PATRICK LAWRENCE: ‘Primacy or World Order’
Stanley Hoffmann doesn’t mention “multipolarity” in his book—maybe the term wasn’t yet in use—but it is precisely the world he was telling Americans about back in 1978 and that is today coming to pass. In the second half of the…
PATRICK LAWRENCE: America the Innocent
The American press has been in the business of keeping readers ignorant since the Cold War—its most essential responsibility turned upside-down—and in our time it gets worse, not better. Vladimir Putin’s annual state-of-the-nation speech, delivered before the Federal Assembly in Moscow…
Making history safe again: What Ken Burns gets wrong about Vietnam
Historian Christian Appy: Vietnam was not a “tragic misunderstanding” but a campaign of “imperial aggression” Three questions came to mind when news arrived that “The Vietnam War,” the latest documentary film from Ken Burns (co-directed with Lynn Novick), would air…
This is how the CIA botched Iraq post-9/11: Bob Gates, careerist sycophancy, and the real history of the Deep State
A veteran CIA officer explains to Salon exactly where the agency has gone wrong for decades — and the consequences In a lengthy exchange with Ray McGovern, or when you listen to him speak, a lot comes at you. This…
America’s immoral exceptionalism: The lie we keep telling ourselves about foreign policy and democracy
Americans are disgusted with all of these wars, but feel powerless to do anything about it The task of historians in our time is to unbury the buried. For journalists, it is to see that the truth of events is…
Bomb-crazy, “do something” neocons must be stopped — or Iraq will be Obama’s Vietnam
We have done enough harm. We’re not able to do good. We must simply admit the enormity of our mistake — and change It is too soon to quote Reagan, much as one always longs to do so, and exclaim,…
PATRICK LAWRENCE: Ðiên Biên Phú at 70
How did the Vietnamese prevail at that world-historical moment? The answers shed light on the world we see outside our windows now. I had the most salutary email the other day, a reviving lift amid these, humanity’s darkest days, surely, in…