Ideas
How drones, data, and AI transformed our military—and why the US must follow suit
A former Ukrainian commander-in-chief describes Ukraine’s DELTA battlefield-management system and other adaptations.
Don’t waste this crisis, Europe: consolidate your defense industry
Turn your excess national defense champions into continental ones.
No TikTok deal at all is better than a bad one
And it’s high time to prepare for the next time an app threatens national security.
We tried ‘fighting China’ with lower budgets. It didn’t go well.
Tabletop exercises hosted by the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments offer one big lesson for the fiscal 2026 spending plan.
Add special operators to the Joint Simulation Environment
The X-Men have the right idea: training needs to include the whole team.
How a beatdown at sea turned Russia's navy into China's junior partner
Even the new maritime truce with Ukraine can't change a strategic tilt of the past three years.
Heads must roll for Signal-chat debacle
To hold no one accountable would undermine operational security and send a corrosive message to troops.
France, UK must heed the call of Europe's new nuclear age
Paris and London can provide the assurances that stop a continental race for nuclear weapons, but it won't be easy.
China is waging cognitive warfare. Fighting back starts by defining it.
The US and its allies need a framework for this new domain of conflict: formal, explicit specifications for its concepts and entities.
The end of nonproliferation?
The United States' rejection of security commitments could lead to a spike in nuclear-armed states.
What military members need to hear from their leaders now
Policy guidance, to be sure—but also timeless messages that transcend administrations.
Trump’s coercive approach risks driving Latin America into China’s arms
Short-term wins should not be mistaken for long-term gains.
There’s a tanker-sized gap in this vision of the Air Force’s future
A recent Mitchell Institute study gives dangerously short shrift to global mobility.
Don't cut this key driver of technological advantage
Defense-related research and development at America’s universities has helped make the U.S. military the best in the world.
By halting Ukraine aid, Trump courts personal defeat
There’s still time to avoid emboldening America’s enemies—and a humiliation that dwarfs his predecessor’s Afghanistan withdrawal.
After Oval Office disaster, Europe emerges as Ukraine’s best hope
Friday’s fiery Trump-Zelenskyy meeting sets up hard choices across the Atlantic.
Trump’s plan to slash the federal workforce isn’t the first, it’s just the worst
The triple-meat-cleaver approach to workforce “reform.”
Featured eBooks
To China, DeepSeek is more than an app—it's a strategic turning point
Beijing views the AI tool as a breakthrough that reinforces its strategic autonomy and reshapes the U.S.-China balance of power.
How Trump could productively reshape the transatlantic defense relationship
If rearming Europe and ending the war in Ukraine deters China, all the better.
The future of military logistics is predictive
A recent commander of Army Materiel Command says the war in Ukraine illuminates the path to data-driven sustainment.
