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy at Columbia. [2]
Connelly's research predominantly focuses on the history of the 20th century. His work employs novel and innovative approaches to historical study,including examining the past through a global or transnational lens,and applying data-mining techniques to historical research.
Connelly's first book,A Diplomatic Revolution:Algeria's Fight for Independence and the Origins of the Post-Cold War Era (2002,Oxford U. Pr.),examines the international diplomacy of Algerian independence. It is a revisionist account that analyzes the transnational networks through which Algerian statesman struggled for liberation,rather than adopting a traditional focus on the national aspects of the movement. Foreign Affairs magazine observes that "Connelly weaves into his story the changing roles of the United States,Gamal Abdel Nasser's Egypt,Morocco,and Tunisia;the ebb and flow of FLN relations with the soviet bloc;and much more". [3] A Diplomatic Revolution is notable in locating fundamental shifts in international society as occurring during the Algerian independence movement,arguing that "population growth,environmental scarcities,international institutions,new media,and,not least,the conscious agency of colonized peoples were already combining to cause radical change—of a recognizably new kind—when some might assume the international system was frozen into an ideological contest between East and West". [4] The book has also been revised and translated into French as L'arme secrète du FLN:Comment de Gaulle a Perdu la Guerre d'Algérie.
Fatal Misconception:The Struggle to Control World Population (2008,Harvard U. Pr.) charts the history of global efforts to control population growth. The book documents the diverse and often disturbing methods used by countries,foundations,and organizations to control populations,particularly in the Global South. Helen Epstein of the New York Review of Books notes that "Though painful to read,[Fatal Misconception] contain[s] many valuable lessons for anyone who cares about making development programs work,both technically and politically.” [5] Some reviewers express concern that the book's arguments might be appropriated by contemporary anti-abortion advocates. Nicholas Kristof,in a review for the New York Times,argues that "the family planning movement has corrected itself,and today it saves the lives of women in poor countries and is central to efforts to reduce poverty worldwide. If we allow that past to tarnish today’s efforts by family planning organizations,women in poor countries will be doubly hurt by." [6] Connelly emphasizes the importance of freedom of choice and individual rights in how we justify family planning. In an interview documented in Salon,he asserts that:"it’s important that we make our stand on reproductive rights when we’re arguing for family planning services,and for safe and legal access to abortion." [7] Mahmood Mamdani,a professor of Government at the School of International and Public Affairs,says of Fatal Misconception, “Connelly raises the most profound political,social,and moral questions. His history reveals that the difference between population control and birth control is indeed that between coercion and choice.” [8]
The Declassification Engine:What History Reveals About America's Top Secrets (2023,Pantheon) documents multiple concerns with official secrets in the U.S. These include,"Three major lessons from Pearl Harbor":
Connelly documents that the Franklin Roosevelt administration wanted to get into the war in Europe before the attack on Pearl Harbor,but the U.S. Congress refused to support it. The Tripartite Pact of 27 September 1940 strengthened the Axis alliance of Germany,Italy,and Japan. The U.S. responded by embargoing first scrap iron and eventually oil exports to Japan. Roosevelt hoped he could "maneuver them into the position of firing the first shot without allowing too much danger to ourselves". [12]
Part of the problem with the Bay of Pigs,the Cuban Missile Crisis,the Vietnam War,and many other national security issues is that the "need to know" requirement of the U.S. system of classified information makes it relatively easy for military and civil servants to be less than forthright and even deceptive with their superiors,including the President. [13]
He also says that the "need to know" requirement often makes it hard for intelligence analysts to get the information they need,and ultimately,"a lot of secret intelligence is not actually secret,and what is secret is often not intelligent". [14]
Connelly also claims,"There is nothing more dangerous—both to itself,and to others—than a nuclear-armed superpower that is not even answerable to its own people." [15] He further says,"In some cases,the U.S. military itself has prepared to launch nuclear weapons based on false warnings. We still live in fear of surprise attacks,as shown by the panic created in Hawaii in 2018 after an alarm indicated an imminent missile strike. [16] We should actually be more alarmed by the very real risk that all our preparations for war will result in the United States’provoking just such an attack,or accidentally launching one of our own." [17]
He claims that prior to the run-up to World War II,the US had prided itself in its "radical transparency",not even encrypting diplomatic communications. He said,"The early republic also fostered a culture of information sharing by delivering newspapers at long distances at little cost through an ever-expanding network of post offices,where they were often displayed for public consumption." [18]
