Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author’s permission. Tomorrow is Veterans Day, though of course November 11th was originally Armistice Day to mark the end of World War I on the 11th hour of the 11th day in 1918. Back then, it was hoped that the World War would...
Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author’s permission. Lately, there’s a “Talking Heads” lyric that’s been popping up in my brain: Our president’s crazy/Did you hear what he said? A few days ago, President Trump threatened war against Nigeria. He vowed that U.S....
Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author’s permission. War and rumors of war dominate the headlines. Venezuela. Nigeria. Iran. Somalia. A “new Cold War” involving Russia and China. What are we to believe? The events of the 62 years of my short life (Vietnam,...
Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author’s permission. Here’s a note I sent to a colleague who asked sincerely whether “genocide” was the appropriate word for Israeli actions in Gaza: For what it’s worth, I taught the Holocaust as a professor of history after...
Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author’s permission. Since the last time (July 19th) I wrote about the Russia-Ukraine War, perhaps the biggest change has been to President Trump’s rhetoric. After being frustrated in his efforts to end the war (and perhaps win a...
Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author’s permission. The military historian Dennis Showalter once told me that he didn’t care about the amount of fat around a general’s belly – he cared about the fat between a general’s ears. It was a telling quip, and one that...
Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author’s permission. If there’s one thing we’ve learned (or re-learned, again and again) from the Pentagon it’s that all governments lie and that the first casualty of war is truth. From the Pentagon Papers in the Vietnam War to...
Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author’s permission. I’ve taught military history “from Plato to NATO,” as we used to joke, but my expertise focused on technology and warfare. Along with “revolutions” and “transformations” in weaponry, I probably spent too much...
Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author’s permission. Since the 1940s, we humans have spent enormous sums of money on genocidal weapons. Untold trillions, actually, on arsenals that, if used, would destroy civilization while killing most other life forms on our...
Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author’s permission. The LA Holocaust Museum recently suggested that “Never Again” is a fundamental lesson of the Holocaust. Then they took it back. Here’s the (almost) inconceivable story from Caitlin Johnstone: Israel supporters...
