This is a fascinating deep dive with author Tim Bakken on the toxic cultural of the United States military and West Point Academy. We talk about his riveting new book, The Cost of Loyalty, and the mindset that has created our ongoing missteps in every military intervention after World War Two.

Tim Bakken is a professor in the Department of Law at the United States Military Academy at West Point. Prior to his academic career, he practiced law in New York City, where he served as a prosecutor in the homicide bureau of the Kings County District Attorney’s Office (Brooklyn) and worked at law firms focusing on federal and commercial litigation. He has taught at several universities, including Ural State Law Academy in Yekaterinburg, Russia, and his subject areas include constitutional law and criminal law.

He has worked under the Department of State and European Union to train judges and prosecutors in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Department of Defense to establish a law department at the National Military Academy of Afghanistan, in Kabul. He has been a visiting researcher or scholar at New York Law School, Columbia Law School, the Australian National University College of Law, and the University of Sydney Law School.

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