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.

War, What Is It Good For?: Remarkably Little

I was born on July 20, 1944, amid a vast global conflict already known as World War II. Though it ended with the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 before I could say much more than "Mama" or "Dada," in some strange fashion, I grew up at war. Living in New York … Continue reading “War, What Is It Good For?: Remarkably Little”

Creating a Hypersonic Pentagon Budget

Originally posted at TomDispatch. In our present social media world, who even remembers that the Internet’s first “mothership,” as Ben Tarnoff put it at the Guardian years ago, was the U.S. military, thanks to a Cold War era urge to link computer communication to the potential front lines of war? The world that we now … Continue reading “Creating a Hypersonic Pentagon Budget”

Is the Army All That You Can Be?

Originally posted at TomDispatch. In some ways, it’s still hard to take in. In 2001, in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, President George W. Bush and crew invaded Afghanistan, the very country in which the Soviet Union’s military had failed so catastrophically in the previous century. Since then, in one fashion or another, our … Continue reading “Is the Army All That You Can Be?”

Former Soldiers Without a Future

Originally posted at TomDispatch. Here’s something we seldom focus on when it comes to war, American-style, even during the just-passed 20th anniversary of our disastrous invasion of Iraq: many more soldiers survive armed conflict than die from it. This has been especially so during this country’s twenty-first-century War on Terror, which is still playing out … Continue reading “Former Soldiers Without a Future”

The Pentagon’s Budget from Hell

Originally posted at TomDispatch. Somehow, when it comes to Congress and the mainstream media, the true strangeness of the Pentagon budget always is missing in action. Despite arguments about the small things, just about everyone accepts that the United States must have a monstrous, all-powerful military and a military budget beyond compare (beyond, in fact, … Continue reading “The Pentagon’s Budget from Hell”

America Hangs From a Cross of Iron

Originally posted at TomDispatch. Just in case you were wondering where your tax dollars went in this century, consider the American war, now 20 years old, in Iraq (and after 2014 in Syria as well). Neta Crawford of the invaluable Costs of War Project has just released her latest summary of what that invasion and … Continue reading “America Hangs From a Cross of Iron”

Is a Chinese Invasion of Taiwan Imminent?

Originally posted at TomDispatch. News flash! Ten thousand Marines and other U.S. troops recently invaded southern California and captured Twentynine Palms in the Mojave Desert — 1,200 square miles of desert seized! Oh, wait, my mistake! Those were just a series of war games in which U.S. bases took the place of islands in the … Continue reading “Is a Chinese Invasion of Taiwan Imminent?”

Is Civilization at Stake in Ukraine?

Originally posted at TomDispatch. The name of the game in Ukraine seems to be escalation, not just in the fighting (with a major Russian offensive expected soon), but in weaponry, too. Only recently, after initially refusing, President Biden agreed to send advanced American M-1 Abrams tanks to Ukraine (partly to push Germany to dispatch its … Continue reading “Is Civilization at Stake in Ukraine?”

Give Peace a Chance

Originally posted at TomDispatch. Consider just one long-gone date in the world of give-peace-(not-war)-a-chance: January 27, 1973. On that day, the United States, North Vietnam, South Vietnam, and the South Vietnamese rebel forces signed an agreement initiating a cease-fire during which the U.S. would withdraw its troops and dismantle all its bases in the South. … Continue reading “Give Peace a Chance”

Imperial Dominance Disguised as Democratic Deterrence

More than two millennia ago, in the History of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides recounted a disastrous conflict Athens waged against Sparta. A masterwork on strategy and war, the book is still taught at the US Army War College and many other military institutions across the world. A passage from it describing an ultimatum Athens gave … Continue reading “Imperial Dominance Disguised as Democratic Deterrence”