Ideas

How the US and China Can Talk Each Other Out of a Nuclear Arms Race

By striving for strategic stability, Beijing and Washington can relieve the pressures of oneupmanship and the risk of accidental escalation.

Ideas

The Hell After ISIS

Even as the militant group loses ground in Iraq, many Sunnis say they have no hope for peace. One family’s story shows why.

Ideas

The Legacy of Obama's 'Worst Mistake'

It's not just in Libya—the last 15 years of U.S. military interventions has revealed a troubling gap in the way America goes to war.

Ideas

Global Defense Spending Is Getting Murkier

Many of the governments that are spending more on their militaries are also the least transparent.

Ideas

The Mistake that Decapitated Pentagon Innovation — and How to Fix It

When the Packard Commission demoted the director of defense engineering and research, they essentially elevated gunsmithing over strategic marksmanship.

Ideas

Harvard’s Love-Hate Relationship with the US Military

The gap between America’s elite educational institutions and its military remains wide. Harvard faces a moral imperative to help close it.

Ideas

Divert Course: Beijing Needs A Way To Save Face in the South China Sea

It will take U.S. help and a politically difficult climb-down, but it will help China escape the blind alley its imprudent policies have steered it toward.

Ideas

How to Turn The Heat Down in the South China Sea

These five concrete steps can keep tensions from becoming war — if the U.S. acts.

Ideas

Don’t Let the Pentagon Become the Next Enron

Bad financial assumptions and unwillingness to make hard choices threaten to undermine national security.

Ideas

How Should the World Respond to Terrorism?

We invert the classic Q&A to explore the complexities influencing global responses to terrorism today.

Ideas

Don't Let China Steal the US Military's Logistical Edge

It's time to harden defenses against hackers seeking data and state-owned companies buying up key suppliers.

Ideas

Is That All There Is? Obama’s Disappointing Nuclear Legacy

The biggest roadblock to making the world safer from nuclear weapons turned out to be the president's own team.

Ideas

Let’s Not Give Suicide Bombers So Much Credit—Sometimes They Have No Strategy

The Brussels attackers may have been responding to territorial losses in Iraq and Syria, but that's not the only possible scenario.

Ideas

The FBI Should Tell Apple About the iPhone Vulnerability, If It Can

White House cybersecurity guidelines suggest disclosure, but the feds may not actually have the information.

Ideas

Genocide, Empty Threats, and a Warning to Obama, Clinton, and Trump

I watched America’s broken promise fuel Radovan Karadzic's terror in Bosnia.

Ideas

It's Time for China to Turn Nuclear-Security Pledges into Reality

Beijing's made a good start, but must buckle down before terror groups exploit corruption to devastating effect.

Ideas

ISIS Is Using the Media Against Itself

It doesn’t matter if the coverage that follows an attack is negative. For ISIS, any coverage is good coverage.

Threats

What Trump Got Right About Brussels

Trump’s diagnosis of the attack makes sense. But the proposals he and Ted Cruz offered in response do not.

Ideas

Not Just Trump: The Chilling Rise in Global Authoritarianism

Terrorism and drone war are feeding a larger sense of insecurity, driving some to xenophobia and jingoism.