Flanked by her husband, then Senator from Indiana and future Vice President of the United States Dan Quayle, Marilyn Quayle smiled as she smashed a bottle of champagne against the hull of the USS Vincennes on April 14, 1984. Gathered at the Ingalls Shipyard in Pascagoula, Mississippi, the Quayles and hundreds of others in attendance celebrated the launch of a new centerpiece of U.S. military power. The Vincennes was one of what would eventually become twenty-seven high-tech ships in the new Ticonderoga class of guided-missile cruisers, designed to serve a range of U.S. military objectives at the height of the Cold War. Expensive to build at $1 billion per ship, strategists and politicians celebrated the Vincennes and those like it as cornerstones of rejuvenated post-Vietnam War U.S. military hegemony.

Flanked by her husband, then Senator from Indiana and future Vice President of the United States Dan Quayle, Marilyn Quayle smiled as she smashed a bottle of champagne against the hull of the USS Vincennes on April 14, 1984. Gathered at the Ingalls Shipyard in Pascagoula, Mississippi, the Quayles and hundreds of others in attendance celebrated the launch of a new centerpiece of U.S. military power. The Vincennes was one of what would eventually become twenty-seven high-tech ships in the new Ticonderoga class of guided-missile cruisers, designed to serve a range of U.S. military objectives at the height of the Cold War. Expensive to build at $1 billion per ship, strategists and politicians celebrated the Vincennes and those like it as cornerstones of rejuvenated post-Vietnam War U.S. military hegemony.

YouTube video by Ziad Abu-Rish

Rami Elghandour tells Guardian in exclusive interview that cancellation sends ‘dangerous’ message to students

Rami Elghandour tells Guardian in exclusive interview that cancellation sends ‘dangerous’ message to students

YouTube video by Democracy Now!

We speak with Middle East history professor Toby Jones about the ongoing crisis in the Strait of Hormuz, where overlapping blockades by Iran and the United States have disrupted shipping and the wider...

Spring 2026

The case for a centre of gravity

The US–Israeli war on Iran is the latest phase of the United States’ long-war in the Persian Gulf, a fifty-year project to secure imperial power in a region defined as a “vital interest” since the 197...

The US–Israeli war on Iran is the latest phase of the United States’ long-war in the Persian Gulf, a fifty-year project to secure imperial power in a region defined as a “vital interest” since the 197...

The US–Israeli war on Iran is the latest phase of the United States’ long-war in the Persian Gulf, a fifty-year project to secure imperial power in a region defined as a “vital interest” since the 197...

Podcast Episode · Turbulence · March 31 · 1h 10m

UA System President Jay Silveria is moving forward with terminating Shirin Saeidi, former director of UA Fayetteville’s Middle East studies center, ignoring the unanimous recommendation of a faculty c...

Waleed Hazbun, University of Alabama   Until last summer’s twelve-day war, Israel and Iran had avoided direct warfare despite indirect conflict and covert operations spanning nearly half a century.  T...

US government officials and Wall Street analysis are starting to consdier the prospect that oil prices might surge to an unprecedeted $200 a barrel.

Responses to the American-Israeli war on Iran

Responses to the American-Israeli war on Iran

The director of an art center in Tehran on life under U.S.-Israeli bombardment.

The Fars news agency said there was no direct communication with the U.S. or through ​intermediaries.

The seventh Israeli invasion of Lebanon is being waged in both the shadow of genocide in Gaza and within the world that Israel’s permission to commit genocide has created. This is a world where intern...

President Donald Trump has extended his deadline for Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, saying the U.S. will hold off on power plant strikes for five days.