Articles & Multimedia
Showing 1-20 of 59 Publications
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Chaos Awaits Ronny Jackson at the VA
Commentary
In the 88 years since the founding of the modern Department of Veterans Affairs, presidents have mostly turned to retired military officers and politicos to run the massive ag...
By Phillip Carter
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Rumors Suggest VA Secretary Shulkin Will Be The Next To Leave Trump Cabinet
Commentary
David Greene talks to Phillip Carter of the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) about reports embattled Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin could be fired this week...
By Phillip Carter
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Firing VA Secretary David Shulkin Is a Bad Idea
Dr. David Shulkin, the current secretary of veterans affairs and the only Democrat in President Donald Trump’s Cabinet, has done fairly well running the VA. At a signing cerem...
By Phillip Carter
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How Mike Pompeo Could Save the State Department
Commentary
Former congressman and CIA Director Mike Pompeo has a bio that sparkles even in Washington: top of his class at West Point, five years of Army service, Harvard Law, success in...
By Phillip Carter
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Why Sending Armed Veterans to Guard Schools Would Be Ludicrous
On Wednesday, as families continued to bury their loved ones killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, President Trump suggested that one answer to ...
By Phillip Carter
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Uncivil Military Relations?
We had many indications during the 2016 campaign that a Donald Trump presidency would be bad for civil-military relations. The candidate hurled insults at prisoners of war and...
By Phillip Carter
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Mass Shootings Are a National Security Threat
Seventeen dead would have been a bad day in Iraq or Afghanistan at the height of our wars there. To see the same death toll Wednesday at a U.S. high school suggests American s...
By Phillip Carter
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Survival at All Costs
Commentary
On its face, the so-called Nunes memo regarding government surveillance of Trump campaign aide Carter Page in 2016 does little to undermine the case against President Trump an...
By Phillip Carter
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The Military Is Not a Political Prop
Commentary
The power of the president, as commander in chief of the armed forces, has evolved over more than two centuries, constrained by congressional action, the emergence of a standi...
By Phillip Carter
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I’m an Iraq War veteran. The military doesn’t want or need Trump’s parade.
Commentary
A military parade down one of Washington’s broad avenues would seem to epitomize so much that is great about the United States, from the fine fiber of our troops to the might ...
By Phillip Carter
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A Rorschach Test for Civil-Military Relations
Commentary
Earlier this week, I wrote in Slate about how America’s military leaders have seemingly improvised a new norm of civil-military relations in response to President Donald Trump...
By Phillip Carter
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Military Chiefs’ Reluctance to March
Commentary
In a dizzying series of tweets and news stories on Monday, the Pentagon appeared to simultaneously embrace transgender recruits while the Trump administration was losing its b...
By Phillip Carter
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Want to Honor the Vets? Go See This Movie.
Commentary
Ancient Greeks knew war intimately, thanks to frequent conflict at the time and norms about military service that existed back then. Despite or maybe because of this intimacy ...
By Phillip Carter
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Why were US soldiers even in Niger? America’s shadow wars in Africa, explained.
Commentary
President Trump’s inexplicable fight with the widow of a Green Beret who was killed in Niger has sparked a political firestorm that shows no signs of dying down. It’s also bro...
By Phillip Carter & Andrew Swick
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“If You’ve Never Been in Combat, You Can’t Even Imagine”
Commentary
Retired Marine Gen. John Kelly gave a remarkable performance at Thursday’s White House press briefing, deploying his record of service and sacrifice to defend President Trump’...
By Phillip Carter
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Questionable Calls
President Donald Trump has a talent for giving offense. Whether through mangled syntax or malicious statements, the president often finds a way to insult. So it is with Trump’...
By Phillip Carter
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Nightmare Scenario
Commentary
The first reports about the horrific attack in Las Vegas on Sunday night will surely evolve into more detailed knowledge. But there are three lessons we might draw from the in...
By Phillip Carter
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Hurricane relief isn’t reaching remote areas of Puerto Rico
Commentary
Phillip Carter, director of the Military, Veterans and Society program at CNAS, joins PBS NewsHour to discuss the slow U.S. military response in Puerto Rico following Hurrican...
By Phillip Carter
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Trump Is Ignoring Puerto Rico’s Suffering
When it struck the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico six days ago, Hurricane Maria was the strongest storm to hit the American territories in 80 years. “Its force and fury s...
By Phillip Carter
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Trump is at war with his own generals
During his campaign for the White House, Donald Trump took the highly-unusual step of blasting America’s top generals, arguing in one debate that they’d been “reduced to rubbl...
By Phillip Carter
