America at War

As Trump Announces Afghanistan Strategy, Here’s What the War Has Cost

By Yuval Rosenberg

President Trump will deliver his first prime-time address to the nation at 9 p.m. EDT tonight and is expected to announce that he’s sending thousands more U.S. troops to Afghanistan. If that is the...
Trump Has Just Raised the Stakes With Moscow and Tehran in Three Risky Moves

By Patrick Smith

President Trump made three big moves on Syria and Iran this week. They crisscross and contradict one another, but the administration’s game plan in the Middle East just got a lot clearer.
Sending More Troops to Afghanistan Would Be a Historic Mistake

By Marc Joffe

Earlier this month, ISIS claimed to have taken Tora Bora, Osama bin Laden’s old hideout in Afghanistan. The Taliban immediately denied ISIS’s claim, insisting that it still held the area. But, in...
Trump’s Fly-by-Night Mideast ‘Policy’ Embraces the Saudi’s New Crown Prince

By Patrick Smith

It’s not likely that President Trump knew what he was getting into when he embraced the Saudis as the rightful leaders of the Islamic world and the war on terror during his visit to Riyadh last month...
How Will We Pay the $6 Trillion Bill for the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan?

By Linda J. Bilmes, The Conversation

On Memorial Day, we pay respects to the fallen from past wars – including the more than one million American soldiers killed in the Civil War, World Wars I and II, Korea and Vietnam. Yet the nation’s...

Here's How Much the 'Mother of All Bombs' Costs

By Jacqueline Leo

The United States Defense Department likes to show off. After proving it can move with the quick strike capability of a cobra as it did when it launched 59 tomahawk missiles at a Syrian airfield ,...
Why The US Can't Just Take Out Assad

By David Alpher, The Conversation

The Trump administration has done an abrupt about-face on Syria, contradicting its own nascent foreign policy . Within 24 hours, it went from calling out the Assad regime for using chemical weapons...
Team Trump Still in Search of a Coherent Syria Policy

By Rob Garver

More than 48 hours after President Trump ordered a missile assault on a Syrian government airbase as retaliation for a chemical weapons attack that killed dozens of civilians in the town of Idlib,...
Trump Just Strengthened His Hand on Defense Spending

By Eric Pianin

In the wake of U.S. missile strikes against Syria, President Trump’s call for huge increase in defense spending is suddenly looking more likely to succeed.
Here's What Firing 59 Tomahawk Missiles at Syria's Airfield Cost

By Jacqueline Leo

Sarin gas is a horrible nerve agent that should never be used on human beings. Even if one doesn't die from exposure, there could be permanent damage to the nervous system after even a short...

Obama’s ISIS Strategy Risks Global Backlash

By Clarke Jones, The Conversation

In a primetime televised address this evening, U.S. President Barack Obama will announce a ramp-up of allied military efforts to target Islamic State (IS) militants in Iraq and Syria. As Obama knows...
Obama Wants OK from Congress on ISIS After All

By Eric Pianin

President Obama told lawmakers Tuesday evening he doesn’t need special authority from Congress to step up airstrikes against ISIS in northern Iraq and parts of Syria – but now he is seeking...
Bombing ISIS Is Just a First Step Hagel Says

By Kevin Baron, Defense One

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said the Islamic State group (ISIS or ISIL) is “beyond just a terrorist group,” and has become a 9/11-level threat to the United States, but the U.S. military’s mission...
Dick Cheney: Build Up the Military, Get Aggressive Overseas

By Rob Garver

In a speech at the American Enterprise Institute, former Vice President Dick Cheney blasted President Obama for the existence of multiple global crises, and called for a build-up of the U.S. military...
‘Do Nothing Congress’ Wants In on Obama’s War on ISIS

By Rob Garver and Eric Pianin

A day before President Obama delivers a major speech laying out his strategy for defeating ISIS, members of Congress seemed torn between wanting to assert their authority on when the U.S. goes to war...

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