International Security & Defense

302 Items

A Ukrainian serviceman looks at a monitor of an electronic warfare system

AP/Efrem Lukatsky

Analysis & Opinions - Foreign Policy

America Is Suffering From a Resolve Gap

| Jan. 30, 2024

Stephen Walt argues that if the world is entering a period of defense dominance—and if the resolve of most states is greatest in their immediate surroundings—then the ability of any country to wield vast and unchallenged global influence will decline. In such a world, the United States will have to pick its battles more carefully than it has in the past.

In this Aug. 20, 2017 file photo, U.S. Army soldiers stands next to a guided-missile launcher, a few miles from the frontline, in the village of Abu Ghaddur, east of Tal Afar, Iraq. American troops have started to draw down from Iraq following Baghdad’s declaration of victory over the Islamic State group last year, according to western contractors at a U.S.-led coalition base in Iraq.

AP Photo/Balint Szlanko

Analysis & Opinions - Lawfare

Why Security Assistance Often Fails

    Author:
  • Rachel Tecott Metz
| Apr. 23, 2023

Around the world, the United States relies heavily on security assistance to gain influence and make its allies more formidable. When actual war breaks out, however, many long-time recipients of such assistance fight poorly or otherwise do not seem to have heeded the lessons that U.S. trainers tried to impart. The Naval War College’s Rachel Tecott Metz examines this track record, arguing that the United States relies too much on teaching and persuasion and should instead emphasize conditionality more.