U.S. Army tanks during joint U.S.-South Korea military drills near the border with North Korea, Pocheon, South Korea, April 26, 2017 (AP photo by Ahn Young-joon).

Since 1986 every U.S. president has been required by law to prepare an annual National Security Strategy. This report is intended to explain to Congress and the American public what the president plans to do to promote U.S. national interests, and to provide guidance for the government agencies that implement security policy. While the requirement to produce an annual National Security Strategy was well-intentioned, the results have been uneven. Few presidents have produced the report every year. Most of them have simply recapitulated presidential talking points and listed what the administration considered its major accomplishments. In practice the National Security […]

Houthi rebels secure a road as Yemenis take part in a march denouncing plans by the Saudi-led coalition to attack the port of Hodeida, Sanaa, Yemen, April 19, 2017 (AP photo by Hani Mohammed).

As the fate of Yemen hangs in the balance, the military coalition led by Saudi Arabia that supports the government of Yemeni President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi is about to escalate its two-year-old war by launching a new offensive in the key Red Sea port of Hodeida. The move aims to throttle Hadi’s enemies, Houthi rebels aligned with former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, but it is more likely to choke the country’s population, tipping it from hunger and starvation into outright famine. Hodeida, the country’s busiest and most important port, is responsible for 80 percent of northern Yemen’s imports. If […]

An anti-government protester in front of a burning barricade, Caracas, Venezuela, April 24, 2017 (AP photo by Ariana Cubillos).

The protests and unrest that have wracked Venezuela over the past month, resulting in the deaths of at least 22 people, represent a sudden change from the malaise and passivity that had settled over the Venezuelan opposition from December to March. Through mid-March, there was a heavy sense of pessimism and fatalism on the streets of Caracas and other cities. President Nicolas Maduro’s government seemed to be consolidating its power; people were disillusioned with the opposition leadership; and the international community seemed unable to act. A few things are behind this recent surge in opposition activity. First, Latin American countries […]

Iranian troops march during a parade marking National Army Day in front of the mausoleum of the country's first Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, just outside Tehran, Iran, April 18, 2017 (AP photo by Vahid Salemi).

The sudden return to tough talk about Iran by the Trump administration makes one wonder if it has a deeper strategy to realize Trump’s campaign promises about the nuclear deal, as well as to address Iran’s destabilizing regional activities. The signals about Iran can be read several ways: pressure to deliver on that national security priority as the 100-day milestone approaches; discomfort with the routine bureaucratic declaration that Iran is actually complying with the nuclear agreement; or a more ambitious and disturbing goal of provoking Iran into a more open confrontation. For many weeks, it looked like Iran was on […]

United States Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley speaks during a Security Council meeting on Syria, New York, April 7, 2017 (AP photo by Mary Altaffer).

Busy and serious people know only two types of working lunch. There are pleasant but time-consuming lunches they would prefer to skip, and then there are tedious ones they desperately wish to avoid. Today, ambassadors serving on the U.N. Security Council will endure a third category of business luncheon: One that will at best be eventful but nerve-rattling, and at worst could hasten the collapse of international diplomacy. The council is visiting Washington, where it will lunch with U.S. President Donald Trump. What could possibly go wrong? The U.S. has held the rotating presidency of the Security Council in April, […]

South Korean protesters hold images of U.S. President Donald Trump during a rally denouncing U.S. policy on North Korea, Seoul, South Korea, April 12, 2017 (AP photo by Ahn Young-joon).

Throughout its history, much of American foreign policy has been built on “doctrines” associated with the president who developed them. The Monroe Doctrine indicated that the United States would oppose additional European colonialism in the Western Hemisphere. The Eisenhower and Carter Doctrines stressed the importance to U.S. vital national interests of the Middle East and the free flow of its energy. The Nixon Doctrine pledged U.S. support to nations fighting communism, but said that America would not do it for them. The George W. Bush Doctrine committed U.S. military power to pre-empting and preventing transnational terrorism. Over the past two […]

French presidential candidates at a debate, Paris, April 4, 2017 (Sipa via AP).

In picking a topic for this week’s column, I decided to write about an institution that is deeply embedded in the structure of daily life as we know it. Yet it is deeply flawed, in ways that many observers from across the political spectrum have acknowledged for quite some time: It is bloated, sclerotic, overly bureaucratic and inadequately representative of society’s less privileged. Worse still, it is detached from the everyday life of those under its watch and paralyzed by seemingly insurmountable political divisions. Similarly, there is a general consensus on the necessary reforms that would make this institution more […]

A row of F18 fighter jets on the deck of the U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson is prepared for patrols off the disputed South China Sea, March 3, 2017 (AP photo by Bullit Marquez).

The United States shapes, monitors and reacts to events around the world every day—developments that require minor, and sometimes major, military and foreign policy actions to implement the established U.S. strategy. But some developments call for more than just decisions to implement the current strategy. They require an adjustment to a new strategy. The current trajectory of military-technological change is one such development making a strategic adjustment necessary. Proponents of all of the major strategic alternatives for the United States agree that events that happen elsewhere can affect our security and prosperity at home. The key question they disagree on […]

Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, pauses while speaking to the media during a press briefing, Washington, April 11, 2017 (AP photo by Andrew Harnik).

