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Articles by Benjamin Bahney
How Satellites Can Save Arms Control
A Global Noninterference Treaty Would Reduce Nuclear Risks During the Cold War, the United States and Soviet Union spent decades negotiating over how to control the competition in nuclear arms. The resulting agreements kept the peace by limiting the number and type of nuclear weapons each side deployed and by establishing norms and practices of transparency that increased confidence that the other side was adhering to its promises.
How Satellites Can Save Arms Control
Michael Markey & Jonathan Pearl & Benjamin Bahney, Foreign Affairs August 6, 2020 Rather than focusing on the brass ring of nuclear arms limitations and reductions, policymakers should try for something broader yet more modest: a global treaty that includes China, Russia, and the United States and prohibits interference with both commercial and government satellite operations during peacetime.
How Satellites Can Save Arms Control
During the Cold War, the United States and Soviet Union spent decades negotiating over how to control the competition in nuclear arms. The resulting agreements kept the peace by limiting the number and type of nuclear weapons each side deployed and by establishing norms and practices of transparency that increased confidence that the other side was adhering to its promises. Today, however, the arms control regime is crumbling, and with it the remaining barriers to unbridled nuclear competition.
The U.S. Government Can Deepen Its Operational Partnership With the Private Sector to Better Defend the U.S. in Cyberspace
Editor’s note: This post is part of a series exploring the findings and recommendations of the U.S. Cyberspace Solarium Commission. This winter, the United States entered into dangerous, escalating hostilities with Iran in the most significant U.S. military contingency with a cyber-capable adversary to date.
The U.S. Government Can Deepen Its Operational Partnership With the Private Sector to Better Defend the U.S. in Cyberspace
Editor's note: This article is part of a series of short articles by analysts involved in the Cyberspace Solarium Commission, among others, highlighting and commenting upon aspects of the commission's findings and conclusion. This winter, the United States entered into dangerous, escalating hostilities with Iran in the most significant U.S. military contingency with a cyber-capable adversary to date.
Reassuring Allies and Strengthening Strategic Stability: An Approach to Nuclear Modernization for Democrats
In 1985, during the height of the Reagan defense buildup, Rep. Les Aspin (D-Wisc.), then-chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, was struggling to figure out how Democrats should approach nuclear policy.
Why the Space Force Debate Misses the Point
Benjamin Bahney & Jonathan Pearl, Foreign Affairs March 31, 2019 Craig Bailey/Florida Today via AP Last year, when the Trump administration unveiled plans to create a Space Force—originally conceived as an independent branch of the military to oversee operations in the great beyond—public responses to the idea tended to fall into one of two extremes.
Why the Space Force Debate Misses the Point
Benjamin Bahney & Jonathan Pearl, Foreign Affairs March 30, 2019 Craig Bailey/Florida Today via AP Last year, when the Trump administration unveiled plans to create a Space Force—originally conceived as an independent branch of the military to oversee operations in the great beyond—public responses to the idea tended to fall into one of two extremes.
Why the Space Force Debate Misses the Point
Last year, when the Trump administration unveiled plans to create a Space Force—originally conceived as an independent branch of the military to oversee operations in the great beyond—public responses to the idea tended to fall into one of two extremes.
Opinion: Semiauto guns make shootings deadlier
Recent history shows that mass killings in the U.S. don’t follow a single script. But there is one common element shared by many of these tragedies: legal access to semiautomatic guns. Domestic terrorists such as the mass shooters in Thousand Oaks, Pittsburgh and Parkland, Fla., come from different demographic backgrounds and have different characteristics. Few reforms are likely to stop them all.
Commentary: Semiautomatic guns make shootings deadlier
Recent history shows that mass killings in the U.S. don’t follow a single script. But there is one common element shared by many of these tragedies: legal access to semiautomatic guns. Domestic terrorists such as the mass shooters in Thousand Oaks, Pittsburgh and Parkland, Fla., come from different demographic backgrounds and have different characteristics. Few reforms are likely to stop them all.
