Skip navigation.

SHAFR Opinion

The McChrystal Affair: Pity the Poor Historian

by Michael Hunt

Crossposted from Michael Hunt’s Washington and the World blog.
There is good reason to pity the poor historian, who has been tested especially severely during the recent McChrystal-Obama imbroglio as the eruption of historical parallels and lessons have ranged from the wrong-headed to the off-kilter.
Henry Kissinger is a good example of the wrong-headed. This policy heavyweight, [...]

LGBT Equality and The Limits of Human Rights

by Laura Belmonte

Last October, a bill was introduced in the Ugandan parliament that would make homosexuality punishable by life imprisonment or even death.  The bill also calls for the extradition of Ugandans who engage in homosexual sex in other countries and for criminal penalties for individuals, media, or non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that support lesbian, gay, bisexual, and [...]

Thinking about Remembering

by Molly Wood

I grew up in Richmond, Virginia, and even though I have not lived there for many years, I still visit regularly. I often think that my decision to become a historian stems in part from the stories of my family history told to me by grandparents and other relatives. I learned from my grandmother, for [...]

Germany to Greece: Drop Dead

by William Glenn Gray

Germans have chosen to work; Greeks have chosen leisure. For this reason, Germans are furious with Greece for accumulating an unsustainable debt burden and thereby undermining the solidity of the European currency. But the self-righteous anger in Berlin may itself call into question the political basis of the Euro.

Diplomats Among Warriors

by John Prados

In Afghanistan at the moment (February 2010), U.S. Marines, allied troops, and Afghan government soldiers are embarked on an offensive at a town called Marja in Helmand province. American commander-in-chief General Stanley A. McChrystal here makes the first expression of the strategy that underlies the appeal for reinforcements that led to the Obama administration “surge” [...]

Is Wartime a Time to End Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell?

by Mary Dudziak

As the Obama Administration moves (slowly) toward repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, one argument in opposition is that the nation is at war, and significant changes in the military should not take place during wartime. One response to that point is that all hands are needed during heightened military deployments, and it harms American [...]

Beware Presidents’ Use of History

by John Prados

We are told that history plays as tragedy and repeats as farce. But perhaps that is changing. In the summer of 2007 President George W. Bush invoked the Vietnam analogy to justify an equally or more tragic war in Iraq. And in the West Point speech announcing his new strategy for Afghanistan, President Barack Obama [...]

« View Older Posts

Early Cold War: 1945-1961

Weekly Digest – 3/30/10

by Nick Ducote
Tuesday, March 30th, 2010

We’ve been scanning through the news coverage of the Hutaree militia, nine of whose members were arrested by federal officials this week, and we’ve noticed an almost complete absence of the use of the words “terrorism” or “terrorist.” [more]
President Obama showed courage in going to Afghanistan to talk to the troops, but he’s just getting [...]

Weekly Digest – 3/15/10

by Nick Ducote
Monday, March 15th, 2010

Some Pakistan Taliban members in the tribal areas say the onslaught of US drone attacks and Pakistani offensives in recent months is forcing the group underground and creating fractures. [more]
Israeli media reported Monday that the U.S. is pressing Israel to scrap a contentious east Jerusalem building project whose approval has touched off the most serious [...]

Weekly Digest – 3/10/10

by Nick Ducote
Wednesday, March 10th, 2010

Four years after the United States dropped two atomic bombs on Japanese cities, the Soviet Union explodes its first nuclear weapon at a test range in Kazakhstan. That the Soviet Union obtained “the bomb” is not surprising, but the timing of the test is. Most U.S. intelligence assessments at the time concluded Moscow was at [...]