Military & Security

ATHANASIOS G. PLATIAS Wars Are Easy to Start—and harder to End Starting a war is simple; ending one is far harder. The problem of war termination has long been neglected in both international relations theory and diplomatic practice. The assumption has always been that battlefield victory would automatically …

Good governance is imperative for successful private sector operations. Stable, predictable, and efficient business operations relyon a strong enabling environment with predictable rules and practices. How to ensure that such conducive conditions continue was the subject of a pair of roundtables hosted in July at the Center for …

In the August 18 meeting between European leaders, Ukraine, and the United States, multiple officials stressed the importance of security guarantees for Ukraine that were Article V–like. These guarantees, especially in the absence of a ceasefire to support negotiations, would need to include foreign troops and monitors on …

Alon Ben-Meir The unfolding horror in Gaza has galvanized a powerful international momentum calling for the establishment of a Palestinian state. On July 29, France and Saudi Arabia, with the support of the Arab League and 16 other co-chairs, issued the New York Declaration on the Peaceful Settlement …

Alexander Langlois Disarming Hezbollah would be much easier if Israel withdrew its troops from Lebanese territory. In the first week of August, the Lebanese government’s cabinet voted to disarm all armed groups in the country, marking a significant milestone for the country. But will the decision be implemented? …

Jacob Heilbrunn and Robert Silverman How should the US balance democratic principles with the need to confront groups that shift between ballots and bombs? Calls to ban the Muslim Brotherhood are gaining renewed momentum in Washington, reviving a debate that has long divided policymakers over how democracies should …

For all the controversy that trails him, Donald Trump has a record of inserting himself into geopolitical standoffs and sometimes lowering the temperature. During his first term, he broke decades of taboo by meeting Kim Jong Un in Singapore in 2018 and again at the DMZ in 2019, …

The confluence of two accelerating trends augurs poorly for critical mineral-rich economies in the Global South: the rise of economic nationalism in advanced economies and the return of territorial conquest as a normalized—if not yet fully legitimized—tool of statecraft. The United States and the European Union are aggressively …

By Dr. Shehab Al-Makahleh In a private meeting with geopolitical analyst George Friedman in 2022, and during an earlier conversation with the late Henry Kissinger in 2021, both thinkers alluded to the strategic inevitabilities of conflict in the Middle East. Strategist Friedman warned that the region was heading …