FootNotes

Footnotes are essays designed in particular for teachers and students and are often drawn from the lectures at our nationally recognized Butcher History Institute for Teachers.

The Military as Peacemakers and Enforcers: Military Operations Other Than War in the 1990s

A quick victory in Iraq validated military professionals’ post-Vietnam War emphasis on warfighting using decisive force. Operation DESERT STORM represented the services’ successful intellectual and physical efforts to reorient from graduated escalation strategies and guerrilla warfare in the jungles...

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Advances in Medicine During Wars

Besides the well-known technical advances that have occurred during major wars of the past 150 years, each one also has produced significant advances in medicine. Some of these advances were completely innovative because of circumstances that occur primarily during...

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Advances in Medicine During Wars: A Primer

Besides the well-known technical advances that have occurred during major wars of the past 150 years, each one also has produced significant advances in medicine. Some of these advances were completely innovative because of circumstances that occur primarily during...

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The Post-Soviet Wars: Part II

The previous article, The Post-Soviet Wars: Part I, advanced a causal explanation for the post-Soviet wars, the wars that broke out in Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, and Ukraine during and after the collapse of the Soviet Union. To...

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The Post-Soviet Wars: Part I

Does Democracy Matter? The United States and Global Democracy Support: A Study Guide for the College Classroom

Confidence in the future of democracy has been shaken by the authoritarian resurgence of the past decade, and some now argue that it is not realistic for the U.S. to continue to champion democracy abroad. Does Democracy Matter? provides...

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A Match is Nothing Without a Fuse; A Fuse is Nothing Without a Bomb: Starting Two Wars, 1898-1899

The Spanish-American War is a relatively forgotten war in American history. The most remembered wars—the Revolution, the Civil War, World War II, Vietnam—absorb much of our attention and leave smaller wars, even “a splendid little war” in the shade....

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Why the United States Went to War in Vietnam

Why did the U.S. go to war in Vietnam? This is a question historians continue to debate. One of the main reasons it remains a source of argument is that it is difficult to say when the U.S. war...

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Why Do Some Nations Prosper? The Case of North and South Korea

Economists have debated for years why it is that some nations prosper while others do not. The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea, DPRK) and the Republic of Korea (South Korea, ROK), for example, started out as poor...

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A Framework for Ethical Decision Making

In April 2015, the Foreign Policy Research Institute presented its Madeleine and W.W. Keen Butcher History Institute on Ethical Dilemmas in American Warfare hosted by the First Division Museum at Cantigny, Wheaton, IL. Covering such topics as the Dilemmas...

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