By Nils Holst Congress is considering legislation that would repeal the 2002 law that sent U.S. troops into Iraq to depose Saddam Hussein. While largely a symbolic gesture, if passed the bill would represent the first time in a generation that Congress has moved to restrict the war powers of the president and end America’s “forever wars.” The […]
Biden Defense Request Compared to Previous Annual Budgets
By Daniel Wirls, Professor of Politics, UC Santa Cruz The Biden National Defense budget presented to Congress in late January 2021 is a modest increase from the previous year but among the highest in the last 70 years in constant dollars adjusted for inflation – despite the effective end to the forever wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is higher […]
Process as a product: What can we expect from the Biden-Putin Summit?
By John Erath Oscar Wilde wrote that “to expect the unexpected shows a thoroughly modern intellect.” At the risk of being considered anti-intellectual, or possibly anti-modern, I believe it would be best to approach the June 16 Geneva Summit with limited expectations for a breakthrough on arms control. This, however, is by no means a bad result. Eagerness for quick fixes could […]
World Nuclear Inventories
Updated June 2025 There are nine nuclear-armed countries worldwide with about 12,000 nuclear weapons between them. The United States and Russia together have more than 90 percent of those weapons.
Missile Defense on Guam and the China Threat
By Genevieve Hackman Outgoing head of the Indo-Pacific Command Admiral Philip Davidson has made no secret what he believes to be the number one regional military threat: China. In March, he painted a grim picture for the Senate Armed Services Committee: “I worry that they [China] are accelerating their ambitions to supplant the United States,” […]
