Defense & Security Archive

By dismissing outright the ICC’s charges against Israel’s leadership, President Biden laid bare the hypocrisy of the rules-based order.

Narratives about civilian casualties in Gaza misconstrue how casualties are estimated and misunderstand what a civilian is.

German leaders have maintained their ironclad support for Israel. It’s increasingly putting them at odds with their constituents.

The U.S.-Israel relationship is special, but not indestructible. It has limits. Now, it seems Israel has finally found those limits.

Under the leadership of President Xi Jinping, China has begun to challenge America’s role as the key economic and political actor in Asia. Increasingly repressive at home, Xi has not shied away from asserting China’s regional authority. But while China’s rise often makes headlines, it is not the only trend shaping events in Asia.

Emmanuel Macron recently made clear that he views France’s nuclear deterrent as an essential part of European defense, while Russia engaged in another round of nuclear saber-rattling in order to dissuade further Western support to Kyiv. All of this raises a fundamental question: Are nuclear weapons actually an effective deterrent?

An insurgency allied with the Islamic State has been waging a bloody campaign in Mozambique’s Cabo Delgado province for almost a decade. After a lull in fighting that lasted most of last year, militants spread southward through the isolated province in late 2023 and early 2024, burning houses, schools and churches as they went.

Most commentary about the movie, “Civil War,” focuses on its political realism, or lack thereof, and ignores what it teaches audiences about the role of the media as both observers and participants in conflicts. Here are some things the film gets right and wrong about civil wars and war reporting, based on political science.

Cambodia’s government can’t get to grips with the cyber-slavery compounds run by Chinese mafia gangs on its territory, as the government’s official response has veered between minimization of the problem and denial. This failure is putting pressure on foreign governments to protect their nationals from falling victim to the scams.

Since the war in Gaza began, Israel’s Arab population and political leaders have faced censorship and backlash for opposing the war. But at the same time, Arab political parties and their leaders have skillfully managed the situation in order to prevent tensions from escalating between Israel’s Arab and Jewish citizens.

NATO’s intervention in Kosovo just over 25 years ago was based on ideas like “Responsibility to Protect,” which would come to serve as a guiding principle of U.S. foreign policy for more than a decade. But on a road paved with good intentions, “Responsibility to Protect” was always bound to do harm as well as good.

Chinese President Xi Jinping’s trip to Europe is coming at a rather awkward time. European police and intelligence agencies have recently uncovered an astonishing number of alleged Chinese spies in a tidal wave of counterespionage activity in recent weeks, underscoring the sheer breadth of Beijing’s intelligence operations.