Departments

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national security

  • SOURCE: The New Republic
    1/12/2023

    Why George Kennan Thought He Failed His Biggest Challenge

    by Patrick Iber

    After urging the United States to firmly oppose the expansion of Soviet influence as a way of bringing the USSR's internal weaknesses to the forefront, Kennan grew disillusioned at the militarized tack later versions of "containment" took. A new book revisits and challenges canonical studies of the diplomatic thinker. 

  • 8/28/2022

    Historians on Trump's Post-Presidential Legal Issues

    Although arguably less significant than the pending cases over holding classified documents and attempting to interfere with Georgia's certification of its electoral votes, a historic indictment of former President Trump came from New York over the payment of hush money to two women over sexual encounters. 

  • SOURCE: NPR
    7/26/2022

    At 75, the CIA is Back to Battling the Kremlin

    The common objectives and concerns that engaged the Central Intelligence Agency at its 1947 founding are familiar to the intelligence community today, showing the continuity of American involvement in other nations' affairs. 

  • SOURCE: Boston Review
    9/9/2021

    9/11 Forever

    by Joseph Margulies

    "By creating the impression that the stakes were not merely consequential but existential, the attacks of September 11 normalized previously unimaginable cruelty."

  • SOURCE: New York Times
    6/11/2021

    Secrets That Were No Secret, Lessons That Were Not Learned

    by Andrew Bacevich

    The Pentagon Papers are a document of the hubris and ignorance of American military leaders in the Vietnam era, but Andrew Bacevich warns that the idea that global problems are amenable to being solved by American arms remains dangerously popular. 

  • 12/6/2020

    Stop the Music

    by Richard H. Kohn

    President-Elect Biden has allowed too much speculation about his choices for Secretary of Defense and unwisely floated the name of a retired Army general for the job. He needs to make a quick commitment to a nominee whose national defense experience comes from the civil, not the military, arena.

  • SOURCE: National Security Archive
    11/24/2020

    Jonathan Pollard: Revisiting a Still Sensitive Case

    The National Security Archive is republishing its trove of declassified documents related to Jonathan Pollard, a US Navy analyst convicted of spying for Israel in the 1980s. Pollard's parole recently ended. 

  • SOURCE: Washington Post
    11/16/2020

    We Dare Not Repeat the Mistakes of 9/11

    by Jennifer Rubin

    The Washington Post columnist argues that the delayed transition to the George W. Bush presidency in 2000 and 2001 limited the nation's preparedness for a terrorist attack. 

  • SOURCE: War on the Rocks
    9/1/2020

    Opening Up New Avenues to Understanding the Path to War in Iraq

    by Joseph Stieb

    National security historian Joseph Stieb reviews journalist Robert Draper's account of the drive to war against Iraq in 2003, concluding that Draper explains how the principals built a case for war out of selectively embroidered intelligence, but not why war appeared as a positive option or much of the American political establishment got on board. 

  • SOURCE: TomDispatch
    8/2/2020

    Missing in Action: Accountability Is Gone in America

    by Karen J. Greenberg

    A crucial part of the history of the neoconservative invasion of Iraq and the use of torture in the War on Terror is the utter lack of accountability or consequence for the people who made those decisions. 

  • SOURCE: The New Yorker
    5/11/2020

    The Myth of Henry Kissinger

    by Thomas Meaney

    Barry Gewen's new biography of the American national security figure argues that Kissinger's perspective was shaped by stories older German emigres told him about the end of the Weimar Republic and the rise of Nazism.