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Containing the National Security State represents more than 100 editorials that assess the militarization of U.S. governance and U.S. foreign policy.

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What is to be done?

The odds do not favor Donald Trump being impeached or indicted, but there is an unusual alternative without precedent. In 1963, following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, a bipartisan effort led by Senators Kenneth Keating and Estes Kefauver enacted legislation for a procedure to replace a president unable to discharge the duties of the office. Like impeachment and indictment, however, the use of the 25th Amendment is unlikely.

Trump’s Psyche and the Threat of Force

The frightening letter from a senior official in the Trump administration that appeared in the New York Times begs questions about the possibility of additional “misguided impulses” from the President that cannot be blocked. Unfortunately, there is a terrible precedent from the Nixon administration in 1973 during the October War, when President Richard M. Nixon was incapacitated and national security adviser Henry A. Kissinger recklessly and unnecessarily upgraded the nuclear alert to Defense Condition III.

America’s War Habit

The articles in your special issue “Needed: A New Foreign Policy” [July 16/23] exaggerate the potential for a public challenge to militarism and the readiness of the public even to do so.

The CIA’s Double Standard Revisited

The Central Intelligence Agency has practiced a double standard for many years. Former CIA director David Petraeus escaped a jail sentence despite providing eight notebooks of highly classified information, including names of covert operatives, to his biographer-mistress.