Iranian retaliation against Israel was inevitable the moment Israeli aircraft bombed an Iranian diplomatic facility in the heart of Damascus on April 1, killing one of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ (IRGC) top generals and several other Iranian military advisers in the process.

Iran’s political and religious leadership telegraphed as much immediately after the Israeli strike occurred. Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi called it a “cowardly crime” that wouldn’t go unanswered. Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, used his weekly speech to declare that Israel would be “punished.” The Biden administration took Khamenei’s words seriously: U.S. government employees in Israel were ordered to stay in the major cities; Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke with his Arab foreign ministerial colleagues and asked them to urge Iran to de-escalate; and the Defense Department repositioned two U.S. Navy destroyers into regional waters, at least one of which carries a sophisticated missile defense system.

The question was never whether Iran would respond but rather how. Now we know: At the time of writing, over 100 drones and missiles were launched by Iran toward Israel. Further drone or even ballistic missile strikes by the Iranians could follow, although this is hardly assured. Either way, a tense regional situation is becoming even more fraught. The leaders of Israel and the U.S. must now weigh the risks and rewards of an Israeli counterstrike. And if counterstrikes are approved, the leaders of both countries will need to determine how long they will tolerate a dangerous escalatory spiral.

The subject of finally concluding America’s counter-ISIS mission in Iraq has been the plot of ongoing deliberations between Washington and Baghdad for the last three years. Monday’s White House meeting between President Joe Biden and Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani must be the moment that the story is finally brought to a conclusion. Iran’s attack on Israel this weekend only strengthens the case.

Withdrawing the roughly 2,500 US troops that remain in Iraq to combat ISIS, which has been relegated to a low-level insurgency with a dwindling support base is a testy subject in Washington and Baghdad alike. In Iraq, Sudani is under pressure from his ruling Shia-led coalition to cut military ties with the US, which is still seen as an occupying power, or at the very least reorient the bilateral relationship from dependency to normality. Sudani has reportedly expressed his desire to keep US forces in the country for the foreseeable future to ensure ISIS doesn’t resurge, a request his hardline coalition partners will be hard-pressed to support.

At the same time, a troop withdrawal is generally viewed warily in the US foreign policy establishment, particularly if it’s based on a timetable rather than conditions on the ground. As the US ambassador in Iraq said last month, “In the past we have left quickly only to come back, or only to need to continue, so this time I would argue we need to do this in an orderly fashion.”

Understandably, the US is looking for an optimal scenario before pulling the plug on the US troop presence. But back in the real world, optimal scenarios are few and far between. If the Biden administration’s approach is to wait for the perfect time to get out, then it will wait for eternity.

Former President Donald Trump, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee, hasn’t said a lot about Russia’s war in Ukraine, the biggest international news story before Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza shoved it off the front pages. When Trump does mention the conflict, he tends to keep his comments extremely vague. At times, they’re contradictory.

The day before Russia’s full-scale invasion more than two years ago, for instance, Trump called Russian President Vladimir Putin “genius” and “savvy” for declaring Ukraine’s Donbas region independent and using it as a pretext to send Russian forces in. Weeks later, once the invasion was in full swing, the former president was more morose on Putin: “Now, a lot of things are changing. … This doesn’t seem to be the same Putin that I was dealing with.”

Rhetoric around U.S.-China relations in the past few years has frequently been framed as an unavoidable “New Cold War,” pitting the U.S. and its allies as the “democratic bloc” vs a China-led “autocratic bloc,” with Russia playing a supporting role for the latter.

However, it’s a term and a framework that both U.S. rhetoric and policy need to turn away from, as the Cold War is a poor point of comparison for today’s great power competition between the U.S. and China. Even the lowercase “cold war” understanding of bilateral competition will continue to be overshadowed by capitalized Cold War ghosts, especially considering that the term was coined to describe U.S.-Soviet relations specifically.  If U.S. policymakers are trapped in an ill-fitting framework of historical memory, they will be more likely to recycle Cold War strategies, regardless of whether those strategies are the most effective means of promoting U.S. interests in the face of a rising China.

U.S. presidents often leave the White House expressing “strategic regret” over perceived foreign policy failures.

Lyndon Johnson was haunted by the Vietnam War. Bill Clinton regretted the failed intervention in Somalia and how the “Black Hawk Down” incident contributed to his administration’s inaction over the Rwandan genocide. Barack Obama said the Libyan intervention was “the worst mistake” of his presidency. And after a tragic bombing killed 241 U.S. service personnel in 1983 at a Marine Corps barracks in Beirut, President Ronald Reagan called his decision to send troops to Lebanon “my greatest regret and my greatest sorrow.”

