Ideas

Cutting Language Training Is the Latest Foolish Retreat from Global Engagement

Cancelling bought-and-paid-for air tickets to study-abroad programs is the latest Trump administration blow to programs that support strategic understanding.

Ideas

For their National Interests, the US and China Must Continue to Engage

Four former Congressmen return from a China trip with new perspectives.

Ideas

How to Step Back from the Brink with Iran

Right now, everything both sides do to strengthen their defenses looks to the other side like preparation for attack.

Ideas

House Democrats Want To Kill This More Useable Nuke. They’re Right.

There are no good arguments for the W76-2 warhead, and quite a few good ones against.

Ideas

Iran Has Options and It’s Starting to Use Them

Washington’s “maximum pressure” campaign has not forced Tehran to yield—in fact, it’s done the opposite.

Ideas

Europe's Elections Suggest US Shouldn’t Be Complacent in 2020

The lesson is not that elections are secure, but that Russian and other subversives are choosy about when and how they engage.

Ideas

Deterrence Is Failing — Partly Because Iran Has No Idea What the US Really Wants

Successful deterrence requires clear delineation of acceptable and unacceptable behaviors. That needs to start, pronto.

Ideas

Vetting Foreigners’ Facebook Feeds Won’t Make Americans Safer

The federal government wants visa applicants to cough up their social-media handles.

Ideas

Trump’s Efforts at Election Tampering Are Growing Bolder

Having exploited foreign assistance in 2016 and gotten away with it, the president is already trying it again in the 2020 race.

Ideas

The US Military Emits More Carbon than Sweden

Even as it begins to grapple with climate change, the Defense Department remains the world’s single largest consumer of oil.

Ideas

Buttigieg Splits From the Progressives on Foreign Policy

He articulated a values-based liberal internationalism, even as he sometimes struggled to fill in the details.

Ideas

The US Wants to Sell Taiwan the Wrong Weapons

The proposal to send tanks, and not A2/AD weapons, exposes a flawed American strategy.

Ideas

The CBP Theft Is Exactly What Privacy Experts Said Would Happen

The more information the government collects, the more attractive that information is to bad actors.

Ideas

Trump’s New Arctic Policy Has a Familiar Ring

Administration officials are talking tough on Russia and China, while picking fights with allies that are making U.S. goals harder to achieve.

Ideas

Save This One Piece of the INF Treaty

Preserving the ballistic-missile ban would reduce the danger of leaving the treaty — and light a path to its replacement.

Ideas

States Must Explain When a Cyber Attack Might Draw a Violent Reprisal

Without clear explanations that affirm rules of the road, countries make it easier for conflicts to spiral out of control.

Ideas

A New Industrial Base Is Taking Shape. Call It the Military-AI Complex.

The most essential Pentagon suppliers will be the ones that master robotics and artificial intelligence.