National Security

Despite all the fascination with new technologies and religious extremism, there is little new in war. So often, great ideas have origins that can be seen in ancient history, going back further than Herodotus or Thucydides. This sparkling book...

Even as the Obama administration continues to ponder just how it might respond to the turn of events in Syria in light of Russia’s ongoing intervention there, it has studiously avoided addressing a second, far more significant challenge that...

During the recent Democratic presidential debate, Bernie Sanders suggested that Americans “look to countries like Denmark, like Sweden and Norway, and learn from what they have accomplished for their working people.” Hillary Clinton, however, thought the policy solutions would be found...

When two great powers jostle, their allies watch. Not out of enjoyment for the spectacle but out of selfish interest, they monitor the development of that rivalry to decide how to align themselves. Alliances often change following the outcome,...

There were few surprises in the Democratic debate. Hillary Clinton was by far the most polished speaker, though whether she said much of substance was an entirely different matter. Her major message, oft repeated through the evening, was “vote...

Nearly two millennia ago, the Romans built the Arch of Triumph in Palmyra, Syria. According to Picturesque Palestine, Sinai, and Egypt, published in 1881, “The wonder in these ancient ruins is not that so much has fallen, but that anything...

Our book Lessons Encountered: Learning from the Long War was produced in response to two questions from General Martin Dempsey, then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs:  what were the costs and benefits of the campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, and...

Abstract As the Foreign Policy Research Institute celebrates its 60th anniversary, we reprint FPRI founder Robert Strausz-Hupe’s inaugural essay from Orbis: A Journal of World Affairs. In that year, 1957, most observers believed that that the outcome of the...

Abstract First published in 1999 in the Naval War College Review, this article is republished unchanged here as an example of how geopolitical reasoning can be used to make predictions about the future. The article first reviews the development...

Abstract This article is excerpted from the author’s book, The Revenge of Geography, published by Random House in 2012. Kaplan wrote in his preface: “As political upheavals accumulate and the world becomes seemingly more unmanageable, with incessant questions as...