Author: Peter Maass

I was born and raised in Los Angeles. In 1983, after graduating from the University of California at Berkeley, I went to Brussels as a copy editor for The Wall Street Journal/Europe. I left the Journal in 1985 to write for The New York Times and The International Herald Tribune, covering NATO and the European Union. In 1987 I moved to Seoul, South Korea, where I wrote primarily for The Washington Post. After three years in Asia I moved to Budapest to cover Eastern Europe and the Balkans. I spent most of 1992 and 1993 covering the war in Bosnia for the Post.

The Exodus From Ukraine

It is impossible to purge from your mind the sights and sounds of exodus.

We see them every day, as Ukrainians flee from what they fear will be extinction if they stay in their homes. We are just beginning to understand how justified their fears are; in towns that Russian forces have withdrawn ... (Read more)

Putin’s Endgame Is Not a Mystery. It’s Regime Survival.

The Intercept
March 12, 2022

HE IS THE president of a Slavic nation who takes advice from no one and gambles on a war that does not go as planned. Fierce resistance prevents his forces from seizing the capital he covets. Western sanctions send his economy into a tailspin, the middle class flees, ... (Read more)

Pentagon Professes Shock That U.S. Airstrikes Frequently Kill Civilians

The Intercept
Jan. 29, 2022

The Pentagon is not known for staging revivals of classic movies, but it just reenacted a famous scene from “Casablanca.”

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin — after months of news ... (Read more)

The Warning Lights Are Flashing Red for America

The Intercept
Jan. 6, 2022

IT WAS THE winter of 1991, and the country I was working in, the Soviet Union, was months away from its demise. Yet the collapse, so close, was unimaginable.

Moscow was frigid and miserable. The currency was a wreck, stores had empty shelves, and the Kremlin seemed ... (Read more)

“Love Thy Neighbor” — Epilogue

Love Thy Neighbor: A Story of War
By Peter Maass
Knopf 1996

Epilogue

In the course of writing this book, many friends have asked me what it is about, and I have had a hard time coming up with a precise answer. It is about many things, about war, about Bosnia, about politics and hatred ... (Read more)

The U.S. Military Is a Machine of Impunity

The Intercept
Dec. 26, 2021

My education in wartime savagery started in Bosnia in the 1990s. Reporting on the war, I visited death camps, saw civilians get shot and beaten, interviewed torturers, and was arrested multiple times for being in the wrong place and asking too many questions. ... (Read more)

“Love Thy Neighbor” (Pages 149-150)

Love Thy Neighbor: A Story of War
By Peter Maass
Knopf 1996

(Pages 149-150)

This was an intimate war. It was not a war in which fighter pilots took off from one country, flew a thousand miles to another country, dropped their payloads and then returned to the country they took off from, never seeing the ... (Read more)

As Omicron Surge Begins, Hospitals Have New Reason to Open Covid-19 Wards to Journalists

The Intercept
Dec. 19, 2021

Michael Dowling made an unorthodox move when the Covid-19 pandemic got underway. Dowling is the chief executive of the largest hospital network in New York, and he decided that instead of barring journalists from Northwell Health’s facilities, he would let a documentary ... (Read more)

Stanley McChrystal Accidentally Reveals the Dishonesty of U.S. Generals

The Intercept
Dec. 4, 2021

It is time to make a strange addition to the shortlist of essential documents on the dishonesty of America’s generals: a new book from retired Gen. Stanley McChrystal titled “Risk: A User’s Guide.”

McChrystal was removed from his command by President Barack Obama ... (Read more)

“The First Wave” Shows What We Haven’t Seen of Covid-19

The Intercept
Nov. 20, 2021

AT LONG ISLAND Jewish Medical Center, a loudspeaker announces an emergency in one of the rooms. It is March 2020, and the Covid-19 pandemic has just begun to take hold in the U.S. A team of nurses and doctors in the hospital is preparing a patient for ... (Read more)