Articles
May 4, 2026
The Trump administration ramps up its lawlessness on the seas
When the U.S. armed forces began blowing up suspected “drug boats” on Sept. 2, 2025, it was widely seen as a way not just to fight the war on drugs but also to put pressure on Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro, who was in league with drug traffickers. Many expected that the lawless strikes — which amount to killing suspected criminals without trial — would end after U.S. forces captured Maduro at the beginning of the year.
Washington Post
Apr 27, 2026
The Trump-class battleships are a waste of time and money
Given all the well-regarded generals and admirals sacked by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in his political purges, it’s hard to work up much sympathy for the latest Pentagon casualty: Navy Secretary John Phelan. He is a billionaire investor and major donor to President Donald Trump who had no business getting the job in the first place.
Washington Post
Apr 20, 2026
Trump says Cuba will be ‘next.’ Here’s what he doesn’t get.
More than two months before President Donald Trump announced that the Navy would interdict shipping to and from Iranian ports, he quietly launched a blockade of fuel shipments to Cuba. It’s hard to know exactly when the Cuba blockade started, because the president, in his usual autocratic fashion, made no public announcement and offered no explanation for his actions. He simply acted.
Washington Post
Apr 20, 2026
An ‘Open for Open’ Hormuz Deal Could Break the Iran Stalemate
Pressing economic concerns should compel the United States and Iran to decouple their blockades of the Strait of Hormuz from the complex and likely lengthy negotiations needed to reach a settlement on Iran’s nuclear program.
Council on Foreign Relations
Apr 14, 2026
Coercing Iran: Why Trump’s Hormuz Blockade Has a Short Fuse
The Trump administration has declared a naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, betting that Iran will buckle under economic pressure before the global energy crisis forces the United States to back down. The outcome of this standoff is far from certain.
Council on Foreign Relations
Apr 13, 2026
Orban’s defeat shows the Achilles’ heel of populist power
What’s the biggest danger facing Europe? I would argue it’s not Russia, China, Iran or even the United States. It’s the threat of homegrown illiberalism — of right-wing populists who will mismanage economies, undermine democracy, victimize minorities, corrupt the government and cozy up to dictators such as Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping.
Washington Post
Apr 8, 2026
The Iran ceasefire was a TACO Tuesday, and thank goodness
Tuesday was one of the more bizarre days in U.S. diplomatic history. It began with President Donald Trump warning that, should Iran not reopen the Strait of Hormuz, “a whole civilization will die tonight.” It ended with Trump proclaiming a two-week ceasefire and opening negotiations with Iran based on Tehran’s “10 point proposal.” There is rampant confusion about what those 10 points are, but the version released by Tehran calls for, among other things, Iranian control of the Strait of Hormuz, U.S. military withdrawal from the region and acceptance of Iran’s right to pursue nuclear enrichment — all conditions that should be utterly unacceptable to any U.S. administration.
Washington Post
Apr 3, 2026
Hegseth’s firing of a top general is the latest sign of Pentagon turmoil
In the early morning hours of Feb. 28, President Donald Trump announced the biggest U.S. war in more than two decades. What was Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth doing the day before? Announcing a settlement with Scouting America, formerly known as the Boy Scouts of America, to discontinue some diversity initiatives. Hegseth did not succeed in getting the group to kick out girls or revert to its earlier name, but he did convince it to end its “Citizenship in Society” merit badge, earned by scouts who “realize the benefits of diversity, equity, inclusion, and ethical leadership.”
Washington Post
Mar 31, 2026
Why Ukraine is even more impressive in person
I just returned from a week spent in Ukraine with a delegation from the Renew Democracy Initiative, an NGO founded by former chess champion Garry Kasparov that has provided $15 million in humanitarian aid to that embattled country. (I serve on RDI’s advisory board.) It was my third trip since the war began, the previous two having been in 2023 and 2024. I’ve already written for the Washington Post about some impressions from my latest trip, mainly involving Ukraine’s kick-ass drone army. But I thought I would use this space to share some other thoughts on the look and feel of wartime Ukraine—and in particular why I always leave Ukraine even more impressed than when I arrive.
Substack
Mar 30, 2026
The Iran Conflict Is Becoming a Russia-Ukraine Proxy War
Both Russia and Ukraine are trying to use the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran to their own advantage. With Russia profiting from the war while backing Iran, and Ukraine arming the Gulf states, the Middle East has become a new front in the war between Kyiv and Moscow.
