Responsible Statecraft

In recent weeks, Iran has gone on the offensive, striking commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz and launching a surprise attack on U.S. forces in Jordan. From a distance, these moves look like self-defeating escalation. Why should a badly damaged state, under severe economic pressure, lash out at the U.S. instead of pushing for a ceasefire?The answer, simply put, is that Iran is digging in for a long war. Whatever Washington's intentions, Tehran increasingly interprets sanctions, negotiations

My nearly 32-year career in uniform has taught me many lessons. One of the most important is that the gap between operational military success and strategic political outcomes can be significant and is rarely, if at all, closed by increased military activity.It is common to invoke military voices when arguing for military force and to treat restraint as a “civilian” position. But the reverse is often true. Those who have served, and seen and felt the impacts of warfare, are the most cautious abo

A lot can change in a week. Barely five days after President Donald Trump hailed the “historic agreement” on Hamas’s disarmament by the Board of Peace (BOP) — the body Trump created to oversee his Gaza Peace Plan — the very same Board of Peace has now effectively reneged on its own agreement. The deal emerged from eight months of intensive negotiations between BOP High Representative Nicolay Mladenov and Hamas, along with various regional stakeholders, and was expected to pave the way for implem

Abdul El-Sayed became the latest progressive insurgent to win a Democratic nomination contest on Tuesday, when he bested sitting House Rep. Haley Stevens to become the party’s nominee for Senate in Michigan. At the time of writing, with 95% of the votes counted, El-Sayed had 48.6% to 47.3% for Stevens. Major media networks have called the race for El-Sayed, the former Wayne County health department director.Similar to recent races in New York and Colorado, El-Sayed made his opposition to the U.S

Oman and Iran appear close to a temporary arrangement to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, potentially providing both an exit from the current round of fighting and the foundation for a more durable maritime order. Washington should welcome such an agreement—even if it acknowledges a degree of Iranian authority in administering traffic through the strait—because US interest dictates that open and non-discriminatory passage must be given priority over control.The emerging formula would reportedly divi

Donald Trump’s foreign policy features chaotic decision-making and bombastic rhetoric. But some of his half-baked ideas could have lasting consequences, creating escalation pathways that his successors may be unwilling to close. West Africa provides a crucial case study. Trump ordered strikes in Nigeria in December 2025 and May 2026, and his team has reportedly considered striking Mali. These moves are drawing West Africa deeper into the ceaseless “War on Terror.” U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) –

Questions continue to swirl around the flash flood of nearly 60,000 migrants who swam or walked from Morocco into Ceuta, a tiny Spanish enclave on the tip of Africa last week. How did so many migrants manage to breach Moroccan border security forces, who appear to have largely disappeared from their stations? Why had so many migrants received social media messages encouraging them to swarm the enclave? Analysts pointed their fingers at the Moroccan government, arguing it was once again deploying

Every government institution should periodically be asked a simple question: is it still performing the mission for which Congress created it?That principle has become a hallmark of the Trump administration. Through the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), the closing of USAID, and the restructuring of federal agencies, the administration has encouraged the reexamination of longstanding institutions to ensure they remain faithful to their original purposes.That question should now be aske

Reuters reported this morning that the U.S. has used “virtually all” its long-range precision strike missiles during its war on Iran.Reuters’ sources would not say exactly how many of these surface to surface weapons, known as Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) and Precision Strike Missiles (PrSM), the U.S. military has left.This comes amid news that the U.S. has burned through other key weapons systems since war with Iran began. Last week, the Center for Strategic and International Studies

As the Senate returns to Washington for its last week in session until mid-September, it faces a long to-do list. But for many senators, the top priority is not enacting legislation that will help Americans but instead rushing to approve the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia Act of 2026, known colloquially as the “Russia sanctions bill.”A passion project of the late Sen. Lindsey Graham, the bill is intended to increase economic pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin. The legislation’s b

