Hal Brands
Hal Brands is the Henry A. Kissinger Distinguished Professor at the Henry A. Kissinger Center for Global Affairs at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies and a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. His latest book is "American Grand Strategy in the Age of Trump."

Why Australia Is Gearing Up for Possible War With China

Japan is America’s single most important ally, but Australia has historically been its most reliable. Alone among US allies, not just in the Indo-Pacific but globally, Australia has fought in all of America’s major wars since World War I. As I found during three days in Sydney and Canberra, the…

Why Japan is Gearing Up for Possible War with China

If China were to attack Taiwan, it wouldn’t just have to face a hostile superpower. It would also likely have to confront its longstanding regional rival, Japan. For centuries, Japan and China have vied for hegemony in East Asia; at times, they have threatened each other’s survival. Today, as I…

Biden’s Chip Limits on China Mark a War of High-Tech Attrition

The US is escalating the technological cold war with China through new sanctions to squeeze the flow of high-end semiconductors and semiconductor-manufacturing equipment to Beijing. Don’t let the technological arcana fool you: Since advanced semiconductors power information-age societies, the US…

Ukraine May Become More Successful Than Biden Wants

The gains of Ukraine’s bold offensive are real, spectacular, and the product of a remarkable partnership with Washington. Success, however, can test any relationship, and Ukraine’s battlefield victories could, ironically, stoke new tensions with the US. Right now, officials in both countries are…

China, Russia and Iran Are Slowly Ganging Up on the US

Everywhere the US looks, its geopolitical rivals are making common cause. Russia and China proclaimed a strategic partnership “without limits” just before the former’s invasion of Ukraine. Iran is helping Russian President Vladimir Putin fight that war by providing him with military assistance…

Using Climate Change as a Weapon Will Backfire on China

A central dilemma of US foreign policy today is this: The country that most threatens the American-led global order is also the country whose cooperation is essential to preserving a livable world. That quandary flared anew last week, when China responded to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to…

Food May Be the Ultimate Weapon in the 21st Century

President Joe Biden’s administration is reportedly rewriting its National Security Strategy, which the White House is required to send to Congress annually, to account for the lessons of the war in Ukraine. One issue that this document will have to grapple with outside its traditional focus on…

The West Must Move East for NATO to Survive

The leaders of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization countries are in Madrid for the alliance’s most consequential summit in a generation. NATO appears to have overcome Turkish diplomatic blackmail to bring in two new members, Sweden and Finland. It must approve a new concept for transatlantic…

A Long War in Ukraine Could Bring Global Chaos

The war in Ukraine has become a brutal, grinding contest of attrition. As the conflict drags on, the question becomes, which side does time favor? Kyiv is betting that its leverage will increase as an isolated Russia comes face to face with economic and military ruin. Russian President Vladimir…

Democracies Can Out-Compete the China-Russia Alliance

The economic trauma of the Ukraine War is only beginning: Energy shocks, food-supply disruption and commodity shortages will have growing impact as the conflict persists. The war, moreover, is just part of an accelerating geo-economic realignment. The golden age of globalization, when countries…