In The Age of Illusions, Andrew J. Bacevich presents a thought-provoking and penetrating account of the post-Cold war follies and delusions that culminated in the age of Donald Trump. Read on for an excerpt.
Stockholm, 1968. A thousand American deserters and draft-resisters are arriving to escape the war in Vietnam. They’re young, they’re radical, and they want to start a revolution. Some of them even want to take the fight to America. … Read the article
It was November 30, 1955, and the Cold War was raging. The U.S. had stockpiled 2,422 atomic bombs while the Soviets had only about 200, though more than ample to annihilate the United States. With the Soviet … Read the article
How did we get to this point—where a large portion of our people in the prime of their lives are stuck in a sad sort of limbo, ordering pizza on cell phones while streaming Netflix from their parents’ … Read the article
When Harold Macmillan, now the Prime Minister, visited the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev in February 1959, Guy Burgess told Harold Nicolson that he was ‘able to give advice at a suitable level’ and remembered how he … Read the article
One of my goals in writing The Politics of Deception: JFK’S Secret Decisions on Vietnam, Cuba and Civil Rights, is to rehabilitate Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev. History recalls Khrushchev as a dangerous buffoon who underestimated President John … Read the article
Today marks the 50th Anniversary of the building of the Berlin Wall. This is the fifth of a series of posts about the Wall, events leading to its construction, world reactions to its existence—and decades later, its … Read the article
After [the]Vienna [Conference], events turned sour for Khrushchev. Instead of retreating, Kennedy held firm. The Soviets were spending a fortune subsidizing the collapsing East German economy. The GDR’s leader, Walter Ulbricht, had few options as refugees took … Read the article