The outcomes of two recent high-profile summit meetings exposed the yawning gap in U.S. and Chinese leaders’ attitudes toward military alliances. On March 13, U.S. President Joe Biden met British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Australian Prime Minister…

Editor’s Note: This article was originally published in 2014. Today, after writing this, I’ll walk to Swiss Cottage station, take the Jubilee line to Bond Street, and head east on the Central line from there. I’ll emerge from London’s labyrinthine unde…

The U.S. Army looked on with apprehension as small and cheap drone weapons proliferated within the ranks of insurgents in the Middle East. In response to drone proliferation and growing risks posed to U.S. ground forces, the U.S. Army tasked the Asymme…

Two years ago, Mahamat Mahadi Ali, better known as “Mahadi,” the rebel leader of the Front for Change and Concord in Chad, led a 600-mile incursion across the Sahara into Chadian territory from his oasis in southern Libya. Close to a thousand of his fi…

Recep Tayyip Erdogan now appears certain to be elected Turkey’s next president. His victory will have profound and predictable effects on Turkey’s relationship with the United States. The two countries were already in the process of decoupling, and Erd…

Ever since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine almost 15 months ago, two camps have consistently opposed American military aid. Unsurprisingly, there are the traditional anti-war activists and “restraint” advocates who opposed most American military involveme…

On May 13, Germany announced that it would send $3 billion in military aid to Ukraine. German commentators generally welcomed the news, congratulating the chancellor for facing down his domestic critics and taking a leadership role in Europe. But for t…

Just over a year into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, there is a growing sense that Europe’s reawakening on defense policy has already faltered. Germany’s much-hyped Zeitenwende, which promised a significant boost in defense spending, has so far yielded …

Every few years, there seems to be a new buzzword in the national security establishment. What was once simply “deterrence” has recently become “integrated deterrence.” This follows a decades-long adjectival march through nuclear, conventional, direct,…

On paper, France has everything it needs to be a credible leader on European foreign policy. It is a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council and a nuclear power, it has the European Union’s most capable military, and has an excellent diplomatic n…