In March and April, the House National Security and Foreign Affairs Subcommittee held three hearings on the national missile defense (NMD) system. Originally conceived by President Reagan, and known as the Strategic Defense Initiative (nicknamed Star Wars by critics), the concept of NMD was to use space-based interceptors or nuclear-bomb pumped lasers to shoot […]

As World War I broke out, Henry James identified an inexorable current that had been running below international events, leading to the “monstrous scene” of August “as its grand Niagara.” Below the glassy upriver surface, the swift tide had been driven by habits of mind, arms merchant greed, imperial hubris, and a politics that was […]