In our era in Washington, whole careers have been built on grotesque mistakes. In fact, when it comes to our various conflicts, God save you if you're right; no one will ever want to hear from you again. If you're wrong, however... well, take the invasion of Iraq.

There are strong arguments making the case for the persistence (and indeed the intensification) of U.S. airstrikes against ISIS targets. But equally there are strong arguments, less frequently heard perhaps, for why the United States should not continue, and should certainly not intensify, those airstrikes.

These days, it has become far more difficult to teach the history of America's war in Vietnam because one of the chief lessons of that war we thought we had learned ("No More Vietnams") has been soundly disproven in recent years.

The incredible spectacle of Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu's speech to Congress -- in which he appeared as much as the leader of the political opposition to the Obama administration as the head of government of an allied nation -- has come and gone but will reverberate for a long time.

The Middle East is suffering the blowback from rotten U.S. policies, disastrous wars, and cultural turmoil. ISIS and its ilk are one result.

Green on Blue, a stunning debut novel by decorated veteran Elliot Ackerman, conveys not only the contradictions and duplicity of the war in Afghanistan, but of war itself.

More than a decade of intense experience with drones teaches us at least one salient lesson: our robot warriors make war in the usual sense of the term, but in another way as well. They are not a military solution to a problem, but a significant part of that problem.

The U.S. drone war is in crisis and not because civilians are dying. Back in the United States, a combination of lower-class status in the military, overwork, and psychological trauma appears to be taking its mental toll on drone pilots.

But you would never know it if you listened to the cries coming from key members of Congress and hawkish D.C. think tanks. It is important to note that these substantial proposed increases in Pentagon spending are arbitrary numbers cherry-picked from past Pentagon five-year plans, not careful assessments of current defense needs.

Well, the Republicans are, if anything, even more conservative now. They've also won back both the House and the Senate. After six years of the "game-changing" Barack Obama presidency, the game has changed, all right.

Are Bill O'Reilly's trousers really ablaze at the moment? Is he really just lying about his "combat" experience down there in the no-man's-land of Bue...

The faith community must remind the world that evil can be overcome, and that individuals involved in evil systems and practices can be redeemed. But how to overcome evil is a very complicated theological question, which requires much self-reflection. In trying to figure out how to overcome evil, it is often helpful to first decide how not to.

American Sniper tells the story of Chris Kyle, a Navy SEAL who completed four tours in Iraq from 1999-2009. The book describes Kyle's upbringing and N...

American Sniper may not have come out of Oscar weekend with any of the top prizes, but it did come away with a new cumulative box office of more than $320 million. That's by far the highest of any war film in history, not to mention more than all the other Oscar Best Picture nominees combined.

The unfolding chaos in Iraq is fundamentally linked to the historic religious and ethnic enmity among its three major ethnic and religious components. The vicious cycle of violence appears to have no end in sight.

Chris Appy's American Reckoning: The Vietnam War and Our National Identity is a book-length essay on the Vietnam War and how it changed the way Americans think of ourselves and our foreign policy.