Ready for a Fight?: How America Could Respond to a South China Sea Crisis
Last Monday, an American littoral combat ship, the Fort Worth (pictured below), sailed just over 12 nautical miles from...
A Nation Must Think Before it Acts
Geopoliticus
A nation must think before it acts.
Why the U.S. Raid On Abu Sayyaf and ISIS in Eastern Syria May Be A Game Changer
This morning, reports confirmed that U.S. Special Operations Forces conducted a daring raid deep into Eastern Syria killing a...
Japan’s Security Role in Southeast Asia (and the South China Sea)
Only a few years ago, it would have seemed inconceivable that Japan would have any security role outside of...
Digging In: Land Reclamation and Defenses in the South China Sea
The U.S. Department of Defense’s latest assessment of the Chinese military provided new detail on China’s land reclamation efforts...
Iran Before and After 1979: How Did We Get Here from There?
Thirty-six years ago on February 11, 1979, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi’s monarchy came to an end and with it the...
One year later, ISIS overtakes al Qaeda: What’s next?
A year ago, the Islamic State (IS or ISIS) was on the rise but few expected them to travel...
Do sanctions on Russia create more problems than they solve?
The sanctions on Russia seem to be working. The sanctions, coupled with large victories by pro-Western parties in 2014...
In China: “A Peaceful Democratic Transition?”
Nothing appears by accident in the Global Times, Beijing’s mass-circulation tabloid owned by the People’s Daily and run by...
Bundeswehr 2.0: A German Military for a New Normal
A visit to Germany’s military history museum in Dresden reveals just how deeply ambivalent modern Germany is about its...
Reflections on Granieri’s “Open Letters, Closed Minds, and the Making of US Foreign Policy”
In his Geopoliticus thought-piece on the “Tom Cotton Letter,” Ron Granieri, expresses an understandable, widely shared frustration with official...