Jack Segal | Author

The Power of Our Example

Feb. 20, 2021

Every new president faces a daunting array of problems, but 2021 will go down in the history books: Our country is under siege from a virus that has killed 485,000 Americans; Congress is locked in partisan struggles over the election, the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and another stimulus bi… Read More >>

Rethinking the World Come January

Dec. 5, 2020

On Dec. 14, each state’s electors will cast their vote, and on Jan. 6, 2021, Congress will name Joe Biden president of the United States. End of story. Over the next weeks, the Biden transition team will develop its first policies aimed at addressing our most urgent crises. There are … Read More >>

The Long Goodbye

Oct. 17, 2020

Last week, President Trump sowed confusion within his government — and amongst our allies — by tweeting that “We should have the small remaining number of our BRAVE Men and Women serving in Afghanistan home by Christmas.” In other words, our long goodbye to Afgh… Read More >>

A New Nuclear Arms Race: It’s Not Too Late

Aug. 15, 2020

The memory of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki 75 years ago is fading as the last survivors die off. The global anti-nuclear movement of the 1960s, ’70s, and ’80s that used to bring massive crowds into the streets is long forgotten. Most people today do not even giv… Read More >>

Managing Expectations

April 4, 2020

By the time you read this, the world may have changed yet again. What had begun as a far-off problem in China has exploded across the entire planet. Early suggestions that the Coronavirus would be contained or would not be a major threat to the U.S. have proven wrong. The president’s … Read More >>

Dealing with Iran

Jan. 25, 2020

What is U.S. policy toward Iran? Since the Jan. 3 killing of Gen. Qasem Soleimani, head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), we’ve seen a war of words between President Trump and Ayatollah Khamenei, missile strikes by both sides, and the murder of 176 innocent passengers… Read More >>

Why Ukraine Matters

Dec. 7, 2019

Amidst the clamor of the House impeachment hearings, an unexpected group of heroes emerged. State Department Foreign Service Officers (FSO) and White House experts demonstrated the quality of people who anonymously manage our foreign policy in Washington and who represent our country in mor… Read More >>

Afghanistan’s Agony

Oct. 12, 2019

When I made my 40th — and final — trip to Afghanistan in 2010, I thought the end of our Afghan nightmare was in sight. I was wrong. Now, eight-plus years later, we still cling to the same goals for that country that we defined at the beginning, when we established the Afghanista… Read More >>

What Putin Wants

June 8, 2019

The 22-month investigation of Russian meddling into the 2016 election has wrapped up with indictments against multiple Russian officials, a Russian “troll farm,” two shell companies, 13 Russian civilians, and 12 Russian military intelligence officers. The Russian attacks include… Read More >>

China’s Second Great Leap Forward — Over the U.S.?

April 13, 2019

President Xi Jinping says it is time for China to “take center stage in the world.” While President Trump has focused on forcing near-term changes to China’s behavior, China has a much longer-term strategic vision that aims to returning it to the position of global i… Read More >>

Trump, Putin, and Xi Ponder Nuclear Strategy

Nov. 10, 2018

On October 20, the President announced our withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty after the required six-month warning period. That move could either spell the beginning of an arms race or a sea change in global security.

The INF Treaty banned f… Read More >>

A Time for Reflection

Sept. 8, 2018

On Sept. 9, Jews worldwide began celebrating the Jewish New Year (“Rosh Hashanah”). Observant Jews believe that this occasion marks when God sits in judgment of the world’s inhabitants, decides who will live another year, and decides whether the believers will e… Read More >>

The View from Moscow

July 14, 2018

The first Putin-Trump Summit on July 16, coming on the heels of a NATO Summit, has a deep historical foundation dating long before President Trump’s tenure. For Vladimir Putin, the build-up to this summit began in East Germany, where he served as a KGB operative during the collapse of… Read More >>

A Friend’s Passing

May 10, 2018

Dennis Sandole, Ph.D., passed away on May 4. He was professor of conflict resolution at George Mason University, and so much more. I first met Dennis and his lifelong partner and wife, Ingrid Staroste, in Frankfurt, Germany. Dennis was a young professor from the University of Southern Calif… Read More >>

Go to Your Room

Jan. 13, 2018

I spent years working to reduce the threat of nuclear war and, while we are far from what I had hoped for, there is a stable equilibrium among the globe’s nuclear powers. That stability is now challenged by taunts that would get a child sent to their room for a time out.

Defusing North Korea

Nov. 7, 2017

Kim Jong-Un wants to survive. Donald Trump wants to reaffirm what he already knows: that he’s a great President. Xi Jinping is riding a wave of power just handed to him by China’s 90 million Communist Party members, and Xi now wants to assert China’s role as the pre-eminen… Read More >>

Managing Foreign Policy

Aug. 5, 2017

With even FOX’s Chris Wallace citing “tremendous disarray” in the Trump White House, maybe I should explain why I’m still hoping that order might yet emerge from the chaos.

Chief of Staff General John Kelly has joined Lt. General H.R. McMaster in an effort to… Read More >>

Our Saudi “Friends”

June 10, 2017

In his speech in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on May 21, President Trump delivered three important messages to leaders of the world’s majority-Muslim countries: that the United States would cooperate with any country that joins in our “counter-extremism” campaign. Second — … Read More >>

President Trump Greets NATO

April 29, 2017

In January it was “obsolete.” As recently as March, the president remarked, “We have the threat of terrorism and NATO doesn’t discuss terrorism…" But by the time of his first meeting last month with NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg, the president affir… Read More >>

Dangerous Games on the Korean Peninsula

March 25, 2017

Earlier this month, 300,000 South Korean and 17,000 American troops participated in exercises the Pentagon called “the largest ever.” An aircraft carrier, two guided missile destroyers, a cruiser, F-35 stealth fighters and drones converged on South Korea in an unprecedente… Read More >>