Eric S. Edelman, who was an under secretary of defense under President George W. Bush, said Russian information warfare capabilities were highly developed. “In the Cold War, the Soviet efforts in this regard were ham-handed and could be countered with relative ease,” he said. “Today, the Russians are much more sophisticated, and they see things like disinformation, propaganda and what we used to call ‘active measures’ as part of a suite of capabilities.”

In addition, some US think-tanks have backed a continued US troop presence in Iraq. A report by the Centre for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments called for the presence of 5,000-20,000 US troops in Post-ISIS Iraq to ensure that another ISIS-like insurgency does not emerge.

U.S. foreign policy is likely to be wracked by crises in the coming years. Yet crises are often symptoms of deeper structural transformations, and the fundamental fact of international politics today is that the post-Cold War era has reached its end. That period was defined by uncontested U.S. and Western primacy, a marked decline in ideological struggle and great-power conflict, and a historically remarkable degree of global cooperation in addressing international disorder. Today, however, the international system has reverted to a more contested state.

Thursday's NATO Summit provides an opportunity for the alliance to get tough on its putative Turkish ally. Under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey's destabilizing policies in Europe and the Middle East have made it appear less an ally and more a Russian Trojan horse. To keep Turkey on track, NATO has been appeasing Erdogan, to no avail. Turkey's recent "Eurasianist turn" and Erdogan's now-constitutionalized one-man rule have only complicated the relationship. It is time for NATO to remind Erdogan that he needs the alliance just as much as NATO needs Turkey.

“It seems clear that despite the President’s call in his Philadelphia speech in September for a repeal of the Budget Control Act [which created the sequester] and a big buildup of the military he has not budgeted the resources to accomplish this,” says former ambassador Eric Edelman, a member of the National Defense Panel that recommended in 2014 a substantial buildup. “With these numbers he won’t be able to get a 350-ship Navy, a larger Army, or most of the other things that he promised the American people. There seems to be a disconnect between the rhetoric of ‘peace through strength’ and doing what is necessary from a budgetary perspective to build that strength.” He added, “Those of us who have been concerned about the declining state of the nation’s defenses will have to rely on the Congress to make sure that the gap between America’s commitments and its capabilities doesn’t grow greater on this President’s watch.”

The U.S. may need to keep as many as 20,000 troops and other military personnel in Iraq, even after the Islamic State is driven out, to stabilize the country, the former head of the Pentagon’s policy shop said Thursday. A postwar force of between 4,000 to 8,000 American troops “is probably sufficient” to help local security forces ensure security in Iraq as ISIS faces defeat in its final stronghold in Mosul, Eric Edelman, the Pentagon’s top policy official during the George W. Bush administration, said in an interview. The U.S. forces would likely be deployed as advisers, not combat troops, to support Iraq’s police and military forces, he said. “We are dealing with an an ISIS that is severely, severely weakened” after nearly two years of constant war against U.S.-backed Iraqi and Kurdish forces, said Mr. Edelman, who is now a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA), a Washington-based defense think tank.