History As It Happens

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Since returning to the White House in 2025, President Trump has threatened to annex Greenland by force, mused about making Canada the 51st state, claimed he was ready to retake the Panama Canal, and turned Venezuela into a vassal by kidnapping its leader. Trump is trying to turn the clock back to a time when annexation (or territorial expansionism) was a norm in international relations. Since its birth, the United States has been expansionist, but its conduct has taken on different forms over time.

In this episode, author Mark Kawar traces the historical shift from annexationism to global influence through alliances, trade relations, and military bases. It's what some call hegemony, others imperialism.

Recommended reading:

America, but Bigger: Near Annexations from Greenland to Galapagos by Mark Kawar

Why America Stopped Annexing Territory by Mark Kawar (article in Law & Liberty)

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The Oslo Peace Process seems like ancient history. Today, a truly just and durable peace between Israel and the Palestinians appears impossible, as Gaza has been destroyed and Jewish settler-terrorists rampage through the West Bank with the support of their state. President Trump's vision for Gaza may render any surviving Palestinians as second-class citizens.

A quarter-century ago, in the summer of 2000, President Bill Clinton brought Israeli and Palestinian leaders together at Camp David to try to resolve the most difficult problems standing in the way of peace. To this day, each side blames the other for the summit's collapse. What really happened there? Our guest is historian Mark LeVine at the University of California, Irvine.

Recommended reading:

Impossible Peace: Israel/Palestine Since 1989 by Mark LeVine

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This special episode features an exclusive interview with United States Senator Chris Van Hollen, a Maryland Democrat and potential 2028 presidential candidate.

Congress' attempts to end the Trump administration's Iran war fiasco have thus far come up short. The same goes for the movement to end U.S. weapons and bulldozer shipments to the Israeli government, which has used American military hardware to destroy Gaza and southern Lebanon, killing tens of thousands of people in the process.

In this conversation with Sen. Van Hollen, we cover the War Powers Act and Iran, unrestrained executive power, the Libya intervention of 2011, Israel and AIPAC, the genocide in Gaza, the future of U.S. hegemony, and more.

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The American way of war is broken. Like many of his White House predecessors, Donald Trump is stuck in a stalemate of his own making. In Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq — to name four major wars — the president who went to war was unable to extricate the U.S. from the morass. It was up to his successor to salvage something from the wreckage of U.S. credibility and prestige.

Our guest is Will Walldorf, who teaches in the Department of Politics and International Affairs at Wake Forest University. He is a Senior Fellow at Defense Priorities, a Washington think tank.

His latest book is To Shape Our World For Good:  Master Narratives and Forceful Regime Change in United States Foreign Policy, 1900-2011.

Recommended reading:

Trump Needs to Defy History to End the Iran War by Will Walldorf (Foreign Policy)

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The Trump administration is attempting to topple Cuba's government through economic warfare.

An oil embargo and other punitive measures have led to severe consequences, including massive blackouts and water shortages. Ordinary Cubans are suffering, yet both they and their communist government are persevering — at least for now. The New York Times reports the CIA has established a secret task force to increase the pressure. The Cold War may be over, but U.S.-Cuba relations are frozen in time.

What explains more than six decades of hostility? Historian Alexander Aviña is our guest. He's an associate professor of Latin American history in the School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies at Arizona State University.

Further reading/listening:

Timeline of U.S.-Cuba relations (Council on Foreign Relations)

Flirting with Armageddon w/ Max Hastings on the Cuban Missile Crisis

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