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Haitian gang members carrying assault rifles, standing in the center of a stylized rifle sight.

Haiti’s Agents Of Fear

Haitians are caught between the grip of violent gangs and the messy legacies of foreign intervention.
by Matthew J. Smith via Noema on October 29, 2024
A stylized painting of the United States military commiting a massacre in Korea.

The Jazz Beats of a Coup

How the US State Department used jazz music for its national security aims.
by Esha Krishnaswamy via Historic.ly on October 3, 2024
A column of Soviet armored vehicles arrives to reinforce the military presence in Kabul on Jan. 30, 1980.

The Forgotten World War III Scare of 1980

Moscow and Washington trapped themselves in a cycle of fear over Iran.
by James M. Acton, Nicole Grajewski via Foreign Policy on June 9, 2024
Texas governor Greg Abbott at press conference
partner

Texas Is Trying to Upend Who Controls Immigration Policy

The federal government has long controlled immigration law—and for very good reason.
by Kevin Kenny via Made By History on April 5, 2024
A crowd of people holds a up red banner of the Cuban Revolution leader Ernesto "Che" Guevara

Remember When the U.S. Secretly Built a Social Network to Destabilize Cuba?

U.S.-funded social networks were launched in 2010 with ZunZuneo and Piramideo in 2013.
by Matt Novak via Gizmodo on March 15, 2024
Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in March 2015.

Kissinger Revisited

The former secretary of state is responsible for virtually every American geopolitical disaster of the past half-century.
by Rick Perlstein via The American Prospect on February 28, 2024
Illustration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt among tanks.

The ‘Arsenal of Democracy’ Once More

In sending military aid to Ukraine, America’s values and security interests are aligned.
by Lindsay M. Chervinsky via Bulwark+ on February 20, 2024
A kindergarten teacher coaches a group of crouched children to duck and cover in a national air raid drill, Chicago, 1954.
partner

The Politics of Fear Is Damaging American Education—And Has Been for Decades

Politicians have often sought to remedy educational panic with remedies that do more harm than good.
by Diana D'Amico Pawlewicz via Made By History on December 14, 2023
A collage of Meir Kahane, a pistol, and the outline of Israel and Palestine on a yellow background.

The American Origins of Israel’s Armament Campaign

How Kahanism infiltrated the political mainstream.
by Rafi Reznik via The Dial on December 5, 2023
Photographer shooting Henry Kissinger on Air Force One.

Notes From the Front

Henry Kissinger’s Vietnam diary shows that he knew the war was lost a decade before it ended.
by Thomas A. Bass via The American Scholar on December 4, 2023
Henry Kissinger

Henry Kissinger, War Criminal Beloved by America's Ruling Class, Finally Dies

In a demonstration of why he was able to kill so many people and get away with it, the day of his passage will be a solemn one in Congress and newsrooms.
by Spencer Ackerman via Rolling Stone on November 30, 2023
Former U.S. President Donald Trump prepares to speak at the Conservative Political Action Conference CPAC held at the Hilton Anatole on Aug. 6, 2022 in Dallas.
partner

What Civil War History Says About Attempts to Use the Insurrection Clause to Keep Trump From Office

Debates about handling Confederates reveal that the 14th Amendment bars unrepentant insurrectionists from office.
by Elizabeth R. Varon via Made By History on November 15, 2023
J. Edgar Hoover in front of a stained glass church window

One Bureau Under God

On the white Christian legacy of J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI.
by Jeanne Theoharis, Lerone A. Martin via Boston Review on October 10, 2023
The Devil Presenting St. Augustine with The Book of Vices by Michael Pacher, 1471-1475

St. Augustine's 9/11 Anniversary

Lord, implored President Biden, let us "turn the page" on the War on Terror. Just not yet.
by Spencer Ackerman via Forever Wars on September 11, 2023
Trump holding a document, against the backdrop of text defining espionage.

The Espionage Act is Bad for America—Even When it’s Used on Trump

A relic of WWI that helped destroy the anti-war left, it remains a threat to news outlets, political organizers, and challengers of the surveillance state.
by Alex Skopic via Current Affairs on July 13, 2023
J. Robert Oppenheimer.

Oppenheimer, Nullified and Vindicated

The inventor of the atomic bomb, the subject of Christopher Nolan’s new film, was the chief celebrity victim of the national trauma known as McCarthyism.
by Kai Bird via The New Yorker on July 7, 2023
Whistleblower Edward Snowden addresses an audience at a conference in Lisbon, Portugal, 2019.

Ten Years Ago, Edward Snowden Blew the Whistle on the US’s Most Secretive Spy Agency

The government responded with ruthless persecution — just one egregious example in the NSA’s long, sordid history of fiercely guarding its secrecy.
by Chip Gibbons via Jacobin on June 9, 2023
Father Charles Coughlin delivers a radio speech (Fotosearch/Getty Images).

Ultra Violence

Rachel Maddow’s podcast tells of American Nazis in the 1940s. But the era’s real and lasting authoritarian danger came from the growth of a national security state.
by Nelson Lichtenstein via Dissent on May 23, 2023
CIA director William Colby, left, and President Gerald Ford, right.

How the Murder of a CIA Officer Was Used to Silence the Agency’s Greatest Critic

A new account sheds light on the Ford administration’s war against Sen. Frank Church and his landmark effort to rein in a lawless intelligence community.
by James Risen, Thomas Risen via The Intercept on May 9, 2023

Iraq and the Pathologies of Primacy

The flawed logic that produced the war is alive and well.
by Stephen Wertheim via Foreign Affairs on March 17, 2023
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.
by Hal Brands via Foreign Affairs on February 28, 2023
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.
by Van Jackson via Dissent on February 8, 2023
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.
by Joseph Stieb via War on the Rocks on January 30, 2023
Censored text and George W. Bush with a black bar covering his eyes. Art by Alex Cochran.

What Really Took America to War in Iraq

A fatal combination of fear, power, and hubris.
by Melvyn P. Leffler via The Atlantic on January 23, 2023
Bill Clinton presenting the V-chip, 1996.

Cold Controls

“National security” and the history of US export controls.
by Ella Coon via Phenomenal World on January 18, 2023
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), left, and Sen. Frank Church (D-Idaho).
partner

The Church Committee Was Nothing Like Republicans’ New Investigation

In practice, aggressive congressional investigations of the intelligence community require consistent levels of public support.
by KC Johnson via Made By History on January 18, 2023
U.S. soldiers providing sniper coverage for a meeting in Kandahar, January 2013

The High Cost of American Heavy-Handedness 

Great-power competition demands persuasion, not coercion.
by Douglas London via Foreign Affairs on December 20, 2022
J. Edgar Hoover (center) with President John F. Kennedy and Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, February 23, 1961.

J. Edgar Hoover Tried to Destroy the Left — and Liberals Enabled Him

The author of a new biography explains how liberals played an important role in enabling Hoover’s antidemocratic crusade.
by Beverly Gage, Michael Brenes via Jacobin on November 28, 2022
A photo of documents seized during the Aug. 8 FBI search of former president Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate.
partner

Harry Truman Illuminates Why Trump Having Classified Documents Is Illegal

Presidents used to own their personal papers — but there were real security reasons for changing that.
by Paul J. Welch Behringer via Made By History on November 11, 2022
Black and white photo of a woman's face from the nose down

The True Stories of the Women on the Front Lines of America’s Fledgling Intelligence Services

Adelaide Hawkins was on the forefront of an American experiment that would later be called central intelligence.
by Nathalia Holt via Literary Hub on September 15, 2022
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