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The Fantasy of the Iran “Commando Option”
Special Operations Forces cannot do everything. They are a scalpel that policymakers in Washington, DC, have tended to use as a multitool. Their proposed use in Iran for seizing the regime’s stockpile of enriched uranium is but the latest idea in this trend. It is also the most reckless—an idea closer to fantasy than to feasibility.
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Pick Your Poison: The Enduring Threat of Biological Toxins
A summary of the Bipartisan Commission on Biodefense’s “Pick Your Poison: The Enduring Threat of Biological Toxins” at the Atlantic Council.
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Five Foreign Election Conspiracy Theories Making the Rounds Again
After the 2020 U.S. presidential election, a flurry of conspiracy theories emerged alleging that President Trump’s reelection victory was “stolen” through massive fraud. These theories were all thoroughly debunked. More than 50 court cases rejected Trump and his allies’ claims as meritless. But Trump remains unable to cope with his loss. As a result, debunked conspiracy theories about 2020 fraud are being dredged up again as pretext for consolidating federal control over elections.
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U.S. Is Less Prone to Oil Price Shocks Than in Past Decades
Oil is a global market, so when prices rise in one place, they rise everywhere. The current war against Iran has already raised oil prices significantly. Now, however, the United States is a major producer and exporter of oil and refined petroleum products. In addition to being less dependent on imports, the U.S. economy is much less oil-intensive than it used to be, producing more economic value with far less oil use today than in the past.
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Trump Should Aim to Neutralize the Iran Regime, Not Destroy It
A grassroots revolution in Iran sounds attractive, but it is far too risky. The likely outcome of dismantling the Islamic Republic is not stable democracy, but state fracture, political chaos, and radiating instability. Washington should instead aim for a defanged Islamic Republic.
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The Illusion of Reform: Why DHS Restraints Fail Without a Path to the Courthouse
Correcting DHS’s deplorable behavior will not be accomplished by a small tweak to the specific ways in which agents target civilians, but rather by a strong deterrent. Now is the time to demand systemic reform. We must ensure that no government agent is above the law or cloaked in immunity.
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Study: Texas’ Controversial Migrant Busing Program Helped Trump in 2024 Election
Texas busing programs that transported newly-arrived immigrants to Democratic-led cities boosted President Donald Trump’s vote share in affected counties during the 2024 election.
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How to Prevent Elections from Being Stolen − Lessons from Around the World for the U.S.
President Donald Trump in his State of the Union address doubled down on his false claims that the U.S. elections system is compromised. His persistent effort to denigrate and spread distrust in the U.S. electoral process has led to speculation about how much further he might go to tilt the 2026 midterm and 2028 presidential elections in favor of candidates he supports.
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AI Governance Is not Just Top-Down in China, Research Finds
Political scientist Xuechen Chen said traditional Chinese values and market driven factors have also driven moves to regulate generative AI platforms.
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Blue States Push to Ban ICE at the Polls Amid Federal Voter Intimidation Fears
Several Democratic states are moving to bar federal immigration agents from being near polling places and other election sites, amid persistent worries that President Donald Trump will use federal law enforcement or the military to disrupt the midterm elections. DHS says it has no plans to target voting locations.
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CIA Agents Successfully Executed a Plan for Regime Change in Iran in 1953 – but Trump Hasn’t Revealed Any Signs of a Plan
There are lessons in effecting political change in Iran that can be taken, ironically, from the very U.S.- and British-led clandestine campaign in the mid-20th century that set Iran on the road to the intense anti-Western and anti-American sentiment that has characterized its government policy for decades.
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I’ve Studied MAGA Rhetoric for a Decade, and This Is What I See in Hegseth’s Boasts, Action‑Movie One‑Liners and Gloating Over Dominance
When Trump’s first Secretary of Defense, James Mattis, spoke, his professional tone and demeanor were a stark contrast to Secretary Pete Hegseth’s remarks on U.S.-Israeli combat operations in Iran. Hegseth not only deviated from the measured tone expected from high-ranking military officials. He flippantly employed villainous colloquialism, delivered with a combative and haughty tone, hypermasculine preoccupation with domination, giddiness about violence, and casual attitude toward death.
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Bookshelf: The Waning Dominance of U.S. Dollar
Perhaps the greatest threat to the dominance of the dollar may come from the US itself. US government debt is basically ‘out of control’, representing 120 percent of GDP, and neither political party has a serious plan to bring it back under control.
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Plum Island, 1954-2026: A Requiem
Plum Island is an 840-acre island in the Long Island Sound, just off Long Island’s North Fork (New York), a short distance from Connecticut. It has been federally owned since the 19th century and was long home to the Plum Island Animal Disease Center (PIADC), a research laboratory focused on foreign animal diseases such as foot-and-mouth disease.
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Plum Island: A History
The history of Plum Island is rich and varied, with changing times, historical context, and national challenges changing the use of the island and its purpose.
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The long view
A Turning Point: U.S. Recognizes Agriculture as a Domain of Defense
The US has legitimized the role of food supply in national defense. It has recognized that in a world of rupture, a nation that cannot feed itself cannot defend itself. A new policy effectively ends the era of agriculture functioning solely as a commercial sector.
Social Media’: The Changing Tech of Terror
In the wake of the white noise generated by mainstream social media channels and apps, a new trend of ‘anti-social media’ has emerged in recent years, which seeks to abandon mainstream platforms, reduce screen time, and seek private, intimate, or even ‘analogue’ communication to avoid algorithm-driven polarization, surveillance and loneliness. But some of these so-called anti-social media platforms have also become off-the-wall mediums for disseminating extremist propaganda.
The Trump Administration’s Cyber Strategy Fundamentally Misunderstands China’s Threat
The adoption of an offense-first strategy is a dangerous miscalculation. It will not diminish Beijing’s campaigns, and it coincides with a significant deterioration of cyber defenses that have kept U.S. networks and Americans safe.
Allfare: China’s Whole-of-Nation Strategy
To analyze how states exert their influence, scholars often compartmentalize actions into rigid analytical frameworks, which obscures the holistic scope of the challenge.
ICE Not Only Looks and Acts Like a Paramilitary Force – It Is One, and That Makes It Harder to Curb
ICE and CBP meet many but not all of the most salient definitions of a “paramilitary force.” Both are also not subject to the same constitutional restrictions that apply to other law enforcement agencies. ICE and CBP thus bear some resemblance to the informal paramilitaries used in many countries for “regime maintenance,” carrying out political repression along partisan and ethnic lines, even though they are official agents of the state.
How the 9/11 Terrorist Attacks Shaped ICE’s Immigration Strategy
The immigration enforcement response to 9/11 set the stage for ICE’s aggressive conduct. Under this way of thinking, if the homeland is under threat, then those who challenge immigration enforcement are “domestic terrorists.” Investigations into ICE officers are muted, for the officers are protecting the homeland against existential danger. Severe tactics to detain immigrants and condemn protesters – and violate U.S. citizens’ constitutional protections — become not only permissible but also advisable.