A conclusion that justifies the title[ clarification needed ] is that the declassification system in the US is woefully underfunded. The US government produces many times more classified documents than can possibly be reviewed with the existing budget. Some records are destroyed or deliberately not written down to make sure they never come to light. [19] This is a major threat to democracy,because citizens can't get the information needed to decide how to modify government policies if important details of how the system has worked in the past are never available to the public.[ clarification needed ]
Part of the problem is that the incentives are wrong:There are rarely any penalties to refusing to declassify something,but one's career can end if someone else with sufficient authority decides you've declassified something that should have been kept secret.[ clarification needed ]
Connelly's solution[ clarification needed ] is to train an artificial intelligence system to manage the declassification process.[ citation needed ]
Connelly is also the principal investigator at History Lab, a collective of Columbia University data scientists and historians that apply data-mining techniques to historical documents. History Lab has aggregated the largest online database of declassified documents anywhere in the world,while developing tools for researchers to explore these documents. The project is also attempting to find a solution to the growing crisis in government declassification. In an article for the New York Times, Connelly and Richard Immerman observe that "in the late 1990s more than 200 million pages of documents were being declassified each year. Today,that figure has stagnated at around 30 million,despite a huge increase in classified data." [20] History Lab hopes to develop tools to machine-assist the declassification process. This would improve the efficiency and security of declassification,while also providing academics and researchers more data to understand government policy. The New Yorker, in an article on the initiative,states that the "researchers hope the project will help illuminate the space between necessary secrets and over-caution." [21]
In 2009 Connelly started a research program on catastrophic threats,the Hertog Global Strategy Initiative [22] . Over four years,teams of student researchers analyzed the history and future of nuclear proliferation,pandemics,environmental collapse,and religious extremism. Connelly partnered with experts who co-taught in the program each summer,Frank Gavin,Steven Morse,James Fleming,and Monica Toft. Invited speakers included Hans Blix,Tony Fauci,D.A. Henderson,David Heymann,Robert Gallucci,Peggy Hamburg,Henry Kissinger,Wally Broecker,Gavin Schmidt,and Bill McKibben.
Independence is a condition of a nation,country,or state,in which residents and population,or some portion thereof,exercise self-government,and usually sovereignty,over its territory. The opposite of independence is the status of a dependent territory. The commemoration of the independence day of a country or nation celebrates when a country is free from all forms of foreign colonialism;free to build a country or nation without any interference from other nations.
Since its independence from France in 1962,Algeria has pursued an activist foreign policy. In the 1960s and 1970s,Algeria was noted for its support of Third World policies and independence movements. Since its independence,Algeria has been a member of the Arab League,the African Union and of the United Nations.
Daniel Ellsberg is an American political activist and former United States military analyst. While employed by the RAND Corporation,he precipitated a national political controversy in 1971 when he released the Pentagon Papers,a top-secret Pentagon study of U.S. government decision-making in relation to the Vietnam War,to The New York Times,The Washington Post and other newspapers.
The Algerian War was a major armed conflict between France and the Algerian National Liberation Front from 1954 to 1962,which led to Algeria winning its independence from France. An important decolonization war,it was a complex conflict characterized by guerrilla warfare and war crimes. The conflict also became a civil war between the different communities and within the communities. The war took place mainly on the territory of Algeria,with repercussions in metropolitan France.
The Polisario Front,Frente Polisario,Frelisario or simply Polisario,from the Spanish abbreviation of Frente Popular de Liberación de Saguía el Hamra y Río de Oro,is a rebel Sahrawi nationalist liberation movement claiming Western Sahara.
The History of Algeria from 1962 to 1999 includes the period starting with preparations for independence and the aftermath of the independence war with France in the 1960s to the Civil War and the 1999 presidential election.
Decolonization or decolonisation is the undoing of colonialism,the latter being the process whereby imperial nations establish and dominate foreign territories,often overseas. Some scholars of decolonization focus especially on independence movements in the colonies and the collapse of global colonial empires. Other scholars extend the meaning to include economic,cultural and psychological aspects of the colonial experience.
