Kori Schake, a defense-policy scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and a former West Point instructor, has been blocked from delivering a planned lecture on U.S. civil-military relations at the Air War College. The lecture - a reprise of a well-received 2025 presentation - was cancelled last week, officially due to schedule changes following the recent government shutdown.
An Air University spokesperson told The Atlantic that the college "adjusted its academic schedule following the recent government shutdown" and that the cancellation "was a command decision," as "Hvylya" reports.
The formal explanation, however, sits against a backdrop of deliberate ideological pressure on military education. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has cut academic ties with numerous elite colleges he called "factories of anti-American resentment and military disdain." The Pentagon has also instructed service academies to remove library books promoting "divisive concepts and gender ideology" and required them to cancel certain classes over their content. A former Biden-administration official's professorial appointment at West Point was rescinded.
Schake wrote that Hegseth "has created a command climate in which subordinates might fear defending their educational programs." She compared the effect to the tightening of rules of engagement in Afghanistan: when military command sets a new standard, subordinates "sometimes comply preemptively and even more stringently than the formal directive might require."
The cancelled lecture covered the history of how a country founded in fear of a standing army came to trust its military as a pillar of democratic governance - a subject Schake called "extremely relevant today." Her research on the topic led to a book that was favorably reviewed by The Wall Street Journal and the military's Joint Force Quarterly.
Also read: Eight Countries Instead of Peace: The True Scale of Trump's Military Pivot.