This story appears in the November/December 2016 issue of National Geographic History magazine. Sparta’s enemies ... A state run by an inflexible military regime, whose people existed almost ...

This won't be the first time politics has endangered our professional military. What can we learn from the past?

A native of Raleigh, North Carolina, Frank Blazich, Jr. is a curator of Military History at the National Museum of American History. A veteran of the U.S. Air Force, he holds a doctorate in modern ...