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

The All-Too-Human Reason Nuclear Material Isn’t Secure Enough

Every facility that holds it is vulnerable to security complacency.

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.

Ideas

NATO Needs to Move Two Brigades East, and That’s Just a Start

The world is changing around the alliance; here's what its leaders must do to keep up.

Ideas

Keep America's Top Military Officer Out of the Chain of Command

I lived through Goldwater-Nichols. Congress should know why it's still a bad idea to give the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who advises the president, that kind of power.

Ideas

The Dangerous Myth of 'America Must Lead'

A world in which the forces of light vie against the forces of darkness, with America charged with ensuring the triumph of good over evil—that isn’t Obama’s world.

Ideas

Putin Got Exactly What He Wanted in Syria

Russia pulls out of Syria, going home with the leverage Putin came for. The U.S.-led coalition must seize the moment.

Ideas

Hey, America: Don’t Forget Your Soldiers While Spending Billions on Future Weapons

AUSA President Gordon Sullivan describes what a smaller, busier Army means for American power, global instability, and the troops themselves.

Ideas

Why Does Obama Fight Wars He Deems Unwinnable?

The uncertainty he projects about his policies undermine the half-hearted military efforts he undertakes.

Ideas

An Isolationist President, In Love With Drones and Special Forces

Obama’s no realist; history suggests little promise for the path he has chosen for the U.S.

Ideas

The End of the US-Dominated Order in the Middle East

Critics say the Obama doctrine has given Russia the upper hand in the region; the president says Moscow’s welcome to try to use it.

Ideas

The Hidden Costs of Obama's Vision of American Power

Grand strategies are judged by their consequences, not by their intentions, and in the Middle East the consequences are not looking pretty.