The costs of war continue to rise in the Trump era.
The U.S. Military Takes Us Through the Gates of Hell
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Blowback
How the Iraq War Gave Us Trump
From 2003 to 2017, the U.S. went from from sole global superpower to potential super-pariah.
America’s Spiral Into Permanent War Seems More Foolish Than Ever
Donald Trump is inheriting the scariest tools of aggression imaginable. A new book explores their dark legacy.
Terrorism: From the Irish Dynamite War to the Islamic State
However counterproductive the Irish Fenian “Dynamite War” was, it was a reflection of the basic injustice of colonialism.
Here’s the Thing About Terrorism Obama Won’t Tell You
Our wildly inflated fear of terrorism is a self-fulfilling prophecy.
The Ultimate Blowback from U.S. Foreign Policy? Donald Trump.
How the CIA, bad trade deals, and wanton military intervention caused the social crises that gave us the Donald. (Really.)
America’s Hydra Problem in the Middle East
ISIS may be more famous for cutting off heads, but it’s Washington that’s learning the hard way not to slash first and ask questions later.
Why ISIS Exists
In the U.S. war on Iraq, hundreds of thousands died the sort of deaths that, if broadcast in an ISIS video, would have inflamed international opinion.
The Mali Blowback: More to Come?
The French-led military offensive in its former colony of Mali has pushed back radical Islamists and allied militias from some of the country’s northern cities, freeing the local population from repressive Taliban-style totalitarian rule. However, despite these initial victories, it raises concerns as to what unforeseen consequences may lay down the road.
How and Why to Support Religion Overseas
Since September 11, in spite of the rhetoric on how the world has been transformed, U.S. foreign policy has approached the Islamic world and the war on terrorism as little more than old wine in new wine skins. During the Cold War, U.S. scholars and policymakers asked why people become communists. Now they ask why people become religious terrorists, extremists, and fundamentalists. What is so striking is that the solutions scholars give to this national security problem today is similar to the ones they proposed a half-century ago – more foreign aid to promote liberal democracy and free market capitalism. The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP) has been bold enough to call this policy “funding virtue,” even though scholars and policymakers have largely ignored the role of virtue or religion in sustaining democracy and development. The closest the United States has come to recognizing the role of virtue and religion in foreign policy is to promote religious freedom through the Office of International Religious Freedom created in the State Department during the Clinton administration.