National Security

AbstractNational security is not simply a matter of technical skills and university degrees. To maintain power, engineering skills and knowledge of math are undoubtedly indispensable, but so is a solid understanding of, and appreciation for, the state’s civilizational underpinnings—the...

Abstract America’s experience of fighting while negotiating in the Korean War and the Vietnam War offers valuable lessons for understanding the current peace talks in Afghanistan: the adversaries are averse to making concessions; violence is a bargaining tool; the...

Abstract Many commentators now contend that America’s power is in relative or absolute decline. However, Declinists overstate their argument, as America has both a commanding amount of residual power and many enduring strengths. Decline, absolute or relative, is not...

“Cigarettes were worth more than money during the war,” says Adnan Zuka, 25, of Sarajevo. A trim, clean shaven Bosnian Muslim, Adnan is finishing his undergraduate degree in English literature while working a day job as a tour guide. ...

Specialist Martin J. Begosh, U.S. Army, 127th Military Police Company, was born on Memorial Day 1971. His father, Andrew, fought in Vietnam, where his uncle, also Martin, was killed. As a postwar peacekeeping mission began under international scrutiny, Specialist...

Abstract The assumption that the United States operates from a position of strength relative to its potential enemy underpins U.S. deterrence theory. This perceived strength has emboldened American administrations to take serious tactical risks, such as the positioning of...

Abstract The end of Great Britain’s standing as a superpower conjures up a frightening picture of how a post-American world might come about, not by a gradual, managed decline of the United States, but rather by a sudden defeat...

Abstract This article addresses why counterinsurgency is not, in fact, a strategy, and why the United States will nevertheless need to retain a counterinsurgency capability. It further examines the drivers of modern insurgency; the range of counterinsurgency approaches that...

FPRI’s Program on National Security held a conference on the foreign fighter problem, July 14-15, 2009, at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. Michael Horowitz, Michael P. Noonan, Mackubin T. Owens, Harvey Sicherman, and Stephanie Kaplan served as...