Realism and Restraint
I’ve taken a close interest in civil‐military relations for decades. I was taught the importance of civilian control over the U.S. military as a young NROTC midshipman....
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Churchill called capital ships eggshells smiting one another with hammers, and Jutland, Pearl Harbor, and the Yamato proved him right. The Iowa-class battleships answered...
Conventional wisdom says Americans vote on domestic concerns and ignore the world abroad. Robert Kelly argues the 2026 midterms are breaking that rule: an...
Germany is studying whether to join GCAP, the sixth-generation fighter Britain, Japan and Italy launched in December 2022 for service by 2035, after its...
The Soviet Victor III attack submarine, introduced in 1979, was the first Soviet boat quiet enough to hide in the ocean’s background noise. As...
Putin’s proposal for a U.S.-China-Russia trilateral in China — with Ukraine and Europe excluded — has revived Beltway enthusiasm for a “Kissinger-in-reverse” bid to...
The Trump administration’s deal to allow Russian diesel into the United States blindsided Kyiv and Europe alike — halting peace talks, triggering threats to...
Sabotage at Leipzig, Swindon, and Skarżysko-Kamienna. A curfew across the river from Narva. New garrisons at Petrozavodsk, Lupche-Savino, and Pechenga pointing at Finland's 830-mile...
The Witkoff-Kushner shuttle between Moscow and Kyiv ended, predictably, without a breakthrough — and Andrew Michta argues the failure reveals something deeper than bad...
USS Enterprise, the first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, left Newport News under tow on November 2, 2026, bound for Mobile, Alabama, and the scrapyard. Commissioned...
Northrop’s YF-23 Black Widow II lost the Advanced Tactical Fighter contest to the YF-22, and three decades later experts still say it was the...
The M113 was built by FMC, a farm machinery company, from an aluminum alloy light enough to drop by parachute and tough enough to...
The Cold War had its races, and one played out 60 nautical miles north of Scotland in 1976. During NATO’s Teamwork exercise an F-14A...
Four ships crossed the Strait of Hormuz Thursday against a 10-day average of 16. Iran said it hit tanker Trend on Friday. Brent is...
Jobs dropped out of Reed College and stayed on as what he called a "drop-in," sitting in on classes that interested him. One was...
"Money never made a man happy yet, nor will it. There is nothing in its nature to produce happiness. The more a man has,...
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has unveiled Operation Economic Outcast: secondary sanctions across five sectors and more than sixty targets, with no relief attached. Iran's...
Dr. Robert Kelly, a professor of international relations at Pusan National University, argues the separation of powers in American foreign policy has nearly collapsed,...
Both sides would use a Ukraine war pause to rearm, and a longer pause may mean a bloodier spring. Michael Rubin argues Kyiv should...
For four and a half years the request was essentially a check, and the argument was that a properly supplied David could match Goliath....
Let Trump be Trump—which he will be anyway. Even if his peace efforts fail (which is entirely possible), American interests will be protected, and...
President Trump says he gets along with Kim Jong Un and wants a new summit before the end of 2026, along with smaller US-South...
Trump is reportedly considering another meeting with Kim Jong Un. The last round produced Singapore, Hanoi, and the DMZ, and by 2020 the status...
American doctrine promises that any North Korean nuclear attack will end the Kim regime. The Iran war has just tested that assumption. The United...
Trump ordered Ulchi Freedom Shield cut from eleven days to five before Kim Jong-un had agreed to anything in return. Kim Yo-jong dismissed the...
I’ve taken a close interest in civil‐military relations for decades. I was taught the importance of civilian control over the U.S. military as a young NROTC midshipman....
The hospital at which I work offered antibody serology tests to all medical staff last Wednesday. The test detects IgG, the immunoglobulin that appears in...
In a post last month, we raised concerns about the unforeseen and underappreciated costs of expanding export controls on U.S. technology. Either those concerns fell on...
