national security — Bunk History

Why America Got a Warfare State, Not a Welfare State

How FDR invented national security, and why Democrats need to move on from it.

by Samuel Moyn via The New Republic on June 26, 2025

Roll of raffle tickets labeled "National Security Priority"

How Everything Became National Security

And national security became everything.

by Daniel W. Drezner via Foreign Affairs on August 12, 2024

How American Intelligence Was Born in the Trenches of World War I

The Great War forced the US to create a modern spying and analysis apparatus.

by Derek Leebaert via SpyTalk on March 6, 2024

Photo of George Bush giving a speech.

Why Did the United States Invade Iraq? The Debate at 20 Years.

The invasion is still the most important foreign policy decision by a 21st century U.S. president, so the surfeit of analysis should surprise no one.

by Joseph Stieb via Texas National Security Review on June 6, 2023

Illustrated figure standing in front of a massive wall of classified documents.

The Cult of Secrecy

America’s classification crisis.

by Patrick Radden Keefe via Foreign Affairs on February 13, 2023

Free Julian Assange free speech protesters

The Espionage Act Has Become Dangerous Because We Forgot Its Intention

The Julian Assange case exposes how changing concepts unintentionally broadened a law.

by Daniel Larsen via Made By History on June 18, 2022

The Strange Career of ‘National Security’

When the phrase became a national obsession, it turned everything from trade rules to dating apps into a potential threat.

by Dexter Fergie via The Atlantic on September 29, 2019

‘We May Have to Shoot Down This Aircraft’

What the chaos aboard Flight 93 on 9/11 looked like to the White House and the fighter pilots prepared to ram the plane's cockpit.

by Garrett M. Graff via Politico Magazine on September 11, 2019

Woodrow Wilson speaking to Congress.

Trump's National Security Justification for Tariffs Is Not as Strange as It Sounds

Our concept of national security is so broad it can encompass virtually anything.

by Andrew Preston via Made By History on August 17, 2018

Biometric Hand Scans and Reinforced Concrete: The History of the Secret FISA Court

The roots of the influential institution at the center of the Trump-Russia investigation.

by Ian Shapira via Washington Post on February 9, 2018

CIA map of food sufficiency in Japan from 1945.

See the Historic Maps Declassified by the CIA

A new gallery provides a rare look inside the 75-year history of the agency’s mapping unit.

by Greg Miller via National Geographic on November 26, 2016

Photo-Illustration: WIRED Staff/Getty Images

The Rise of the US Military’s Clandestine Foreign War Apparatus

In the darkest days of the Iraq War, the highly secretive Joint Special Operations Command emerged as one of the most influential institutions in government.

by Seth Harp via Wired on August 12, 2025

Mushroom clouds of the atomic bombings in Japan.

Activists and Stewards In the Shadow of Hiroshima

After Hiroshima, scientists became key political voices, some as stewards, others as activists, shaping nuclear policy and moral responsibility.

by Ashutosh Jogalekar via 3 Quarks Daily on August 6, 2025

Donald Trump, flanked by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and others, shows executive order restarting the Presidential Fitness Test

What’s Behind Trump’s New (Old) Physical-Fitness Test?

He misrepresented the history of the gym-class test. I know because I served on the council that helped modernize it.

by Mark Hertling via The Bulwark on August 4, 2025

John F. Kennedy meeting with Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev, 1961.

The Way We Understand the Cold War Is Wrong

People tend to assume they know exactly what the Cold War was and when it ended. Anders Stephanson argues that this standard chronology doesn’t fit the facts.

by Anders Stephanson via Jacobin on July 27, 2025

For Decades, a Treaty Contained the Threat of Nuclear Weapons. Now That’s All at Risk.

Trump did not create this situation, but he has accelerated its centrifugal forces.

by Fred Kaplan via Slate on July 17, 2025

Donald Trump shakes the hand of a border patrol officer while a line of others waits to meet him.

State of Exception

National security governance, then and now.

by David Klion via The Drift on June 24, 2025

Strings descend from the talons of an eagle's foot and hold up a shipping container.

Why Donald Trump Is Obsessed with William McKinley

McKinley led a country defined by tariffs and colonial wars. Trump is drawn to his legacy—and determined to bring the liberal international order to an end.

by Daniel Immerwahr via The New Yorker on June 16, 2025

Cargo ships at a U.S. shipyard with cranes in the background.

How America Lost Control of the Seas

Thanks to decades of misguided policy choices, the U.S. has an astonishing lack of maritime capacity.

by Arnav Rao via The Atlantic on May 28, 2025

Zbigniew Brzezinski

The Coldest Cold Warrior

How a sharp-elbowed Polish academic with an unpronounceable name helped defeat the Soviet Union.

by Eric Edelman via The Bulwark on May 23, 2025

Picture of Yalta revealed behind torn paper

The Post-World War II System Was Always Fragile

Franklin Roosevelt warned that even in peacetime, America’s obligations to the world would continue.

by Julian E. Zelizer via Foreign Policy on May 12, 2025

Lyndon Johnson and Richard Helms, framed by a camera shutter.

Is Spying Un-American?

Espionage has always been with us, but its rapid growth over the past century may have undermined trust in government.

by James Santel via The Atlantic on May 8, 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

A propaganda poster of an American flag on fire and white American citizens struggling against Communist officials, with the caption: "Is this tomorrow? America under Communism!"

What Happened the Last Time a President Purged the Bureaucracy

The impact can linger not just for years but decades.

by Clay Risen via Politico Magazine on February 6, 2025

Herbert O. Yardley and diplomatic codes from the Black Chamber.

The Spy Who Exposed the Secrets of the Black Chamber

In 1931, Herbert O. Yardley published a tell-all book about his experiences leading a covert government agency called the Cipher Bureau.

by Peter Zablocki via Smithsonian on February 4, 2025

David Dobson with scientific equipment.

Nuclear Proliferation and the “Nth Country Experiment”

A mid-1960s “do-it-yourself” project produced “credible nuclear weapon” design from open sources.

by William Burr via National Security Archive on January 23, 2025

Peace protester, wearing keffiyeh and holding sign reading "STOP" with red handprint.

McCarthyism Is Alive and Well With the “Nonprofit Killer” Bill

Today’s legislative efforts against the Palestine solidarity movement bear a striking resemblance to McCarthyism in both tactics and ideology.

by Rachel Ida Buff via Jacobin on January 13, 2025

President Jimmy Carter seated in the Oval Office of the White House, 1980.

How Jimmy Carter Became a Cold War Hawk

Jimmy Carter is associated with an idealistic “human rights agenda.” In reality, he was paving the way for Ronald Reagan’s aggressive anti-communism.

by Seth Ackerman, Aaron Donaghy via Jacobin on December 29, 2024

A row of nuclear missiles aimed at a cloudy sky.

The Forgotten Epidemic

The bishops once used their influence to encourage nuclear disarmament. Can they do so again now?

by Alexander Stern via Commonweal on December 21, 2024

How Would Kash Patel Compare to J. Edgar Hoover?

If Trump’s pick to lead the F.B.I. gets confirmed, the Bureau could be politicized in ways that even its notorious first director would have rejected.

by Beverly Gage via The New Yorker on December 11, 2024

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