Ideas

In Iraq, the US Gets Hit Where It Hurts

The storming of the U.S. embassy in Baghdad demonstrated that America doesn’t have a monopoly on pressure.

Ideas

Most-Read of 2020 (So Far)

We're three months into the next year already, if you go by the fiscal calendar. Here's the most-clicked posts on our site since Oct. 1.

Ideas

Progress, Peril, Hope: The Nuclear Decade in Review

U.S. policies that restrained and shrank atomic arsenals have been abandoned. Yet there are hopeful trends as well.

Ideas

Best of 2019: Editor's Choice

Even with several best-of lists, it's hard to choose among the thousands of articles we published this year. Here are a few notables that we haven't noted elsewhere.

Ideas

Best of 2019: Ideas

Revisit some of the best op-eds and commentary we had the privilege of publishing over the past year.

Ideas

Best of 2019: Defense One Radio

Review the year that was — and consider what's next — with episodes from our award-winning podcast.

Ideas

Inside the Collapse of Trump’s Korea Policy

When it comes to America’s last-ditch effort to prevent North Korea from becoming a nuclear power, timing has been everything. Now time’s running out.

Ideas

Put US Post-INF Missiles into Production

The U.S. has waited too long to mimic Chinese intermediate-range weapons.

Ideas

The Lessons of the Afghanistan Papers

Americans need leaders who can tell them how and when they will decide to pull the plug.

Ideas

Can Military Leaders Handle the Truth About Afghanistan?

Our recent poll suggests that public confidence in the military is high, but that it may be on shaky ground.

Ideas

Russia Is Waging Asymmetric Warfare Against the US — And We’re Letting Them Win

We must do more to harden against these attacks on our economy, institutions, and the public.

Ideas

What We Talk About When We Talk About Russia

American conservatives who find themselves identifying with Putin’s regime refuse to see the country for what it actually is.

Ideas

The Trump Administration’s ‘Denuclearization’ Is A Road to Nowhere

U.S. policy will remain stuck as long as the administration continues to convince itself that the North’s nuclear dismantlement can be achieved on Washington’s timeline.

Ideas

Under Trump, the US Has Become a Leading Source of Global Instability

The country is now a known unknown, increasing the risk of crises from the Middle East to East Asia to Central America, a new survey suggests.

Ideas

Add Economic Policy to Deterrence Planning

As crisis brews overseas, U.S. leaders often turn first to sanctions and the like. But the Pentagon acts as if economic coercion doesn’t matter.

Ideas

The FBI Needs to Be Reformed

The inspector general’s report identified real weaknesses, particularly with the policies and procedures that govern investigations of political campaigns.

Ideas

US Forces Can’t Hide from Ubiquitous Satellites. They Need to Fool Them.

A new generation of deception-and-denial ideas is needed to counter global monitoring from space.

Ideas

The Foreign-Policy Parallels Between Trump and the Ayatollahs Are Uncanny

Neither the U.S. president nor Iran's leaders are as willing to go toe-to-toe as they might seem.

Ideas

Nixon’s Leniency After My Lai Hurt Veterans. Trump’s May, Too.

A president’s actions in 1971 helped turn public opinion against those who fought the Vietnam War.

Ideas

Can Anything Stop the Flow of Advanced Weapons into Libya?

If the country becomes a nexus for expertise and arms, increasingly deadly regional armed groups could destabilize the region.