Americas

Analyzing the New Defense Agenda

On March 4, the US Department of Defense released its Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), the blueprint for defense spending and defense strategy over the course of the next four years. All eyes in Washington DC and beyond were on the 2014 QDR, as it comes at the end of the war in Afghanistan, the rise […]

President Obama’s Foreign Policy is Based on Fantasy

By Editorial Board of the Washington Post

For five years, President Obama has led a foreign policy based more on how he thinks the world should operate than on reality.

Ukraine Crisis Tests Obama’s Foreign Policy Focus on Diplomacy Over Military Force

By Scott Wilson, Washington Post

Ukraine has emerged as a test of Obama’s argument that, far from weakening American power, he has enhanced it through smarter diplomacy, stronger alliances and a realism untainted by the ideology that guided his predecessor.

US Navy Releases New Arctic Strategy

By US Navy

From United States Navy:  The U.S. Navy released an updated Arctic Roadmap Feb. 24 to prepare naval forces over the next 15 years for operations in the Arctic Ocean.

Strengthening the US-Japan Alliance

On February 26, 2014, the Atlantic Council’s Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security held a not-for-attribution roundtable briefing on the US-Japan alliance and what it portends for US extended deterrence in Asia. The briefing featured Mira Rapp-Hooper, Stanton nuclear security fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, and was presided over by project co-chair Richard […]

Hagel’s Defense Cuts: The Least Bad Choice

By James Joyner

Defense secretary Chuck Hagel announced Monday force cuts that would leave the United States with the smallest Army it has had since 1940. While the Pentagon concedes that this comes with strategic “risks,” the biggest risk is that a future president will nonetheless commit our country to wars that require a massive ground presence.

The Pacific Century Myth?

By James Clad and Robert A. Manning

Straight-line projections may predict America’s imminent ouster as top economy – but they miss much. For some time now, it has been fashionable to say that we have begun what will be a “Pacific Century.” We have seen a flood of books of late, variations on the theme of When China Rules the World, as one put […]