Decision 2016: National Security

This Caravan provides a compelling map of the significant challenges the US faces in the region as well as the opportunities to pursue a strategy to reestablish and maintain preeminence. Whatever the outcome of this extraordinary presidential election may be, the next administration will face significant challenges, especially in the Middle East.

Reduction of violence should not be the sole — not even the principal — objective in warfare.

Beware international affairs the next five months, a dangerous period for America.

Obama’s realignment with Cuba marked a high point in his presidency, but the future looks bleak for our southern neighbor. 

Russia has become one of the major themes of this year's presidential contest in the United States. While questions about domestic policy typically dominate the race to the White House, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, and the biggest media outlets in the US have regularly focused on Vladimir Putin, the annexation of Crimea, and various acts by Russian intelligence agencies.

Russia invades Ukraine, shaking the post-World War II European order. China chips away at others’ sovereignty in Asia. The war in Iraq, nearly won by 2010, and the war in Afghanistan grind on. Terrorism seems everywhere metastasizing. If the world feels more dangerous to you, it should.

In his recent interview with the New York Times, Donald Trump warned that the United States would defend only NATO allies who have “fulfilled their obligations to us.” He made clear that he sees allies as business partners, and relationships with them in transactional terms: Pay up or we won’t protect you.

If Russian intelligence had hacked Clinton’s private server in early March of 2013 (or before), the Kremlin would have the trove of “private” emails Clinton destroyed and that U.S. officialdom and the public have never seen.

America's great good fortune in the past has been that Americans have been able to unite as Americans against every enemy, despite our own internal differences and struggles. Black and white, Jew and Gentile, have fought and died for this country in every war. It has not been our diversity, but our ability to overcome the problems inherent in diversity, and to act together as Americans, that has been our strength.

Kori Schake discusses the evolving threats to US interests that are waiting for the next presidential administration.

When it should act, America hesitates—and around the world, hard-won freedoms slip away.

How outdated strategic thinking is leaving us wide open.

Ideologies can be defeated over time through containment rather than through destruction, as occurred in the case of Communism

How outdated strategic thinking is leaving us wide open.

Offering sanctuary to Syrian exiles is both compassionate and wise—and just might give the United States a chance for a regional “reset.”

The legal path out of our long Guantánamo nightmare.

When the Cold War ended, strategists became distracted by the dangers of the “weak state.” Powerful adversaries used the opportunity to grow even more powerful.