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Trump's airplane in Greenland.
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Why Trump Wants Greenland—And Why He Probably Won't Get It

He's not the first to set his sights on the island.
by James Patton Rogers, Caroline Kennedy Pipe via Made By History on January 23, 2025
Illustration of flag against burning city backdrop

Did George Washington Burn New York?

Americans disparaged the British as arsonists. But the rebels fought with fire too.
by Daniel Immerwahr via The Atlantic on January 31, 2023
US soldiers stand guard behind barbed wire as Afghans sit on a roadside near the military part of the airport in Kabul on August 20, 2021.

The US Lost in Afghanistan. But US Imperialism Isn’t Going Anywhere.

The US suffered grave losses in Iraq and Afghanistan, but we shouldn’t mistake revisions of US military strategy for a turn away from imperialist ambitions.
by Gilbert Achcar via Jacobin on September 4, 2021
Painting of attack on Fort Washington

Morale Manipulation As the Central Strategic Imperative in the American Revolutionary War

Actions are more persuasive than words, and manipulating morale often dictates how commanders deploy their troops. Witness the American War of Independence.
by Woody Holton via Journal of the American Revolution on August 3, 2021
William Tecumseh Sherman.

The Real Sherman

A new biography of William Tecumseh Sherman questions his reputation as the brutal "prophet of total war."
by Allen C. Guelzo via First Things on January 14, 2021

One of D-Day’s Most Famous, Heroic Assaults May Have Been Unnecessary

Pointe du Hoc’s importance as a military objective has become the subject of heated debate as the invasion’s anniversary approaches.
by Scott Higham via Retropolis on June 2, 2019
Abraham Lincoln visiting soldiers encamped at the Civil War battlefield of Antietam in October, 1982.

Abraham Lincoln’s Foreign Policy Helped Win the Civil War

Why Lincoln’s "one war at a time" doctrine saved the Union.
by Kevin Peraino, Alex Ward via Vox on February 18, 2019

MacArthur's Last Stand Against a Winless War

MacArthur leaned on JFK to stay out of Vietnam. Had Kennedy survived, might history have been different?
by Mark Perry via The American Conservative on October 3, 2018

What the Press and 'The Post' Missed

Leslie Gelb supervised the team that compiled the Pentagon Papers. He explains what Steven Spielberg's new film gets wrong.
by Brooke Gladstone, Leslie Gelb via WNYC on January 12, 2018
Collage of Richard Nixon and vintage images of mushroom clouds.

The President’s Weapon

Why does the power to launch nuclear weapons rest with a single American?
by Tom Nichols via The Atlantic on June 26, 2025
Lithograph depicting General Washington leading his troops in battle against British troops.

Why George Washington Integrated the Army

The commander-in-chief initially barred black soldiers from joining the ranks, but he came to understand the value—both moral and strategic—of a diverse force.
by Andrew Lawler via The Bulwark on June 16, 2025
A view of an Inuit town in Greenland surrounded by snowy hills.

Greenland: Polar Politics

Though it may seem like a new topic of concern, the glaciated landscape of Greenland has floated in and out of American politics for decades.
by Rob Crossan via JSTOR Daily on February 10, 2025
Poofs of smoke in the sky.

An “Iron Dome for America”: A History Repeating Itself

How America’s search for total security keeps making the world more dangerous.
by Athena Drakou via The Climate Historian on February 3, 2025
Black men stand on trains derailed by Sherman's destruction of infrastructure.

The Other Side of Sherman’s March

The general’s campaign through the South is known for its brutality against civilians. For the enslaved who followed his army, though, it was a shot at freedom.
by Scott Spillman via The New Yorker on January 29, 2025
Sound waves.

Listening Devices

The veterans of Kagnew Station saw the early growth of the surveillance state. Has the passage of time given them a new understanding of their work?
by Ann Neumann via The Baffler on January 6, 2025

Call of Duty: Pentagon Ops

Inside the weird synergies that launched the videogaming industry—and made the Pentagon fantasies in Call of Duty its stock in trade.
by Jesse Robertson via The Nation on October 24, 2024
Korean War U.S Army helicopter and soldiers about to board.

