Frank Hoffman of the Foreign Policy Research Institute; Peter Feaver of Duke University; Richard H. Kohn of the University of North Carolina/Chapel Hill; and Michael Noonan, Director of the FPRI Program on National Security, discuss the question, "What impact has Operations OEF or OIF had on civil-military relations?"
Audio and video options are available.
Ike Skelton of Chair of the House Armed Services Committee discusses the civilian-military relationship in the U.S., and expresses concern over the current relationship between military officers and Congress, in which pressure is placed on officers to express opinions that may be acted on politically.
Audio and video options are available.
Bernard Carreau of the National Defense University, Nadia Schadlow of the Smith Richardson Foundation, Heather A. Coyne of the United States Institute for Peace, and Frank Offman of the Foreign Policy Research Institute discuss several questions related to international interagency policy: "Who has the lead on the ground overseas?," "Is the military the supporting or supported actor?," "What are the implications?," "How can the interagency process contribute to complex operations?," "Should the military prepare to take on more state-building functions?," and "What are the possible problems?"
John Allen Williams of Loyola University Chicago, Thomas E. Ricks of the Washington Post, Elizabeth Stanley of Georgetown University, and Mackubin T. of the Naval War College discuss several questions: "What is the current state of relations between the military and society?," "How representative is the military of civil society?," and "What effect is the War on Terrorism having on military-societal relations?"
Walter A. McDougall, Co-chair of the Foreign Policy Research Institute's History Institute for Teachers explores the U.S. attitude towards war—in which the nation simultaneously claims to be peace-loving and finds itself seeking out or being drawn into conflicts time after time.
Brian McAllister Linn of Texas A&M University examines the importance of many of the less-memorialized, smaller-scale, and less often taught military actions in U.S. history. He looks at how military tactics have been adapted to local conditions in these wars and the varying success of these adaptations (and failures to adapt).
Paul Rahe of the University of Tulsa argues that Herodotus's coverage of classical Greek military history presents a "near ideal template for the analysis of American military history," in that it records the military struggles of republics Rahe interprets Herodotus's depictions of political and military heroes and considerations of relative cultural values as supporting "political liberty and the rule of law"— values which he suggests the U.S. has held and must continue to hold.
A transcript is available on the series page.
Paul H. Herbert, Executive Director of the Cantigny First Division Foundation, discusses his views on and recommendations for teaching military history. He argues that military history needs to be taught in order for students to understand the country's past; that students need particularly to come away from school with a basic understanding of the make-up of the U.S.'s military institutions and their relationship with society and of change in the conduct of war over time; and that teachers need to understand and be familiar with the basic vocabulary of war and military actions in order to teach military history.
Pulitizer Prize-winning author Rick Atkinson discusses his experiences while writing his trilogy on World War II—including the books An Army at Dawn and The Day of Battle—focusing on writing history texts as narratives, not as simple sequences of events.
Williamson Murray of the Institute for Defense Analyses reviews the history of Western warfare, from classical times to the present day. This lecture was conducted for "Teaching Military History, Why and How: A History Institute for Teachers," held on September 2930, 2007. The event was sponsored by the Foreign Policy Research Institute’s Marvin Wachman Fund for International Education and the Cantigny First Division Foundation, and held at the Cantigny First Division Museum in Wheaton, IL.
Audio and video options are available.