Commentary

The British government’s negotiation with the Republic of Mauritius to cede the Chagos Islands has been a mess. At time of writing, expectations of an imminent agreement (or rather re-agreement, as the United Kingdom already…

Will President Donald Trump really seek to use U.S. military force to retake the Panama Canal as he has threatened? Let’s hope not. Given the fraught nature of retaking the canal by force or even by economic pressure, it could be…

Where, when, and how might offensive cyber operations impact the outcomes of war? For over 40 years, this debate often spiraled to the extremes, whether offensive cyber operations are revolutionary or mostly hype, a warfighting game-changer…

Five years ago, we warned that a snap decision to depart Syria — abandoning the U.S. Kurdish-led partner force that has fought the Islamic State in Syria for the last 10 years while thousands of suspected fighters remained in detention —…

“In the United States people are singularly oblivious of the close relation between peace and preparation.”–Alfred Thayer Mahan, 1912 Only 34 percent of Americans can find Taiwan on a map and they are even less aware of U.S. strategic…

Iran’s inability to support Bashar al-Assad’s regime and prevent its collapse, coupled with recent significant blows to Hizballah and Israeli strikes within Iranian borders, underscores Tehran’s unprecedented regional weakness. With…

For decades, the United States has relied on airpower and the qualitative superiority of its aircraft to gain an advantage over its adversaries. But that advantage is rapidly eroding. The Chinese military is fielding sophisticated air…

Peace seems to have broken out between India and China. On Oct. 23, 2024, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese leader Xi Jinping had their first bilateral meeting since 2019. Statements from the foreign ministries of both…

At a roundtable with industry and academia at the Defense Innovation Unit, I met a CEO whose company had developed a language translation app that was providing critical support across the Department of Defense. He shared that the…

A 1953 advertisement for the U.S. Air Force’s civilian Ground Observer Corps described America’s air defenses as a “10 mile high fence full of holes.” Seventy years later, the United States again finds itself unable to reliably detect and…