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Analysis
Panetta’s Challenge
Can he counter China's and Iran's game-changing new weapons?
Analysis
Fool Me Twice: How the United States Lost Lebanon—Again
For the second time in three decades, a substantial American investment of time, money, and effort to strengthen the Lebanese government and support its fledgling democracy has come to very little. Hezbollah, Tehran, and Damascus now dominate the country’s intractable domestic politics. US diplomacy is left powerless, wondering how to make the best of an increasingly untenable situation in the Levant.
Analysis
From Protectorates to Partnerships
Since World War II, America’s network of European and Asian alliances has underwritten security and prosperity around the globe. While these alliances have been a source of strategic and political advantage for the better part of the past sixty years, they have not always been militarily essential. That is rapidly changing. The United States is confronted by revisionist powers across Eurasia (Russia, Iran and China), as well as the continuing threats posed by Islamic extremism, the almost certainly protracted aftershocks of the Jasmine Revolutions, and the potential for unrest in nuclear-armed states like North Korea and Pakistan. Furthermore, all of this comes at a time of enormous fiscal constraint at home. What used to be a U.S. preference for working in concert with others is fast becoming an imperative.
Analysis
The Challenges After Gates
Spread of Weapons, Cyber Threats, Tight Budgets Await
Analysis
No-Fly Zone, No Problem
How to do it without putting a single coalition plane directly over Libyan territory.
Analysis
The Dangers of a Nuclear Iran
Although finding a peaceful way to preclude Iran from getting nuclear weapons is obviously desirable, Washington will likely have to decide between two unattractive options: pursuing a military strike to prevent Iran from going nuclear or implementing a containment strategy to live with a nuclear Iran. The resort to force is always risky, and it would be particularly so in this case because a substantial number of U.S. troops are deployed near Iran. Whether force should be used will depend on the answers to three difficult questions: How close is Iran to achieving a nuclear weapons capability? Would an attack be effective? How might Iran retaliate, and what costs would the United States and its allies and partners suffer as a result? The risks of war must be weighed against the likelihood that containment could preserve regional stability and avert further proliferation, the demands of implementing and sustaining a containment strategy, and the inevitable reduction in the United States’ ability to defend vital interests elsewhere.