How governments imagine the future – including the future of war – shapes their responses and planning in the present. There are relatively few points of substantive agreement between the Trump administration, the Biden administration, and the D.C.-based foreign policy commentariat. But the idea that the United States and China …

The fate of the Afghan government following the Soviet withdrawal is more complex than sometimes assumed. That has lessons for Kabul today. On February 8, 1988, then-President Mikhail Gorbachev announced that the Soviet Union would withdraw its military forces from Afghanistan. That withdrawal began on May 15 and was completed …

Although a significant conflict between NATO and Russia is unlikely, a war of limited aims remains a distinct and dangerous possibility — and in almost any scenario in this context, the conflict will center on the Baltic states. The RAND Corporation’s 2016 report on the Baltic scenario highlighted the region’s …