To Lock in Middle East Security, Up the Game
President Trump will be traveling to the Middle East at a time of great progress, given the terrible defeat Iran has suffered over the past eighteen months at the hands of exactly the regional alliance Trump is seeking now to further strengthen. Nevertheless, more work is needed on the three most pressing remaining Iran-related issues, […]
Pete Hegseth’s Nine Lives
When the abuse of inmates at Iraq’s notorious Abu Ghraib prison broke into the open in 2004, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld offered to resign. Twice. Both times President George W. Bush rejected Rumsfeld’s offer; he only fired him after the Democrats took both the House and the Senate in the 2006 mid-term elections. Secretary […]
The Putin Problem
The Trump administration entered office with two complementary goals concerning Russia. The first, the humanitarian goal of ending Russia’s war with Ukraine, does not seem close to being achieved. The administration proposed a ceasefire between the two countries as a first step toward terminating the conflict, but while Ukraine accepted the proposal, Russia did not. […]
Donald Trump and The Great Gatsby
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby is celebrating its 100th anniversary. On April 11, the Empire State building will light up in green to evoke the famous flickering green light that Jay Gatsby watches from his dock night after night—an appropriate homage since the book is set in Long Island and New York. Fitzgerald’s gravesite […]
How the US Pursued Policies that Weakened the Liberal International Order
Since the Second World War and especially since the end of the Cold War, the US has promoted international policies designed to make the world in its own liberal image. Paradoxically and inadvertently some of these policies have made the world—and the US itself – less liberal. The post-World War II, US-led liberal order promoted […]
Bridge Colby Will Be Powerful as Under Secretary of Defense, But Not All-Powerful
When I first met Elbridge Colby (known as Bridge), he was a young analyst at the Center for Naval Analysis, where I served as a senior advisor. CNA is the US Navy and Marine Corps think tank and one of the “Federally Funded Research and Development Centers,” along with the RAND Corporation, MITRE, the Johns […]
Is the Pivot to Asia Finally Happening?
Trump has stunned Europe by following through on his pledge to force an end to the fighting in Ukraine, and making European allies take more responsibility for their own security. The Pentagon has reportedly been instructed to prepare to withdraw US forces deployed in Syria. Is the Trump administration in the early stages of actually […]
Trump’s Gaza Plan: Change of Narrative
Washington’s Middle East experts were gathered for dinner in the ballroom of the Ritz Carlton Georgetown, hosted by a prominent think tank. It was May 19, 2019, and they had come to hear Jared Kushner talk about the forthcoming Trump peace plan. Mr. Kushner described both an economic vision for the Middle East and a […]
America Should Partner With Ukraine on Defense Tech
What happens on the battlefields of Ukraine will not stay in Ukraine. As the Spanish Civil War was a laboratory for the Second World War, so the current war in Ukraine prefigures technologies to be used in the next one. The US and its allies – Israel, Taiwan, South Korea, the Baltic States and Poland, […]
Where are America and Israel Going in Syria?
The United States and Israel face fateful decisions on Syria. Israel appears to be moving towards some level of confrontation with the Damascus regime, which is seen as allied with Erdoğan’s Turkey and identified increasingly in Israel as a threat. The US position remains unclear. But if history is any guide (and the unfortunate analogy […]
Next Steps on Iran: Nuclear Talks with the US or Airstrikes by Israel?
Will President Trump agree to enter into renewed nuclear negotiations with Iran that allow Iran to avoid Israeli airstrikes? According to the Institute for Science and International Security, Iran is around six months away from being able to build a crude nuclear bomb, and likely several more months from having a nuclear warhead on a […]
The Inevitability of Greenland
“Ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity,” posted President Donald Trump in announcing tech executive Ken Howery as his nominee for ambassador to Denmark, which counts the world’s largest island as one of its two “autonomous territories.” Feverish international reactions followed. The governments of both Denmark and Greenland repeatedly declared the island is […]
