Author and U.S. Army War College Assistant Professor Grant Golub is in the studio with guest host Jadwiga Biskupksa to discuss his new book, Warriors in Washington: Henry Stimson, the US Army, and the Politics of American Power in World War II. Grant examines the role of Secretary of War Henry Stimson during World War II. He argues that Stimson and his team transformed the War Department from a dysfunctional bureaucracy into a powerful political actor and an energetic player in the Roosevelt administration. The book uses Stimson as a lens to explore the origins of the military’s rising influence over foreign policy. This transformation allowed Stimson to successfully push for a more interventionist foreign policy and secure a central voice for the Army in government decision-making.
Stimson is a big believer that if the United States wants to be a great power, you need to have a premier first class fighting force
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Grant Golub is a assistant professor of American History in the Department of National Security and Strategy at the U.S. Army War College. He received his Ph.D. in International History at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) and also holds additional degrees from Princeton University and LSE. He specializes in U.S. grand strategy, diplomatic and international history, the domestic determinants of American foreign policy, transatlantic relations, and how executive branch agencies shape U.S. strategy and policy. He is the author of Warriors in Washington: Henry Stimson, the US Army, and the Politics of American Power in World War II (Cambridge University Press 2025). He is also a Non-Resident Fellow at Defense Priorities, a Washington, DC foreign policy think tank.
Jadwiga Biskupska is associate professor of military history at Sam Houston State University and co-director of the Second World War Research Group, North America. She is the Harold K. Johnson Visiting Chair of Military History at the U.S. Army War College for AY26. She received her PhD from Yale University. Her first book, Survivors: Warsaw under Nazi Occupation (Cambridge University Press 2022), won the Heldt Prize and an honorable mention for the Witold Pilecki International Book Award.
The views expressed in this presentation are those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect those of the U.S. Army War College, U.S. Army, or Department of Defense.
Photo Description: Lieutenant General Jacob L. Devers, Deputy Allied Commander, Mediterranean Theater, pointing out landmarks at devastated Cassino to Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson touring the Italian battlefront.
Photo Credit: Stoen / Army Pictorial Service. Cassino, Italy. 4 July 1944
