People protest outside of the United Nations headquarters in April 2023 demanding the return of Ukrainian children from Russia.
Lev Radin/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images
Patrick James, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences
It’s been more than 20 years since the US invaded Iraq, but the invasion still provides a cautionary tale about getting involved in an expensive war abroad.
Iraqis shop in Baghdad’s famous book market in July 2022.
Sabah Arar/AFP via Getty Images
The short stories of modern Iraqi writers Hassan Blasim and Diaa Jubaili show that the 2003 invasion and subsequent war in Iraq are not at the heart of contemporary Iraqi literature.
An Iraqi person walks down a road blocked by burning tires in Basra in August 2002.
Hussein Faleh/AFP via Getty Images
The Bush administration invaded Iraq with plans for it to become a democracy. But according to some social science measures, the country isn’t any more democratic than it was before 2003.
As we approach the 20th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, it is important to reflect on the use of war footage in media and the ethical questions around the use of footage depicting human death.
While some progress has been made, the coalition forces abjectly failed to achieve their central goals. But Australia has an opportunity now to make good on its promises.
An abandoned house in the old town of Mosul, Iraq.
(Ali Al-Baroodi, @ali_albaroodi)
The U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 led to civilian death and displacement. Twenty years later, Iraqis are telling their stories of conflict and trauma as they move towards healing.
A U.S. tank moves past a painting of Saddam Hussein in March 2003 in Nasiriyah, Iraq.
Joe Raedle/Getty Images
University students today are too young to remember the March 2003 start of the Iraq War, which has future foreign policy implications and changes how the conflict should be taught.
A member of the US’s elite counterterrorism force in Iraq, wearing a skull mask.
Khalid Mohammed/AP
Soldier atrocities are shaped by our society, culture, and political fabric. Preventing them will require a comprehensive rethinking of policies, attitudes, and approaches to war.
A military officer salutes during a parade to commemorate the anniversary of the founding of Communist China in Beijing.
Mark Schiefelbein/AP
Hugh White warns of a potential war between the US and China, drawing lessons from the first and second world wars to explore how Australia might respond to such a conflict – and where to draw a line.
Russia denies targeting civilians. But it was the same with its bombing campaign in Syria.
In this March 2003 photo, Iraqi soldiers surrender to U.S. Marines following a gunfight. The war has loomed over geopolitical events for the past 19 years.
(AP Photo/Laura Rauch, File)
The most direct cause of America’s ongoing harrowing descent, including the rise of Donald Trump and his alliance with Vladimir Putin, began 19 years ago with the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
V is for victory? Or vanquished?
Mikhail Svetlov/Getty Images
A military historian and U.S. Army veteran explains how wars are not easy to win – something political leaders often forget when looking at the calculus of conflict.
Smoke and flame rise near a military building after an apparent Russian strike in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Feb. 24, 2022.
(AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)
A western ‘do as I say, not as I do’ approach has helped provoke Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
Dutch defence minister, Ank Bijleveld, and air force colonel Peter Tankink briefing journalists about a raid on an car factory in Hawija in November 2015 in which more than 70 civilians were killed.
EPA-EFE/Lex van Lieshout
A scholar of African American studies explores how the former secretary of state, who died at 84, dealt with what WEB DuBois described as the ‘double-consciousness’ of being Black and American.
French President Emmanuel Macron talks to U.S. President Joe Biden at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization headquarters in Brussels on June 14, 2021.
BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/POOL/AFP via Getty Images
Despite a ‘major breach of trust,’ the recent spat between France and the US corresponds to a long cycle of conflict and rapprochement between the two countries.
In a time of increasingly complex geopolitical entanglements and moral failings, these films articulate a yearning for unsullied heroism, effective leadership and appropriate responses to crises.
America’s political leaders rushed the nation into war just weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks, just like ancient Greeks and Romans did in response to similar traumatic events.
David Hume Kennerly/Getty Images
Ancient Athenians and Romans also let shared mass tragedies propel justifications for going to war – even when it wasn’t clear what that violence would solve.