As we wind down Black History Month the Editorial Team thought it most appropriate to re-release this and one other podcast on Executive Order 9981. Originally released in July 2018, the 70th anniversary was a great reminder to examine the official order to desegregate the military and consider how far we’ve come and what still […]
Category Archives: Special Series
LIBERATION FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF THE LIBERATED (ON WRITING)
If you go into reading history with an open mind what you’re looking for is to be surprised; you’re looking for things that tell you something you didn’t know. The liberation of an oppressed people is indeed a noble venture. But as the U.S. learned in Iraq, it’s a complicated relationship between the liberated and […]
THE UNITED NATIONS’ GREATEST ACCOMPLISHMENT: A WHITEBOARD
26 COUNTRIES SIGNED THE DECLARATION OF THE UNITED NATIONS ON 1 JANUARY 1942 THAT SUBSCRIBED TO THE PRINCIPLES OF THE 1941 US-UK ATLANTIC CHARTER. For this Whiteboard we reached out again to several scholars with the following prompt: What has been the United Nations’ greatest accomplishment since its founding? Readers are invited to make their own […]
“TECHNOCRATS AND OPERATIONAL EXPERTS” (DUSTY SHELVES)
Murray…highlights the German military’s failure as a whole to understand how the Industrial Revolution had transformed warfighting. Written histories, it is said, speak to each generation differently, enabling readers to interpret them within the framework of their own experiences. As such, a rereading of Williamson Murray’s Luftwaffe—first published in 1985—is especially timely. Although offering more […]
OBSERVATIONS FROM NATO’S NORTHERN FRONT (LEADER PERSPECTIVES)
What I think is important is to do your current job as good as you can. Don’t be too focused on the next steps because then you are not focused on your current job. A BETTER PEACE welcomes Major General Torgeir Gråtrud, commander of the Norwegian Special Operations Command, to the studio to discuss his perspectives […]
LOOKING TO THE PAST TO CHANGE THE FUTURE
Back in the 1930s, Air Force officers who were assigned instructor duty at the Air Corps Tactical School…would wear these little…pledge pins on their uniforms. A BETTER PEACE welcomes Dr. John Terino, Chair of the Department of Airpower at the U.S. Air Force Air Command and Staff College (ACSC.) John joins our Editor-In-Chief, Jacqueline Whitt to […]
STRATEGY WHILE SHAVING WITH A BLOWTORCH (DUSTY SHELVES)
[King’s] autobiography is superb reading for those interested in leadership, and it contains two specific documents that encapsulate King’s leadership and remain testaments for senior military leaders today. When Germany invaded Poland in 1939, tensions between the United States and the Axis Powers spiked, presenting the U.S. Navy with daunting challenges, including the prospect of […]
REMEMBERING THE BATTLE OF THE BULGE
In September 1944 defeat looked not only likely but imminent for the German Army. And It was at that point that Adolf Hitler told his generals that he was going to launch a winter offensive that would turn the war around. A BETTER PEACE welcomes David Hogan, Director of Histories at the U.S. Army Center of […]
PARIS 1919: A CONVERSATION WITH MARGARET MACMILLAN (ON WRITING)
And somebody hadn’t written a book on the whole [conference]…and so I thought well maybe I’ll try and then I thought that’s crazy. Who am I to try this massive subject. A BETTER PEACE welcomes award winning and internationally renowned author Margaret MacMillan. Perhaps best known for her study and writings of the 1919 […]
LEADERSHIP ROLE MODELS IN FICTION: A WHITEBOARD
Before one can achieve anything (or even aspire to do so), one must find the inner resources needed to surmount challenges and acquire agency. For this Whiteboard we reached out again to several scholars with the following prompt: Describe a positive or negative leadership role model from a character in fantasy literature, science fiction, or […]
A QUESTION OF PROFESSIONALISM (DUSTY SHELVES)
For today and tomorrow, I think it can remind us of one tool that’s been tried for some bootstrap professional development, and also make us think about how all officers need to balance deep domain knowledge and broader military knowledge. In 1921, Surgeon General Merritte Ireland needed to reorient his doctors. He felt they were […]
THE CHALLENGES OF WRITING BIOGRAPHIES (ON WRITING)
I’m using Kennedy’s life to tell the story of America’s rise, first to great power status and then superpower status. A BETTER PEACE welcomes Pulitzer Prize winning author Fredrik Logevall to discuss his newest project, a two-volume biography of John F. Kennedy. Logevall joins Michael Neiberg in the studio as they discuss the complexity of […]
BOOK LOVERS NEED APPLY: A DUSTY SHELVES PODCAST
One of the things we’re trying to do is encourage people…to start talking about older books, older readings, older things that are lost or never really well known that really should have been. A BETTER PEACE welcomes WAR ROOM editors Tom Bruscino and Jon Klug to explain the drive and desire behind the DUSTY SHELVES […]
ALLIES ARE MORE THAN FRIENDS (LEADER PERSPECTIVES)
We need to go back and think big, and We need to think big fast. A BETTER PEACE welcomes Major General Eirik Kristoffersen, Chief of the Norwegian Army, to the studio to discuss his perspectives on strategic leadership. Major General Kristoffersen was in Carlisle to attend his induction into the International Fellows Hall of […]
THE MOST IMPORTANT LEGACY OF THE VIETNAM CONFLICT: A WHITEBOARD
The very existence of the draft motivated enough men to enlist voluntarily that all branches of service were able to fill their quotas, often without conscripts. For this whiteboard we reached out again to several scholars and asked the following: What, to date, has been the most important legacy of the Vietnam Conflict? Readers are invited […]
JUNGLE MISSION: A REVIEW (DUSTY SHELVES)
The jungle is the natural refuge of the weak. René Riesen, Jungle Mission In many military cultures and in the Western popular imagination, individuals who go native or turn rogue evoke curiosity and often revulsion. Soldiers who take off usually face court martial and do not share much in common with their more responsible […]
WHERE HAVE WE SUCCEEDED: A WHITEBOARD
In political terms, the operation helped improve public perceptions of the United States across Southeast Asia, at a moment when approval of the United States had reached a nadir. For this whiteboard we reached out to several scholars and asked the following: US foreign policy since 11 September 2001 has been criticized for an […]
DUSTING OFF THE DUSTY SHELVES
We are looking for new and updated looks at old books, articles, chapters, speeches, conference panels, curriculum, documentaries, and so on. First things first, I sort of hate the name of this series I’ve agreed to edit. It sounds like antiquarianism: knick-knacks that we keep for sentimental reasons and unread old books that are there […]
A SCIENTIFIC APPROACH TO WAR? ANTOINE-HENRI JOMINI (GREAT STRATEGISTS)
I see [Jomini] as one of the final products of the Enlightenment — the idea of this ability to find scientific principles … that anyone can use, [such as] in this case, war In this episode in our Great Strategists series, U.S. Army War College historians Bill Johnsen and Con Crane present one of the […]
THE NATURE AND CHARACTER OF WAR — THUCYDIDES (GREAT STRATEGISTS)
[Thucydides] is one of the very few primary resources we have. If he hadn’t done this, we probably wouldn’t know very much about this period at all We continue our Great Strategists series with an episode on the man whose works serve as a foundation of strategic thought about war. Thucydides (c. 460-400 BC) was […]