Civilian control of the military is necessary to preserve American democratic institutions.

The one thing you could say about empires is that, at or near their height, they have always represented a principle of order as well as domination. So here’s the confounding thing about the American version of empire in the years when this country was often referred to as “the...

A practical reason for focusing on nonviolent approaches is that violence rarely works.

The Pentagon’s budget is as close to a work of art as you’re likely to find in the U.S. government -- if, that is, by work of art you mean scam.

It may be hard to believe now, but in 1970 the protest song “War,” sung by Edwin Starr, hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. ... But here’s the strange thing: in a way its authors and singer could hardly have imagined, in a way we still can’t...

'Ever Step on Ants and Never Give It Another Thought?'

Even as Obama admits there's no military solution in Iraq, the Pentagon is pouring more U.S. troops and weapons into its floundering war on the Islamic State.

In 2010, I was considerably less mature than I am now, and the potential consequences and outcomes of my actions seemed vague and very surreal to me. I certainly expected the worst possible outcome, but I lacked a strong sense of what “the worst” would entail. I did expect to...

“American Sniper” lionizes the most despicable aspects of U.S. society—the gun culture, the blind adoration of the military, the belief that we have an innate right as a “Christian” nation to exterminate the “lesser breeds” of the earth, a grotesque hypermasculinity that banishes compassion and pity, a denial of inconvenient...

I think it’s important to take these issues directly to the place where the grievance is occurring, and that’s certainly these military bases.