Council on Foreign Relations
Mar 30, 2026
Ukraine’s drone army has done the incredible
KYIV — When I first visited Kyiv in May 2023, Ukraine’s capital experienced what was then one of the largest air attacks of the war: Russia fired 25 missiles and nine drones. I could hear the blasts outside my hotel room as Ukrainian air defenses shot down all the projectiles. Last week, during my third visit to wartime Ukraine, Russia set another shameful record by firing 30 missiles and nearly 1,000 Shahed drones during a 24-hour period (March 23-24).
Washington Post
Mar 23, 2026
Don’t blame Trump’s stupid war on Israel
When a nation starts a war for dubious reasons and then suffers the consequences, there is inevitably a search for scapegoats. Conspiracy theories abound. It happened after World War I, when the favorite villains were “merchants of death” and international bankers. It happened again after the Iraq War, which some blamed on “neoconservatives” and Halliburton, the oil-services giant led by Dick Cheney before he became vice president.
Washington Post
Mar 16, 2026
The U.S. military’s greatest weakness in Iran is one it can’t fix
“War is the great auditor of institutions.” So wrote the British military historian Correlli Barnett. What, then, does the war with Iran reveal about the state of U.S. military power?
The first, and most obvious, lesson is the potency of U.S. precision-strike capabilities. Since the start of Operation Epic Fury on Feb. 28, U.S. and Israeli forces have hit more than 15,000 targets without losing any aircraft to enemy air defenses. (Five U.S. Air Force planes were damaged on the ground in Saudi Arabia by an Iranian missile strike, while three were lost to friendly fire and one in a fatal accident.)
Washington Post
Mar 9, 2026
There are two winners in Iran. Neither one is America.
The Middle East first came to dominate U.S. defense policy in the 1970s — the decade of the Arab oil embargo, the Iran hostage crisis and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Back then, the United States was dependent on Middle Eastern oil, leading President Jimmy Carter to announce a new doctrine in 1980: “An attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force.”
Washington Post
Mar 6, 2026
Trump’s mini-me ambassadors are insulting and alienating U.S. allies
President Donald Trump is pursuing an ambitious foreign-policy agenda, which ranges from regime change in Iran to peacemaking in Ukraine. Normally U.S. ambassadors would be on the frontlines of such efforts. Yet in December, the Trump administration recalled more than two dozen career ambassadors, and it has been slow to fill vacancies. The result is that the U.S. lacks ambassadors in such important countries as Brazil, Egypt, Germany, Indonesia, Iraq, Pakistan, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Korea and the United Arab Emirates.
Washington Post
Feb 28, 2026
There is no reason to think this war with Iran is necessary
My big takeaway from the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq — which I deeply regret having supported — is that the United States should go to war only when it has to. It should not engage in preventative wars against nebulous threats based on suspect intelligence and without a clear endgame.
Washington Post
Feb 23, 2026
The U.S. is sleepwalking into war with Iran. Trump won’t explain why.
The U.S. military has assembled a formidable armada in the Middle East, including two aircraft carrier strike groups and dozens of additional aircraft. It is the largest array of U.S. warplanes in the region since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. All signs suggest that military action against Iran could be imminent. The question is why. President Donald Trump isn’t explaining why he’s acting or what he hopes to achieve, so the world can only speculate.
Washington Post
Feb 16, 2026
Even far-right foreign leaders are getting sick of Trump’s meddling
President Donald Trump trashes so many norms that it’s easy to overlook how outlandish some of his actions are. Take his habit of formally endorsing candidates in other countries’ elections. Previous presidents occasionally made their preferences plain, often to their subsequent regret: Bill Clinton was supportive of Boris Yeltsin in Russia’s 1996 election and Barack Obama was critical of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel’s 2015 election. But seldom, if ever, have presidents interjected themselves as brazenly as Trump has done in foreign politics.
Washington Post
Feb 9, 2026
Trump has a strongman’s contempt for international law
President Donald Trump’s contempt for the rule of law in America — and the judges who enforce it — is by now well-established. Whether seeking to deport migrants without hearings or refusing to spend appropriated funds or unilaterally tearing down the East Wing of the White House, Trump has shown scant regard for legal limits on his authority.
Washington Post
Feb 2, 2026
Americans may come to regret alienating the ‘mighty middle powers’
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, in his now-famous speech at the Davos conference, issued a stirring call for the “middle powers” to protect their own interests at a time when the great powers are running roughshod over the “rules-based international order.” Recent examples include not only Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and China’s attempts to claim the South China Sea, but also President Donald Trump’s threats to annex Greenland and his punitive tariffs on America’s closest allies. “Middle powers must act together,” Carney said, “because if we’re not at the table, we’re on the menu.”