Ideas
Great Powers Must Talk to Each Other About AI
Even as they compete, major militaries have reason to cooperate: to avoid misunderstanding and to establish best practices and pragmatic parameters.
Ideas
2020 Dems Need To Get Up To Speed on Nuclear Weapons. Fast.
Front-runners have displayed key misunderstandings, while other candidates have shied away from the topic.
Ideas
While ‘Arctic Exceptionalism’ Melts Away, the US Isn't Sure What It Wants Next
Global competition is coming to the northern polar region. U.S. policymakers are not clear on a fundamental question about its future.
Policy
A Split-Screen Moment For Trump As Impeachment Trial Begins
The president is speaking at an economic forum as the Senate begins to debate whether to remove him from office.
Ideas
Sending Troops Back to the Middle East Won’t Stop Iran
Knee-jerk deployments only distract from the president’s bigger priorities: China and Russia.
Ideas
The Global Race for Big National-Security Ideas Is On
The United States faces genuinely new challenges—but tries to understand them using outmoded theories from a bygone era.
Ideas
Building Post-INF Missiles Would Be a Waste, or Worse
New U.S. intermediate-range ground-launched missiles would deliver more undesirable effects than tactical utility.
Ideas
What Motivates Chinese Peacekeeping?
China’s unusual status as a top contributor of both funds and troops to the UN's peacekeeping program has stirred suspicion.
Ideas
5G Is Where China and the West Finally Diverge
The rollout of speedy new cellular networks is a geopolitical turning point, but neither Trump nor the public yet recognizes this.
Ideas
What US Intelligence Thought 2020 Would Look Like
A 2004 National Intelligence Council report was eerily prescient in some ways, and totally off in others.
Ideas
A Bigger Foreign-Policy Mess Than Anyone Predicted
In the 2010s, global affairs turned out far worse than the most pessimistic scenario foretold by U.S. intelligence experts.
Ideas
Progress, Peril, Hope: The Nuclear Decade in Review
U.S. policies that restrained and shrank atomic arsenals have been abandoned. Yet there are hopeful trends as well.
Ideas
Best of 2019: Ideas
Revisit some of the best op-eds and commentary we had the privilege of publishing over the past year.
Ideas
Best of 2019: Defense One Radio
Review the year that was — and consider what's next — with episodes from our award-winning podcast.
Ideas
Put US Post-INF Missiles into Production
The U.S. has waited too long to mimic Chinese intermediate-range weapons.
Policy
Democratic Candidates Sound Off on China
Three of the seven 2020 candidates at the debate argued the U.S. needs an international coalition to deal with Beijing.
Threats
US Military Should Deepen Its Use of Deception, Pacific Air Forces General Says
“Gadget" culture won’t beat China, says Gen. Charles Q. Brown.
Threats
Ep. 61: Influence operations in 2020
In 2016, Moscow sowed division with fake news. Today, Russian agents simply reflect the things Americans say about each other.
Science & Tech