1919: Wilson, the Covenant, and the Improbable League
1919: Wilson, the Covenant, and the Improbable League

Perhaps an insight from the character of Elrond in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, about the nature of our mortal lives, offers a measure of Christian realism in the face of Versailles: “And the Elves believed that evil was ended forever, and it was not so.”

A Christian Case for Humanitarian Intervention
A Christian Case for Humanitarian Intervention

In the ceaseless struggle between civilization and barbarism, America has tipped the scales toward civilization, toward freedom and justice. In many ways, it has organized its national life—its economic, military, and moral resources—toward this end. Are we still up to the task?

WW1 WORLD WAR 1 Wilson
The Great War & the Dawn of the American Century

100 years ago, America entered the Great War so that the world might be made safe for democracy

FDR's Russia Policy Stalin Franklin D Roosevelt Donald Trump Russia Alliance
Bitter Harvest: Lessons from FDR’s Russia Policy

Franklin D. Roosevelt’s policy towards Russia depended on a willful disregard for the Moscow regime’s most brutal acts. The problem for the president—and for the American public—was that he seemed to believe the utterly false portrait of Stalin he helped to create.

Executive Orders, Nativism, and National Security Franklin D Roosevelt FDR Japanese Internment
Executive Orders, Nativism, and National Security

Seventy-five years ago, on February 19, 1942, FDR issued Executive Order 9066, which authorized the internment of tens of thousands of Japanese-Americans.

Obama’s Farewell Address: Goodbye to All That
Obama’s Farewell Address: Goodbye to All That

Despite his flowery promises about “hope and change,” Obama entered office embodying the most ambivalent view of American power since the end of the Vietnam War.

12/25/91: Reagan, the Soviets, & the Ash-Heap of History

Joy to the World: 25 years ago this Christmas, the Evil Empire Fell. Ronald Reagan helped shove it over.

Infamy Pearl Harbor
Countdown to Infamy

President Franklin Roosevelt called the Japanese surprise attack on December 7 “a date which will live in infamy.” Perhaps an even greater infamy was the vacuous form of liberalism that denied the existence of radical evil, making it almost incapable of distinguishing between flawed democracies and fascist barbarism.

The Failure to Protect: Syria, the Christian Church, and Humanitarian Intervention
The Failure to Protect: Syria, the Christian Church, and Humanitarian Intervention

The Responsibility to Protect owes its greatest debt to a religiously rooted approach to achieving peace with justice, the Christian just war tradition.