Menu
Idea

National Security Council (NSC)

29
Filter by:

Filter by published date

The Making of the Military-Intellectual Complex

Why is U.S. foreign policy dominated by an unelected, often reckless cohort of “the best and the brightest”?
by Daniel Bessner via The New Republic on May 29, 2019
Collage of Jimmy Carter reading documents, and excerpts of documents he notated.

Jimmy Carter: A Declassified Obituary

Highest-level national security documents reveal a tough-minded, detail-oriented president.
by Malcolm Byrne, Autumn Kladder via National Security Archive on December 29, 2024
Noam Chomsky

“Every Time We Build Up Our Military Budget, We’re Attacking Ourselves”

Noam Chomsky discusses the hypocrisies of US empire and why if we really wanted to build a decent society, we’d immediately slash the massive military budget.
by David Barsamian, Noam Chomsky via Jacobin on June 17, 2022
the contra military group

Reagan and the Iran-Contra Affair

Reagan's commitment to deregulation, aggressive military spending, and diminished oversight created a cocktail of corruption that was worse than Watergate.
by Jeremi Suri via American Heritage on February 1, 2021
nuclear explosion

The Day Nuclear War Almost Broke Out

In the nearly sixty years since the Cuban missile crisis, the story of near-catastrophe has only grown more complicated.
by Elizabeth Kolbert via The New Yorker on October 5, 2020

‘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

When Big Oil Was "The Great Vampire Squid" Wrapped Around America

Robert Engler's award-winning 1955 investigation into the oil industry.
by Robert Engler via The New Republic on August 29, 1955
A group of men in a bar watching Oliver North testify before Congress.
partner

How the Iran-Contra Scandal Impacts American Politics Today

The Iran-Contra affair exposed how government officials can ignore democratic norms and practices.
by Alan McPherson via Made By History on May 14, 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
Photo of Jimmy Carter.

Carter and Chile: How Humanitarian was the President?

The 'human rights president' had some tough political decisions to make regarding Augusto Pinochet in 1979.
by Peter Kornbluh via Responsible Statecraft on January 10, 2025
A few people are gathered at the Atoms For Peace bus, a mobile exhibit about nuclear power operated for a time by the Atomic Energy Commission. c. 1947.
partner

‘Atoms for Peace’ Was Never All That Peaceful—And the World Is Still Living With the Consequences

The U.S. sought to rebrand nuclear power as a source of peace, but this message helped mask a violent history.
by Tommy Song via Made By History on December 8, 2023
Crowd in the Senate chamber.

Mass Destruction

Real democratic participation in foreign policy is almost unimaginable today—but this wasn’t always the case.
by Daniel Bessner via Boston Review on March 27, 2023
Then-President George W. Bush meets with his father, former president George H.W. Bush, and former president Bill Clinton in the Oval Office in 2005.
partner

Biden’s Putin Comments Could Warp U.S. Policy

The lesson of the first Gulf War and its aftermath for handling Russia.
by Joseph Stieb via Made By History on April 1, 2022
McGeorge Bundy with Lyndon Johnson in 1967

American Mandarins

David Halberstam’s title The Best and the Brightest was steeped in irony. Did these presidential advisers earn it?
by Edward Tenner via The American Scholar on March 24, 2022
Checkpoint Charlie, seen from West Berlin in 1960.

The Disastrous Return of Cold War Strategy

Hal Brands urges the U.S. to make China and Russia “pay exorbitantly” for their policies. History shows that has never worked.
by Jordan Michael Smith via The New Republic on March 10, 2022
Bill Clinton and Vladimir Putin pose for a photo op in Auckland, New Zealand, in 1999.

How We Got From the Cold War to the Current Russian Standoff (and It’s Not All on Putin)

Yes, the Russian leader is an authoritarian aggressor. But different decisions at key points by the U.S. might have made him less so.
by Jordan Michael Smith via The New Republic on January 28, 2022

'Get Out Now' – Inside the White House on 9/11, According to the Staffers Who Were There

A top White House aide recounts her experiences that day.
by Anita McBride via The Conversation on September 2, 2021
George W. Bush speaking to marines

Why Did We Invade Iraq?

The most complete account we are likely to get of the deceptions and duplicities that led to war leaves some crucial mysteries unsolved.
by Fred Kaplan via New York Review of Books on July 6, 2021
Redacted declassified Top Secret memorandum written by Oliver North on Jack Terrel, terrorist suspect.

Iran-Contra and Domestic Counter-Intelligence Networks

Oliver North and his cronies in the Contra support operations put in motion a clandestine counter-intelligence apparatus to disrupt the flow of information.
by Edmund Berger via Reciprocal Contradiction on May 19, 2021
Coup leaders Admiral Massera and General Videla dressed in uniform

Argentina’s Military Coup of 1976: What the U.S. Knew

Declassified documents show the State Department had ample forewarning that a coup was being plotted, and that human rights violations would be committed.
via National Security Archive on March 23, 2021
George Schultz walking with Ronald Reagan outdoors
partner

George Shultz: The Last Progressive

A steadfast Republican committed to union-management cooperation, peace through treaties, competitive capitalism, and empowerment of African-Americans.
by Ron Schatz via HNN on February 28, 2021

The Epidemics America Got Wrong

Government inaction or delay have shaped the course of many infectious disease outbreaks in our country.
by Jim Downs via The Atlantic on March 22, 2020

The Loser King

Failing upward with Oliver North.
by Matt Hanson via The Baffler on March 10, 2020
Soldiers carrying a wounded soldier to a helicopter for evacuation.

Confidential Documents Reveal U.S. Officials Failed to Tell the Truth About the War in Afghanistan

For nearly two decades, US leaders have sounded a constant refrain: We're making progress in Afghanistan. They weren't, documents show, and they knew it.
by Craig Whitlock via Washington Post on December 9, 2019

John Wheeler’s H-bomb Blues

In 1953, as a political battle raged over the US’s nuclear future, the physicist lost a classified document on an overnight train from Philadelphia to DC.
by Alex Wellerstein via Physics Today on December 1, 2019

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
Senators Joseph McCarthy and Kenneth Wherry.

Democracy and Misinformation

The Cold War and today.
by Jennifer M. Miller via Perspectives on History on June 10, 2019

The Weimar Analogy

Comparing Trump's America to fascist Germany only fuels elites' antidemocratic fantasies.
by Daniel Bessner, Udi Greenberg via Jacobin on December 17, 2016
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

The Mastermind

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and the making of 9/11.
by Terry McDermott via The New Yorker on September 6, 2010

Filter Results:

Suggested Filters:

Idea

brought to you by
© Bunk History