America is experiencing declining trust in democratic institutions and an erosion of the democratic norms essential to maintaining them. The U.S. military, which historically has enjoyed the status of being the most trusted national institution, has se…

Conspiracy theories, by their very nature, are not easily debunked. It is hard to prove definitively that something did not happen. Conspiracies involving politics can be especially murky. Rough-and-tumble presidential campaigns often do feature dirty …

When an AI fighter pilot beat an experienced human pilot 15-0 in the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s AlphaDogfight competition, it didn’t just fly better than the human. It fought differently. Heron Systems’ AI agent used forward-quarter gu…

According to critics of the U.S. military, its civilian and military leaders are overly fixated on diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives at the expense of the military’s warfighting mission and organizational well-being. These commentators and p…

Dear Next Commandant… Congratulations on your appointment as the 39th commandant of the Marine Corps. The Marine Corps’ radical redefinition over the last four years under your predecessor’s guidance sought to prepare the service for the future with an…

Asked to provide a recipe for World War III, many historically minded analysts might mention growing belligerence by dissatisfied great powers; inconsistent system responses; and a succession of economic downturns and domestic political upheavals, foll…

“There was a distinct difference between the objectives of the opposing sides,” Air Chief Marshal Sir Hugh Dowding, commander-in-chief of Fighter Command, reflected on the Battle of Britain. Whereas the German military sought to end the war by invading…

Alarm bells are ringing at the Pentagon. The United States is rapidly depleting its munitions stockpiles to support the Ukrainian military. This support comes amid a serious backlog on the  delivery of over $14 billion worth of arms shipments to Taiwan…

When Finland and Sweden applied for NATO membership last spring, Russia’s reaction was negative but muted. It consisted only of words, not actions — in all likelihood due to Russia’s preoccupation with its war against Ukraine. Yet we should not assume …

When Star Wars debuted in 1977, it marked a major departure from the depiction of sci-fi robots. R2-D2 was a cylindrical, round-headed, three-legged “astromech” droid that communicated in whistles, although it understood human speech. As the trilogy pr…