Commentary: Semiautomatic guns make shootings deadlier
Recent history shows that mass killings in the U.S. don’t follow a single script. But there is one common element shared by many of these tragedies: legal access to semiautomatic guns. Domestic terrorists such as the mass shooters in Thousand Oaks, Pittsburgh and Parkland, Fla., come from different demographic backgrounds and have different characteristics. Few reforms are likely to stop them all.
Commentary: Semiautomatic guns make shootings deadlier
Recent history shows that mass killings in the U.S. don't follow a single script. But there is one common element shared by many of these tragedies: legal access to semiautomatic guns. Domestic terrorists such as the mass shooters in Thousand Oaks, Pittsburgh and Parkland, Fla., come from different demographic backgrounds and have different characteristics. Few reforms are likely to stop them all.
Commentary: Semiautomatic guns make shootings deadlier
Recent history shows that mass killings in the U.S. don't follow a single script. But there is one common element shared by many of these tragedies: legal access to semiautomatic guns. Domestic terrorists such as the mass shooters in Thousand Oaks, Pittsburgh and Parkland, Fla., come from different demographic backgrounds and have different characteristics. Few reforms are likely to stop them all.
ISIS Could Rise Again
“The dream of a liberation is now a reality,” Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi proclaimed last week, when his forces drove ISIS from a few final strongholds. Abadi’s declaration of victory did not seem unwarranted. After three years, Iraqi and Kurdish fighters, backed by an 80-country U.S.-led coalition, have reclaimed all of the territory ISIS once controlled in Iraq and the key cities it held in Syria. The Islamic State no longer has much of a claim to calling itself a state at all.
Foundations of the Islamic State
Drawing from 140 recently declassified documents, this report comprehensively examines the organization, territorial designs, management, personnel policies, and finances of the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) and al-Qa'ida in Iraq. Analysis of the Islamic State predecessor groups is more than a historical recounting. It provides significant understanding of how ISI evolved into the present-day Islamic State and how to combat the group. Research Questions How did ISI organize itself?
Hitting ISIS Where It Hurts: Disrupt ISIS's Cash Flow in Iraq
When the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria poured out from the eastern deserts of Syria into Iraq's second-largest city last month, it was an image out of the eighth century: bearded Islamist marauders summarily executing unbelievers, pillaging as they went. But underneath that grisly exterior lurks something more modern and more insidious. As ISIS's most recent annual report shows, the group is sophisticated, strategic, financially savvy and building structures that could survive for years to come.
Deterring ISIS's Ambitions
While debate continues over whether the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) poses an immediate threat to the United States and Europe, there is little doubt ISIL has developed a chemical weapons capability. In February, U.S. officials acknowledged that ISIL was likely responsible for mustard gas attacks in Iraq and Syria in 2015. This followed multiple accusations of ISIL chlorine gas attacks against Iraqi and Kurdish troops.
Targeting The ISIS Economy
ISIS, Inc. The terrorist organization is raking in billions –from oil, grain, antiquities, and taxes. We look at how to break the ISIS bank. Erika Solomon, Middle East correspondent for the Financial Times. (@ErikaSolomon) Benjamin Bahney, international policy analyst at the RAND Corporation.
The Enemy You Know and the Ally You Don’t
In the weeks since the Islamic State captured the Iraqi city of Ramadi, a loud and diverse chorus of voices, including the New York Times editorial board, has called for the Iraqi government and the United States to arm Sunni militias to fight the extremist group’s advance. The administration increased the number of U.S. trainers last week, adding an additional 450 as early as this summer to the 3,100 American troops already in Iraq.
Who Runs the Islamic State Group?
In the past year, the Islamic State group has become an international phenomenon for its ambition, its cruelty and its striking military successes. Most terrorism experts agree that the Islamic State group has eclipsed al-Qaida as the world's preeminent jihadi terrorist organization. But despite the group's notoriety, a wide range of theories are still circulating about who really runs the Islamic State group.
How ISIS Funds Its Reign of Terror
It is no wonder that the terrorist group ISIS is now calling itself the “Islamic State.” The group has fashioned a small army out of a mix of foreign and local fighters, established oil refining and trafficking operations, and even collects taxes. Despite longstanding rumors that ISIS has foreign patrons in Gulf States such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar, there is precious little evidence that it ever depended on foreign largess.
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