Robert Kagan surprised some people. One of America’s most influential hawks condemned the Trump administration’s botched war in Iran, suggesting in The Atlantic in March that U.S. involvement in the Middle East has been a catalyst of, rather than a prudent response to, Islamic terrorism.A senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and prolific historian, Kagan has advocated U.S. primacy for decades, starting with his support for Nicaragua’s Contra insurgents as the head of the State Department’s

Those who anticipated that a U.S. war against Iran would risk igniting a region-wide conflagration are looking prescient. The latest metastasis of the conflict has included airstrikes by both the United States and Saudi Arabia in Iraq, against Iraqi militias seen as allied with Iran. The Houthi regime in Yemen, as a direct outgrowth of the U.S.-Iran war, has renewed attacks on shipping in the Red Sea. This has led to new fighting between the Houthis and Saudi Arabia, which is preparing a possibl

Fox News has always served as a purveyor of Republican war propaganda, but its coverage of the Iran conflict has been particularly aggressive, and in many ways unmoored from reality, giving their viewers a more than skewed vision of what President Donald Trump can — and cannot — accomplish in Iran today. It appears that it has been an editorial decision at Fox to convince their audience (whose median age is 55) that the Iranians cannot be negotiated with nor trusted and that war was — and still

This week, the Navy retired a littoral combat ship only halfway through its lifespan.The USS Fort Worth, a surface combatant ship which cost $400 million to build, entered service in 2012. It was originally meant to serve until the late 2030s, but was retired early due to chronic repair issues and related costs, and longstanding concerns regarding its overall viability.A major issue for the USS Fort Worth was its combining gear, which connects its gas turbine and engines to its water jet shafts.

Last month, as world leaders prepared to gather in France for the G7 Summit, French officials had Donald Trump on the mind.Using its privileges as host, Paris worked diligently to avoid any hiccups that might upset the U.S. president. First, it delayed the meeting from June 14 to June 16, ensuring that it wouldn’t interfere with Trump’s 80th birthday celebration, or the cage match on the White House lawn that accompanied it. Then, French President Emmanuel Macron went “out of his way” to design

In June, a bipartisan group of senators introduced the Preventing External Aggression and Conflict Escalation (PEACE) in Sudan Act of 2026. In the House, the pending U.S. Engagement in Sudanese Peace Act and the RSF Terrorism Designation Act partly overlap with the PEACE Act. One of the most consequential questions raised by the various bills is whether to designate Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a paramilitary force that has been at war with the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) since 2023, as a

Last week, only four House Republicans voted with 210 Democrats to pass a war powers resolution to end the U.S. war with Iran.That means 208 House Republicans voted to continue the war. Hours later, the Republican-led Senate killed the measure, with only one GOP senator voting with the Democrats to end the war, de facto joining four other Republicans who were either absent or missed the vote.The overwhelming majority of congressional Republicans are still clearly committed to President Donald Tr

Israel is spending wads of cash on public diplomacy in a desperate attempt to reverse waning American support for the country after it stands accused of genocide in Gaza and pushing the U.S. into the Iran war.Since Oct. 7, Israel has spent over a billion dollars on global “hasbara” — television appearances, social media campaigns, chat-bot training, and other efforts to influence how people think about Israel. And this “public diplomacy” budget more than quadrupled in the last year alone. To und

On June 26, two official delegations — one from Israel and one from Lebanon — signed a framework agreement with great fanfare in Washington. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, openly enthusiastic, framed the event as paving the way toward “lasting peace and security” between Beirut and Tel Aviv.A month later, President Donald Trump received Lebanese President Joseph Aoun at the White House. Once again, Rubio welcomed the visit and reiterated the goal of disarming Hezbollah and achieving a complete

On July 28, Saudi air defenses shot down drones launched from Iraqi territory by “Iran-affiliated terrorist militias,” a Saudi ministry of defense statement read.The attacks targeted oil facilities in the Eastern Province and at the capital, Riyadh, itself. Days earlier, Houthi forces in Yemen said they had hit “sensitive” oil transport sites linking the Eastern Province to the Red Sea export hub of Yanbu. Satellite images showed smoke over the kingdom's most important oil infrastructure.Both at