As 2021 comes to a close, here are ten influential U.S. foreign policy figures who passed away this year. 

A new memoir from Ambassador Ted Osius marks an important contribution to understanding the history of U.S.-Vietnam relations.

The African National Congress (ANC), the party which has dominated government since the end of apartheid in 1994, is a mélange of democratic and "liberation" assumptions and procedures. Once multiracial, the ANC is now largely a Black political party. During the 2009–2018 presidency of Jacob Zuma, it became deeply ensnarled in corruption and steadily lost the support of the electorate. Zuma is widely regarded as personally corrupt. Cyril Ramaphosa, a close associate of Nelson Mandela, campaigned within the party to unseat Zuma and clean up the corruption, not least to stimulate foreign and domestic investment in the economy.

Erin Gallagher is a research associate for Japan studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.   On March 17, three couples in Hokkaido won a landmark case in the Sapporo District Court. Thousan…

Nigerians like to say that they are the world's happiest people and the most religious. The basis of their happiness, they go on to say in the face of poor well-being statistics (such as one of the highest levels of maternal mortality), is religion.