Commentary

Gray, it seems, is the new black. The concept of “gray zone” conflict has generated significant attention and controversy recently, within both the U.S. government and the broader strategic studies community. Some analysts have identified gray zone conflict as...

The security of the Baltic States has become a Western priority since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2014. Since then, defenses have been oiled, improved, and stand alert. NATO forces have been stationed in the region and to...

When Taiwanese voters went to the polls on January 16, 2016, they did something that has become admirably routine in Taiwan’s robust democracy: mandating a change of the party in power and setting the stage for another peaceful transition...

This is the second in a series of three essays on the challenge of strategic foreign policy planning for the next administration. In Part One, I described problems with the national security decision-making process under the current president, then...

A 1994 exposé published in the Russian language newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda asked, “Will Kim Il-sung Explode Our Atomic Bomb?” Today one might substitute “Iran” for “Russia” given the Islamic Republic’s continuing aspirations in the realms of nuclear weapon and...

Photo Credit: www.kremlin.ru Relations between China and Russia became noticeably closer in the past year and, if the numerous agreements they have appended their signatures to come to fruition, they are apt to become still closer in 2016. Arms Sales...

Executive Summary It may have been William F. Buckley, Jr., who observed that Tocqueville’s Democracy in America is as oft cited as it is infrequently read. Something similar might be observed about Containment, the doctrine articulated by George F....

________________________________________ “Don’t criticize what you don’t understand, son.” -Elvis Presley _____________________________________ Asked about Russia’s Syrian intervention, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper acerbically turned on President Vladimir Putin, whom he and others seem to regard as Geopolitical Russia incarnate....

(Photo courtesy of Lokal_Profil)    As small states in a challenging neighborhood, the three Baltic states – Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania – rely heavily on the collective transatlantic security order to counter the Russian threat. The dynamics of this...

The ongoing debate about whether or not Russia’s little green men and so-called hybrid warfare are sufficient to invoke NATO’s Article 5 has caused much concern in the Baltic States about how the rest of NATO would respond to...