Among the commentariat, America’s problem with “forever wars” is usually discussed as a failure of grand strategy. In this telling, presidents misjudge threats; generals overestimate what military power can accomplish; and policymakers confuse battlefield victories with political success. These explanations are all valid, but they miss something fundamental: the people making decisions about war face incentives that are often badly misaligned with the interests of the public. The United States does not need to assume that its presidents are uniquely reckless, its generals uniquely ambitious,...

For nearly twenty-five years, Washington has quietly expanded America’s Global War on Terror across Africa. Today, U.S. military activities stretch from the Horn of Africa through the Sahel to the Atlantic coast, encompassing intelligence bases, drone operations, special operations deployments, partner-force training, logistical support, surveillance missions, and recurring multinational exercises. Yet if the objective has been to produce a more secure region, the strategic picture is difficult to reconcile with the investment. To understand why, begin with a map. The central Sahel and Lake...

Since the end of the Cold War, Somalia has been a textbook case of the perils of foreign meddling. Once a pawn in superpower rivalry, it descended into state collapse, warlordism, and radical insurgency. Successive U.S. administrations, driven by shifting strategic obsessions—from anti-communism to counterterrorism—have repeatedly intervened, each time exacerbating the very problems they claimed to solve. The result? A fractured state, persistent extremism, and record U.S. bombings under the second Trump administration, which is on pace to shatter its own previously set record for strikes in...

As Washington celebrates tactical wins against Islamic State affiliates in Nigeria, Americans should demand policymakers pause. What began as advisory support, intelligence sharing, and targeted strikes now risks expanding across the Lake Chad Basin. Americans should watch closely for the familiar signs of mission creep: initial “capacity building” evolving into direct involvement, with vague goals, shifting objectives, and no clear exit. The Lake Chad region—spanning Nigeria, Niger, Chad, and Cameroon—has long been a theater of instability. At its core is the insurgency linked to Boko...

The China hawks are an industrious bunch. Full of ideas and financing, they are never short of time and fill it with lengthy publications from their comfy sinecures arguing about what Washington “needs” to do to confront the “China Threat.” One of the most notable of these comes curtesy of life-long government employee, Robert D. Blackwill. A creature of the swamp through and through, having served in every capacity imaginable from diplomat to ambassador, Harvard professor to NSC staffer, lobbyist and CFR member, none are more qualified to articulate an option about what Washington should do...

Today, Taiwan occupies a uniquely important position in the global economy. The island produces the overwhelming majority of the world’s most advanced semiconductors, manufacturing the chips that power everything from smartphones and artificial intelligence systems to automobiles, satellites, and advanced weapons platforms. Taiwan has become so central to the modern technological order that analysts since the 1990s have routinely described its semiconductor industry as a “silicon shield,” a strategic asset so important that no major power can afford to see it disrupted. As the debate...

In recent years, critics on both sides of the aisle have taken aim at the longstanding policy of strategic ambiguity toward Taiwan. They argue that Washington should abandon ambiguity and embrace “strategic clarity,” explicitly pledging to fight China over Taiwan. Others, such as Hoover Institute Fellow Eyck Freymann, have offered more sophisticated sounding alternatives like “structured ambiguity,” attempting to codify precisely what America would and would not do in various contingencies, particularly involving gray zone activities. But abandoning a long-established policy that, whatever...