Remorselessly Transactional: Offshore Balancing and the Moral Cost of Abandoning Ukraine

January 14, 2022 For the first blog post of the new year, I would like to return, once again, to a topic that I have visited several times in the past year: the situation in Ukraine. More specifically, I think that it is important to address some of the arguments made by realist international relations

The End of the Liberal International Order?

December 3, 2021 Deep into the International Crisis Group’s latest report on the current state of strategic competition between the U.S. and China in the South China Sea is a discussion of whether the U.S. should reframe its hopes for the region less in terms of a “rules-based order” and more in terms of “international

All Alone or All Together: Europe’s Pursuit of “Strategic Autonomy”

November 26, 2021 Earlier this month, the RAND corporation released an interesting report, “European Strategic Autonomy in Defence: Transatlantic visions and implications for NATO, US and EU relations,” by Lucia Retter, Stephanie Pezard, Stephen J. Flanagan, Gene Germanovich, Sarah Grand-Clement, and Pauline Paille, which examined—through interviews with senior U.S. and European experts—what the concept of

Hanging Together or Hanging Separately: The Impact of Future European Defense Capabilities on U.S. Force Posture, Structure, and Strategy

November 19, 2021 On November 10th, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) published an intriguing report, “Europe’s High-End Military Challenges: The Future of European Capabilities and Missions,” by Seth. G. Jones and Rachel Ellehuus with contributions from Colin Wall. The report endeavors to examine the military capabilities of key American allies and partners,