National Security

These remarks were delivered at a history institute for high school teachers on Ethical Dilemmas in American Warfare,” April 18-19, 2015, sponsored jointly by the Foreign Policy Research Institute’s Butcher History Institute and the First Division Museum at Cantigny,...

As the United States is finding out with some regularity, it is not easy to defeat an enemy that avoids battles. Targeting such an enemy is difficult not because it is technically complicated but because it is strategically of...

This essay is based on a presentation to a history institute  for teachers on “Ethical Dilemmas in American Warfare,” April 2015, sponsored by the Foreign Policy Research Institute’s Butcher History Institute, the First Division Museum at Cantigny, and Carthage...

We live in a transitional period in the history of human conflicts. Military robotics and cyber capabilities constitute a Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) that will permanently alter the nature of warfare. The United States, which leads in the...

If we see that tyrants lack hope, making them myopic in their historical outlook, we might also argue that their actions are circumscribed to their dominions. Tyrants, in other words, may be only local thugs and thus have less impact...

Over the past decade or more, leading academic foreign policy realists have argued for US strategic retrenchment. Retrenchment is a strategy designed to reduce a country’s international and military costs and commitments. This can be done by cutting defense...

Iran hawks are already out in force denouncing the announced nuclear deal between the United States and Iran. They worry that it takes the military option off the table. But the reality is just the opposite – anyone who...

Whether by burning a Jordanian fighter pilot alive, massacring Shiites or beheading American hostages, the self-declared Islamic State (IS) has an unprecedented knack for making enemies. IS has also inadvertently achieved what the United States never accomplished during more...

Abstract The fast-moving events of Syria and Iraq in 2014 demonstrated the enormous risk to U.S. security interests when America and its allies have too little intelligence presence or operational agility in an area rife with insurgency and terrorist...

The primary lesson of the Vietnam War is that there are no lessons of the Vietnam War, at least when it comes to things we can learn that are unique to that conflict. War has an unchanging nature but...