Explaining History

Hegseth's War – The Catastrophic Consequences of Maximum Lethality
In this week's solo episode, I examine a ProPublica investigation into Pete Hegseth's tenure as US Defence Secretary – and the catastrophic consequences of his "maximum lethality" doctrine. Here, I want to expand on some of the key themes we discussed.
The Civilian Protection Programme
The story begins with a programme called Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response (CHMR). It was a relatively new initiative, adopted after years of heavy civilian tolls in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. Its mission was to station personnel within major regional commands to develop a picture of life on the ground in combat zones, aiding decision-making on military strikes and helping to avoid or minimise civilian harm.
Shortly after taking office, Hegseth polled the nation's top commanders about cutting the programme. He expected them to endorse his view that civilian security was "woke" and out of step with "maximum lethality." Instead, every commander rebuffed him. Nine chose to preserve the programme; two asked to expand it.
Hegseth ignored them. He gutted the programme, cutting staff from nearly 200 to around two dozen, and reducing Central Command's team from 16 to one.
The Consequences
The results were predictable. In Yemen, an air campaign killed 153 civilians and wounded 243 others. In Iran, a US strike on a school killed more than 100 children.
Democratic senators and humanitarian groups questioned whether the cuts had contributed to the school tragedy. In a letter to Hegseth, 11 senators said the strike reflected the administration's "broader disregard for the strategic, legal and moral imperatives to minimise civilian harm."
But this is not a regime that cares about international law. As I argue in the episode, the extreme right believes that international law has held the US back for years – that it has been fighting with one hand behind its back. The breaking of international law is not a regrettable byproduct of their policies; it is the mission.
The "War Department"
In a speech last year, Hegseth announced that the "Department of Defense is over" and that the "Department of War" had been restored. He spoke of "peace through strength" and "the warrior ethos." He told his enemies they would be "crushed by violence, precision and the ferocity of the war department." In other words: FAFO.
But the reality is very different. The US military is under-resourced and overstretched in the Persian Gulf. It has lost its supply bases. It is facing critical shortages of everything from ammunition to toothpaste. The "maximum lethality" doctrine has produced exactly the opposite of what it promised.
Hegseth's Psychology
As I discussed in my earlier conversation with Jasper Craven, Hegseth is a deeply damaged individual – a product of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and of the far-right culture war that has consumed the Republican Party. He is living out a violent adolescent fantasy, speaking in the language of Christian fascism and the annihilation of the enemy.
But he is also a symptom of a larger problem. Trump surrounds himself with incompetent ideologues because he does not want specialists and experts. He wants people who will tell him what he wants to hear, who will create chaos and distraction while he carries on looting the state. Hegseth is the perfect product of that system.
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In this episode of the Explaining History Podcast, we are joined by James Loeffler, the Felix Posen Professor of Modern Jewish History at Johns Hopkins University, to discuss his new book, An Exceptional Hatred: Antisemitism and the Fight Over Free Speech in Modern America.
The book traces a century of struggle over antisemitism and free speech in the United States, from the violent anti-Jewish riots of the 1940s to the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville in 2017, and the ferocious campus debates over Israel-Palestine today. Loeffler argues that antisemitism has always been a uniquely contested category in American life – weaponised by both the right and the left, and often used to obscure rather than clarify the fight against hate.
We explore the surprising rise of antisemitic attitudes in America after World War II and the Holocaust, the complex relationship between anti-communism and antisemitism in the 1950s, and the long history of Jews being viewed as "not quite white" – a racial ambiguity that has made them a persistent target of conspiracy theories.
The conversation also examines the politicisation of antisemitism. Today, conservatives often use the accusation of antisemitism as a weapon against the left, while some on the left dismiss legitimate concerns about antisemitism as a smokescreen for defending Israel. Loeffler argues that this instrumentalisation of hatred does a disservice to the victims of real antisemitism and creates a toxic environment where genuine debate is impossible.
Topics covered:
The 2017 Charlottesville rally and its significance
The history of antisemitic violence in post-WWII America
The "Judeo-Bolshevik" conspiracy theory
Jews, whiteness, and racial ambiguity
The politicisation of antisemitism
Free speech, hate speech, and the campus debates
The Israel-Palestine conflict and its impact on American Jews
James Loeffler's An Exceptional Hatred is available from all good bookshops. Please consider buying from an independent retailer or directly from the publisher.
If you enjoy the podcast, please consider supporting us – we are migrating from Patreon to Substack. Details in the show notes.
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In this episode of the Explaining History Podcast, we explore the life and legacy of Harold Wilson – the most successful Labour Prime Minister of the 20th century, and the man who attracted the most fevered paranoia from the British right.
Wilson is often misunderstood. To the right, he was a crypto-communist, a threat to the British way of life. To some on the left, he was a betrayer of socialist ideals. The truth is more complex: Wilson was a corporatist, a believer in a managed mixed economy where private enterprise would be guided, not bullied, by the state. He wanted to break the power of the City of London, modernise British industry, and create a "producers' alliance" between manufacturing, unions, and government.

This vision – modest by any standard – was met with extraordinary hostility. In the 1960s and 70s, MI5 agents plotted against him, bugged his offices, and discussed military coups. Senior civil servants sabotaged his government's plans. Newspaper barons waged campaigns of character assassination. Wilson was never a socialist, let alone a communist – but he threatened the interests of a ruling class that would not tolerate even mild reform.

