Roundup: Historians' Take

Diane Ravitch: Obama’s War on Schools

[Ravitch is a historian and author of The Death and Life of the Great American School System.] Over the past year, I have traveled the nation speaking to nearly 100,000 educators, parents, and school-board members. No matter the city, state, or region, those who know schools best are frightened for the future of public education. They see no one in a position of leadership who understands the damage being done to their schools by federal policies. They feel keenly betra

Niall Ferguson: Obama's Big Dither

[Niall Ferguson is a Harvard professor and Newsweek columnist.]“If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well it were done quickly.” Macbeth’s famous line before he kills Duncan came to mind last week, when President Obama belatedly changed his mind about military intervention in Libya. Like Obama, Macbeth fervently hopes that “this blow might be the be-all and the end-all”:But in these cases … we but teach Bloody instructions, w

Victor Davis Hanson: Our Libyan March Madness

[NRO contributor Victor Davis Hanson is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, the editor of Makers of Ancient Strategy: From the Persian Wars to the Fall of Rome, and the author of The Father of Us All: War and History, Ancient and Modern.] The Obama administration’s Libyan strategy is a paradox — resulting from the president’s belatedly announcing that Moammar Qaddafi must go, using military force against him, and then denying that our objective is to see him leave. The presid

Juan Cole: Top Ten Ways that Libya 2011 is Not Iraq 2003

[Juan R.I. Cole is the Richard P. Mitchell Collegiate Professor of History at the University of Michigan.] Here are the differences between George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the current United Nations action in Libya: 1. The action in Libya was authorized by the United Nations Security Council. That in Iraq was not. By the UN Charter, military action after 1945 should either come as self-defense or with UNSC authorization. Most countries in the world are sig

David Gibbs: Kosovo ... a template for disaster

[David Gibbs is professor of history and government at the University of Arizona. His latest book is First Do No Harm: Humanitarian Intervention and the Destruction of Yugoslavia, Vanderbilt University Press, 2009.] As they weigh up whether to support the attack on Muammar Gaddafi's regime, some western commentators are taking comfort from the 1999 Nato air war against Serbia, which is widely viewed as a successful humanitarian mission that protected Kosovans from Serbian agg

Max Boot: Planning for a Post-Qaddafi Libya

[Max Boot is a senior fellow in national security studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.] FOR weeks, I’ve argued that the United States and our allies should impose a no-fly zone over Libya and mount airstrikes to stop Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s advance against the embattled rebels. Last week, the United Nations Security Council authorized precisely those actions. Over the weekend, missile strikes began. I should be elated, right? Instead, I can’t stop worrying ab

William Cronon: Wisconsin’s Radical Break

[William Cronon is a professor of history, geography and environmental studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.] ...Republicans in Wisconsin are seeking to reverse civic traditions that for more than a century have been among the most celebrated achievements not just of their state, but of their own party as well. Wisconsin was at the forefront of the progressive reform movement in the early 20th century, when the policies of Gov. Robert M. La Follette prompted a

Yoni Appelbaum: The Third Barbary War

[Yoni Appelbaum is a social and cultural historian of the United States. He is a doctoral candidate at Brandeis University, and a lecturer in history at Babson College. He previously contributed to TheAtlantic.com under the name Cynic.] Pundits have, in recent days, sought to explain our latest war by analogy, debating whether Libya most closely resembles Iraq and Afghanistan, Darfur, Rwanda, Somalia, Bosnia, the Ivory Coast, or none of the above. Others have reached back to earlie

Walter Russell Mead: Obama’s War

[Walter Russell Mead is Henry A. Kissinger senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and author of Special Providence: American Foreign Policy and How It Changed the World. He blogs at The-American-Interest.com.] “Vote for a Republican,” my grandfather used to say, “and you get a depression. Vote for a Democrat and you get a war.” That seemed like a pretty good rule of thumb in the twentieth century: Warren Harding and Herbert Hoover gave us depressions, and Woodrow Wilson

Stanley Kutler: Obama’s Libyan Quandary

[Stanley Kutler is the author of “The Wars of Watergate” and other writings.] Onward ride the old familiar horses of colonialism. France and Britain have enthusiastically endorsed the U.N. resolution calling for a “no-fly zone” over Libya. Within hours of the vote both countries announced that their planes were at the ready. British Prime Minister David Cameron told Parliament that Britain had deployed warplanes, along with aerial refueling and surveillance aircraft. “To pass a reso

Timothy Garton Ash: Germany can show reborn Arab nations the art of overcoming a difficult past

[Timothy Garton Ash is a historian, political writer and Guardian columnist.] Like it or not, Germany still provides the global benchmark for political evil. Hitler is the devil of a secularised Europe. Nazism and the Holocaust are comparisons people reach for everywhere. Godwin's Law, named after the American free speech lawyer Mike Godwin, famously states that "as an online discussion continues, the probability of a reference or comparison to Hitler or to Nazis approaches 1&q

Victor Davis Hanson: Should We Intervene in Libya?

