Commentary

Looking at developments in Europe and the U.S.-European relationship today, like all things in history, in part we have been here before but in part what we are seeing is new. The current strains and issues in U.S.-European relations...

Piracy, a scourge that had been stamped out in the 19th century, still flourishes in those Hobbesian areas of the world where order and the “rule of law” do not exist. The seizure of a U.S.-flagged vessel, the MaerskAlabama,...

Addressing the American people as president for the first time on January 20, 2009, Barack Obama declared that “America must play its role in ushering in a new era of peace.” Two crises, already in motion, challenge that role....

The Dawn of the Nuclear Age The Nuclear Age began with the World War II Manhattan Project (1942–46), which culminated in the Trinity test on July 16, 1945, of the “Gadget” and the August 1945 bombings of Hiroshima and...

The last job I had with the Bush administration was coordinator for police training, judicial reform, and counternarcotics in Afghanistan. When I got the job, the National Security Council said, “It’s got three parts. First, you have to go...

Chairman Skelton, Mr. McHugh, it is a distinct privilege for me to appear again before this Committee. Like you, I am deeply concerned that the economic crisis that has affected the United States in particular and the international community...

NATO will never win the “best dressed” award among alliances. It is always in disarray. Now numbering 26 members, NATO, which turns 60 on April 4, is flailing in its efforts to address the Afghanistan nettle that, having been...

On February 12, 2009, FPRI’s Program on National Security held a conference on potential “defense showstoppers” for the Obama administration–critical issues that, if not fixed, could lead to a serious deterioration of American military capabilities. The event was hosted...

The secularization thesis is a pillar of modern social theory.  There are different versions of this thesis, but all hold that religion will fade away and/or become irrelevant to public life in the modern world.  In some countries, secularization...

Spencer Weart, Nuclear Fear: A History of Images (Harvard University Press) QC773.W43 1988. Fascinating, learned, and entertaining summary of the utopian hopes and hellish fears (viz. Godzilla) invoked by the dreams and realities of splitting the atom. Richard Rhodes, The Making of...