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Lessons from a Prior Ukraine Deal: The Brest-Litovsk Treaty of 1918
“If he’s looking to renegotiate the deal, he’s got big problems,” President Donald Trump said of his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky, in an impromptu interview on Air Force One on April 1. The deal in question involves the transfer to the United States of rights to Ukraine’s rare earth elements and other natural resources, in […]
Only Trump Can Crush the Brotherhood
While America has long focused on defeating terrorist networks like al-Qaeda and ISIS, it has largely overlooked the ideological infrastructure that gave birth to them. At the heart of that ecosystem lies the Muslim Brotherhood—a transnational Islamist movement that has inspired, influenced, and in many cases directly spawned the world’s most dangerous jihadist organizations. Today, […]
How the US Pursued Policies that Weakened the Liberal International Order
Since the Second World War and especially since the end of the Cold War, the US has promoted international policies designed to make the world in its own liberal image. Paradoxically and inadvertently some of these policies have made the world—and the US itself – less liberal. The post-World War II, US-led liberal order promoted […]
The Middle East As Informational Battlefield
Once upon a time, the Middle Eastern media environment was predictable and staid, dominated by a few prominent outlets that in Arab countries were often owned and operated by the governments’ information ministries.  No longer. Over the past three decades, the region has witnessed an explosion in information and connectivity. In the 1990s and 2000s, […]
Israel Needs a New Lebanon Strategy
Anti-tank missiles in garages and artillery stashed in children’s bedrooms. Weapons stockpiled in nearly every house. This was the scene one of us encountered, in village after village in southern Lebanon, during the October 2024 ground operation of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) against Hizbullah.  The IDF found Hizbullah’s battle plans for a massive invasion […]
With Renewed Crisis in the Middle East, Who is Watching the Indo-Pacific?
In October 2023, Iranian-backed Houthi rebels began attacking civilian and military shipping in the Red Sea between the Suez Canal and the Bab al-Mandeb Strait. The impact on global trade has cost consumers world-wide billions of dollars, as ships avoid the Red Sea and transit instead around the Cape of Good Hope in Africa. In […]
The Return of the German Problem
In the 75 years between the beginning of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870 and the end of World War II in 1945, what came to be known as the German Problem afflicted Europe. Germany became a problem because it grew too powerful for the peace of the continent, and over that period, Germany started three […]
Colombia Risks Losing Hard-Won Ground
Colombia was once seen as a success story. Threatened by violent insurgents, the country regained stability and, in 2016, reached a peace agreement with the largest rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Spanish initials FARC). All this was accomplished with sustained US security and economic support.  Lately, Colombia seems to be moving backwards. […]
Greenlanders Looking for a Better Deal
On March 11, Greenlanders voted in elections for their parliament, Inatsisartut. The big winner was Demokraatit (Democracy) party, which favors Greenlandic independence, though in a gradual and consensual process. The party, which won a plurality of the votes, used to support maintaining ties with Denmark. A party favoring immediate independence (Naleraq or Compass) also gained seats.   […]
Israel Applying Lessons Learned from October 7
Israel’s defense and security establishment has completed a series of internal investigations into the intelligence, strategic, and tactical failures of October 7, 2023. The findings are beginning to reshape the Israel Defense Force (IDF) approach to dealing with the terrorist armies on its borders. Among the findings: the concept of deterrence (originating in Cold War […]
Israel’s New Chief of Staff Faces First Test
In the early hours of March 18, the Israel Defense Forces began a round of airstrikes in Gaza targeting Hamas, the largest since a ceasefire that began on January 19 and ended on March 1.  The six-week ceasefire enabled the release of 33 Israeli hostages. Israel sought to extend it in exchange for the release […]
Bridge Colby Will Be Powerful as Under Secretary of Defense, But Not All-Powerful
When I first met Elbridge Colby (known as Bridge), he was a young analyst at the Center for Naval Analysis, where I served as a senior advisor. CNA is the US Navy and Marine Corps think tank and one of the “Federally Funded Research and Development Centers,” along with the RAND Corporation, MITRE, the Johns […]
The Mahmoud Khalil Case
American diplomats are supposed to serve at least one tour on the visa line overseas, interviewing would-be visitors. It’s important work that has the side benefit of supplying some good stories. The Mahmoud Khalil case reminds me of a story from my first tour at Consulate General Jerusalem in 1990, interviewing mainly Palestinians on the […]
Is the Pivot to Asia Finally Happening?
Trump has stunned Europe by following through on his pledge to force an end to the fighting in Ukraine, and making European allies take more responsibility for their own security. The Pentagon has reportedly been instructed to prepare to withdraw US forces deployed in Syria. Is the Trump administration in the early stages of actually […]
Whither Europe?
The six chords, each spaced with a rest of about a second, came crashing down in the resplendent home of Amsterdam’s Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. The audience sat transfixed. Seated in the rear balcony, I was listening to Santtu-Matias Rouvali conduct Jean Sibelius’ 1919 fifth symphony based, like Beethoven’s, around a four-note motif. The opening of […]
A Cold Peace in Peril?
Israel-Egypt peace was carefully constructed in the 1979 treaty and has weathered numerous regional storms: the 1982 Lebanon War, two Palestinian intifadas, the upheaval of the 2011 Arab Spring, and even sixteen months of conflict in Gaza. Throughout, Israel and Egypt have sustained generally productive military and economic cooperation (despite persistent anti-Israeli sentiment in the […]
Why a Peace Agreement in Ukraine is Not a New Munich
The spirit of Neville Chamberlain is haunting establishment foreign policy circles. Senior Trump administration officials have begun meeting with Russian counterparts and floating possible scenarios for a negotiated peace deal. Some American media commentators – including on the right – have accused Trump of “selling out” and “betraying” Ukraine in the same way that Chamberlain […]
America Should Partner With Ukraine on Defense Tech
What happens on the battlefields of Ukraine will not stay in Ukraine. As the Spanish Civil War was a laboratory for the Second World War, so the current war in Ukraine prefigures technologies to be used in the next one. The US and its allies – Israel, Taiwan, South Korea, the Baltic States and Poland, […]
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