Diplomacy and foreign assistance are vital tools in advancing U.S. interests. A significant reduction would pose a serious challenge to State Department and USAID programs and activities.

The transatlantic relationship is already a good deal for America. The Trump administration needs to face that NATO at its core is not about dollars or GDP shares; rather, it is about trust and solidarity.

Donald Trump made many statements about foreign policy during his campaign, some dangerous, some promising. The latter could bring about profound change in American foreign policy.

Creating a separate fund to protect service budgets from the costs of modernizing strategic nuclear weapons not only cheats the American taxpayer but also fuels an unnecessarily large arsenal stuffed with weapons the United States does not need to remain safe.

The United States needs to take bold action to rethink NATO’s nuclear deterrent in order to reduce dangers and strengthen the alliance.

The United States can deter any country from using nuclear weapons against America and its treaty allies with a nuclear force that is far smaller, less destabilizing, and less expensive than the one the Pentagon is planning to build.

Republicans seem to think that by banging the drum for increased defense spending, they can restore America's greatness. They're wrong.

The failures of U.S. security assistance are in large part caused by the disconnect between these security programs and the broader problems of politics and governance in recipient countries.

Until security assistance is integrated with a coherent strategy to improve governance, U.S. administrations will make little progress in closing the gap between their ambitions and actual progress in addressing the failed state problem.

Poor governance and weak institutions are extraordinarily complex, multi-dimensional problems and only the countries themselves can permanently reform them. But America could help on the margins to meliorate poor governance and to prevent weak states from becoming failed states.