International Security & Defense

Most public discussion this winter reflects a conviction that Ukraine must — and can — win a decisive victory. But what constitutes a win against a country such as Russia? As we consider the road ahead, we cannot escape the brute fact that Putin commands an arsenal of roughly 6,000 nuclear weapons that could kill us all.

Stephen Walt explains why Putin understood that Ukraine's fate was more important to Russia than it was to the West.

Stephen Walt argues that states that can attract and retain allies are more likely to succeed than those whose actions cause others to join forces against them.

Juliette Kayyem explains that the United States is finding more things in the sky because it is looking for more things. The scope and quality of the surveillance of U.S. skies have increased since the first incident in early February and the subsequent public revelation of previous Chinese incursions.

Stephen Walt enumerates five lessons that leaders and publics around the world might learn after a year of war in Ukraine.

Mina Pollmann details how Tokyo continues to try to keep relations with Beijing stable even as it deepens military cooperation with NATO and other partners.

In recent years, the U.S. government has accelerated its efforts to eradicate forced labor from global supply chains. Those efforts have been led primarily by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), which has been actively enforcing a long-standing statutory prohibition on the importation of goods made with forced labor, bolstered by recent legislation that has provided it with more substantial regulatory authority. CBP’s evolving enforcement regime suffers, however, from certain shortcomings, including a lack of adequate incentives and legal protections for importers and their suppliers to work collaboratively with the government to craft remediation programs that address the root causes of forced labor.

Artificial intelligence has the potential to dramatically alter how we gather information, communicate and work. Experts are also raising questions about how it will affect governance and what it will mean for the future of our democracy. Bruce Schneier, a fellow at the Belfer Center, joins PBS' William Brangham to discuss.

With rational decision-making, the likelihood of strategic nuclear exchange should be zero. But emotions can create uncertainty, contradicting the expectations of the rational cost-benefit assumptions undergirding deterrence theory.

Juliette Kayyem explains why homeland-security threats and national-security threats demand different responses.