When Barack Obama spoke out against “perpetual war” in his inaugural address last week, it gave some hope that our policy of war-mongering could change—even as others pointed out that we continue to expand drone warfare and covert ops.

As part of a panel of experts on Nation blogger Melissa Harris-Perry’s MSNBC show, Nation editor and publisher Katrina vanden Heuvel said we need to ask ourselves if global war is the really the way to fight terrorism. How do we keep tabs on bloated defense spending, escalating drone warfare and special ops?

—Alec Luhn

Nation Institute fellow Jeremy Scahill has investigated cover ops in his new documentary, which won the Sundance Cinematography Award.