Volume 90, Number 2 · April 2026

In 1855, the Kingdom of Hawai’i published “Articles of War” (Kanawai o na Puali Koa) as part of a comprehensive program of reforms initiated by the Hawaiian Islands’ commander in chief and the secretary of war to transform the nation’s military. Many factors contribute to a nation’s long-term security and stability, among them, military preparedness, especially when the other contributing factors are in a state of flux. Those who supported the promulgation of Hawai’i’s Articles of War understood that their adoption would be a watershed moment, one that would help to ensure the country’s continued independence.

This article evaluates Ferdinand Foch’s contemporary reflections on the Somme offensive that he directed. It explains how he came to understand that a high-tempo, front-wide operational system that combined cumulative attrition with lateral maneuver would be needed to destroy the enemy’s army. This reconceptualization of operational art, the second stage of a two-stage process by which modern operational warfare emerged on the Western Front, enabled Foch, when Allied generalissimo in 1918, to secure a swift, decisive victory in 1918’s climactic bataille générale.

This article examines the paradoxical experience of foreign volunteers from Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg within the Waffen-SS, a formation that presented itself as a transnational, ideologically unified force during the Second World War. Through a comparative transnational lens, it analyzes recruitment strategies, training practices, and the personal motivations of volunteers, revealing deep tensions between propaganda and practice. Benelux recruits were courted as “Germanic brothers,” yet marginalized in command structures, linguistically segregated, and denied full equality. The article argues that the Waffen-SS’s pan-European project failed to transcend national identities or achieve ideological unity, instead producing a fractured and hierarchical military structure where inclusion remained conditional and fragile.

During World War II, the United States Navy permitted Blacks to serve outside of the messman branch, notably in the new Naval Construction Force, or Seabees. The 34th Naval Construction Battalion was the first Black Seabee unit and served twenty-one months in the Pacific. Discriminatory policies of the navy’s Bureau of Yards and Docks drove the Black Seabees to work with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the Black press to seek redress. The battalion staged a hunger strike that brought the discrimination to the attention of the highest levels of navy leadership. Rather than disband the unit, the Navy implemented changes to address the issues.

This article combines a political and social history of the post–World War II demobilization of the U.S. military with a diplomatic and military history of the crisis in China in the months following the surrender of Japan. In this light, it examines the broader political consequences of the worldwide GI rebellion, showing how the rapid demobilization”—described by President Truman as a “disintegration”—constrained policymakers’ options as civil war flared in China. This remarkably understudied conjuncture, which left Washington with very limited military options at a critical moment in the consolidation of its postwar hegemony, illuminates key aspects of the ragged endings of World War II in Asia and the early development of the Cold War.

In the narrative of the Iraq War, General George Casey has taken on the role of a conventional, inflexible commander who turned away from counterinsurgency and pushed hard to get U.S. troops out of Iraq. The situation was bad when he handed command to General David Petraeus, who oversaw a dramatic turnaround. New evidence has emerged that warrants a re-evaluation of Casey’s approach to Iraq, though; it demonstrates that Casey may have been the chief driver of improved counterinsurgency understanding in the U.S. military prior to the publication of FM3-24, Counterinsurgency, and that Casey established conditions from which his successor benefited.