Commentary Americans are divided about U.S. assistance to Ukraine. A legitimate concern for everyone, regardless of what “side” of the issue they’re on, is the long-term ramifications of alternative courses of military action or inaction. As an economist, I’m well aware of how impossible it is to predict the future with any degree of precision….

Commentary When the Canadian prime minister shows up at a NATO conference with empty pockets, then criticizes his allies for giving cluster munitions to Ukraine as the wrong kind of help, it’s tempting to tune him out. But just as an alcoholic might be right that you drink too much, you should sometimes read a…

He knelt there beside the emperor’s bed, forehead pressed into palms, as the murmuring of the prayers for the dying filled the stillness of the room. And as his lips moved in supplication for his granduncle, his thoughts drifted to the overwhelming possibility of what could soon be. As Emperor Franz Joseph I’s worsening condition…

Marguerite “Missy” LeHand (1898–1944) was born to an Irish family in Potsdam, New York. During her childhood the family moved to Massachusetts, settling into the small working-class town of Somerville just outside of Boston. It was here that she contracted rheumatic fever at the age of 15. She was lucky to survive the illness, as…

War creates cultural collisions. In Si Sheppard’s militaristic comparison and contrast of Ottoman soldiers and those of Australia and New Zealand, the cultural divisions are easy to notice even before the collision. Sheppard utilizes battles from World War I in his book “ANZAC Soldier Versus Ottoman Soldier: Gallipoli and Palestine 1915–18” to point out the…

Born shortly before the end of the Civil War, Harry Hill Bandholtz (1864–1925) seemed destined to become a military man inclined toward diplomacy over violence. At 17, he joined the Illinois National Guard and earned the rank of lance sergeant. He was nominated to attend the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and graduated in…

For World War I enthusiasts, Osprey Publishing has issued a new work on a specific battle of the war. Michael McNally has written a very concise, yet detailed book entitled “Tannenberg 1914: Destruction of the Russian Second Army.” The battle begins at the start of the global conflict, on the eastern front in East Prussia,…

Commentary Some wars have faded from people’s memories over time, while others are more popular than ever. In terms of cinema, World War II and the Vietnam War films have been popularized to the extent that some suggest that they’ve been “done to death.” And I’m not just talking about feature films such as “Saving…

World War I used to be a conflict that didn’t get too much attention. Part of the reason was that it has often been overshadowed by World War II, a conflict that has almost been fetishized in numerous Hollywood films—everything from golden oldies such as 1946’s “The Best Years of Our Lives,” to more recent…

Near the end of World War I, the Russian Empire, its army rent by defeat after costly defeat and with morale ebbing, collapsed. Bread riots, strikes, and a mutinous army forced Czar Nicholas II Romanov to abdicate on March 15, 1917. After three centuries of Romanov control, the Russian Empire dissolved into a provisional government,…