Ideas
Who should coordinate Europe’s defense buildup?
The best candidate, at least for the near term, has granular understanding of existing forces and informal links to suppliers.
Ideas
‘The Bomb Lady’ shows how immigrants power national defense
Just when the United States should be nurturing this source of strength, we are doing the opposite.
Ideas
To build 'peace through strength,' restore this pillar of US power
Administration cuts are breaking the federal-academic partnership that incubates U.S. technology and talent.
Ideas
How China’s new rare-earth export controls target the Pentagon—and the world
The licensing system replaces a cruder, less flexible means of economic leverage.
Ideas
The Trump administration’s lie-detector campaign is more likely to hurt than help national security
Pseudo-scientific polygraph tests may discourage internal candor and divert investigative energy while failing to stop leaks.
Ideas
How the National Guard’s domestic missions build deterrence
The Guard’s citizen-soldiers and -airmen boost American resiliency, complicating any adversary’s calculations.
Ideas
Defense reconciliation bill begins rebuild and transformation of our military
The cost of deterring war will always be dwarfed by the cost of fighting one.
Ideas
The Army’s role in the Pacific
Deterrence can’t be achieved with maritime or air systems alone.
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What the R&D budget proposal says about the future of war
The Pentagon’s research-and-development section heralds several quiet, monumental shifts.
Ideas
The Israel-Iran war may have saved both countries’ embattled leaders
External threats tend to heal internal divisions—and shatter dreams of “regime change.”
Ideas
The White House is looking for savings in the wrong place
The main acquisition challenge isn’t how the military buys weapons, but what it aims to do with them.
Ideas
Why Saturday's strike on Iran was perfectly timed
The president waited until Israel set the conditions for success.
Ideas
For 250 years, it’s been ‘change or lose’ for our military. Here’s what needs changing now
A former commandant and a futurist take stock of Spider’s Web, Rising Lion, and more.
Ideas
China's burgeoning drone arsenal shows power of civil-military fusion
Trump's recent executive orders are just one step in a race against a competitor with a very long lead.
Ideas
Is gun violence depressing military recruiting?
Perhaps the problem is not that young people are insufficiently patriotic, but that they have been fighting a war, daily, for their entire lives.
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The military must remain nonpartisan. America depends on it
The soldiers who cheered partisan applause lines at Fort Bragg, and their leaders, erred in a spectacular way.
Ideas
SecDef wants to insource work—but doesn't understand why it was outsourced
The Pentagon has been hemorrhaging internal talent for years. Fixing acquisition starts by fixing that.
Ideas