DAN SEARS ’ 74
“The military is not the solution to
many of the challenges that the country
faces,” said Kohn, who has drawn flak for
such writings as “Out of Control: The
Crisis in Civil-Military Relations” for The
National Interest and “The Danger of Militarization in an Endless ‘War’ on Terrorism” for the Journal of Military History.
“National security problems are less military and more political, economic, environmental and social. The military instrument is by no means the solution to many
of these challenges.”
Kohn said the vice chief of staff of the
Air Force once told him, “Your job is to
give us the lessons of the past.” “And I said
to him, ‘General, if the past has real lessons,
they’d be so highly classified I couldn’t
share them with you.’ There are no lessons;
there’s just past experience that every person can use to live in the present and meet
the challenges and live the life that he or
she needs to do or wishes to do.”
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Many history departments across the
country don’t have a military historian and
offer that field only by means of adjunct or
part-time people. At others, Kohn says, the
military historian sometimes is made to
feel peripheral to the department’s programs. In a paper he presented to the Philanthropy Roundtable Higher Education
Conference in May 2007, he wrote, “Of
the history departments in the United
States rated in the top 20, only a handful
have [military] historians in tenure or
tenure-track positions.”
He believed such a curriculum could
thrive at UNC. “I guessed that this was a
university where I could not only accomplish my work, but grow in understanding
and improve in both my scholarship and
teaching,” he said.
ROTC students always have accounted
for a small percentage of the curriculum’s
majors. Kohn believes students are
attracted because the subject matter is of
great contemporary importance and is
inherently fascinating. “Peace is among the
oldest of human desires, and war is a seemingly inexplicable phenomenon so
destructive, so horrifying, and yet so frequent and so influential in human experience as to be truly puzzling,” he said.
Kohn joined the UNC faculty in 1991,
coming from a decade-long job as chief
historian for the Office of Air Force History at the Pentagon. While in Washington,
Kohn forged friendships and professional
relationships that have served him well
during his time in Chapel Hill. His specialties are 18th-century U.S. history and
the relationship between civil government
and the military.
Crook’s Corner
Casual Southern Dining
“At first glance, the Crook’s Corner menu
remains mostly vintage Bill Neal...
but a closer look reveals
the personal stamp of Bill Smith.
The combination is a winner.”
—Mid-Atlantic Country
Kohn plans to teach through the spring
of 2010, while working on a book, The
President at War: Presidential War Leadership
from George Washington to George Bush,
which analyzes the challenges of successful
war leadership by U.S. presidents.
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— Don Evans ’ 80
