Ideas
Who’s Next? Trump Crossed a Line with Soleimani’s Assassination
The Iranian was much more than a general. Who else is the U.S. president willing to kill?
Ideas
The US Recently Made a Smart Move Toward Iran. Killing Soleimani Wasn’t It
The decision to focus on Tehran’s proxies in the wake of the embassy attack was the right course.
Ideas
Iran Loses Its Indispensable Man
The killing of Qassem Soleimani robs the regime of the central figure for its ambitions in the Middle East.
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
In Iraq, the US Gets Hit Where It Hurts
The storming of the U.S. embassy in Baghdad demonstrated that America doesn’t have a monopoly on pressure.
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
Inside the Collapse of Trump’s Korea Policy
When it comes to America’s last-ditch effort to prevent North Korea from becoming a nuclear power, timing has been everything. Now time’s running out.
Ideas
Put US Post-INF Missiles into Production
The U.S. has waited too long to mimic Chinese intermediate-range weapons.
Ideas
The Lessons of the Afghanistan Papers
Americans need leaders who can tell them how and when they will decide to pull the plug.
Ideas
Can Military Leaders Handle the Truth About Afghanistan?
Our recent poll suggests that public confidence in the military is high, but that it may be on shaky ground.
Ideas
Russia Is Waging Asymmetric Warfare Against the US — And We’re Letting Them Win
We must do more to harden against these attacks on our economy, institutions, and the public.
Ideas
What We Talk About When We Talk About Russia
American conservatives who find themselves identifying with Putin’s regime refuse to see the country for what it actually is.
Ideas
The Trump Administration’s ‘Denuclearization’ Is A Road to Nowhere
U.S. policy will remain stuck as long as the administration continues to convince itself that the North’s nuclear dismantlement can be achieved on Washington’s timeline.
Ideas
Under Trump, the US Has Become a Leading Source of Global Instability
The country is now a known unknown, increasing the risk of crises from the Middle East to East Asia to Central America, a new survey suggests.
Ideas
Add Economic Policy to Deterrence Planning
As crisis brews overseas, U.S. leaders often turn first to sanctions and the like. But the Pentagon acts as if economic coercion doesn’t matter.
Ideas
The FBI Needs to Be Reformed
The inspector general’s report identified real weaknesses, particularly with the policies and procedures that govern investigations of political campaigns.
Ideas
US Forces Can’t Hide from Ubiquitous Satellites. They Need to Fool Them.
A new generation of deception-and-denial ideas is needed to counter global monitoring from space.
Ideas
The Foreign-Policy Parallels Between Trump and the Ayatollahs Are Uncanny
Neither the U.S. president nor Iran's leaders are as willing to go toe-to-toe as they might seem.
Ideas