Ideas

Is Trump’s Hard Bargaining Fraying US-South Korean Ties?

President Trump is undermining his peace initiative with North Korea by abruptly raising the cost to South Korea for U.S. security.

Ideas

Rethink 2%: NATO ‘Defense Spending’ Should Favor Cyber

Today, a dollar or euro spent on network security goes farther than one spent on conventional arms.

Ideas

Bring a Measure of Justice to the End of the Afghanistan War

An Iraq War veteran reminds us of the debt owed to Afghans who helped American troops.

Ideas

Russia Plans More Arctic UAVs

Moscow’s equivalent of DARPA wants a cold-weather drone that can stay aloft for four days.

Ideas

ISIS Might Come Back. That’s Just One More Reason to Get Out of Syria

U.S. military intervention cannot address the grievances that fuel ISIS. Nor does it protect American interests or serve our defense.

Ideas

Congress May Make It Impossible to End a War

A proposal by the Senate majority leader would enmesh American troops in a Gordian knot.

Ideas

The Moment the Transatlantic Charade Ended

At the Munich Security Conference, Europe and the Trump administration stopped pretending to respect each other.

Ideas

Ep. 38: Beyond South China Sea tensions, part two: The CCP vision and the future of Chinese history

How the world's greatest 15th-century navy is linked to the game-playing robot that put Beijing's AI visions into overdrive.

Ideas

Sunni Jihad Is Going Local

Future extremists will focus not on exporting violence to the West, but on building influence in their own communities.

Ideas

Trump’s Emergency Declaration is Going to Run into Four Hurdles

They fall into the broad buckets of legal, legislative, political, and constitutional issues.

Ideas

Why Withdrawing from the INF Treaty Might Be Unconstitutional

No one really knows who gets to cancel treaties, but courts may defer to a Congress that prefers not to.

Ideas

Cyber Deterrence Done Right: The Coordinated Actions Against Huawei

By marshalling the collective power of its allies, the U.S. may have finally found a model for imposing costs on cyber adversaries.

Ideas

Two Ideas That Might Stop a Post-INF Arms Race, and One That Won’t

Discard the pipe dream of INF-plus-China. Focus instead on keeping new missiles too far away to strike.

Ideas

How a Forever War Ends

Trump might well wrap up the war in Afghanistan, but only by giving up on America’s original goals.

Ideas

Russian-Style Kleptocracy Is Infiltrating America

When the U.S.S.R. collapsed, Washington bet on the global spread of democratic capitalist values—and lost.

Ideas

Ep. 37: Beyond South China Sea tensions, part one: The Tinderbox

The episode is broken up into three parts: how did it all begin?; what's in it for Beijing?; and where to go and what to know from here.

Ideas

Startups Should Love Government Work

New pathways to federal business are helping young companies thrive — and the government to get what it needs.

Ideas

South Korea Becomes a Testing Ground for Trump’s Grievances With Allies

The motto for the U.S.–South Korea alliance isn’t “We go together, if I get enough money as reimbursement,” one analyst observed.

Ideas

Two Ways the Venezuelan Crisis Might End

President Maduro seems likely to hold power only as long as he can pay off military elites.

Ideas

Trump’s Cyber Strategy Is Far Too Optimistic

The director of national intelligence’s threat assessment exposes two of its pillars as convenient fictions.