I draw a parallel with the current moment. The language of the British right – from the Conservative Party to Reform to various crypto-fascist fringe groups – routinely equates the basics of post-war social democracy with communism. The idea that workers should have rights, that there should be a social safety net, that there should be a public health service – these are now described as "communist ideas." This is not a new phenomenon. It is a continuation of the same paranoid tradition that sought to destroy Wilson.

We also examine Wilson's attempt to create a Department of Economic Affairs to break Treasury dominance – a battle he lost, and which has echoes in Andy Burnham's current efforts to decentralise economic decision-making. The Treasury won then, and it is winning now.

Topics covered:
Harold Wilson as corporatist
The post-war social democratic consensus
MI5 plots against Wilson
The cult of the "gentleman amateur"
Wilson's "white heat of technology" speech
The Department of Economic Affairs and Treasury sabotage
The paranoia of the British right
Parallels with the current moment
If you enjoy the podcast, please consider supporting us – we are migrating from Patreon to Substack. Details in the show notes.
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In this episode of the Explaining History Podcast, I examine the extraordinary diplomatic demands the United States has placed on Canada – demands that echo the Austro-Hungarian ultimatum to Serbia in July 1914 and raise profound questions about American intentions.

The Trump administration's trade demands on Canada are not mere negotiations. They include provisions that would restrict Canada's ability to make trade agreements with other countries, effectively preventing it from diversifying its economy beyond the United States. They target the Canadian automotive industry, Quebec's French language and cultural rights, critical minerals, and agricultural markets. Taken together, they amount to a demand for the end of Canadian sovereignty – the ceding of economic, foreign, and domestic policy to Washington.

I draw a historical parallel with the Austro-Hungarian ultimatum to Serbia in 1914. The Habsburgs presented demands designed to be unacceptable – including the right to send their own police into Serbian territory to conduct investigations. The Serbs accepted most demands but rejected the diminution of their sovereignty. War followed, and with it, the cataclysm of the First World War.

Is America seeking a rejection? Or is this simply the chaotic flailing of a desperate regime? I explore the incoherence of Trump's policy – the simultaneous attempts to lay economic siege to Iran, to pressure China, and to bully Canada. This is not strategy; it is the kind of random, improvisational aggression that emerges from a dysfunctional administration where access to the president determines policy, and where policy changes with the weather.

The comparison to the Nazi regime's chaotic decision-making – the "working towards the Führer" model – is not about equating Trump with Hitler, but about understanding how autocratic systems generate incoherence. When the leader is inattentive, lazy, and surrounded by competing factions, policy becomes a function of who has access and what they think they heard.

The result is the rapid erosion of American credibility and power. Canada will not accept these demands. And the damage to America's standing in the world – already immense – will take generations to repair.

Topics covered:

The Austro-Hungarian ultimatum to Serbia (1914)
Trump's trade demands on Canada
Restrictions on Canadian sovereignty
The Canadian automotive industry
Quebec's French language and cultural rights
Critical minerals and the tech industry
The incoherence of American foreign policy
The "working towards the Führer" model
The erosion of American credibility
If you enjoy the podcast, please consider supporting us – we are migrating from Patreon to Substack. Details in the show notes.
Explaining History helps you understand the 20th Century through critical conversations and expert interviews. We connect the past to the present. If you enjoy the show, please subscribe and share.
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In this episode of the Explaining History Podcast, we are joined by David F. Walbert, a veteran voting rights attorney whose new book, Stealing Elections American Style, traces the long, sordid history of contested and corrupted elections from the mid‑19th century to the present day.

David's career spans decades of litigation on voting rights cases, beginning in the early 1970s when he moved to Georgia and discovered that despite the Voting Rights Act, African American representation in elected office was staggeringly low. The problem was not voter registration – Black and white registration was near parity – but structural devices that allowed white majorities to control every election outcome.

We explore the origins of the "Southern strategy" – the explicit deal struck by Richard Nixon in 1968 with the white South: electoral votes in exchange for Supreme Court justices hostile to civil rights. That strategy, David argues, is the genesis of the ongoing assault on voting rights, culminating in the 1980 Supreme Court decision that nearly shut down vote dilution cases – and the subsequent effort to amend the Voting Rights Act in 1982.

The conversation moves to the stolen election of 1876 – perhaps the most flagrant in American history – where Rutherford B. Hayes was awarded the presidency despite losing the popular vote, through the systematic throwing out of Democratic precincts in Louisiana. The parallels to the present are striking.

David also discusses the evolution of voter suppression tactics, the spread of white racist ideology from the South to the North, and the alarming infiltration of election denialists into state and local election apparatuses. He warns that the next close election – particularly in the House and Senate – could be decided not by voters, but by partisan politicians in Congress, a prospect that threatens the very foundation of American democracy.
Topics covered:
David's career litigating voting rights cases
The Voting Rights Act and its amendments
The Southern strategy and its consequences
The stolen election of 1876 (Tilden vs. Hayes)
George W. Bush vs. Al Gore in 2000
Trump's attempt to steal the 2020 election
The infiltration of election denialists into state and local offices
The constitutional power of Congress to judge its own elections
The threat to the 2028 presidential election
David F. Walbert's Stealing Elections American Style is published by Bloomsbury and is available from September 3 in the US and October in the UK. Please consider buying from an independent bookshop or directly from the publisher.
If you enjoy the podcast, please consider supporting us – we are migrating from Patreon to Substack. Details in the show notes.
Explaining History helps you understand the 20th Century through critical conversations and expert interviews. We connect the past to the present. If you enjoy the show, please subscribe and share.
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