National Security

Furious Republican opposition to a deal over Iran’s nuclear program may look like another example of political partisanship and personal animosity toward Barack Obama. But there’s also a much deeper reason for congressional pushback: the deeply ingrained aversion in...

The Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986 mandated that the president issue a national security strategy (NSS) report. According to the legislation, the purpose of this document is to provide the president with the means to communicate...

In a prescient article in Foreign Affairs in 1994 entitled “The Mystique of U.S. Air Power,” the historian and strategistEliot Cohen, writing in the wake of the Gulf War, argued, “Air power is an unusually seductive form of military...

In 2011, the United States launched a new television show in Afghanistan called Sesame Garden. It was an Afghan-themed version of Sesame Streetdesigned to win local hearts and minds. Unfortunately, the producers had to cut the Count von Count character because...

The resort to war signals the failure of far more satisfactory means of settling human conflicts. It forces us to face and wrestle with the darkest corners of the human psyche.  It signals the coming of trauma and suffering—often...

Abstract There is widespread interest in how armed drones are used, how targets are chosen, and what frameworks of legality and political accountability exist. Less addressed is how use, targeting, justification, and accountability affect the people and the organizations...

Abstract In just the last ten years, a growing number of states have sought to join the race to develop and sell ever-more sophisticated drones on the global market. While today the market remains stratified between makers and takers...

Over the last two decades, the United States has been the world’s pre-eminent user and supplier of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs).  In 2013, the United States was estimated to have approximately 7,500 drones in operation, ranging from relatively small...

Introduction While the phenomenon of so-called “foreign fighters” is in no way new the past thirty-plus years has shown a marked increase in the numbers of individuals traveling abroad to fight in civil conflicts in the Muslim world. The crisis in...

After years of being treated as a niche topic, the rise of the “Islamic State” in Syria and Iraq has moved the issue of foreign fighters from academic journals and wonky conferences to the front pages of major newspapers....