Composite by Hannah Yoest of images relating to the Iraq War.

Moral Injuries

Remembering what the Iraq War was like, 20 years later.
A Metropolitan Museum official hands over a 13th-century wooden strut to Nepal’s archaeology department last year. Photograph: Aryan Dhimal/Zuma Press Wire/Rex/Shutterstock.

New York’s Met Museum Sees Reputation Erode Over Collection Practices

An investigation identified hundreds of artifacts linked to indicted or convicted traffickers. What does this mean for the future of museums?
Vietnam solider exhibit at the Nixon Library.
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The Nixon Library's Vietnam Exhibition Obscures the Truth About the War's End

The Nixon White House Tapes tell a different story.

Iraq and the Pathologies of Primacy

The flawed logic that produced the war is alive and well.
Postcard of Sarajevo.

Collapsing Pluralism: The Bosnian War Three Decades Later

The US is not Yugoslavia, but its struggles surrounding pluralism, nationalism, and an urban/rural divide parallel those Yugoslavia faced as it descended into chaos.
Ricardo and Enrique Flores Magón at the Los Angeles County Jail, circa 1916.

An American Story

Kelly Lytle Hernández’s new book chronicles the tumultuous period leading up to the Mexican Revolution, casting the border as ground zero for continental change.
President Jimmy Carter standing behind a podium.

Jimmy Carter's African Legacy: Peacemaker, Negotiator and Defender of Rights

Carter’s work in Zimbabwe forms a significant and underappreciated part of his legacy.
Eilhu Root.

The Shameful Imperialist Legacy of Elihu Root, Godfather of Corporate Law

How a celebrated corporate lawyer named Elihu Root became the driving force behind some of the worst U.S. atrocities ever perpetrated abroad.
A Foxconn factory in San Jeronimo, Chihuahua state, Mexico, as seen from Santa Teresa, N.M.
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History Shows Moving Manufacturing to North America Isn’t a Cure-all

The initial promise of Mexican factories in the 1960s gave way to impoverished communities and capital flight in search of higher profits.
Painting of a city along a river, with a long dock and commerical ships

James Buchanan's 1832 Mission to the Tsar

The plight of Poland and the limits of America's revolutionary legacy in Jacksonian foreign policy.
3 of the Tanesar goddesses placed in a wooden crate lined with police tape.

The Goddess Complex

A set of revered stone deities stolen from a temple in northwestern India can tell us much about our current reckoning with antiquities trafficking.
A U.S. Army officer posing after a battle at the Baghdad airport, April 2003.

Blundering Into Baghdad

The right—and wrong—lessons of the Iraq War.
President John F. Kennedy meets with William Fitzjohn, Sierra Leone's charge d’affairs in Washington, in the Oval Office on April 27, 1961.

The African Diplomats Who Protested Segregation in the U.S.

Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy publicly apologized after restaurants refused to serve Black representatives of newly independent nations.
Castro and Kruschev.
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Putin’s Nuclear Threats Evoke Cold War Tensions of the Cuban Missile Crisis

Russia’s recent nuclear threats have revived Cold War animosity with roots in the Cuban missile crisis.
The front page of a 1908 San Francisco Chronicle reports the shooting of diplomat Durham White Stevens.

‘I Decided To Kill Him And Kill Myself’: When Imperialist Politics Lead To A Murder In SF

In 1908, Korean nationalists assassinated a pro-Japanese American diplomat in front of the Ferry Building.
Five globes shaped like human faces, connected by threads.

It’s Time to Rethink the Idea of the “Indigenous”

Many groups who identify as Indigenous don’t claim to be first peoples; many who came first don’t claim to be Indigenous. Can the idea escape its colonial past?
German observation balloon launched near the Somme, September 1916.
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Why a Spy Balloon Inspires Such Fear and Fascination

When it comes to protecting our personal privacy, we’re not in Kansas anymore.
Robet Kagan resting his head in his hands in a contemplative position, with a dark red background

Robert Kagan and Interventionism’s Big Reboot

He fell from favor after the disaster of the Iraq War. But he was always biding his time.
A balloon drifts above the Atlantic Ocean off South Carolina on Feb. 4, shortly before it was shot down.
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Panic Over Spy Balloon Echoes Misguided Alarm Over Sputnik

In this case, freaking out makes even less sense because spy balloons are historically a sign of weakness.
Sailors recover a high-altitude surveillance balloon off the coast of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, on Feb. 5.

Spy Balloons Evoke Bad Cold War Memories for China

Covert U.S. intrusions into Chinese airspace were common for decades.
President Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping shake hands at the Group of 20 summit.
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Diplomacy Defused Cold War Crises. It Can Help Again Today.

The type of quiet, personal, informed diplomacy advocated by George Kennan can reduce tensions with China and Russia.
Photos of UFO and the Chinese Spy Balloon.

Why Americans Are So Unsettled by the Chinese Spy Balloon

China’s balloon, whatever its purpose, became a physical and observable reminder of the often-invisible work nations do to keep tabs on one another.
The United States flag flying above that of Guam.

Trapped by Empire

The government of Guam has appointed a Commission on Decolonization, but U.S. control means that all of the island’s options have substantial downsides.
A group of school boys displaced by World War II bombardments pose with CARE (Cooperative for American Remittances to Europe) packages from the United States in Haren, Belgium in 1947.

How Truman Sold Americans on Going Hungry

In 1947, the United States sacrificed for the sake of a starving Europe.
A Japanese bomb-carrying paper balloon in North America in 1945.

When Japanese Balloons Threatened American Skies During World War II

Japan sent nearly 10,000 bomb-bearing balloons toward the U.S. during World War II. One killed six people.
Painting of the US army entering the city of Guadalupe Hildaglo
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The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo: Annotated

Signed February 2, 1848, the treaty compelled Mexico to cede 55 percent of its territory, bringing more than 525,000 square miles under US sovereignty.
Image from book cover of "Petroleum and Progress in Iran."

There Will Be War

U.S.-Iranian relations, the interrelationship between Iranian development and the global oil market, and the future of economic warfare.
The Iraq flag waving in the wind.

Confronting the Iraq War

Melvyn Leffler’s book on the roots of the Iraq invasion demonstrates the pitfalls of excessive trust in one’s sources, especially when they're top policymakers.
Yellow house where George Washington stayed while in Barbados.

George Washington in Barbados?

How the Caribbean colony contributed to America's fight for independence.
An image of George Kennan with some of his letters superimposed over his face.

Kennan’s Warning on Ukraine

Ambition, insecurity, and the perils of independence.