No one knows precisely what happened inside the White House that resulted in President Trump’s sudden about-face on Syria. One day he was planning to extricate American ground troops from Syria; then he wasn’t. Regardless, whoever is urging the president to leave a small contingent of 2,000 lightly armed soldiers and Marines in a remote corner of Syria is doing the president and the nation a grave disservice. 

Whenever a high visibility military mission occurs – such as the April 13 combined strikes against Syrian chemical capabilities -, observers in democratic countries tend to focus on the glass half full and try to dig out every single matter that might have gone wrong. France is no exception and in the aftermath of the French… Keep reading →

There is a narrative threading through Washington which smugly suggests that “instead of weakness, we now have strength” in the White House. After eight years of feckless “leading from behind,” President Trump has reasserted U.S. credibility, and as a result, our enemies fear and respect us again, resulting in a more secure global environment.  In… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: The most challenging national security problem for the Obama administration may be one of its own creation: the micromanagement of the Pentagon and Intelligence Community by a bloated and lackluster National Security Council. This is one of those stories I’ve talked with dozens of people about for months. Every single person with whom I’ve spoken… Keep reading →

Mitt Romney recently offered a PowerPoint presentation at his annual ideas festival in Park City, Utah to highlight President Barack Obama’s 20 worst foreign policy mistakes, grist for his argument that Obama is “the worst foreign policy president in history,” and Hillary Clinton a well-traveled but mistake-prone former “Secretary of Schlep.” In this election season… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: While the talkerati focused intently on the fairly narrow issue of the presidential strategy to degrade and destroy ISIL, they may have missed the larger message President Obama sent: America is preeminent economically and militarily and has not backed away from the world stage. For almost two years — from the time he declared a… Keep reading →

When James Kitfield contacted us last year about writing for us, we were pleased because few writers have such a gift for spotting major strategic issues and writing about them first and writing about them with grace and clarity. The following piece in which he asks the seminal question — is America in global retreat… Keep reading →

This is James Kitfield’s first piece for Breaking Defense since his departure from his award-winning tenure at National Journal. As one of the best defense reporters around, Kitfield’s specialty has always been spotting the big strategic trend first and writing clearly, simply and persuasively about it. Following is a classic example of his work, which… Keep reading →

Occasionally journalists find a gem, buried in the Potomac muck. They’re hard to find and often even harder to convince they should be seen by the public. Harald Malmgren spends most of his time buried deep in the darkest muck of Washington — that almost impenetrable stuff surrounding economics. But he sometimes rises forth and… Keep reading →

GENEVA: Nuclear talks between Iran and a US-led grouping of six world powers are “hard … very hard,” a senior US administration official said here Wednesday as the two sides resumed attempts to strike a deal in the crisis over whether the Islamic Republic seeks nuclear weapons. The official said an agreement is still possible… Keep reading →