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We Never Thought Training Syrians Would Be Easy
When it comes to building capable foreign forces, one can have all the will, skill, money, and allies – but no guarantees.
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In Defense Of The ISIS Intelligence Whistleblowers
The entire profession is nervous about allegations that could mean top brass at a combatant command violated the sacrosanct professional code of intelligence.
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The Pope Is Lining Up to Ban Nuclear Weapons
Under Pope Francis the Catholic church is moving away from Cold War nuclear acceptance faster than Congress and the Obama administration.
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Give Troops The Pay and Benefits They Deserve
The Senate is all that stands between troops and the pay and benefits they actually deserve. Military families have done enough and the future force is at stake.
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How This US Navy Admiral Gives In to China Is Exactly What's Wrong With US Power Today
Authoritarian regimes are taking advantage of US passivity to gain territory, a phenomenon many thought extinct.
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Kabul's Mood Turns Toward Despair
From shopkeepers to university lecturers, the question of whether security is improving in an increasingly independent Afghanistan was met with just one response: Things are actually worse.
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Obama Needs an ISIS War Czar Before It’s Too Late
Obama’s ISIS fight looks more like Iraq in 2003 than in 2007, when military and civilian leaders were synced hip-to-hip.
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Want To Intervene in Syria? Answer These Questions First
Even as the cries for action rise, the mistakes of past interventions — in Libya, Iraq, and elsewhere — demand forethought.
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Today’s Terrorists Want To Inspire
How terrorism has—and hasn’t—changed, from the Algerian War to ISIS.
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What Drone-Strike Data from Yemen and Pakistan Says about the ISIS Fight
Washington's drone program has cost a great deal of blood and money with little to show for it. Absent a political strategy, the effort in Syria will likely fare no better.
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Why Xi Won’t Get What China Wants Most When He Meets Obama
The next summit is unlikely to give China the outcomes it wants most, because what it wants the United States is not prepared to give.
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The 'War of the Imagination' at the Heart of the Struggle Against ISIS
The true theater of war for the Islamic State is not on earth, but in the heavens, argues popular and controversial scholar of religion, Reza Aslan.
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The Islamic State's Recruiting Has Hit Britain Particularly Hard
British Muslims are caught in a pincer movement: with public and government suspicion on one side, and a seductive and supposedly empowering ideology on the other.
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Yemen's Refugee Crisis Is Spilling Over Into Somalia
There are now nearly 1.5 million displaced people in Yemen, though their plight is no less dire than those pouring out of the battlefields of Iraq and Syria.
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The Rules of Cyberspace Just Got A Bit Clearer
The UN's new recommendations guiding state activity in cyberspace break new ground in three important areas.
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In Syria, ‘Containment' Has Produced A Predictable Deluge of Refugees
The West’s governments saw this coming more than two years ago, and have done little to prevent it.
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Will US-Iran Diplomacy Go Beyond the Nuclear Deal?
A conversation about the shifting diplomatic landscape with James Dobbins, former assistant Secretary of State for Europe.
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‘A Better Iran Deal’ Is Just Wishful Thinking
The probability of sanctions eroding if Congress torpedoes the international agreement is greater than the prospect of tougher sanctions.
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What Congress Can Learn from the Military About Cybersecurity
As it stands, the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act won’t much improve information-sharing. Here's how to change that.
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