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Debating Counter-Factuals: Was the Rise of ISIS Inevitable?
Brands and Feaver contended that different American policy choices could have thwarted the rise of the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL. They reached this conclusion after considering a range of counter-factual scenarios, including alternatives to US disengagement from Iraq in 2010–11, robust early intervention in the Syrian civil war, and action against ISIS before its assault on western Iraq. They argued, however, that the Iraq invasion did not make the rise of ISIS inevitable; quite the contrary, they showed that different, but plausible decisions by the Obama administration could have profoundly reduced the ISIS threat before it emerged.
Analysis
Cheney Was Right: The Sorry History of Our North Korean Policy
Since Donald Trump took office, the growth of North Korea’s nuclear arsenal and the increasing capability and diversity of its ballistic missile force have made that country the most urgent threat to U.S. national security.
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TANK WARFARE: Russia Builds Platform to Rival the Abrams
A robust APS that is baked in from the start is likely to be a key component of the T-14 Armata, said David Johnson, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank.
Analysis
America’s New World Order Is Now Officially Dead
American foreign policy has reached a historic inflection point, and here’s the surprise: It has very little to do with the all-consuming presidency and controversies of Donald Trump. For roughly 25 years after the Cold War, one of the dominant themes of US policy was the effort to globalise the liberal international order that had initially taken hold in the West after World War II. Washington hoped to accomplish this by integrating the system’s potential challengers — namely Russia and China — so deeply into it that they would no longer have any desire to disrupt it. The goal was, by means of economic and diplomatic inducement, to bring all the world’s major powers into a system in which they would be satisfied — and yet the US and its values would still reign supreme.
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This is What a War Between Iran and America Might Look Like
The best research to guide us in such a discussion is a 2011 report from the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA) that looks at Iranian A2/AD capabilities and possible U.S. responses, titled: “Outside-In: Operating from Range to Defeat Iran’s Anti-Access/Area-Denial Threats.”
Press Releases
CSBA Studies the Effect of New Technologies on Strategic Stability
The Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments is excited to continue its analysis of the Second Nuclear Age with an assessment of the impact of hypersonic technology on strategic stability. This new study is made possible with a grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York.