U.S. Foreign Policy Archive

Frustration with the stalemate in Afghanistan has broadened the domestic debate over U.S. strategy there. For the time being, President Donald Trump remains committed to the general approach taken by the George W. Bush and Obama administrations. But options that seemed unthinkable a few years ago, like outright disengagement, are now on the table. As this unfolds, one out-of-the-box proposal in particular has sparked intense discussion among security experts: a plan to replace American troops with contractors. The most prominent proponent of this idea, Erik Prince, is a former U.S. Navy SEAL with connections in the Trump administration. Prince is […]

From the start of his presidential campaign, Donald Trump had a clear and consistent culprit for many of America’s problems: China. As he pronounced from the lobby of Trump Tower when declaring his candidacy in 2015, the American dream was dead and China, a currency manipulator and intellectual property poacher, had killed it. It was a strange location for that statement, perhaps, since Trump Tower’s biggest office tenant is a major state-controlled Chinese bank. But then again, perhaps the irony suits. Despite overtures of collaboration with Beijing to counter North Korea, Trump has reinvigorated his China critique as president. Announcing […]

North Korea’s successful nuclear test this weekend caps off a startling progression over the past 11 years from buffoonish nuclear aspirant to serious nuclear threat. Combined with successful intercontinental ballistic missile launches over the past year, the latest test effectively pushed Pyongyang over the threshold of being able to credibly target the continental U.S. with a nuclear attack. For North Korea watchers and nonproliferation experts, the development was neither shocking nor surprising. It is Pyongyang’s sixth nuclear test, each building steadily toward the stated goal of a thermonuclear device. It follows a series of successful long-range missile tests that demonstrated […]

Vietnamese Defense Minister Ngo Xuan Lich’s visit to Washington in early August was just the latest sign of the remarkable progress made in security ties between the United States and Vietnam over the past decade. But it also underscored the limits of how much Hanoi is willing to cozy up to Washington today, and how unconvinced it remains of the Trump administration’s commitment to Asia. The trip exemplified Hanoi’s multidirectional foreign policy, which rests on maintaining strong relations with many outside partners to avoid dominance by any one, and of how that strategy is evolving to face the growing threat […]

Former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein’s devastating military defeats in 1991 and 2003 demonstrated that taking on the U.S. military in conventional battles is a very bad idea. Knowing that, some of America’s adversaries, like Russia and Iran, turned to what security experts call the “gray zone”—methods that relied on proxy forces, psychological warfare and other provocations at a level that would not compel U.S. intervention. Extremist groups like al-Qaida, the Taliban and the self-styled Islamic State cannot muster the resources for full-on gray zone aggression even if they wanted to. This has forced them to rely on insurgency instead. Luckily […]

Since taking office, U.S. President Donald Trump has run an erratic foreign policy, failing to deliver a clear and consistent message to allies and enemies alike. So, when the State Department decided to cut and withhold a combined $295 million in economic and military aid to Egypt last week, despite exceedingly warm relations between Trump and Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi, many were once again left scratching their heads. For nearly a year, Trump has been an ardent supporter of the regime in Cairo, ending an era of rough-and-tumble relations between Egypt and the Obama administration. Sisi, for his part, was […]