The Tanzania-Zambia Railway Tracks the History of the Cold War

The Tanzania-Zambia Railway Tracks the History of the Cold War

In February, in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, my traveling companion and I boarded the Tazara, the acronym used fondly by its riders to refer to the Tanzania-Zambia Railway. The journey felt like stepping back in time, to an era when one left the details entirely to the whims of the travel gods. Conductors ushered waiting crowds aboard whenever the trains happened to arrive, rarely on schedule. Travelers had no choice but to wait and wonder when they…

Mutually Assured Destruction: Cold War origins of nuclear Armageddon

This article originally appeared in History of War magazine issue 138.From the earliest days of the Cold War, both the US and the USSR had nuclear weapons, but only one means of delivering a strike – long-range, strategic bombers. As the conflict wore on, technological advances changed that, and soon the two sides were capable of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD)."The phrase was first coined by the US Secretary of State Robert McNamara in the e…