As the U.S. heads into a presidential election that will, in all likelihood, end the future White House ambitions of one of its two latest inhabitants—Joe Biden and Donald Trump—it is fair to ask whether either or both will end up similarly experiencing “strategic regret.”

As an expert on U.S. foreign policy and grand strategy, I believe that if history is any guide, a possible answer can be found in both men’s decisions to keep U.S. troops in Syria and Iraq.

The Islamic State’s territorial caliphate in Iraq and Syria may have been eliminated years ago, but as Christopher P. Costa and Colin P. Clarke write, the terrorist group itself is very much in business. ISIS-K, its branch in Afghanistan, has conducted two large-scale external attacks over the last two months — one in Iran that killed more than 80 people and another near Moscow that took the lives of more than 130.

If the United States and its allies haven’t found a way to defeat ISIS-K in its entirety, it’s because terrorism itself is an enemy that can’t be defeated in the traditional sense of the term. This is why the war on terror framework, initiated under the George W. Bush administration immediately after the 9/11 attacks, was such poor terminology. Terrorism is going to be with us for as long as humanity exists.

Viewed this way, terrorism is a conflict management problem, not one that can be solved. While this may sound defeatist to many, it’s also the coldhearted truth. Assuming otherwise risks enacting policies, like invading whole countries (Iraq and Afghanistan), that are likely to create even more anti-U.S. terrorism than we started with.

Of course, all countries should remain vigilant. Terrorism will continue to be a part of the threat environment. The U.S. intelligence community must ensure that its counterterrorism infrastructure is well resourced and continues to focus on areas, like Afghanistan, where the U.S. no longer has a troop presence. But for the U.S., a big part of the solution is keeping our ambitions realistic and prioritizing among terrorist threats lest the system gets overloaded or pulled in too many directions at once.

While all terrorism is tragic, not all terrorist groups are created equal. Local and even regional groups with local objectives aren’t as important to the U.S. as groups that have transnational aims and the capabilities to strike U.S. targets. This, combined with keeping a cool head instead of trafficking in threat inflation, is key to a successful response.

On Friday, March 22, gunmen toting assault rifles stormed Crocus City Hall, west of Moscow in the Krasnogorsk district, shot the guards and, as graphic videos show, opened fire on the concert audience without restraint. More than 6,000 tickets had been sold for the performance by the famed Russian rock band Piknik. At least 137 people were killed and many more wounded, some critically; the final death tally could be higher. That even more people were not shot may owe to the perpetrators’ plan to decamp before Russian security forces arrived on the scene. In a move that seemed calculated to maximize the terror, generate publicity, and broadcast the Russian government’s ineptitude, the assailants set parts of the building ablaze. According to some reports, 90 minutes elapsed before Russian special forces arrived. Putin waited until Saturday afternoon before addressing the Russian people in a televised address. By then, an offshoot of the Islamic State, Islamic State–Khorasan (IS-K), had already claimed responsibility.

The United Nations Security Council, the U.N.’s most important body, is responsible for the maintenance of international peace and security. If there is a threat to the peace, the Security Council is supposed to meet, deliberate and adopt measures to curtail aggression and safeguard international law. It’s a weighty responsibility for any country represented on the panel, particularly for the permanent members—the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Russia and China—most associated with the panel’s procedures.

That’s the ideal, anyway. In reality, the Security Council isn’t some magnanimous organization with a common platform, but rather a collection of individual states with their own self-interests. Arguments ensue, fingers are pointed, and blame is cast—and the result is often deadlock. The Security Council is less a happy family and more like an estranged one forced to be under the same roof for a few hours on Thanksgiving Day. Sure enough, the insults flow, and the food flies.

Sometime last week, senior State Department official Mollie Phee and General Michael Langley, commander of U.S. Africa Command, flew to the Nigerien capital of Niamey for a meeting with the military-led government there. U.S.–Niger relations were in the doldrums since July, when the Nigerien military arrested the president, suspended the constitution, and took over the state. The session was ostensibly meant to see whether those ties could be restored for the benefit of both countries.

