History As It Happens

"There is no room in this party for apologists for Putin," former Vice President Mike Pence is said to have told an audience of GOP donors in the days after Russia invaded Ukraine. Why would a major Republican politician need to clarify that? The de facto leader of the party, Donald Trump, had praised Putin in a radio interview, and then at CPAC Trump defended his remarks. Things have gotten so strange that Rep. Liz Cheney, stalwart conservative, says her party now has a "Putin wing." In this episode, The National Review's Charles C. W. Cooke discusses why some figures on the right have taken this illiberal lurch. Most conservatives, Cooke says, disdain Putin for a ruthless tyrant, not someone worthy of admiration.

When Nixon opened doors to China a half century ago, that country was reeling from the cascading disasters of Mao's rule. Today, China is vying to surpass the U.S. position in global leadership. If the American empire is itself in terminal decline, then what of the broader world order established by American power after 1945, an order based on the inviolability of national borders and the principle of universal human rights? In this episode, historian Alfred McCoy argues the world is witnessing a historic shift from the West to the East, and China will soon be the preeminent economic and military power on the Eurasian landmass. But will climate change upend China's ambitions? The science on rising seal levels and warming temperatures is clear: yes.

Russian president Vladimir Putin is "a very dangerous beast," says preeminent military historian Antony Beevor. As war rages in Ukraine, an unpredictable dictator may risk expanding the war to involve NATO members such as the Baltic states. Putin has fallen into the same trap as past Russian and Soviet leaders, obsessed with a perceived encirclement by implacable, hostile powers to the west. In this episode, Sir Antony Beevor explains the deep historical roots of the conflict in Eastern Europe, and the ways in which Putin is trying to turn back the clock to an imperial past. 

The Russian invasion of Ukraine is raising questions left unresolved in the immediate aftermath of the Cold War, when President George Bush hoped to bequeath to his successors a peaceful, stable Europe whose nations would remain part of NATO. Among those questions is whether Russia would integrate with Europe, as the Soviet Union’s former republics (such as the Baltic states) and satellite states (such as Poland) joined the Western military alliance. With its unprovoked attack on Ukraine, Russia has turned into a pariah state as President Vladimir Putin attempts to reverse his nation’s diminished geopolitical status. In this episode, historian Jeffrey Engel discusses the causes of the first major war in Eastern Europe since 1945. It was not inevitable that relations between the West and the former Soviet Union would deteriorate, but certain problems – such as NATO's enlargement, Ukraine's pro-West revolution in 2014, and Putin’s revanchist ideas – helped pave the road to war in 2022.

In 1965, after overcoming the threat of a filibuster, large bipartisan majorities in Congress passed the landmark Voting Rights Act. The act was reauthorized five times from 1970 through 2006 with the support of both Democratic and Republican presidents. But in the America of 2022, Democrats' two major voting rights bills have almost no Republican support. The GOP says the bills amount to a partisan power grab and are unnecessary because voter turnout has been strong. Democrats argue minority voting rights are under threat. How did we get to this point? Historian Peniel Joseph explains why the bipartisan consensus around voting rights has dissolved.

Did you know that since 1860 more than 400 rabbis have delivered the opening prayer or blessing that starts each day of Congress? In a nation founded upon religious toleration, articulated in George Washington's letter to the Jews of Newport in 1790, some remarkable rabbis have prayed at the very center of American democracy. We now know more about this overlooked slice of history because of Howard Mortman, the communications director at C-SPAN. His first book, "When Rabbis Bless Congress," documents the life and times of Jewish leaders who left their mark on the U.S. Capitol.

One year after President Biden pledged to end U.S. support for Saudi Arabia's offensive capabilities in Yemen's civil war, the war continues with no end in sight, and the U.S. remains just as complicit in one of worst humanitarian crises in the world. In this episode, Dr. Annelle Sheline of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft guides us through Yemen's recent history to explain what led to the disastrous Saudi intervention in 2015. Yemen is a place most Americans think little about, yet the Biden administration sent more than $1 billion in arms to Saudi Arabia in 2021 alone, so it could continue its deadly air campaign meant to drive Houthi rebels from power in Sana'a. 

As U.S. officials issue daily warnings that a Russian invasion of Ukraine is imminent, each side in the crisis is claiming history as an ally. For the United States, NATO, and Ukraine, the post-WWII international order allows Kyiv to freely choose which alliances to join, free from Russian interference. For Moscow, old promises that NATO would expand 'not one inch' toward Russia's borders have been broken, needlessly antagonizing Russia in the same way Russian missiles in Canada would threaten the U.S. In this episode, former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Bill Taylor and the Quincy Institute's Anatol Lieven discuss and debate the reasons why Europe could be on the road to war. 

The civilian toll of America's endless wars in the Greater Middle East is receiving fresh scrutiny. Reports detailing systemic weaknesses in the targeting of suspected militants spurred Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to order the Pentagon to improve its protections for the ordinary people who have died by the thousands in U.S. airstrikes since September 11, 2001. A series of reports by the New York Times documented several cases in which military officials covered up the unintentional slaughter of civilians. These tragedies, which are only sporadically noticed by ordinary Americans in the ongoing global war on terrorism, raise a deeper question: why does the public seem so indifferent to the deaths of others? In this episode, historian John Tirman explains the reasons why Americans have mostly ignored, downplayed, or even justified the deaths of civilians in the nation’s post-WWII conflicts starting with the Korean War, when the U.S. military carpet bombed North Korea, up to and including the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Can a generation gap help explain our problems? Among our seemingly intractable, even existential, dilemmas is the lack of trust among Americans toward our institutions and toward one another. Thanks to internet algorithms and hyper-partisan television channels and radio programs, it is possible to consume information 24/7 that only confirms, rather than challenges, one’s political views or conceptions of science. This media landscape did not exist in the 1960s, when a generation gap was at the center of the nation’s upheavals, when many Baby Boomers rejected the values of their parent’s generation – the age cohort Tom Brokaw in 1989 dubbed the Greatest Generation. In this episode, historian Paul McBride takes us on a trip from the nineteen thirties to the sixties, explaining how events and movements shaped the different attitudes and outlooks of two distinct generations.