[NRO contributor Victor Davis Hanson is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, the editor of Makers of Ancient Strategy: From the Persian Wars to the Fall of Rome, and the author of The Father of Us All: War and History, Ancient and Modern.] There are plenty of good arguments for imposing a no-fly zone in Libya. Without Libyan-government air strikes, the rebels might have a better chance of carving out permanent zones of resistance. Qaddafi has a long record of supporting anti-A

Max Boot: It's Not Too Late to Save Libya

[Mr. Boot is a senior fellow in national security studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.] I have not been one of those castigating President Obama for decreasing American power—either deliberately or inadvertently. His muscular policy in Afghanistan, for example, belies this charge. But there is no question that his weak, vacillating response to the slaughter now unfolding in Libya will reduce American power and prestige in ways that will do us incalculable long-term harm.

Juan Cole: People Power vs. Washington

[Juan R.I. Cole is the Richard P. Mitchell Collegiate Professor of History at the University of Michigan.] The claim that George W. Bush’s war of aggression against Iraq somehow opened up the Middle East to reform is an affront to the brave crowds that have risked their lives to change the American-backed order in that part of the world. Bush’s invasion was followed by no significant reforms in the region, whereas the outbreak of people power today has scared autocratic regimes into

Julian E. Zelizer: Are Democrats, Unions Really in Sync?

[Julian E. Zelizer is a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University. He is the author of "Jimmy Carter," published by Times Books, and editor of a book assessing former President George W. Bush's administration, published by Princeton University Press.] Princeton, New Jersey (CNN) -- The success of Gov. Scott Walker and his fellow Wisconsin Republicans at stripping most collective bargaining rights from public unions has triggered a fierce political bac

David A. Nichols: Eisenhower, Master of the Middle East

[David A. Nichols is an authority on the Eisenhower presidency and the author of the just-released book "Eisenhower 1956: The President's Year of Crisis — Suez and the Brink of War."] The Middle East will undoubtedly continue to be unstable. Its legacy of colonialist exploitation, badly drawn borders, decades of power struggles, the scramble for oil and, since 1948, the Arab-Israeli conflict has ensured a rocky future. For every American president, the question is not whet

Nick Turse: The Arab Lobby

[Nick Turse is an historian, essayist, investigative journalist, the associate editor of TomDispatch.com, and currently a fellow at Harvard University’s Radcliffe Institute. His latest book is The Case for Withdrawal from Afghanistan (Verso Books).]The men walking down the street looked ordinary enough.  Ordinary, at least, for these days of tumult and protest in the Middle East.  They wore sneakers and jeans and long-sleeved T-shirts.  Some waved the national flag.  Many held their

Walter Russell Mead: A Red Dixiecrat Dawn?

[Walter Russell Mead is Henry A. Kissinger senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and author of Special Providence: American Foreign Policy and How It Changed the World. He blogs at The-American-Interest.com.] Is America turning into Dixie? And, if it is, is that a bad thing? The controversy over the blue social model keeps heating up. With the controversy over Wisconsin’s restrictions on public employee unions metastasizing from the Madison protests to wha

Peter Dreier and Donald Cohen:

[Peter Dreier teaches politics and chairs the Urban & Environmental Policy Department at Occidental College. His next book, The 100 Greatest Americans of the 20th Century, will be published later this year by Nation Books. Donald Cohen directs the Cry Wolf Project.] Americans tend to be fascinated by what’s new and to be indifferent to the past, except when they can use “tradition” to reinforce current prejudices and power arrangements. This has had an unfortunate effect on how

Jeffrey Wasserstrom: Media and Revolution 2.0: Tiananmen to Tahrir

[Jeffrey Wasserstrom is a professor of history at the University of California, Irvine, and the author, most recently, of "China in the 21st Century: What Everyone Needs to Know," published this year by Oxford University Press. His commentaries and reviews have appeared in a wide range of academic journals, as well as in general interest periodicals such as Time and Newsweek.] Have the latest advances in communication technology radically altered the fundamental dynamics o