Ideas
Whatever Happens in the Election, Get Ready for a Rocky Transition
Trump says if he loses, he won’t help hand over power, and if he wins, he'll root out government employees he deems disloyal to him.
Policy
No Clear Winner As Presidential Vote-Counting Continues Into Wednesday
Several senators with national-security posts win re-election.
Ideas
Great Power Competition Comes Home to America
Our leaders’ efforts to heal divisions among our fellow citizens are key to national defense.
Ideas
We Are Our Own Worst Enemy
America’s national security depends on our ability to turn today’s hyperpartisan division into tomorrow’s cooperation.
Ideas
Time to Rethink Arms Sales to Taiwan
Once, they might have tilted the military balance. Now they just destabilize the region.
Exclusive
Policy
Helicopters Over DC Protesters Broke Regulations While Commander was Driving Home, DC Guard Concludes
The D.C. National Guard and Pentagon IG are fighting over who to blame for the dangerous incident that symbolized Trump’s militarized response.
Ideas
Donald Trump is No Jack Kennedy. Or Khrushchev.
The president lacks the experience, character, credibility, and confidence to navigate our country through a Cuban Missile Crisis. We need Joe Biden.
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.
Policy
Trump’s Border Wall Is Costing Taxpayers Billions More Than Initial Contracts
Federal spending data shows modifications to contracts have increased the price of the border wall by billions, costing about five times more per mile than it did under previous administrations.
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.
Policy
Administration Rushes Out Guidelines for Ending Civil Service Protections
Just two days after the executive order, initial instructions are issued on converting career federal policy-making positions to at-will appointments.
Policy
‘Stunning’ Executive Order Enables Politicized Civil Service
President Trump's new directive allows thousands of federal jobs now filled through competition to be turned into at-will positions.
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
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
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?
Threats
Thousands of US Troops Will Remain in Afghanistan Past Christmas
They won't be home for Christmas. Trump's national security advisor says the president was only expressing a "desire" with that tweet.
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
The 20th Year of the Afghanistan War Should Be America’s Last
U.S. national security interests do not depend on the outcome of the peace talks. It’s time to come home.
Threats