Without admitting it, U.S. President Donald Trump largely continued his predecessor’s military policy in the Middle East during the opening months of his administration. Like Barack Obama, Trump relied on American airpower and special operations forces to strike directly at the self-styled Islamic State, while deploying other U.S. military units to support local forces battling the extremists. But after a grotesque chemical attack on a Syrian village by the military of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Trump ordered a retaliatory cruise missile strike against the air base from which the chemical attack was launched. Suddenly a policy that once seemed so […]

President Donald Trump surrounded by members of his Cabinet in the Oval Office after signing an executive order on reorganizing the executive branch, Washington, March 13, 2017 (AP photo by Pablo Martinez Monsivais).

As world leaders gather this Sunday in Dakar, Senegal, for the 2019 Summit for Global Cooperation, U.S. President Donald Trump will be spending the weekend alone at his Mar-a-Lago resort. Though Trump proclaimed on Twitter that he’d rather be golfing than listening to “windbags” deliver “meaningless speeches,” according to numerous reports he was not even invited to the gathering. Two years ago, Trump took office promising to upend the world order, famously putting “America First” to make the country “great again.” Given how irrelevant he has since become on the global stage, it’s hard to recall the degree to which […]

A Syrian air force jet at the Shayrat air base, one day after the U.S. missile attack, Homs, Syria, April 8, 2017 (photo by Mikhail Voskresenskiy/Sputnik via AP).

The U.S. missile attack on the Syrian airbase from which the devastating chemical weapons attack on Khan Sheikhoun had been launched was a clear win for the Trump administration on several fronts. It doesn’t, however, guarantee a successful new Syria strategy, for reasons related to the nature of the conflict there and the leadership dynamics in Washington. It’s still worth considering how to make the modest intervention a more transformative event. President Donald Trump’s quick decision to launch cruise missiles against a Syrian airbase early Friday, in retaliation for Syria’s presumed use of sarin gas against residents of the opposition-held […]

U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres speaks during a press conference, Nairobi, Kenya, March 8, 2017 (AP photo by Khalil Senosi).

Napoleon allegedly said that he liked his generals to be lucky. If he were around today to apply the same logic to secretaries-general of the United Nations, he might have some concerns about Antonio Guterres. The new U.N. chief, who has now been in office for 100 days, is clearly an energetic and dedicated leader. But he has had a run of very bad luck indeed. The number and variety of crises that have sprung up around the U.N. since the start of the year is remarkable. Famine is looming in Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan and Yemen. The new U.S. […]

The United Nations Security Council holds a meeting on the situation in Syria, New York, April 7, 2017 (AP photo by Mary Altaffer).

U.S. President Donald Trump has punctured the tired but persistent myth that the United Nations Security Council can manage the Syrian civil war. Last night, he ordered cruise missile strikes against Syria without looking for authorization from the United Nations. He did not even wait for Russia and China to veto a U.N. resolution on this week’s chemical attack on the town of Khan Sheikhoun, which would have offered the U.S. an excuse for pursuing unilateral action. This is both refreshing and dangerous. Since 2011, Security Council diplomacy over Syria has frequently been a grotesque farce. The U.S. and its […]

President Donald Trump arrives to speak at Mar-a-Lago after the U.S. fired a barrage of cruise missiles into Syria, Palm Beach, Fla., April 6, 2017 (AP photo by Alex Brandon).

Throughout the Cold War, the United States wrestled with the “friendly dictator” dilemma. Americans had long believed that democracy was not only the most just political system, but also the only one that could remain stable over time. Dictators might impose order for a while, but eventually the natural urge for freedom led to their downfall. Under the right conditions, a dictator’s demise could be relatively peaceful. At other times, though, it sparked a dangerous paroxysm of violence. Even so, Cold War-era American policymakers accepted and even embraced friendly dictators. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the problem was […]

Jason Greenblatt, Donald Trump's special representative for international negotiations, meets with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Ramallah, March 14, 2017 (AP Photo by Majdi Mohammed).

When Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi met with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office on Monday, the world heard a striking shift in tone in the relationship between the United States and one of its closest Middle East allies. President Barack Obama had kept el-Sisi at arms’ length, concerned about his human rights record and his authoritarian governing style. Trump, on the other hand, could not have been more deliberate in his embrace. “I just want to let everybody know in case there’s any doubt,” he declared, “that we are very much behind President el-Sisi. He’s done a fantastic job […]

President Donald Trump greets Egypt’s president, Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, at the White House, Washington, April 3, 2017 (AP photo by Andrew Harnik).

Guest columnist Nikolas Gvosdev is filling in for Judah Grunstein this week. President Donald Trump’s meeting at the White House on Monday with Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi gave the clearest indication yet of how the Trump administration plans to conduct American foreign policy. One of the most striking elements of el-Sisi’s visit was how the Trump team, in contrast to its predecessors in the Obama administration, decided to pursue a very focused, prioritized agenda. President Barack Obama found himself caught amid the push and pull of contradictory impulses and interests when it came to the U.S. relationship with Egypt. El-Sisi […]

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson during a visit to the mausoleum of the founder of modern Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, Ankara, March 30, 2017 (AP photo by Lefteris Pitarakis).

Donald Trump is being drawn into the hot conflicts of the Middle East in ways that will define his presidency. Like the idealistic Barack Obama before he became president in 2009, Trump campaigned on promises that he would not allow the United States to get stuck in the region. Unlike Obama, Trump is confident that more military might will provide quick results, while showing little sign of preparing for postwar challenges or real disagreements with regional partners. Reality is catching up with the new administration. The Middle East has long proven its power to lure American leaders, often reluctantly, into […]

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