Oliver Stone: on being 19 in war, and for a county addicted to it | Responsible Statecraft

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In his memoir "Chasing the Light," director Oliver Stone talks about America's angst over Vietnam:

"We were so proud, and then, when we couldn't achieve victory, we had to lie like we all do when we deny what we know is true — that we lost, and lost big-time, and all those technology-loving Pentagon warriors were at last revealed as failures, and those determined little Vietnamese had licked us."

Then why did we not try to avoid the same fate time and again?

In early December, the Quincy Institute, in concert with the Center for War and Society (San Diego State University), hosted Stone at the iconic USS Midway Museum to commemorate, in part, the 50th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War. Gregory Daddis, director of the Center for War and Society and professor of military studies, got a chance to ask Stone not only about his own service as an Army infantryman (which later inspired his 1987 film "Platoon"), but about his own frustrations with the cyclical nature of American war-making, right up to Russia-gate, and today's current conflicts.

Watch below:

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Trump's war is a gift to Iran’s hardliners

REUTERS/Imran Ali

Shi'ite Muslims hold posters of Iran's new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, alongside late Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as they take part in the religious procession marking the death anniversary of Imam Ali, son-in-law of Prophet Muhammad, during the fasting month of Ramadan, in Karachi, Pakistan, March 11, 2026.

Trump's war is a gift to Iran’s hardliners

When the United States and Israel launched strikes on Iran on February 28 — an escalation that has already brought new suffering and uncertainty to millions of ordinary Iranians — the central debate quickly turned to whether the Islamic Republic might collapse. Some analysts argued that decapitating Iran’s leadership could produce rapid regime change, perhaps resembling the leadership removal in Venezuela earlier this year. Others warned that Iran’s political system was far more resilient.

Yet the more important point may lie elsewhere. Given the Islamic Republic’s internal dynamics, war could produce the opposite of what many expect. Rather than weakening the regime, the war may strengthen its most committed supporters — the ideological networks often labeled “hardliners” in Western media — while marginalizing the broader political middle, inside and outside the system, that favors non-violent and gradual change.

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Top image credit: Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar and Somaliland President Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi participate in a joint press conference during Saar's visit to Somaliland on January 6, 2026. (Screengrab via X)

Israel’s push for Somaliland base raises fears of wider war

Bloomberg reported Wednesday that Israel is in talks with Somaliland officials to form a strategic security partnership, which might include granting Israel access to a military base or other security installation along the Somaliland coast from which it can launch attacks against Yemen’s Houthi rebels.

With war raging in the Middle East, the Horn of Africa is a particularly important geoeconomic and geopolitical puzzle piece. Its location near the Bab el-Mandeb strait, which connects ships traveling through the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean, makes it a strategic location from the perspective of global shipping, 10% to 12% of which travels through the strait annually.

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