FootNotes

Standard discussions of the interplay of U.S. politics with Israel as a Zionist state tend to emphasize the contemporary triangular relationship among the U.S. government, Israel and the American Jewish community. Many topics inhabit the general subject—for example, the...

There have been two constants in U.S.-Saudi relations for decades: oil and Gulf security, particularly the security of the Saudi royal family. Our two societies have had little in common, and yet despite deep differences, we have had a...

For information on a 10-volume series of books for middle and high school students on “The Making of the Modern Middle East,” published by Mason Crest Publishers in collaboration with FPRI’s Wachman Center, visit https://www.masoncrest.com/series_view.php?seriesID=77 Dr. Cook explained that...

Welcoming Remarks Walter A. McDougall, co-chair of the History Institute, noted that war brings out the best and the worst in people. It is dramatic, tragic, and strategic. There are the “what ifs.” Every family is affected by wars....

In October 1942 leaflets appeared in Egypt. The occasion was the British Eighth Army victory over Rommel’s Afrika Korps at El Alamein, which at last made the Allies confident they could drive the Axis out of the Middle East....

What we now sometimes refer to as the Long War began much earlier than the 9/11 attacks on America. But that day was seared into our collective national consciousness and animated our collective response. That sunny morning in Manhattan...

The Vietnam War—or as the Vietnamese call it, the American War—is the longest war in American history (so far) and the first one the U.S. clearly lost. More significant for our purposes, its history is also the most contested....

The U.S. Army in World War II is obviously a big subject. It was a big war with a lot going on. For example, on this very date, May 2, in 1945, Berlin fell to the Red Army, and,...

On September 1, 1939, twenty years and three months after the signing of the Treaty of Versailles, war broke out again in Europe. It is one of the great conundrums of history that after the catastrophe of World War...

Having been asked to address the question that provides the title to this FPRI Footnote, I begin by interrogating and unpacking the question. What does the question mean? Does it mean: Can terrorist organizations that may somehow get their hands...