A new history of the war on terror shows how badly both America and its enemies misunderstood the consequences of their own actions.
Christian Caryl
Christian Caryl is the author of Strange Rebels: 1979 and the Birth of the 21st Century. He has worked as an Opinions editor at The Washington Post, a foreign correspondent for Newsweek, and an editor and columnist at Foreign Policy.
Posted inBooks
What Hungary Lost When It Obeyed in Advance
The country’s leaders thought they could restore the nation’s lost glory through alliance with Hitler. By 1945, Budapest lay in ruins and 550,000 Hungarian Jews were dead.
Posted inMagazine
Will Guam Be America’s Next Pearl Harbor?
Donald Trump’s neocolonial foreign policy could invite a surprise Chinese attack on an underprepared American island in the South Pacific.
Posted inRussia’s War on Ukraine
Trump Is About to Step on Putin’s Trap
Last week, the U.S. president seemed open to linking Ukraine peace talks with a new arms control negotiation. That’s just what the Russian leader wants because it increases the chance that Trump will give away the farm.
Posted inMagazine
A War Correspondent’s Inner Struggle
For decades, Rod Nordland covered conflicts from Somalia to Iraq. Only in fighting cancer did he find peace.
Posted inMagazine
Retreat From Kabul
The Soviet defeat in Afghanistan teaches many lessons. America’s inevitable defeat isn’t one of them.
Posted inMagazine
Mecca Deal
f you’re one of those people who believe that history is basically a comedy of errors, you’ll love Yaroslav Trofimov’s The Siege of Mecca: The Forgotten Uprising in Islam’s Holiest Shrine and the Birth of al-Qaeda. It describes a savage, bloody, and remarkably consequential event that was staged by a bunch of deluded radicals, kept […]
Posted inMagazine
All About Us
totally understand where Cullen Murphy is coming from. As I was reading his new book, which tries to tell us what the United States can learn from ancient Rome, I kept experiencing flashbacks. If, like me, youve had the good fortune to spend the past few years traveling around the world to report on U.S. […]
Posted inMagazine
The Gift That Keeps on Spinning
Sistani is a jurist, an authority on Islamic law who runs the prestigious seminary in the holy city of Najaf. In his role as a marja al-taqlid, a “source of emulation,” he is a living exemplar of the spiritual values that almost every Iraqi Shiite holds dear. That means that he commands the passionate loyalty […]
Posted inMagazine
In the Imperial Weeds
Oh, yes, and don’t forget that Yemen just happens to be a key strategic location in the post-9/11 GWOT (Global War on Terrorism). Osama bin Laden’s family originally comes from the Hadhramaut, the desolate hinterland bordering Saudi Arabia. Not long before Kaplan’s arrival in 2003, the CIA rubbed out an alleged Qaeda operative by blasting […]
