Military policy

The Old Normal

By Andrew J. Bacevich,

Why we can’t beat our addiction to war

Must Flee TV

By William M. Arkin,

From a resignation email sent to NBC News in January by William M. Arkin, a national security reporter who had worked at the network off and on since 1999. January 4…

What China Threat?

By Kishore Mahbubani,

Within about fifteen years, China’s economy will surpass America’s and become the largest in the world. As this moment approaches, meanwhile, a consensus has formed in Washington that China poses…

America in the Middle East: learning curves are for pussies.—Jon Stewart, The Daily Show, June 2, 2015 In January 2017, following Donald Trump’s inauguration, his national security staffers entered their…

How to Start a Nuclear War

By Andrew Cockburn,

Serving as a US Air Force launch control officer for intercontinental missiles in the early Seventies, First Lieutenant Bruce Blair figured out how to start a nuclear war and kill…

Mobbed Up

By Andrew Cockburn,

Lance Bunch has had an impressive year. In July 2017, he gained a coveted star, having been promoted to brigadier general while serving as the principal military assistant to James…

The Minds of Others

By David Bromwich, Garth Greenwell, Hanif Abdurraqib, Kelly Clancy, Laila Lalami, Mychal Denzel Smith, T. M. Luhrmann,

Progress is impossible without change,” George Bernard Shaw wrote in 1944, “and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.” But progress through persuasion has never seemed harder to…

Destroyer of Worlds

By Elaine Scarry, Eric Schlosser, Lydia Millet, Mohammed Hanif, Rachel Bronson, Theodore Postol,

In February 1947, Harper’s Magazine published Henry L. Stimson’s “The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb.” As secretary of war, Stimson had served as the chief military adviser to President…

Everyman’s War

By Elisabeth Zerofsky,

“T here were two possibilities,” Ramunas Markovas said one morning as he drove me out of Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania, and into the pine forest. “Die on the battlefield…

W.W.E. the People

By Naomi Klein,

By Naomi Klein, from No Is Not Enough, which was published in June by Haymarket Books. Klein is the author of The Shock Doctrine, among other books. Read More

The New Red Scare

By Andrew Cockburn,

“Welcome to the world of strategic analysis,” Ivan Selin used to tell his team during the Sixties, “where we program weapons that don’t work to meet threats that don’t exist.”…

From the Archive

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The Old Normal

Must Flee TV

What China Threat?

“Tell Me How This Ends”

How to Start a Nuclear War

Mobbed Up

The Minds of Others

Destroyer of Worlds

Everyman’s War

W.W.E. the People

The New Red Scare

December 2016