National Security

As winter temperatures have (belatedly) arrived here on the East Coast, the temptation to binge-watch multiple episodes of past or present shows has increased. The recent uptick in quality scripted programming, along with easy access to older shows, means...

This is the first in a series of three essays on the challenge of strategic foreign policy planning for the next administration. Here in Part One, I briefly describe problems with the national security decision-making process under the current...

The U.S. Navy, with 280 ships, is now far too small to effectively protect this country’s vital interests in the Pacific, Atlantic, Mediterranean, Persian Gulf and Arabian Sea. Yet on Dec. 14 Defense Secretary Ash Carter ordered the Navy to cut...

The first great struggle between the Rebel Alliance and the Galactic Empire ended with the destruction of the Death Star and an apparent victory for the Rebels at the Battle of Endor. Yet we now know that the struggle has raged...

  The final episode of this year’s worst reality television show — the GOP presidential primary contest — airs on CNN tonight. The final Republican primary debate of the year will likely bring more of the same: lots of colorful...

Some of the most vulnerable US allies, located near regional revisionists in Europe and Asia, are beginning to rethink their security strategies. A combination of obstreperous revisionist powers in their vicinity and a distracted and solipsistic United States far...

In 1812, at Lynmouth, a coastal village in the south of England, the Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley spent hours gluing together strips of silk to make a hot-air balloon. He fastened a wick soaked in spirit, and then...

The attacks in Paris are yet another reminder that we face enemies who cannot be deterred. The certainty of their own death did not deter the Islamist terrorists who killed in the streets of Paris. But the failure of...

In August 1941, Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt met off the coast of Newfoundland to outline a shared vision for the post-World War II era. The British prime minister was so thrilled to see the American president that, in the...

In 1993, during the brutal civil war in Bosnia, the United Nations declared the Bosnian Muslim town of Srebrenica to be a “safe area” for civilians, protected by several hundred Dutch peacekeepers. Two years later, on July 11, 1995, Bosnian Serb...