The Korean War and Mismanaging Protracted Conflict

History can make the U.S. better prepared for the specter of protracted large-scale ground combat, which has grown more real in the wake of the ongoing war in Ukraine.
by Andrew J. Forney via Texas National Security Review on October 14, 2024
Still from the film 'Red Dawn" showing three men holding rifles and binoculars.
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Why 1984's 'Red Dawn' Still Matters

By framing the U.S. as a victim, 'Red Dawn' obscured U.S. aggression in Latin America and elsewhere.
by Michelle D. Paranzino via Made By History on August 9, 2024
NATO leaders in the 1950s sitting together at a conference.

Ill-Suited to Reality: NATO’s Delusions

It has suddenly become popular to cast NATO as the first benign military alliance in history, without concealed politics.
by Tom Stevenson via London Review of Books on July 25, 2024
Map showing the forecast over the UK and part of France on D-Day.

A War Meteorologist’s Riveting Account of How the Allies Averted a D-Day Disaster

The D-Day landings turned the tide of the war, but their success rested on the uncertain calculations of Allied meteorologists.
by Marco Alessi, Anthony Wilks via Aeon on July 17, 2024
Illustration of soldiers fighting in the Battle of the Cowpens.

Did the South Win the Revolutionary War?

A new book brings to life the war in the South.
by Dan McLaughlin via National Review on July 4, 2024
Old picture of Union soldiers holding a pot of coffee.

How Coffee Helped the Union Caffeinate Their Way to Victory in the Civil War

The North’s fruitful partnership with Liberian farmers fueled a steady supply of an essential beverage.
by Bronwen Everill via Smithsonian on June 27, 2024
The radioactive plume from the bomb dropped on Nagasaki, dropped by a US B-29 superfortress Bockscar.

Slave to the Bomb

We don’t need to imagine a world ravaged by nuclear war – we’re already living in it.
by Erik Baker via The Saturday Evening Post on March 28, 2024
USS San Jacinto on ocean
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The U.S. Only Pretends to Want 'Freedom of the Seas'

Too often, U.S. support for open navigation has devolved into military conflict.
by Grace Easterly via Made By History on February 15, 2024
An electrified barbed-wire fence around Fort Bliss in El Paso, Tex., near the Mexican border, in 1915 or 1916.

The Long, Ugly History of Barbed Wire at the U.S.-Mexico Border

The first barbed wire border fences were proposed to keep out Chinese migrants. They’ve been debated for over a century.
by David Dorado Romo via Retropolis on December 9, 2023
Rubble in the aftermath of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima

Big Six v. Little Boy: The Unnecessary Bomb

A new book's insistence that the bomb was necessary to bring about Japan’s surrender is largely contradicted by its own evidence.
by Andrew Cockburn via London Review of Books on November 15, 2023
From left: snow, three men, and several vehicles with large tires.

The U.S. Army Tried to Build a Secret Nuclear City under Greenland’s Ice

Long before Greenland’s shifting ice threatened sea level rise, it doomed one of the military’s most audacious Cold War projects.
by George Bass via Washington Post on November 13, 2023
Naval battle in paiting “Battle of Tripoli."

Counterinsurgency to the Shores of Tripoli

The Navy’s operations against Barbary corsairs at the start of the 19th century provide salient lessons for operating in the gray zone today.
by Benjamin Armstrong via Proceedings of the U.S. Naval Institute on October 1, 2023
Oppenheimer and other scientists at the site of the Trinity Test.

What “Oppenheimer” Misses About The Decision to Drop the Bomb

The Truman administration launched a PR campaign to inflate casualty numbers to justify the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
by John R. Emery, Anna Pluff via Inkstick on August 10, 2023
The nuclear bombing of Nagasaki, Japan, August 9, 1945.

The Atomic Bombings of Japan Were Based on Lies

On the 78th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Japan, we should remember that deploying the bomb wasn’t necessary to win the war.
by Taylor C. Noakes via Jacobin on August 9, 2023
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