History

In the almost-19 years since they dispatched their military to Afghanistan, US policymakers and the people they represent have learned, relearned, and unlearned several lessons.

Americans should be willing to condemn China’s great crimes while also critiquing America’s mistakes. Democratic citizens’ right to criticize their government is a key reason why the US is better than China and why democracies ultimately outperform autocracies.

For more than a century, the Royal Air Force has made a vital contribution to the military defense of the West.

Of course America will survive the coronavirus. We’ve many times survived far worse.

Understanding how Christian statesmen like John Foster Dulles viewed difficult foreign policy issues can help Christians respond to contemporary dilemmas.

Realism and the just war ethic both pursue war in certain contexts, so they can appear to be close cousins. But the just war ethic shares less with realism than realism shares with pacifism.

Much of Carter Malkesian’s narrative about the Afghan war is spot-on, but he gets several key events wrong.

No one concerned about the erosion of freedom in the world can afford to be complacent about the state of international human rights, or simply blame it on bad actors. The UN’s bureaucratic human rights mechanisms increasingly fail to protect individual human rights, yet offer cover to human rights abusers.

Whether one is a historian who hopes to learn more about America’s conflicts, a philosopher who works in ethics or political philosophy, or a soldier or veteran who enjoys military history, America and the Just War Tradition addresses each of these topics and audiences from a variety of authors in a range of disciplines.