The meeting didn’t go well. Days after the U.S. delegation left, the junta’s spokesman announced that the previous security deals Niger inked with the United States were null and void. While the Nigeriens didn’t order the roughly 650 U.S. troops to leave the country, they called the U.S. military presence there “illegal,” which suggests that it may be only a matter of time before President Biden orders all Americans to depart. The Biden administration would like to avoid this; on Monday, March 18, the Pentagon and State Department insisted that U.S. officials were working their diplomatic magic to get a better understanding of how Niger’s latest announcement means will impact America’s force presence in this poor, arid country in Africa’s Sahel region.

With U.S. aid to Ukraine stalled in Congress by an entrenched Republican Party and the Ukrainian counteroffensive stalled by entrenched Russian forces, Kyiv’s Western backers are grasping for ways to bolster its war effort. Since trained personnel and artillery are in short supply, their attention has turned to drones and artificial intelligence. However, overestimating the role such technologies can play in armed conflict risks solidifying the very stalemate that Ukraine needs to break.

Contrary to popular opinion, the United States and its local partners can benefit from a U.S. withdrawal from Syria. Both have strong incentives to support this policy as alternative options will produce worse outcomes down the road. Washington should consider a complete drawdown of troops in Syria to ensure its security interests in West Asia.

Attention has shifted from Syria and the 2010-11 Arab Spring, but Washington has prolonged the deployment of troops due to inertia rather than the pursuit of a legitimate US security interest. Most importantly, ISIS was territorially defeated in 2019, now forced to operate through small, disorganized sleeper cells in remote regions of Syria and Iraq. The remnants of the group do not pose a threat to U.S. interests, per the U.S. Department of Defense, rendering arguments for an ongoing, uninvited presence obsolete.

Sweden officially joined NATO last week as the alliance’s 32nd member and the United States’ newest treaty ally. Analysts and commentators have been quick to highlight Sweden’s robust arms industry and the geographic benefits of an allied Sweden. With its control of 109-mile-long Gotland Island at the center of the Baltic Sea, Sweden will help turn the Baltic into a “NATO lake,” protecting the vulnerable trio of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. But Sweden’s greatest potential contribution to the alliance is curiously unsung. The selective conscription system that Sweden reauthorized in 2017 offers a critical example to the many European NATO militaries facing an existential threat at home: the struggle to find soldiers for their shrinking forces.

Contrary to popular opinion, the United States and its local partners can benefit from a U.S. withdrawal from Syria. Both have strong incentives to support this policy as alternative options will produce worse outcomes down the road. Washington should consider a complete drawdown of troops in Syria to ensure its security interests in West Asia.

Attention has shifted from Syria and the 2010-11 Arab Spring, but Washington has prolonged the deployment of troops due to inertia rather than the pursuit of a legitimate US security interest. Most importantly, ISIS was territorially defeated in 2019, now forced to operate through small, disorganized sleeper cells in remote regions of Syria and Iraq. The remnants of the group do not pose a threat to U.S. interests, per the U.S. Department of Defense, rendering arguments for an ongoing, uninvited presence obsolete.

Members of the U.S. military are sitting ducks in the Middle East, and in December 2023, eighty-four members of the Senate voted to keep them there because fewer U.S. troops in the Middle East could be a “gift” to Iran. In early December, Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) brought forth a bill to remove 900 U.S. troops from Syria amid the barrage of drone attacks in Iraq, Syria, and Jordan by Iranian-backed militias. Roughly a month after that vote, a drone attack on Tower 22 in Jordan killed three U.S. service members and injured dozens more. After the deadly January 28 attack, the Biden administration found itself trying to balance an impossible scale. How could it satisfy political pressure without inadvertently escalating tensions into a regional conflict?

France’s President Emmanuel Macron once preached about the dangers of humiliating Russia in its war in Ukraine. Now he’s trying to cement himself as Europe’s preeminent Russia hawk. During a recent 20-country meeting in Paris that aimed to consolidate the West’s support for Kiev, Macron generated headlines by suggesting that European troop deployments to Ukraine shouldn’t be ruled out. He doubled down about a week later, emphasizing that Ukraine’s allies in Ukraine couldn’t afford to be “cowardly” in the face of Russian aggression.    

Macron’s initial comments caused a firestorm in Europe. For many, the French president’s proposition was a non-starter. Poland’s prime minister, Donald Tusk, rejected the idea. Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Scholtz stated bluntly that “there will be no ground troops, no soldiers on Ukrainian soil” from NATO or the European Union. The Biden administration reiterated that there are no plans to deploy the U.S. military to Ukraine.

To say that the Biden administration is frustrated with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would be a significant understatement.

