Tom Engelhardt

An editor in publishing for the last 25 years, Tom Engelhardt is the author of The End of Victory Culture, a history of American triumphalism in the Cold War era, now out in a revised edition with a new preface and afterword, and Mission Unaccomplished, TomDispatch Interviews With American Iconoclasts and Dissenters. He is at present consulting editor for Metropolitan Books, a fellow of the Nation Institute, and a teaching fellow at the journalism school of the University of California, Berkeley. Visit his Web site. This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com. To stay on top of important articles like these, sign up to receive the latest updates from TomDispatch.com.

Making Sense of Trump and his National Security State Critics

Originally posted at TomDispatch. Imagine that across the planet, back in the early months of 2003, millions of people marched in the streets of global cities and small towns, protesting, toting handmade signs, making their voices heard in every way they could to indicate that the prospective Bush administration invasion of Iraq would be an … Continue reading “Making Sense of Trump and his National Security State Critics”

Why It’s So Hard for Members of the Military to Speak Out

Originally posted at TomDispatch. How, I’ve often wondered, can people who have spent their lives working in an institution, particularly in the military or some other part of the national security state, retire and suddenly see that same institution in a different and far more negative light?  Once outside, they become, in essence, critics of … Continue reading “Why It’s So Hard for Members of the Military to Speak Out”

US Military Pivots to Africa and the News Is Grim

Originally posted at TomDispatch. Someday, someone will write a history of the U.S. national security state in the twenty-first century and, if the first decade and a half are any yardstick, it will be called something like State of Failure. After all, almost 15 years after the U.S. invaded the Taliban’s Afghanistan, launching the second … Continue reading “US Military Pivots to Africa and the News Is Grim”

How to Arm a ‘Volatile’ Planet

Originally posted at TomDispatch. As is often the case, I opened the Monday newspaper curious to find out how the weekend had gone at the movies. The headline read, “‘Ghostbusters’ Is No. 2 Behind ‘Secret Life of Pets.’” That meant Universal Studios’ animated film had again been the big winner, taking in an estimated $50.6 … Continue reading “How to Arm a ‘Volatile’ Planet”

Letting Tarzan Swing Through History

Originally posted at TomDispatch. At almost 72, I recently went to The Legend of Tarzan, the IMAX version, with a screen so big I almost stepped inside it and a soundscape so all-enveloping that my already pathetic hearing might have been blown away for good. Still, however “immersive” the experience was meant to be, I … Continue reading “Letting Tarzan Swing Through History”

How Extrajudicial Executions Became ‘War’ Policy in Washington

Originally posted at TomDispatch. Strangely, amid the spike in racial tensions after the killing of two black men by police in Louisiana and Minnesota, and of five white police officers by a black sharpshooter in Dallas, one American reality has gone unmentioned. The U.S. has been fighting wars – declared, half-declared, and undeclared – for … Continue reading “How Extrajudicial Executions Became ‘War’ Policy in Washington”

We Have Met the Alien and He Is Us

Originally posted at TomDispatch. Imagine a secret government facility buried deep in the bowels of a mountain; a deluxe bomb shelter – encased within dense, almost fissure-less rock – for top government officials to ride out doomsday. I did. A lot. I spent an inordinate amount of time as a child reading everything I could … Continue reading “We Have Met the Alien and He Is Us”

Where Did the American Century Go?

Vladimir Putin recently manned up and admitted it. The United States remains the planet’s sole superpower, as it has been since the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. “America,” the Russian president said, “is a great power. Today, probably, the only superpower. We accept that.” Think of us, in fact, as the default superpower in an … Continue reading “Where Did the American Century Go?”

Revolving Doors, Robust Rolodexes, and Runaway Generals

Originally posted at TomDispatch. Here’s an oddity: Americans recognize corruption as an endemic problem in much of the world, just not in our own. And that’s strange. After all, to take but one example, America’s twenty-first-century war zones have been notorious quagmires of corruption on a scale that should boggle the imagination. In 2011, a … Continue reading “Revolving Doors, Robust Rolodexes, and Runaway Generals”