This past Saturday marked the 100th anniversary of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria by a Serbian nationalist. The killing set off a chain of events sparking World War I.In commentary published in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, Thomas Hanson argues that the legacies and implications of 1914 are woven into the crises we face today - from the Middle East, the Balkans, Russia and all the way to rural Midwest farm country.
Thomas Hanson served as a Foreign Service Officer with the Department of State for almost 25 years. His postings included East Germany, France, Norway, the Soviet Union, Sweden and Georgia. Most recently, he was Director for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and European Affairs at the Atlantic Council of the United States in Washington, D.C. Thomas is currently diplomat in residence at the Royal D. Alworth Jr. Institute for International Studies at the University of Minnesota Duluth. You can read Hanson's article here.