John J. Tierney Jr.

I often open my class on U.S. foreign policy by asking the following (trick) question: In history, what is the Capital city that has come closest to an existential defeat of the United States? Hands go up: Moscow, Berlin, Tokyo, even London. 

The name “America” may mean a number of things to the seven billion people living on planet earth. Both good and bad. The word “superpower” comes first to mind, and many do not like the world’s policeman (both at home and abroad). 

In 1990, columnist Charles Krauthammer first pronounced the coming demise of the Soviet Union as the beginning of what he termed the political globe’s “unipolar moment.” 

California is not the only part of American now burning. So is the political system. The metaphor “fire” has served a number of purposes for human endeavor, mostly positive. Out West, the fire is tragic, but in human affairs, fire has indicated resolve, purpose, and dogmatic sense of mission, also hard to “put out.”

The most enduring legacy of World War I for the United States has been the emergence of a unique set of internationalist principles, which has allowed the country to elevate itself to a self-defined pedestal of righteous virtue justifying the pursuit of its foreign policies.

Into its fifth year, with no end in sight, the war in Iraq has consumed the American people in ways similar to the Vietnam War a generation ago. Many see the war as open-ended, with a commitment lasting one hundred years if needed. The U.S. attempt at democratic transformation is still raging in a place…

The turbulent occupation of Iraq has once again embroiled the United States military in an unconventional war. Chasing Ghosts is a study of unconventional warfare in American military history and its implications for the present and future.

Are the professionally-organized anti-war protests a reaction to the invasion of Iraq or to the Bush administration in general, or is there more than meets the eye? Professor John Tierney, Jr. takes a behind-the-scenes look in his newest book, The Politics of Peace: What’s Behind the Anti-War Movement?, just published by the Capital Research Center.

Professor John Tierney reflects on the meaning of D-Day after sixty years.