It has been 10 years since the US-led invasion of Iraq, which marked a turning point in the West’s so-called war on terror. The pretext of the Iraq war was security and freedom, but the bombastic and openly pronounced objective was no less than remaking the greater Middle East region. For the US, Iraq became a quagmire and a humiliation – a strategic and moral failure that the country has spent the last four years trying to forget. But how much has America’s calculus of war really changed? And as Africa becomes the new frontline in the ‘war on terror’, have the Europeans learnt from America’s mistakes? Empire explores the merits, objectives, costs and morality of these wars with our guests: John Nagl, a retired Lieutenant Colonel who co-authored the US army and Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual; Jean Marie Guehenno, the director of the Center of International Conflict Resolution at Columbia University, and former United Nations under secretary general for Peacekeeping Operations; Barbara Bodine, a professor at Princeton University and a former US Ambassador to the Republic of Yemen who also served with the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance in Iraq; and Christopher Hedges, a senior fellow at The Nation Institute, former New York Times Middle East bureau chief, and author of several books, including War is a Force That Gives us Meaning and Empire of Illusion.