The National Liberation Front is a nationalist political party in Algeria. It was the principal nationalist movement during the Algerian War and the sole legal and ruling political party of the Algerian state until other parties were legalised in 1989. The FLN was established in 1954 from a split in the Movement for the Triumph of Democratic Liberties from members of the Special Organisation paramilitary;its armed wing,the National Liberation Army,participated in the Algerian War from 1954 to 1962. After the Évian Accords of 1962,the party purged internal dissent and ruled Algeria as a one-party state. After the 1988 October Riots and the Algerian Civil War (1991–2002) against Islamist groups,the FLN was reelected to power in the 2002 Algerian legislative election,and has generally remained in power ever since,although sometimes needing to form coalitions with other parties.
United States Objectives and Programs for National Security,better known as NSC 68,was a 66-page top secret National Security Council (NSC) policy paper drafted by the Department of State and Department of Defense and presented to President Harry S. Truman on 7 April 1950. It was one of the most important American policy statements of the Cold War. In the words of scholar Ernest R. May,NSC 68 "provided the blueprint for the militarization of the Cold War from 1950 to the collapse of the Soviet Union at the beginning of the 1990s." NSC 68 and its subsequent amplifications advocated a large expansion in the military budget of the United States,the development of a hydrogen bomb,and increased military aid to allies of the United States. It made the rollback of global Communist expansion a high priority. NSC 68 rejected the alternative policies of friendly détente and containment of the Soviet Union.
The National Security Archive is a 501(c)(3) non-governmental,non-profit research and archival institution located on the campus of the George Washington University in Washington,D.C. Founded in 1985 to check rising government secrecy. The National Security Archive is an investigative journalism center,open government advocate,international affairs research institute,and the largest repository of declassified U.S. documents outside the federal government. The National Security Archive has spurred the declassification of more than 15 million pages of government documents by being the leading non-profit user of the U.S. Freedom of Information Act (FOIA),filing a total of more than 70,000 FOIA and declassification requests in its over 35+ years of history.
Piero Gleijeses is a professor of United States foreign policy at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at Johns Hopkins University. He is best known for his scholarly studies of Cuban foreign policy under Fidel Castro,which earned him a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2005,and has also published several works on US intervention in Latin America. He is the only foreign scholar to have been allowed access to the Cuba's Castro-era government archives.
Robert J. McMahon is an American historian of the foreign relations of the United States and a scholar of the Cold War. He currently holds the chair of Ralph D. Mershon Distinguished Professor at Ohio State University.
Fatal Misconception:The Struggle to Control World Population is a 2008 book by Matthew Connelly,an associate professor of history at Columbia University.
North Vietnam,officially the Democratic Republic of Vietnam,was a socialist state supported by the Soviet Union (USSR) and the People's Republic of China (PRC) in Southeast Asia that existed from 1945 to 1976 and was recognized in 1954. Both the North Vietnamese and South Vietnamese states ceased to exist when they unified as the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
The post–Cold War era is a period of history that follows the end of the Cold War,which represents history after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991. This period saw many former Soviet Republics become sovereign nations,as well as the introduction of market economies in eastern Europe. This period also marked the United States becoming the world's sole superpower.
The Congress of Soummam was the founding act of the modern Algerian State,and a crucial element of success of the Algerian war for independence. It took place on 20 August 1956 when the FLN's leadership within Algeria met secretly in the Soummam valley to compose a common platform and create a new organizational structure.
Matthew Morris Aid was an American military historian and author. Aid graduated from Beloit College in 1980,having studied international relations. He studied the Russian language,while a member of the United States Air Force,and was a Russian linguist for the National Security Agency,and the Air Force.
The George Louis Beer Prize is an award given by the American Historical Association for the best book in European international history from 1895 to the present written by a United States citizen or permanent resident. The prize was created in 1923 to honor the memory of George Beer,a prominent historian,member of the U.S. delegation at the 1919 Paris Peace Conference,and senior League of Nations official. Described by Jeffrey Herf,the 1998 laureate,as "the Academy Award" of book prizes for modern European historians,it is one of the most prestigious American prizes for book-length history. The Beer Prize is usually awarded to senior scholars in the profession;the American Historical Association restricts its other distinguished European history award,the Herbert Baxter Adams Prize,to young authors publishing their first substantial work.
The Paul Birdsall Prize is an biennial prize given to a historian by the American Historical Association.
Algeria–Yugoslavia relations were historical foreign relations between Algeria and now split-up Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Both countries self-identified with the wider Mediterranean region and shared membership in the Non-Aligned Movement. During the Algerian War Yugoslavia provided significant logistical and diplomatic support to the Algerian side which affected its intra-European relations with France. Yugoslavia was the first European country to openly support the FLN.