Michael Klare in 2013. Photograph Source: Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung from Berlin, Deutschland – CC BY-SA 2.0

Every movement needs researchers and writers who present technical matters in ways that activists and organizers can understand and apply. Michael Klare has been doing that for more than 50 years and especially since the War in Vietnam and the protests against it. A diligent reporter with a deep-seated curiosity, passion and conviction, Klare has written about war and peace, the environment and energy, the military and its foes. I have known him since about 1960 when we were undergraduates at Columbia College in NY and created a campus political party that lobbied for the abolition of HUAC, an end to nuclear testing, the creation of a co-op bookstore on campus and scaling way back loco parentis, the administration’s medieval policy of treating students like children. Klare currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Arms Control Administration and is the Defense Correspondent of The Nation. He is a Professor Emeritus of Peace & World Security Studies at Hampshire College.

His books include War Without End: American Planning for the Next Vietnams, Supplying Repression, Rogue States and Nuclear Outlaws, Blood and Oil, and most recently All Hell Breaking Loose: The Pentagon’s Perspective on Climate Change. In “Goodbye to American Century: China and India now Rising” published in Fair Observer he wrote “China, India, and the United States are likely to dominate any future world order. Sadly, that doesn’t mean they’re destined to cooperate—far from it.” He added, “Competition and conflict will undoubtedly remain an enduring characteristic of their relationships, with the ties between any two of them constantly waxing and waning.” We shall see.

Q: Friends and acquaintances tell me the political and economic situation is worse today than ever before. I usually remind them of Vietnam, the cold war, the red scares, the genocide against Indians, slavery, Jim Crow, racism and misogyny. But it doesn’t make sense to me to try to gauge whether now or then is worse. What do you think?

A: This is an interesting question, and I wonder about it all the time. I think the answer is both: Things are both better and worse than they were 50-75 years ago, when we first became involved in politics.

Back then, nuclear Armageddon could occur at almost any moment, the US had 100s of thousands of troops in Vietnam, Black people couldn’t vote in much of the US (let alone hold office anywhere), and gay people couldn’t marry or lead normal lives in most places; today, the risk of nuclear war is greatly reduced (if not eliminated entirely), the US is not engaged in large-scale military conflict, Black people can vote and hold office in most places, and gay people can marry and live together openly. So those are big differences.

But I also see trends that........

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