Over the four years I led the Afghan war effort as supreme allied commander at NATO, I was lucky to have four superb generals working for me as the in-country commanders of the International Security Force, Afghanistan. Generals Stanley McChrystal, Dave Petraeus, John Allen (a classmate from…

Nearly lost in the tumult of the insurrection at the Capitol on Jan. 6 and the excitement of Joe Biden’s inauguration is the continuing fallout from the massive data breach of SolarWinds Corp. by suspected Russian hackers. As the new team settles into office, what can it do to keep the nation…

I was in the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001, a newly selected rear admiral, working in my office on the side of the building that was hit by the plane hijacked by al-Qaeda. The next day, President George W. Bush came to the Pentagon and called together senior uniformed leaders of the military. The…

Iran’s announcement that it would begin enriching uranium to 20%, well over the limit of 4% set in the 2015 nuclear agreement, sounded a clear warning in advance of President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration. The Iranians followed up by seizing a South Korean tanker in the Arabian Gulf, claiming it…

In Germany a couple of years ago, I was at a small luncheon associated with the Munich Security Conference, an annual event sometimes referred to as the “Davos of geopolitics.” There were some dull comments by a few political leaders. Then former US Secretary of State John Kerry took the floor and…

Every time I set out to visit a country in the NATO alliance when I was Supreme Allied Commander, I’d try to read a book that could help me understand the history, culture and zeitgeist of the place. It could be a novel by a native writer, a history or a work of historical fiction. Can you really…

During my years at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, I developed a healthy respect for Europe as a US partner. Not just through NATO participation, but most strongly through shared values including personal liberty, freedom of the press and fair trade. The transatlantic alliance partnered not…

I’ve never sat down and negotiated a nuclear arms agreement, but I spent much of my military career acting on the decisions made at those tables. And with a landmark deal between the US and Russia set to expire in a few months, the topic has a new urgency. My first job in the Navy, at the height…

As a young lieutenant commander back in the 1980s, I worked on an analysis for a strategy referred to as “The 600-Ship Navy.” This was at the height of the Cold War and the pinnacle of President Ronald Reagan’s defense buildup. I was on the staff of the chief of naval operations, the service’s…