Events

Thomas E. Ricks has made a close study of America’s military leaders for three decades, and in The Generals, he chronicles the widening gulf between performance and accountability among the top brass of the U.S. military. While history has been kind to the American generals of World War II—Marshall, Eisenhower, Patton, and Bradley—it has been less kind to others, such as Koster, Franks, Sanchez, and Petraeus. Ricks sets out to explain why that is.

Until around 1800, states viewed foreign policy much as Thucydides did: as assuming a constant human nature driven by fear, self-interest, or honor. As such, war was considered a constant of human life, and peace “just a name,” as Plato says. The modern world rejected this realism, believing that human nature is perfectible, that states could be motivated by a “harmony of interests” that could be codified in international laws and covenants.

John R. Bolton, a diplomat and a lawyer, has spent many years in public service. From August 2005 to December 2006, he served as the U.S. permanent representative to the United Nations. From 2001 to 2005, he was under secretary of state for arms control and international security.

Dr. R. Albert Mohler Jr. serves as president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary – the flagship school of the Southern Baptist Convention and one of the largest seminaries in the world. 

Between 1967 and 1975 the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) burst onto the world stage and transformed the contours of the Arab-Israeli dispute.

Certain types of militant groups are more likely to inflict violence on civilians—those suffering from leadership deficits. These deficits exacerbate the principal-agent problem between leaders and foot soldiers, who have stronger incentives to attack civilians.

It is a fact that most newspaper reporters, at least at the highest-circulation newspapers, are left-of-center in their politics; a substantial majority are also more secular than they are religious. So that is one set of challenges that faces the news media in covering religion fairly.

In the immediate aftermath of the Sept 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, the Blair Government and the Bush Administration forged an extremely robust strategic partnership. This collaboration began with the close personal relationship between the two leaders, and came to encompass tight operational cooperation in the military, diplomatic, and intelligence realms, all of which together defined a new phase of the US-UK “Special Relationship” as it entered the 21st century.

Peter Baker will be speaking at the LBJ Library on Thursday, October 31st about his new book Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House. The talk will begin at noon and refreshments will be served at 11:30am.