Ideas

This Is No Job for a General

President-elect Joe Biden should choose a civilian to lead his Department of Defense.

  • Eliot A. Cohen, The Atlantic
Ideas

America’s Generals Must Stand Up to Trump

Our military leaders are willing to take a bullet for this country. But are they prepared to take a pink slip?

  • Eliot A. Cohen, The Atlantic
Ideas

A Stain on the Honor of the Navy

In acceding to a White House request to cover the name of the USS John S. McCain, officers and officials revealed a rot within the service.

  • Eliot A. Cohen, The Atlantic
Ideas

The Brain of the Pentagon

Andrew Marshall leaves behind an American tradition of strategic thinking that will live well beyond him.

  • Eliot A. Cohen, The Atlantic
Ideas

The Lesson of Saruman

Tolkien has a warning to erstwhile #NeverTrumpers who are now choosing to ally with power rather than hold to their values.

  • Eliot A. Cohen, The Atlantic
Ideas

Pulling Security Clearances Is Just the Start

Another norm falls victim to Trump as he turns the power of government against his critics.

  • Eliot A. Cohen
Ideas

The Lesson of the Great War: Stay Engaged, America

A century after the guns fell silent, the United States risks replicating the errors of the past.

  • Eliot A. Cohen
Ideas

A Reckoning for Obama's Foreign-Policy Legacy

Veterans of the last administration are learning a hard lesson: Policies constructed by executive order and executive agreement are just as easily blown up by them.

  • Eliot A. Cohen, The Atlantic
Ideas

Neither Precise Nor Proportionate

Trump’s attack on Syria was unserious but intended to relieve emotional pressure—and in many ways, worse than doing nothing at all.

  • Eliot A. Cohen, The Atlantic
Ideas

McMaster's Choice

Before he was the national-security adviser, he wrote a lacerating account of generals who failed in advising Lyndon Johnson. What will he say now that he is free to talk about Trump?

  • Eliot A. Cohen, The Atlantic
Ideas

Team of Sycophants

Tillerson’s dismissal leaves the White House more than ever the conniving and dishonest court of an erratic, ill-informed, and willful monarch.

  • Eliot A. Cohen, The Atlantic
Ideas

Global Elites Cannot Save a World In Turmoil

Last weekend’s security conference in Munich was a stark reminder that this class has nothing of substance to offer a world in turmoil.

  • Eliot A. Cohen, The Atlantic
Ideas

Americans Are Rising to This Historic Moment

The commitment of ordinary citizens to democratic ideals is being tested each day—and its enduring strength is containing the damage of Trump’s presidency.

  • Eliot A. Cohen, The Atlantic
Ideas

Waiting for the Bomb to Drop

There are sounds, for those who can hear them, of the preliminary and muffled drumbeats of war.

  • Eliot A. Cohen, The Atlantic
Ideas

Three Ways to Read Trump's National Security Strategy

Is it better approached as a sacred text, or examined like the scat of a shaggy, woodland beast?

  • Eliot A. Cohen, The Atlantic
Ideas

What McCain Knows That Kelly Forgot

One veteran offered a dark picture of a nation estranged from its military—the other, a more hopeful vision of a future brighter than the past.

  • Eliot A. Cohen, The Atlantic
Ideas

Rex Tillerson Must Go

If he does remain, it will be yet another sign of the collapse of self-respect among those who are now willing to serve in senior positions in government.

  • Eliot A. Cohen, The Atlantic
Ideas

How Trump Is Ending the American Era

For all the visible damage the president has done to the nation’s global standing, things are much worse below the surface.

  • Eliot A. Cohen
Ideas

America Is Not Ready for a War in North Korea

If loose words about fire and fury are a mere negotiating tactic, they will not deliver what the United States desires.

  • Eliot A. Cohen, The Atlantic
Ideas

The Downsides of John Kelly's Ascension

The former Marine general is unlikely to succeed in his new job, even as his appointment contributes to the decay of American civil-military relations.

  • Eliot A. Cohen, The Atlantic
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