A good deal has been done to improve the safety of Americans on their own soil since the attacks of September 11, 2001. Yet there have been numerous setbacks. The Bush administration and Congress wasted at least six months in 2002 due to partisan disagreement over a new budget for homeland security, and as one consequence, resources were slow to reach first responders across the country. Most improvements in homeland security have focused on -refighting the last war---improving defenses against attacks similar to those the country has already suffered. Not enough has been done to...

Arms control, for decades at the core of the foreign policy consensus, today is among the more contentious issues in American politics. It is pilloried and considered out of mode in many conservative quarters, while being viewed as nearly sacrosanct in many liberal circles. In this new book, Michael Levi and Michael O'Hanlon argue that neither the left nor the right has a correct view of the proper utility of arms control in the age of terror. Arms control in the traditional sense--lengthy treaties to limit nuclear and other military competitions among the great powers--is no longer...

American voters say they want to hear more about the issues and less about partisan politics. An unusually wide-open presidential race presents a unique opening for frank discussion and innovative solutions to pressing policy challenges. Opportunity 08 takes advantage of this political space to help presidential candidates, political observers, and the informed public focus on critical issues facing the nation. Opportunity 08 tackles a broad range of issues, organized under three categories: Our World, Our Society, and Our Prosperity. On the latter, for example, Brookings scholar Isabel...

Voters say they want to hear more from candidates about the critical issues facing our nation and less about partisan politics. Opportunity 08 answers the call with authoritative analysis and innovative policy solutions for the problems that matter most to the future of our society, our prosperity, and our world. Reflecting an impressive breadth of expertise, opinions, and political beliefs, the contributors to this book tackle diverse challenges including how to deal with Iran and Iraq, the rise of China, climate change, poverty and inequality, and retirement security. New chapters in...

This study begins with a set of strategic assumptions--most notably that the risks of U.S.-Russian war are and will remain extremely low and that the U.S. military remains a stabilizing influence in many geographic theaters. O'Hanlon then shows that the United States' interests in the Third World, while nowhere truly vital, are sufficiently important to justify a measured degree of global military presence and engagement. Historical, political, and military analysis suggests that these interests can be protected efficiently and effectively with a U.S. military reduced in size by roughly 40...

By the time of Barack Obama's inauguration as the 44th president of the United States, he had already developed an ambitious foreign policy vision. By his own account, he sought to bend the arc of history toward greater justice, freedom, and peace; within a year he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, largely for that promise.

In "Bending History," Martin Indyk, Kenneth Lieberthal, and Michael O'Hanlon measure Obama not only against the record of his predecessors and the immediate challenges of the day, but also against his own soaring rhetoric and inspiring goals. "Bending History"...

President Barack Obama survived a tenuous economy and a toxic political environment to win re-election in 2012, but the bitter partisan divide in Washington survived as well. So did the country's huge fiscal deficit. in this, the latest in a long line of Brookings Institution analyses of the defense budget, Michael O'Hanlon considers how best to balance national security and fiscal responsibility during a period of prolonged economic stress and political acrimony--even as the world remains unsettled, from Afghanistan to Iran to Syria to the western Pacific region.

O'Hanlon explains why...

In 2007 two former U.S. secretaries of state, a defense secretary, and a former senator wrote persuasively in the "Wall Street Journal" that the time had come to move seriously toward a nuclear-free world. Almost two years later, the Global Zero movement was born with its chief aim to rid the world of such weapons once and for all by 2030.

But is it realistic or even wise to envision a world without nuclear weapons? More and more people seem to think so. Barack Obama has declared "America's commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons." But that is easier...

What happens if we bet too heavily on unmanned systems, cyber warfare, and special operations in our defense?

In today's U.S. defense policy debates, big land wars are out. Drones, cyber weapons, special forces, and space weapons are in. Accordingly, Pentagon budget cuts have honed in on the army and ground forces: this, after the long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, seems like an appealing idea. No one really wants American boots on the ground in bloody conflicts abroad. But it is not so easy to simply declare an end to messy land wars. A survey of the world's trouble spots suggests that...