Welcome to USMA Athena
USMA Athena is a secure digital service managed by the United States Military Academy Library to make the work of USMA scholars freely available, while also ensuring these resources are organized to preserve the legacy of USMA scholarship. The mission of USMA Athena is to showcase the academic impact and intellectual capital that has become synonymous with the celebrated heritage of educational prowess attributed to the Long Gray Line. Scholarship submitted to USMA Athena benefits from added visibility and discoverability via Google Scholar in addition to the use of persistent URLs that will provide enduring access to the work over time.
Recent Submissions
Item REPORT: West Point Undergraduate Historical Review, Volume 016 (Spring 2026)-Back Matter(West Point Press, 2026)About the JournalItem Mao Zedong and the Yan’an Rectification Movement.(West Point Press, 2026)In 1938, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) convened the Sixth Plenum, a meeting that marked a decisive shift in the party’s strategic orientation. At this meeting, representatives from Moscow and the Comintern, the international communist coalition, withdrew their support for CCP leader Wang Ming following his military losses to the Japanese. This decision enabled Mao Zedong and his political faction to expand their power and influence within the party. Mao emerged from the 1938 Sixth Plenum in a strong position of power within the CCP, aided by the support of international communists, particularly the Soviets. Yet four years later, in early 1942, Mao delivered a speech criticizing the CCP’s reliance on Soviet communist ideology —marking the beginning of the Yan’an Rectification Movement. This movement was Mao’s means of indoctrinating the CCP with his own version of communism to consolidate and solidify his position within the party. Mao initiated this campaign because he understood that a leader without a monopoly on ideology could easily lose political standing and control. Therefore, the Yan’an Rectification Movement represented an innovative political strategy, as Mao transformed a contingent position within the CCP into an ideologically entrenched one, thereby institutionalizing his power and authority.Item In Pursuit of “Self-Reliant National Defense:” South Korea’s Strategic Catch-up Under Park Chung-hee, 1962-1979.(West Point Press, 2026)This paper seeks to understand the driving forces behind South Korea’s strategic catch-up, investigating the nature of ROK economic and military growth under Park Chung-hee and ascertaining how important the policies and leadership of the Park regime were in that process.Item The Iron Lifeline: How Railroads Sustained Mead’s Army in the Gettysburg Campaign.(West Point Press, 2026)When most people think of the Battle of Gettysburg, they imagine soldiers locked in fierce combat across the ridges and fields of Pennsylvania, or generals making split-second decisions that shaped the course of the Civil War. Yet one of the most influential figures in the Union’s success never set foot on the battlefield. Brigadier General Herman Haupt, the man in charge of the Military Railway Department, operated behind the lines to ensure that the Union Army could move, fight, and surviveItem Atomic Cowboys: The Reality of Truman's Nuclear Monopoly.(West Point Press, 2026)This essay argues that there was a clear disconnect between the expectations of policy makers and war planners over the realities that the US nuclear program could bring to the table.
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