A Doctrine Left Behind

It seemed somehow fitting, and fittingly sad, that Colin Powell saw his resignation accepted as secretary of state on the day marines completed their conquest of Falluja

The Struggles of Democracy and Empire

A year after a tiny band of religious zealots managed with stunning audacity to mutilate the face of America, the world’s sole superpower trembles on the threshold of a new imperial season.

The Battlefield in the American Mind

In Afghanistan, the targets are running out. Such are the frustrations of the powerful; Joseph Conrad, writing of an African “heart of darkness” a century ago, well understood: “Once, I remember, we came upon a man-of-war anchored off the coast.

Members of the Club

Six decades ago, in a classroom at Groton, a young man rose slowly to his feet, gazed down at a sheaf of papers in his hand, and began to read.

To Haiti, With Love and Squalor

Driving south in Haiti one day in the spring of 1986, I passed a great 18-wheeled tractor-trailer speeding north, heard a volley of automatic weapons fire, and, craning my neck to look back, witnessed an absurd and amazing tableau…

Rescuing a Tattered Word–‘liberal’

Having ferreted out the ”sophisticated rebels” of Europe from Cardiff to Cracow, H. Stuart Hughes found himself rather nonplussed when asked to suggest their counterparts in the United States.