By Nick Dowling In 2016, on a stage at Ohio State, I was asked to debate Donald Trump’s foreign policy. My answer was blunt: there wasn’t one. Trump wasn’t a neoclassical realist. He wasn’t an isolationist. He wasn’t anything you could diagram in an IR textbook. He improvised. And it…
By Robbin Laird The January 3, 2026 U.S. operation in Venezuela can be understood not as an isolated hemispheric intervention, but as a deliberate strike against Russia’s external energy ecosystem and sanctions-evasion machinery, designed to erode Moscow’s war-fighting capacity in Ukraine over time. What is being reordered is not merely…
By Pierre Tran Paris – Saab, the Swedish builder of the Gripen fighter jet, appears to have emerged as a potential plan B for Airbus Defence and Space, if a Franco-German €100 bln ($116 bln) project for a European future combat air system fails to take off. A Dec. 18…
By Robbin Laird In 2020, Murielle Delaporte and I published a book examining what we termed “the return of direct defense” in Europe. Our central argument challenged conventional thinking about European security: defending Europe in the 2020s requires moving beyond traditional military deterrence to embrace a broader strategic concept that…
Australia stands at a maritime crossroads. The choices it makes in the coming years will shape not only its security and economic prosperity, but also the stability of the wider Indo-Pacific region. The Indo Pacific International Maritime Exposition, as covered in detail by The Australian, showcased this inflection point: expanding…
By Robbin Laird We stand at a peculiar moment in history where multiple powerful forces are reshaping the global order, yet these variables of change do not converge toward any clear, coherent outcome. This paradox defines our era: dramatic transformation without discernible destination. In a recent conversation I had with…
In the early morning hours of February 8, 2025, a 9-meter tall clock in downtown Vilnius reached zero, marking one of the most significant geopolitical transformations in European energy history. As the final seconds ticked away, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania severed their last physical connection to the Soviet-era power infrastructure…
By Robbin Laird After learning about the International Flight Training School during my visit to Rome in November 2024, I was eager to understand more about Italy’s innovative approach to shaping air power training. The opportunity came in October 2025, when I returned to Italy to meet with Italian Air…
