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 Counterinsurgent: Could Major John Nagl Make His Ideas Work on the Ground in Iraq?

The New York Times Magazine
January 11, 2004

Maj. John Nagl approaches war pragmatically and philosophically, as a soldier and a scholar. He graduated close to the top of his West Point class in 1988 and was selected as a Rhodes scholar. He studied international relations at Oxford for two years, then ... (Read more)

The Wars in Photos

If you want to be stunned by war photography, and in the process reach a deeper understanding of what war means and does, the VII photo agency has just published an amazing book. It’s entitled War: ... (Read more)

The Ground They Fight On

War: USA, Afghanistan, Iraq
January 2004
(The following essay was published in the book “War: USA, Afghanistan, Iraq,” which features the work of photographers from the VII photo agency.)

Wars, like people, have many expressions. The Iraq conflict involved a diplomatic war at the United Nations ... (Read more)

New Deal: On North Korea, the U.S. Needs an Alternative to the Hawks’ Belligerent Rhetoric

The New Republic
December 22, 2003

It was a perfect day for a provocation. In late August, Norbert Vollertsen, a German human rights activist, traveled in a chartered bus from Seoul to Cholwon, just a few miles from the border with North Korea. His mission was simple: to launch a flock of hot air balloons, ... (Read more)

North Korea to Iraq

My latest stories include a political piece about North Korea, in The New Republic, as well as two brief stories in the Ideas issue of The New York Times Magazine.

—North Korea

—Project Eyes

—Thunder Run

Enemy Combatants

The New York Times Magazine
December 15, 2002

Should an American who is suspected of having links to Al Qaeda have the right to a lawyer and the right to not answer questions about coming attacks? The U.S. government has been holding two Americans incommunicado at military prisons. They have not been ... (Read more)

Thunder Run

The New York Times Magazine
December 14, 2003

A convention of military strategy is that you do not rush tanks into the center of a hostile city unless you wish to lose them. In 1994 the Russians learned this fatal lesson when they sent an armored column into Grozny, the capital of Chechnya, and guerrillas ... (Read more)

Project Eyes

The New York Times Magazine
December 14, 2003

During the invasion of Iraq, the American military displayed amazing technological superiority, firing missiles that flew nearly 1,000 miles before hitting their targets precisely, with a margin of error of just a few feet. Once the occupation of Iraq began, ... (Read more)

Post-Modern War Reporting

The lead of today’s story in The Washington Post refers to “rocket-launcher-equipped donkey carts” that were used to attack the Palestine and Sheraton hotels in Baghdad. The story describes it ... (Read more)

My Famous Interpreters, Cont.

Earlier this year, I happened to learn, belatedly, that my Baghdad interpreter, Salam Pax, was famous. This weekend’s issue of The New York Times Magazine brings 15 minutes of fame to another of my interpreters–Minka Baros, who worked ... (Read more)