Debunking Two Persistent Myths of the War in Afghanistan
On August 6, 2011, an American Chinook helicopter named Extortion 17 carried 38 people—including 15 members of SEAL Team Six—to an area 40 miles southwest of Kabul. As the helicopter made its final de...
27 Sep 201725min
How Iran Outsourced Regional War to the Party of God
The Party of God, Hezbollah, is reaching out far beyond its Lebanese roots as they work with Iran to spread their joint vision of holy war. Working with money and equipment from Iran, the Shi’ite mili...
18 Sep 201727min
What Game of Thrones Teaches Us About Nuclear War
From The Day After to Threads, fiction has long reflected our nuclear fears. Today, Daenerys Targaryen’s flying dragons stand in for B-52 bombers armed with thermonuclear bombs and the ashen corpses o...
11 Sep 201737min
The Man Putin Hates For Shooting Down Fake News
The impunity of some of the world’s most frightening men is under threat from people stereotyped as geeks in basements around the world. In the 21st century, well-informed and observant social media a...
8 Sep 201735min
ICYMI: How American Soldiers Became Lawyers With Guns
More than 11,000 U.S. soldiers are fighting in Afghanistan right now. U.S. President Donald Trump plans to send 4,000 more. Military advisers are overseeing the war against the Islamic State and Ameri...
1 Sep 201736min
This Is How Republics Fall
The Weimar Republic was doomed from the start. World War I left Germany in a precarious position. The Treaty of Versailles ended outright aggression but it also left the German economy crippled and sa...
25 Aug 201726min
Erik Prince’s terrible plan for Afghanistan
The United State's war in Afghanistan drags on with no end in sight. Worse, the current administration doesn’t have a clear vision of how it wants to proceed in the country. With all options on the ta...
18 Aug 201751min
Why China won’t stop North Korea
As tensions grow between the U.S. and North Korea, onlookers have increasingly called on China to intervene. Which makes sense. Beijing is Pyongyang’s biggest trade partner and the two countries have ...
10 Aug 201735min
