Outside the Beltway

The answer seems simple but it isn’t.

A large, well-trained police force was unprepared for a foreseeable crisis.

The lawyers can’t clean up the mess left by the President’s sudden incapacity.

Because of course they are.

My latest for Defense One.

Pentagon officials are speaking out about the militarization of police.

General Milley speaks an obvious truth. Will apologists listen?

The President has reportedly invoked the Insurrection Act.

In recent weeks the US has ramped-up pressure on Maduro.

Another milestone has been reached.

The Secretary of the Navy was abruptly dismissed late yesterday in a dispute over the a case involving a SEAL accused of war crimes.

Republicans used to honor the men and women who serve our country. In the Trump Era, they attack them in defense of the President.

They know how Congress works, but are banking on the fact that many Americans don’t.

In a move sure to ruffle feathers, the President is bypassing all of the Navy’s four-star admirals for the next service chief.

Adm. William Moran had been set to become Chief of Naval Operations in three weeks.

The Pentagon has been headed by Acting Secretaries for an unprecedented period. Does it really matter?

The Democratic-controlled House has settled on the worst possible option.

Lacking any real support from the military or police, the attempted coup against Nicolas Maduro has predictably failed.

There are even higher obligations than taking care of Marines.

The legendary figure was in charge of strategic forecasting at the Pentagon for decades.

President Trump will get his Space force, but it won’t exactly be what he wanted when he first proposed that idea.

As threatened late last year, the Trump Administration has withdrawn from the Intermediate=Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. This is a mistake.

Nancy Pelosi is “suggesting” to the President that the State of the Union be rescheduled for a time after the government shutdown ends, but it clearly seems like more than just a suggestion.

In what clearly appears to be a rebuke of the President, Defense Secretary James Mattis is retiring as Secretary of Defense.

Losing the midterms is not going over well with the President.

Claiming it was because of the weather President Trump chose to skip a visit to a cemetery at the site of one of the bloodiest battles involving Americans in World War One.

My latest for War on the Rocks.

My latest for The National Interest.

President Trump is preparing to scrap a thirty-year-old treaty that marked the beginning of the end of the Cold War. It would be a foolish mistake.

The American public is not sold on the idea of a ‘Space Force.’

President Trump is at the center of controversy again after video emerged of him returning the salute of a North Korean General.

There is no obvious strategy and even the expressed rationale makes no sense.

President Trump wants to send the military to the Mexican border. This is both unnecessary and a bad idea.

The President issued an incredibly confusing order that contradicts the advice of his generals and is probably illegal.

H.R. McMaster appears to be on the way out as National Security Adviser. The important question is, who replaces him?

There won’t be any tanks, but it looks like President Trump will get his military parade.

The Defense Department will reportedly recommend to President Trump that transgender members of the service currently serving in the military be allowed to continue serving.

National Security Adviser H.L. McMaster is the latest person rumored to be considering moving on from the Trump Administration.

Of course Donald Trump wants a military parade, it would be consistent with his delusions of grandeur.

Is it time to reexamine Presidential authority to launch a nuclear strike?

The capital of the purported caliphate declared by ISIS has apparently fallen, but that doesn’t mean the end of ISIS. In fact, it may make the group more dangerous.

Donald Trump continues to be as astoundingly ignorant about the most powerful weapons the U.S. military possesses as he was as a candidate.

A new poll shows, unsurprisingly, that the vast majority of Americans see Donald Trump as a divider rather than a uniter

Donald Trump went there again, and in the process reopened a wound that was starting to heal just a little bit.

At a time when our alliance is more important than ever, President Trump is responding by attacking our ally.

Contrary to reports, Secretary of Defense Mattis is not defying the President on his order to bar transgender Americans from serving in the military.

Another Cabinet member rebukes the President for his comments about Charlottesville.

Donald Trump’s Secretary of State is refusing to defend his response to the violence in Charlottesville.

Just about two weeks after being announced, the President’s proposed ban on military service by transgender troops is being challenged in Court.

Another escalation on the Korean peninsula.