National Security

Last week, President-elect Trump’s nominee for Secretary of State, ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson, underwent Senate confirmation hearings. Venues like The Washington Post were predictably critical, especially on the issue of human rights. But the critics seem to...

Abstract The next president should elevate the role of U.S. defense strategy and planning in the next administration toward the goal of developing a new strategic framework that assumes a long-term defense competition with both Russia and China. This...

Abstract To guide the development of the armed forces’ future, the incoming president will want to offer guidance to the Pentagon on grand strategy and the supporting principles and planning framework to size and shape the joint warfighting force....

Abstract Donald Trump’s unexpected victory in the 2016 U.S. presidential election will bring to the Oval Office a person with no past political experience. Having run on a foreign policy platform that, at times, challenged the established bipartisan orthodoxy...

Abstract The most important national security challenge for the next president will be rebuilding a domestic consensus on America’s role in the world. Unless the president can answer fundamental questions voters are asking, she or he will be hobbled...

The Weekly Standard The late 1980s and early ’90s were characterized by liberal optimism, if not triumphalism. The Berlin Wall had fallen and the Soviet Union had dissolved, marking the end of the Cold War. In 1989, Francis Fukuyama...

The National Security Council (NSC) staff was once called the Keepers of the Keys, managers of the coordinating process that is central to an administration’s ability to plan and conduct a successful grand strategy. The NSC has had...

The Washington Post We are former senior CIA analysts who, in our combined 23 years of service, have been privy to secrets that would amaze you. You will never hear them from us. We also have learned other critical, but...

Current History During his first campaign for the presidency in 2008, Barack Obama held out the promise of a “post-post-9/11 foreign policy” through which the United States would leave its obsession with terrorism behind and begin to focus on...

Hoover Institution On January 20, 2017, President-Elect Trump will inherit a powerful array of international challenges, capabilities, and opportunities. Insofar as there is any plausible focus within the modern federal government for the imposition of an overarching coherence on...