International Security & Defense

The U.S. position in the global value chain puts it at a disadvantage, and Washington's confrontational policies are making things worse.

This article outlines current U.S. government processes to bolster biosecurity and biosafety measures and summarizes five key findings from biosecurity experts.

This paper provides a brief overview of current AI-related biosecurity concerns and outlines where further analysis is still required.

The half-century since the official demise of the Bretton Woods system of fixed exchange rates has shown the benefits of what replaced it. While some may feel nostalgic for the postwar monetary system, its collapse was inevitable, and what looked like failure has given rise to a remarkably resilient regime.

Stephen Walt argues that the true value of more diverse decision-making teams and more open political systems is not that they never make mistakes but rather that they make it more likely that policy blunders will be corrected once it is clear they are not working.

As the best documented major crisis in history, in substantial part because Kennedy secretly taped the deliberations in which he and his closest advisers were weighing choices they knew could lead to a catastrophic war, the Cuban missile crisis has become the canonical case study in nuclear statecraft. Over the decades since, key lessons from the crisis have been adapted and applied by the successors of Kennedy and Khrushchev to inform fateful choices.

Of all the intractable issues that could spark a hot war between the United States and China, Taiwan is at the very top of the list. And the potential geopolitical consequences of such a war would be profound. Taiwan-"an unsinkable aircraft carrier and submarine tender," as U.S. Army General Douglas MacArthur once described it--has important, often underappreciated military value as a gateway to the Philippine Sea, a vital theater for defending Japan, the Philippines, and South Korea from possible Chinese coercion or attack.

Recap of MEI event "Egypt: Lumbering State, Restless Society."

Along with concerns over the possible deployment of tactical nuclear weapons, the Biden administration is now warning that the Russian military may launch a chemical weapons attack in Ukraine. Russia has used chemical weapons during past conflicts, notably in Chechnya and Syria, in violation of international law. Russian officials denied Biden’s accusation during a U.N. Security Council meeting Tuesday.

The authors write that norms can change. This process by which a norm dies often occurs in the wake of security shocks. Just as 9/11 motivated the George W. Bush administration to erode the anti-torture norm, a future security shock could prompt the United States to violate its commitments under the Chemical Weapons Convention.