International Security & Defense

The latest series of military exercises in Russia have unnerved its Western neighbors, who are concerned that Russia may be preparing for a military campaign. The Russian military is indeed preparing for war, but that does not mean the Kremlin actually plans to initiate one anytime soon.

Islamic State attacks will continue until it is defeated. We are at war — at war with a ruthless, bloodthirsty, and capable enemy bent on inflicting as much carnage as possible on the United States and its allies. The president did not choose this war, but he must no longer shirk from it.

The president of the United States has many responsibilities, but none is more important than Article Two of the Constitution’s charge that the president shall be commander in chief of our armed forces. Anyone who would demean a service member’s heroic pursuit of duty, or even contemplate issuing unlawful orders to commit war crimes and expect them to be obeyed (as Trump did when he threatened to attack the families of terrorists), is unfit for any rank in the U.S. military, let alone service as commander in chief.

In the Ukraine crisis, President Obama faces the most severe national security test of his administration, writes Will Tobey. The results of his examination will be graded not only in Moscow, but also in Tehran, Damascus, and Pyongyang, and by US allies around the world.

Russia is violating Ukrainian sovereignty and international law by sending troops to seize communications, transportation, and governmental hubs on the Crimean peninsula. Soldiers violating borders to seize territory in Europe is a grave matter, reminiscent of a darker past that Europe has tried to escape.

What has Barack Obama's administration done to respond?

"So Snowden has left the building. The NSA leaker’s departure from Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport, for an undisclosed location in Russia, on Thursday is turning into a real blessing for the US-Russian relationship," writes Simon Saradzhyan. "It may sound perverse, but both Barack Obama, and, to a lesser extent, Vladimir Putin, have good cause to thank the man whom the US government has fruitlessly asked Russia to extradite and whom the Russian government has just granted temporary asylum."

In a recent op-ed published in Russia in Global Affairs the Belfer Center's Kevin Ryan and Simon Saradzhyan argue that at a time when deep U.S. defense budget cuts are underway, supporters of continued U.S. missile defense development should consider the potential for cutting costs that cooperation with Russia could offer.

"Fall 1991 saw U.S. and Soviet leaders display goodwill by pledging to unilaterally consolidate and reduce their nations' arsenals of tactical nuclear weapons in what became the last milestone in the history of U.S.-Soviet arms control....Twenty years after, however, the two countries still have thousands of tactical nuclear weapons outside any of the existing international arms control regimes," writes Simon Saradzhyan

Russia is still a player whose choices affect our vital interests in nuclear security and energy writes Graham Allison and Robert D. Blackwill

"The WikiLeaks cables reveal an episode in which officials in Yemen — home of al Qaeda's most active regional branch — warned that a deadly radioactive source was sitting in building whose only guard had left and whose sole security camera had long been broken. These programs provide the practical means to deal with such threats."