US military spending in Ukraine reached nearly $50 billion in 2022
By Monica Duffy Toft: The U.S. Defense Department announced in early January 2023 that it is giving a further US $3.1 billion
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The Roots of Washington’s Addiction to Military Force
By Monica Toft and Sidita Kushi: Over time, the United States has become comfortable using greater levels of force abroad.
Read moreHow the U.S. Should Leave Afghanistan
By Monica Duffy Toft
Leaving is going to hurt, no question. But the hurt we may suffer from leaving is far less than the hurt we and the Afghan people are certain to sustain if we refuse to face reality and continue to preside over a broken military intervention. There are alternatives to military force, let’s use them.
Read moreMonica Duffy Toft in the TwentyTwenty Podcast by Foreign Brief
Professor Monica Duffy Toft was a guest of the Hard Truth, Soft Power podcast about how the events of 2020 have accelerated global trends and made the world’s challenges, like authoritarianism, soft power, data privacy, and the future of work, more visible.
Read moreAmericans living overseas could tilt the 2020 election – if only they voted
By Monica Duffy Toft
Just under 5 million U.S. citizens live abroad, serving in the military and embassies or just living in another country. As a political scientist who studies demographics and politics, I have observed how different voting blocs, even small ones, can affect the outcome of elections. Three million people is more than enough people to decide a presidential or congressional race with narrow margins.
Read moreEnding Our Military-First Foreign Policy
By Monica Duffy Toft
Beyond our two big overseas commitments—Iraq and Afghanistan—military operations have by and large been increasingly opaque. Much has been done with drones and special operations forces. Along with this, U.S. diplomatic efforts and resources have dramatically receded into the background. We need to face the fact that the United States has become a hyper-interventionist and unilateral power. More bluntly, it has become a bully in the international arena.
Read moreParty Like It’s 1939?
By Monica Duffy Toft
It is difficult to remember that our present circumstances, however we characterize them, are influenced by our past circumstances, or our remembrance of them. So, it is with the looming double crises that now face the United States and, by extension, humanity: a physical threat to U.S. lives, and an economic crisis rivaling that of the 1930s.
Read moreThe hyper-nationalist politics of the COVID-19 pandemic
By Monica Duffy Toft
The emergence and intensification of the COVID-19 pandemic has created conditions which, falling as they do into a world of advanced industrial states already turning to hyper-nationalism, the political far-right, or outright authoritarianism — including but not limited to Britain, the United States, France, Germany, Austria, Turkey, and Russia — make major interstate war more likely.
Read moreCSS Fellow Ben Denison on the Failure of Forcible Regime-Change
On February 26, CSS Post-Doctoral Fellow Ben Denison spoke on a panel at the Cato Institute (Washington, D.C.), on “The Failure of Forcible Regime-Change Operations.” The panel also featured Lindsey O’Rourke (Boston College), Alexander Downes (George Washington University), and Christopher Preble (Cato Institute).
Read moreThe Afghan Deal May Be Doomed, But Bring The Troops Home Anyway
By Monica Duffy Toft and Benjamin Denison
The ink is barely dry on a new U.S.-Taliban peace deal but there is renewed hope that the forever war in Afghanistan might finally end. However, the likelihood that the agreement will prove sustainable and resolve the internal problems between various Afghan factions remains exceedingly low.
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