Ideas
The Best Tech for Troops (Needs an Easier Path to Reach Them)
The Pentagon must keep lowering barriers for startup companies, especially in artificial intelligence and machine learning — and help them stay in the game.
Ideas
The West Is Surprisingly Well-Equipped for Gray-Zone Deterrence
Authoritarian officials and oligarchs interact with Western nations in ways that give democratic governments leverage.
Ideas
The October (or November) Surprise Neither Trump Nor Biden Wants
We need independent, scrupulously apolitical intelligence analysis in the White House that can compete with our worst instincts.
Ideas
What Clinton’s Foreign Affairs Article May Mean for the Defense Budget
Her approach, more rebalancing rather than modernizing, avoids a simple zero-sum frame of defense vs. non-defense spending.
Ideas
How to Avoid a Violent Election Season
Beware the 'security dilemma.' Tell Americans that arming up, or posturing to do so against each other, could only make things worse.
Ideas
In A Post-COVID World, We Need AI More Than Ever
Artificial intelligence tools promise, among other things, to make the Pentagon more efficient.
Ideas
Want Real Security? Create Better Global Digital Rules and Norms
The longer the U.S. waits to throw its weight behind efforts to create rules for today’s digital competition, the less hope it has of retaining advantage.
Ideas
The Head of US Intelligence Has Ceased to Be an Honest Broker
The result has been grave damage to U.S. counterintelligence and electoral security efforts.
Ideas
Preserve the Jones Act
China’s burgeoning fleets underscore the importance of legislation that bolsters our own.
Ideas
As the US Slumps Away, China Subsumes African Security Arrangements
Organizations created to fight terror groups after 9/11 are becoming conduits for Beijing’s surveillance and influence.
Ideas
The Right’s Disinformation Machine Is Getting Ready for Trump to Lose
QAnon has become a linchpin of far-right media—and the effort to preemptively delegitimize the election.
Ideas
What We Don’t Know About Military Innovation
It’s time to take stock of the Pentagon’s various rapid-acquisition efforts.
Ideas
To Reboot Arms Control, Start with Small Steps
Stop accusing. Set aside questions of structure. Start talking.
Ideas
Why Donald Trump’s Debt is a National Security Risk
If you owe someone a lot of money, they have leverage over you. To whom, exactly, does the U.S. president owe this money?
Ideas
The Third Coronavirus Surge Has Arrived
This week’s COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations make clear that the U.S. is once again sinking deeper into the pandemic.
Ideas
'Esper's Lie?' I Don't Think So
After nearly a generation of dominating focus on counterinsurgency operations, the U.S. military is underprepared in 2020 for great power competition.
Ideas
Washington Should Avoid a Self-Inflicted Wound in the Sinai
Withdrawing from the Multinational Force and Observers might be penny-wise, but would certainly be pound-foolish.
Ideas
Will Commanders Trust Their New AI Weapons and Tools?
A study of DOD’s artificial-intelligence efforts reveals a key gap.
Ideas
China or Your Soul? Pompeo’s Thunder Falls Flat on Corporate Ears
Companies keep choosing to serve the Chinese market — and that’s likely not good news for the Pentagon.
Ideas