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Militarism

Politics

Why Is America the World’s Police?

A new book tells the history of how U.S. political elites sold the United Nations to the public as a route to global peace, while all along wanting it as a cover for militarization.

Sam Lebovic

Reading Lists

An Anti-Imperialism Reading List

Your fourth of July reading. 

Rosie Gillies, Boston Review

Global Justice, Politics

Sanctions Are Inhumane—Now, and Always

In a world imperiled by global pandemic, it is long past time to put an end to sanctions—including new ones against Iran—and to reconstruct U.S. foreign policy around international solidarity.

Aslı U. Bâli, Aziz Rana

War & Security

Courting War

Despite claims to the contrary, the Trump administration wants regime change in Iran and is risking a full-scale war in order to get it.

Barry R. Posen

War & Security

Getting Counterinsurgency Wrong

Washington Post reporting exposed that U.S. operations in Afghanistan were horribly mismanaged, but even a well-run mission would have been doomed to fail.

Ethan Bueno de Mesquita

Race, War & Security

The Pervasive Power of the Settler Mindset

More than simple racism or discrimination, the destructive premise at the core of the American settler narrative is that freedom is built upon violent elimination.

Nikhil Pal Singh

War & Security

The President and the Blob

The barrage of attacks that followed Trump’s decision to reduce the U.S. military presence in Syria obscures the decades-long bankruptcy of the U.S. foreign policy establishment.

Andrew J. Bacevich, Rajan Menon

Reading Lists

Veterans Day 2019

From PTSD to dissenting.

Rosie Gillies, Boston Review

War & Security

The Making of the American Gulag

During the Cold War, the “police apparatus” was held up as a prime example of Soviet repression. Yet in its efforts to fight subversives, the United States ended up with its own carceral state. 

Stuart Schrader

War & Security

How Do We End the Never-Ending Wars?

Wars may begin like they always have, but they no longer end as they once did. We need an ethics of war termination to hold politicians accountable.

Elad Uzan

War & Security

Holding Ourselves Responsible

In 2001, three frameworks for handling international crises emerged: the War on Terror, an ill-defined "responsibility to protect" struggling countries, and the Caribbean movement for reparations. The first two have failed, but the third may still have something to tell us.

Adom Getachew

War & Security

Sleeping Through the Alarm

With virtually no democratic oversight and over 6,500 missiles in the United States alone, the use of nuclear weapons is almost inevitable. So why is it so hard to think about nuclear war?

Elaine Scarry, Rachel Ablow

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