Center for International Security and Cooperation

"Washington’s policy today is defined by incoherence: maximalist ends, minimalist means, false assumptions, few allies, all pressure, no diplomacy," writes Brett McGurk in Foreign Affairs. "....Even where the policy has been effective in choking Iran’s economy, it has done so at the cost of aggravating the very allies Washington needs if it is to sustain a competition against great-power rivals."

"Online disinformation campaigns are not just a threat to the 2020 election. They may be a harbinger of the end of the world," writes Joseph Marks, in the Washington Post. Marks interviewed Herb Lin and Christopher Painter for his piece about the Bulletin of Atomic Scientist's Doomsday Clock 2020 announcement, which set the methaphoric clock at 100 seconds to midnight.

“In the big strategic game, the Russians and Americans have the same reason for modernizing their nuclear forces: they want to maintain parity,” writes Rose Gottemoeller for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “If the two sides have the same number of nuclear warheads deployed, then they will not be tempted to shoot at each other. They also have a reason to avoid an arms race that would entail constantly seeking more nuclear weapons to try to achieve superiority—however temporary. As expensive as nuclear weapons and their delivery vehicles are, parity has kept the costs down by holding the arms race in check.”

“Secretary of State Mike Pompeo spent January 31 in Kyiv underscoring American support for Ukraine, including in its struggle against Russian aggression,” writes Steven Pifer for Brookings. “While Pompeo brought no major deliverables, just showing up proved enough for the Ukrainians. The U.S. government should now follow up with steps to strengthen the U.S.-Ukraine relationship, which has been stressed by President Donald Trump’s bid to drag Ukraine’s leadership into U.S. politics.”