Commentary

“I have come to talk to you about Europe. ‘Again,’ some might exclaim.” These were the words with which French President Emmanuel Macron, just a few months after taking office, opened his famous Sorbonne speech in September 2017. He called…

China’s 2024 Joint Sword exercises, and more recent Strait Thunder-2025A exercise, awakened the public psyche to the reality that the People’s Liberation Army is not just training, but rehearsing to blockade Taiwan. Such a blockade would…

March 16, 1968, is one of the darkest days in U.S. military history. On that day, the soldiers of C Company, 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment, who had suffered dozens of casualties in the campaign against the Viet Cong, assaulted the…

From Elon Musk to Sen. Bernie Sanders, there is widespread agreement that the Department of Defense is way too slow in how it develops, acquires, deploys, maintains, and upgrades technology. However, the analysis behind this agreement often…

A few years ago, a young U.S. military officer asked me a pointed question: “Do you think we’re getting too soft?” I paused, not because I didn’t have an answer, but because I knew the weight behind his words. My answer was yes. The U.S.…

What if the U.S. Air Force could adapt small, low-cost drones on the battlefield in a single day, and do that each and every day? That reality might be realized sooner than you think, if leaders make the right decisions. The ongoing war in…

The Pentagon is claiming to make room for small businesses, but in practice it’s reinforcing a new class of giants, and propping up legacy companies. Despite policy shifts, the Defense Department’s appetite for consolidation remains as…

What could be the make-up of the next Iraqi government, as geopolitical drama continues to play out across the Middle East? As Iraq gears up for its pivotal parliamentary elections on Nov. 11, the atmosphere is charged with anticipation.…

Despite the Department of Defense spending $14 billion a year on cyber forces and technology, U.S. military cyber forces have never met the department’s readiness standards. This decade-long failure has motivated Congress, the…

As the Trump administration continues to widen its engagement with Iran, Washington has yet to grasp a stark reality: An Israeli-Saudi peace deal is almost certainly beyond reach in the foreseeable future. The reasons for that deserve…