The hardline prime minister heading up an even more hardline ultranationalist government has humiliated President Joe Biden continuously, whether it's over Israeli military strategy in Gaza, how Gaza will be administered after the war against Hamas is over, or how much aid should be sent into the enclave. The fact that the U.S. military had to resort to dropping food parcels into Gaza was perhaps the biggest insult of them all—the Biden administration wouldn't be going to such drastic measures if its advice was getting through to the Israeli government.

Every U.S. president comes into office with big dreams, only to be bludgeoned by the realities of international politics.

At the end of the day, presidents are forced to prioritize goals, restrain ambitions and seek a framework that helps them organize their foreign policy. George W. Bush, for instance, stuck with his global war on terrorism mindset. Barack Obama’s approach was crafted in part to keep the United States from repeating the mistakes of the Bush years. Donald Trump’s “America First” weighed heavily on transactional dealings.

General Flynn and Lieutenant Colonel DeVine list several reasons why the Army has a critical role to play in the Indo-Pacific, but the arguments related to long-range fires, sustainment, and persistent forward presence have serious flaws.

The discussion about the “Ring of Fires” concept does not address a major roadblock to the forward deployment of U.S. ground-based missiles—namely, which countries would consent to have such weapons on their territory. Japan is the only U.S. ally in Asia that has expressed a willingness to consider the deployment of ground-based missiles. But with Japan developing its own “counterstrike capabilities,” Tokyo might conclude it does not need to host U.S. missile systems, avoiding the domestic political headaches they inevitably would stir up. Australian officials are on record against hosting U.S. missiles; the Philippines and South Korea remain wary of provoking Beijing; and Thailand has eschewed an anti-China stance altogether. Moreover, many of these countries are already developing or purchasing long-range strike capabilities, obviating the perceived need to deploy U.S. missiles there.

Josh Rogin was right in his Feb. 25 op-ed, “Kyiv wants to know if NATO still wants them,” that the United States and its NATO allies have been waiting far too long to decide whether Ukraine should be a member in the alliance. It’s past time for Washington to give the Ukrainians an answer: Thanks, but no thanks.

The conventional wisdom holds that Ukraine’s long-term security is best accomplished by bringing Kyiv under the NATO umbrella. But this is wrong for a number of reasons. First, it would likely lengthen the duration of the war, not shorten it. Even the faint prospects of a negotiated settlement would evaporate if the Ukrainians were given the option to join. Russian President Vladimir Putin would have no incentive whatsoever to stop waging war, let alone negotiate peace, if he knew Ukraine would become a NATO member at the end of the conflict.

One of the first rules of politics and policy is to keep expectations low, lest you disappoint your constituents and embarrass yourself for being hopelessly naive.  Apparently President Joe Biden didn’t get the memo. 

During a stop in New York City this week for a taping of NBC’s Late Night with Seth Meyers, Biden was eager, if not downright giddy, about the prospects of a temporary ceasefire in Gaza. Ice cream cone in hand, the president told the White House press corps that Jake Sullivan, his national security advisor, believes a truce is close at hand. 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is in an unenviable position. Having been caught flat-footed by the worst terrorist attack in Israel’s history, his approval rating remains in the gutter.

Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza, stretching into its fifth month, and the terrible, some would say indiscriminate, damage the fighting has done to the 2 million Palestinians who live there have sullied Israel’s international reputation. Hamas’ military brigades have been dealt a blow, but Netanyahu’s insistence on “total victory” sounds as if he genuinely believes the organization is like a conventional army that can be wiped out.

Two years ago this Saturday, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the full-scale invasion of his Ukrainian neighbor. On the eve of the anniversary (for lack of a better word), the Biden administration rolled out its most comprehensive sanctions package to date.

A total of 500 Russian individuals and entities will now be barred from conducting any business with United States individuals or firms, and any assets they may have under U.S. jurisdiction will be frozen.

“These sanctions will target individuals connected to [Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s] imprisonment as well as Russia’s financial sector, defense industrial base, procurement networks and sanctions evaders across multiple continents,” President Joe Biden said in a statement. “They will ensure Putin pays an even steeper price for his aggression abroad and repression at home.”

One year ago today, Russian President Vladimir Putin was reeling. The Russian army was still recuperating months after withdrawing from the Ukrainian city of Kherson. Russian troops were in the middle of a winter offensive with very little to show for it. The feud between the Russian military’s high command and Wagner mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin was reaching a boiling point and, come spring, would erupt into an embarrassing 24-hour mutiny on Russian soil.

