Malcolm Coates Writing

          When I was an undergraduate, I wrote and defended a thesis on the way the Vietnam War has been remembered in the United States. I covered a lot of material – memoirs, films, political rhetoric, commemorations, memorials, and subsequent wars – from the immediate post Saigon period to 2012. I am proud of my effort, but in retrospect there were a few important omissions – among them, the way the term “Vietnam” has become used as a byword for military dysfunction and overextension.          I did cover this a little bit – I wrote about how President Jimmy Carter wanted Afghanistan to be the “Soviet’s Vietnam”, how President Bush promised that the Gulf War would not become “another Vietnam”, and comparisons between Vietnam and Iraq and Afghanistan. But I want to take a moment to explore how other war’s have been labeled as other countries Vietnams – for instance, how Gamal Abdel Nasser’s war against Yemen has been labelled “Egypt’s ...

         With the rise of National Rally in France’s recent parliamentary elections and the possibility that Donald Trump will be re-elected president of the United States in November, it is almost certain that we are all going to see the word “fascist” used to describe their ideologies. Is this the correct word? It has always been a particularly difficult term to define – to the point where its German expression, Nazism, is usually defined by the “Fuhrer Principle” – ie, whatever Adolf Hitler believed – regardless of whether or not he had believed something else a week earlier. So, does Fascism have a fixed definition – and if so, can that definition be applied to any governing ideologies today?          The definition I have provide for my students states that “Fascism was a militant political movement that emphasized loyalty to the state and obedience to its leader.” Key elements include “extreme nationalism, authoritarianism, militar...