The world is in danger because of America’s leaders.

The short book L’Étrange Défaite, or Strange Defeat, was written during the months of July and September 1940 by the French historian and future resistance fighter Marc Bloch, who served in both World Wars I and II. It was a stinging indictment of the French political class and high command for the humiliating loss and dissolution of the French army following the Nazi invasion of France. The Gestapo executed Bloch in 1944 after he fled into hiding to fight the Nazi occupiers.

The Apocalypse by historian Andrew Bacevich was based on Bloch’s book, which was published following the war. Bacevich, a young lieutenant who served in the Vietnam War, is no less critical of the political and military establishment that has guided the United States into successive disasters. He contends that they are terribly unrealistic and incapable of adjusting to a world that is changing. The American empire’s decline will be marked by a series of disasters unless they are removed from power. A discussion of Andrew Bacevich’s book After the Apocalypse will take place on The Chris Hedges Report.

Boston University’s Emeritus Professor of History and International Relations is retired colonel Andrew Bacevich. The Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft is another organization he cofounded and serves as president of.