As the war in Ukraine enters its third year, Putin’s position is more stable. The Ukrainian counteroffensive was a flop, exacerbating the Ukrainian army’s manpower and materiel shortages. Russian forces captured the Ukrainian city of Avdiivka after leveling it to the ground. Prigozhin has been dead for six months, while another Putin nemesis, Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, died behind the walls of a Russian prison. With his imminent presidential election victory just around the corner, you wouldn’t blame Putin for feeling confident.

The assessments of Ukraine’s prospects in its war of defence against Russia, which enters its third year tomorrow, are noticeably less upbeat than they were last summer. Back then, the Ukrainians were riding high. Given little to no chance when Vladimir Putin’s army invaded, by November 2022 they had expelled his forces from the north and north-east of their country, as well as from the part of Kherson province on the Dnipro River’s right bank.

The current mood of pessimism stems partly from Kyiv’s failure to punch through Russia’s defences in the south during the summer-autumn counteroffensive of 2023. No less important has been the doubts about continuing American military aid. President Joe Biden’s request to Congress for another $61 billion in assistance for Ukraine—most of it military—seems dead in the water thanks to dogged opposition in the House of Representatives from legislators loyal to Donald Trump.

As the second anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine approaches, it has become a commonplace that time favors President Vladimir Putin. With Ukraine running low on weaponry and ammunition, American military assistance in doubt and Russia determined to fight on, Ukrainian victory now seems out of reach. Some influential experts go further, insisting that Kyiv will suffer only more death and destruction by persisting and should seek a political settlement with Moscow — even if it requires sacrificing territory.

And yet, for all that, Mr. Putin’s war has failed. As Carl von Clausewitz famously stressed, war is not ultimately about killing people and destroying things: It’s a means to achieve specific political ends. Those who start wars expect to be in a better strategic position once the gunfire stops. But even if this war ends with Russia retaining all the Ukrainian land it now holds—a scenario Ukrainians would find more than unpalatable—Moscow’s position will be worse. No matter what, Ukraine will go its own way. For Mr. Putin, more concerned by Ukraine than any other country that arose from the wreckage of the Soviet Union, that alone is tantamount to defeat.

What is stopping China from invading Taiwan? In the past, it was overdetermined that Beijing would not use force to compel reunification. Not only did China lack the capabilities to execute a swift and decisive conquest of the island, but China’s leaders since 1979 used to believe that peaceful unification was both possible and vastly more preferable to military solutions. Today, however, the military balance of power has shifted decisively, enabling an amphibious invasion from a capabilities standpoint in the not-too-distant future, while prospects of peaceful unification have faded. As such, it is now something of a conventional wisdom that a Chinese invasion has become more likely than not.

Whether or not the meeting Trump recalled actually happened—former aides will tell you that Trump has a tendency to embellish stories—his comments nevertheless express a deep frustration with the current transatlantic security arrangement. Those frustrations are entirely legitimate, even if pundits and prognosticators want to shoot the messenger.

On Thursday, the United States and the United Kingdom launched two rounds of strikes against 72 Houthi targets in Yemen—a turn of events that is unsurprising given the joint statement issued to the Houthis a week prior, which read like an ultimatum. The Houthis have attacked civilian vessels in the Red Sea 27 times since 19 November, most recently less than 24 hours before the American and British bombs started falling. John Kirby, Joe Biden’s national security spokesman, told reporters a day later on Air Force One that ‘valid, legitimate military targets’ were struck and that Washington would do what is necessary if the Houthis continued on their present course. 

This isn’t the first time Washington and London have taken military action against the Houthis. Over the last several weeks, US and UK warships have shot down numerous Houthi missiles and drones. On New Year’s Eve, US helicopters even destroyed three boats seeking to attack a civilian ship, killing the Houthi militants onboard. 

Involvement in a broader war in the Middle East would not only bring serious economic pain and strategic overstretch to the United States, but, given the unpopularity of war at home, it would also create a degree of national disillusionment that would do significant damage to Americans’ willingness to protect sea-lanes going forward. In short, too much commitment to principle today might kill the U.S. commitment to principle tomorrow. To avoid this, the United States needs to take three pragmatic steps: adopt a firm defensive strategy in the Red Sea, reduce targets for proxy attacks, and push Israel toward a ceasefire in Gaza.

Whether or not the meeting Trump recalled actually happened—former aides will tell you that Trump has a tendency to embellish stories—his comments nevertheless express a deep frustration with the current transatlantic security arrangement. Those frustrations are entirely legitimate, even if pundits and prognosticators want to shoot the messenger.