The Tyranny of Defense Inc.

For those at the top, the American military profession is that rare calling where retirement need not imply a reduced income. On the contrary: senior serving officers shed their uniforms not merely to take up golf or go fishing but with the reasonable expectation of raking in big money. In a recent e-mail, a serving officer who is a former student of mine reported that on a visit to the annual meeting of the Association of the United States Army—in his words, “the Sodom and Gomorrah of the Military Industrial Complex”—he was “accosted by two dozen former bosses, now in suits with fancy ties and business cards, hawking the latest defense technologies.”

Source: The Atlantic
Published: Jan 4, 2011
Length: 13 minutes (3,410 words)

The Rise of the New Global Elite

F. Scott Fitzgerald was right when he declared the rich different from you and me. But today’s super-rich are also different from yesterday’s: more hardworking and meritocratic, but less connected to the nations that granted them opportunity—and the countrymen they are leaving ever further behind. … “She turns to me and she goes, ‘You know, the thing about 20 [million] is, 20 is only 10 after taxes.’ And everyone at the table is nodding. …”

Source: The Atlantic
Published: Jan 4, 2011
Length: 29 minutes (7,475 words)

Pearl Harbor in Retrospect

From 1948: Maj. Gen. Sherman Miles, Assistant Chief of Staff for Military Intelligence at the time of the attack, reflects on what went wrong. “The last twenty-four hours in Washington before the bombs fell have come in for much scrutiny. Why did the President, with most of the Japanese final answer before him, conclude that it meant war and then, after a fitful attempt to reach Admiral Stark by telephone, quietly go to bed? Why was he in seclusion the following morning? Why was no action taken on the Japanese reply by the Secretaries of State, War, and Navy when they met on that Sunday morning? Why did they not consult the President, or he send for them? Where was everybody, including my humble self? Why, in short, didn’t someone stage a last-minute rescue, in good Western style?”

Source: The Atlantic
Published: Jul 1, 1948
Length: 28 minutes (7,118 words)

The Pentagon Papers Trial

“Inevitably political, the Pentagon Papers case is a decisive test of the federal government’s capacity to control the disclosure of information stamped ‘secret,’ of an individual’s right to defy the security classification system, and at least peripherally, of the press’s ability to rely on ‘leaks’ in government circles”

Source: The Atlantic
Published: Nov 1, 1972
Length: 17 minutes (4,470 words)

North Korea: The War Game

From 2005: Dealing with North Korea could make Iraq look like child’s play—and the longer we wait, the harder it will get. That’s the message of a Pentagon-style war game involving some of this country’s most prominent foreign-policy strategists

Source: The Atlantic
Published: Jul 1, 2005
Length: 37 minutes (9,283 words)

The Things He Carried

Airport security in America is a sham—”security theater” designed to make travelers feel better and catch stupid terrorists. Smart ones can get through security with fake boarding passes and all manner of prohibited items—as our correspondent did with ease. #Sept11

Source: The Atlantic
Published: Nov 1, 2008
Length: 12 minutes (3,243 words)

Dirty Coal, Clean Future

To environmentalists, “clean coal” is an insulting oxymoron. But for now, the only way to meet the world’s energy needs, and to arrest climate change before it produces irreversible cataclysm, is to use coal—dirty, sooty, toxic coal—in more-sustainable ways. The good news is that new technologies are making this possible. China is now the leader in this area, the Google and Intel of the energy world.

Source: The Atlantic
Published: Nov 9, 2010
Length: 32 minutes (8,217 words)

A Question of Fairness

Clarence Thomas is Ronald Reagan’s chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. He walks a lonely road, not really agreeing with conservatives or liberals.

Source: The Atlantic
Published: Feb 1, 1987
Length: 33 minutes (8,491 words)

The Last Patrol

The 82nd Airborne troops were getting ready to leave Afghanistan, but they had one more dangerous job to do

Source: The Atlantic
Published: Nov 1, 2010
Length: 33 minutes (8,435 words)

Shooting for the Sun

Best known for creating the state-of-the-art super soaker squirt gun, Lonnie Johnson believes he now holds the key to affordable solar power.

Author: Logan Ward
Source: The Atlantic
Published: Nov 1, 2010
Length: 12 minutes (3,149 words)