• Germany's Military Budget: Unanswered Questions

    Germany’s defense budget is not exactly small, and it has now been given a massive defense budget boost — but it is dogged by allegations of inefficiency. The parliamentary Bundeswehr commissioner’s report was not comforting.

  • The Evolution of U.S. Emergency Risk Assessment and Response

    The U.S. emergency management system evolved from responses to many past situations, including the Great Depression and the Cold War. The current system formed as a seeming patchwork of federal, local, nonprofit and other agencies. While the current system has advantages and weaknesses, understanding its makeup can help us address current crises, including pandemics and climate change.

  • The Nuclear Threat Returns

    Nuclear arms were a symbol of the Cold War. The recent Russian threats in the war with Ukraine have put them on the map again for many people. How does deterrence work and what kind of protection does Europe have?

  • Domestic Violent Extremism within DHS

    DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas created a working group consisting of senior DHS officials to conducted a comprehensive review of how to best prevent, detect, and respond to potential threats related to domestic violent extremism within the Department of Homeland Security.

  • U.S. Stand Your Ground Laws Associated with 700 Additional Homicides Every Year: Study

    Stand Your Ground laws in the United States have expanded legal protections for individuals who use deadly violence in self-defense. A new study estimates they result in an additional 700 homicides each year - an increase in monthly homicide rates of 11 percent nationally, but up to 28 percent in some states.

  • War in Ukraine Could Cut Global Supply of Essential Elements for Making Green Technology

    The EU imports 40 percent of its natural gas from Russia, and nearly half of the five million barrels of crude oil Russia exports daily go to Europe. Decisive action by major economies to reduce coal, oil and gas imports from one of the world’s largest sources could accelerate the transition to green energy globally. But there’s a catch. Disruption to the supply of critical metals and other materials caused by the war in Ukraine could stall the roll-out of alternative technologies.

  • Calls Mount for West to Impose No-Fly Zone, Give Jets to Ukraine

    Poland surprised the United States by offering to donate its Soviet-era MiG-29 warplanes to Ukraine in exchange for advanced U.S. fighter jets to be transferred to Poland. The Polish government didn’t get the green light from the Biden administration before going public with the plan, and the Pentagon Tuesday rejected the idea as not “a tenable one.”

  • Putin May Use Chechen War Playbook in Ukraine

    The Russian military campaign in Ukraine has been slower than expected, and Vladimir Putin may turn to the indiscriminate tactics of the wars in Chechnya that turned Chechen cities to rubble in the 1990s and early 2000s, human rights activists say.

  • Is Putin Irrational? Nuclear Strategic Theory on How to Deter Potentially Irrational Opponents

    Vladimir Putin’s astonishing lapse of judgment in invading Ukraine has fueled speculation that the Russian president may have taken leave of his senses. If this assessments is accurate, then the world faces a highly disturbing situation: a mad king in possession of the world’s largest nuclear arsenal. If Putin is not a rational adversary, then the policies that would deter a more-reasonable man may fail or even backfire.

  • Can Ukraine Be Saved Without Triggering a Nuclear Response?

    Worries about the war in Ukraine are deepened by the prospect that if, against the odds, Russian forces are brought to the point of defeat, Putin will launch a ‘battlefield’ or ‘tactical’ nuclear weapon to destroy the forces opposing the Russian military, and, perhaps, even attack military bases inside neighboring countries – some are NATO member states – which provide supplies to the resistance.

  • Ukrainians Fear Putin Has Chosen 'Grozny Option'

    “Grozny” is on the lips of many Ukrainians in the port city, a reference to the near destruction of the Chechen capital in late 1999 to early 2000, when Putin was prime minister and in the process of succeeding Boris Yeltsin as president.

  • As War Loomed, U.S. Armed Ukraine to Hit Russian Aircraft, Tanks and Prep for Urban Combat

    Declassified documents show that the United States substantially augmented its shipments of lethal military aid and protective equipment to Ukraine as the prospect of a Russian invasion became more apparent and then a reality. The United States has committed about $3 billion in military aid to Ukraine since Russia annexed Crimea in 2014.

  • It’s Going to Get Worse Before It Gets Better in Ukraine

    Military and intelligence analysts and Ukraine scholars offered a somber assessment of the weeks ahead in Ukraine, saying that despite the resistance offered by Ukrainian fighters, the situation is likely to get worse before it gets better, as the fighting will grow more brutal and deadly before serious talks begin.

  • How Ukraine’s Military Has Resisted Russia So Far

    Ukrainian troops are mounting a stiffer-than-expected resistance to Russian forces, to the surprise of military analysts. U.S. officials have been impressed with the fighting prowess of the Ukrainians, but their assessment that Russia has the superior military has not changed.

  • Strategic Folly in Ukraine: A War That Putin Cannot Win

    From the start, the Russian campaign has been hampered by political objectives that cannot be translated into meaningful military objectives. This underlying strategic folly has been reinforced by the tactical ineptitude with which the campaign has been prosecuted. If only for reasons of prudence, we must still assume that the Russians will be more successful in bringing the weight of their military strength to bear.