Strategy, Policy & Diplomacy
Bill and Boris: A Window Into a Most Important Post-Cold War Relationship
Against the backdrop of an enormous power differential between their two countries, Clinton and Yeltsin established a close personal rapport. They used those positive feelings to interact effectively even when they were being frank in their disagreements, the…
From Engagement to Rivalry: Tools to Compete with China
To arrive at a new consensus, the United States needs to address the weaknesses in Americans’ knowledge of China while rethinking the connections between the ways China is analyzed and how policy is made.
America’s Relation to World Order: Two Indictments, Two Thought Experiments, and a Misquotation
The State is undergoing a crisis of legitimacy owing to its inability to cope with novel problems of weapons proliferation, transnational threats including climate change, a fragile global financial infrastructure, cultural influences carried by electronic…
Restraining an Ally: Israel, the United States, and Iran’s Nuclear Program, 2011–2012
In asymmetric alliances, a superior state provides security to a weaker ally, who in exchange surrenders its autonomy to its stronger protector. But what happens when the weaker state’s vital interests clash with its stronger ally’s preferences? In 2011…
Japan’s Security Policy in the “Abe Era”: Radical Transformation or Evolutionary Shift?
Widely considered Japan’s most powerful prime minister in decades, Shinzo Abe has responded to a changing security environment in the Asia-Pacific — including an increasingly powerful and assertive China and growing North Korean nuclear threat — by…
Rediscovering Statecraft in a Changing Post-War Order
If Washington doubles down on U.S. military and geopolitical predominance, it risks transforming the emerging competitive era into something far more confrontational and zero-sum than it needs to be. If it hopes to retain its position of leadership, the United…
Getting Out and About: Talking with Americans Beyond Washington About Their Place in the World
A small team at CNAS is getting out of the Beltway “bubble” to talk to Americans about what role the United States should play on the international scene.
Choosing Primacy: U.S. Strategy and Global Order at the Dawn of the Post-Cold War Era
Newly declassified U.S. government records shed some light onto U.S. strategic thinking about the post-Cold War era and the infamous Defense Planning Guidance.
U.S. Engagement in the Western Hemisphere
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson discusses the United States' enduring partnership with South America, Central America, North America, and the Caribbean.
The Meaning of Strategy, Part II: The Objectives
By the end of the 19th century, the study of strategy had become routine for practitioners, but of little interest for theorists. By the end of the 20th century, it had become a matter of endless fascination for theorists, but a puzzle for practitioners.
The International Order and Nuclear Negotiations with Iran
The international order is not just an abstract concept, but rather is of concrete value to U.S. national security, as exemplified by America's policy toward Iran.
The Meaning of Strategy, Part I: The Origin Story
The word "strategy," which is now commonplace, only first came into use to understand military affairs at the beginning of the 19th century in Europe. Since then, its meaning has changed in important ways.