FDD's Foreign Podicy

Congressman Jason Crow (D-CO) represents Colorado’s Sixth Congressional District, encompassing Aurora and adjacent areas. He's a former Army Ranger and Bronze Star recipient who deployed to combat in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Now in Congress, he serves on the important House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and House Foreign Affairs Committee. He's also co-chair of the For Country Caucu...

During its October 7 invasion, Hamas terrorists slaughtered more than one thousand civilians in Israel. Its horrific acts of terrorism on that day also included mass rape, pillaging, the desecration of corpses, hostage-taking, and other unspeakable atrocities. Hamas has openly stated that it aims to repeat these atrocities and war crimes again and again and again until Israel is annihilated and Is...

Though the fighting is paused, Israel’s defensive war against Hamas continues. FDD Chief Executive Mark Dubowitz and former Israeli National Security Advisor Eyal Hulata — now a senior international fellow at FDD — just returned from Israel. Host Cliff May asks them what they saw, heard, and learned about Israel's ongoing war against Hamas, about Hamas’s allies – in particular Islamic Jihad and He...

Although six weeks have passed since Iran-backed Hamas terrorists invaded Israel and butchered more than 1,200 innocent civilians while taking hostage another 240, this is just the beginning of Israel’s multi-front defensive war. One key battlefield: the information space. Historically, the odds of winning in this arena have not been in Israel’s favor. They don’t seem to be now, either. To underst...

For an update on Israel's ground offensive in Gaza, AKA Israel's War on Terrorism, host Cliff May is joined by FDD experts Jonathan Schanzer — FDD Senior Vice President for Research and author of Gaza Conflict 2021: Hamas, Israel and Eleven Days of War — and FDD Senior Fellow Jacob Nagel , who previously served as Israel's National Security Advisor under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. They unp...

The October 7 atrocities committed against Israel and by Hamas terrorists with support from the Islamic Republic of Iran has frozen the rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Israel, as the clerical regime in Tehran doubtless anticipated. Now, the future of Saudi-Israeli relations may well depend on the outcome of Israel's war against Hamas.  Host Cliff May is joined by top experts Bernard Haykel...

Nearly a month ago, Hamas invaded Israel and murdered over 1,400 men, women, and children. It was the deadliest attack on the Jewish people since World War II, which was also a war against the Jews that culminated in the Holocaust. The Israel Defense Forces are now in Gaza aiming to cripple Hamas’s military capabilities, and it’s a challenging mission. To discuss, host Cliff May is joined by three...

Two of the world's top experts on human rights join host Cliff May to discuss the October 7 massacre in Israel — the atrocity carried out by Hamas and backed by Iran’s jihadi rulers — and about all that has followed since, in the Middle East, the US, Canada, and elsewhere.  They discuss inaction by the United Nations and other international bodies charged with championing human rights not just in...

It is the opinion of your Foreign Podicy host, Cliff May, that Andrew Roberts is the world’s greatest living historian. In recent years, he has written groundbreaking biographies of Churchill, Napoleon, and King George.  He’s a Bradley Prize winner, and Cliff is the one who nominated him. However, Cliff was outdone by His Majesty Charles the Third, as Andrew is now Lord Andrew Roberts — the sovere...

Hamas' terrorist attack on Israel has led to war. We have to think that’s what Hamas and its patrons in Tehran expected and very likely wanted. Is that because they believe they can win on the Gazan battlefields? Does Hezbollah, Tehran’s Lebanese foreign legion, plan to open a second front? Or do Israel’s many enemies in the Middle East, Europe, and here in America believe they can make Israel bac...

Israel is at war with Hamas — a real war, not another “mow the grass” conflict. Hamas is one of the terrorist groups funded, armed, trained and instructed by the Islamic Republic of Iran. This war began on Saturday, October 7 when Israel was invaded by Hamas barbarians who mass-murdered young people attending a peaceful music festival, raped women, slaughtered babies, and took hostages, dragging t...

Americans, our elected officials in Congress, and individuals aspiring to be the next U.S. president are debating whether the United States should continue to support Ukraine. Some Republican presidential candidates are arguing against aid for Ukraine, while several others warn that abandoning Ukraine would be a costly mistake. In Congress, Republican leaders of key committees continue to support...

“What’s past is prologue,” Shakespeare informed us. But what if the past is misunderstood? Or misrepresented?  What if policy makers are making policies based on false historical narratives? In 1979, host Cliff May went to Iran to report on the revolution that was then underway. Cliff admits that he didn’t know much about the country. But neither did most of his colleagues, reporters from around t...

“Hostage diplomacy” is a term you’ll frequently see in the media, but it's a misleading term. What we’re really talking about: Dictators kidnapping and torturing innocent foreign civilians.  In some cases, the leaders of free countries pay ransom to get them back. In some cases, the dictators also demand the release of convicted criminals who have been or can be of use to them. In some cases, both...

Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine is illegal, immoral, brutal, and barbarian.  And if you agree that there is no good alternative to American leadership of the world’s free nations and those that aspire to be, then it follows that it would be a terrible mistake — strategically and morally — for Americans to turn their backs on Ukrainians who are fighting for their freedom, independence, homeland, an...

Host Cliff May lived in Mexico in the late 1970s. Back then, there were reasons to believe Mexico was moving in the right direction. That’s no longer the case. Mexico’s narco-cartels are not only growing in power but also making common cause with Chinese Communists. One result: fentanyl-laced drugs are streaming north where they are killing tens of thousands of young Americans annually. Is Beijing...

Elliott Abrams has been in the foreign policy business for a rather long time. Years ago, he served on the staffs of Democratic Senators Henry “Scoop” Jackson and Daniel Patrick Moynihan. He later served in the administrations of Republican Presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. During the Trump administration he served as the State Department’s Special Representative for Venezuela and later...

"It's not a sprint, it's a marathon." That was the reported assessment of a Ukrainian battalion commander recently describing Kyiv's counteroffensive against invading Russian forces. To be sure, the progress of the Ukrainian forces has been slow and the human cost incredibly high. Meanwhile, more than 40 countries — not including Russia — met in Riyadh last weekend to discuss the war.  At this poi...

In Part II of the Game of War, host Cliff May is again joined by Dr. Ben Jensen and RADM (Ret) Mark Montgomery to continue their discussion on wargaming. They discuss its application in both Taiwan and Ukraine.

China’s rulers gaze across the Taiwan Strait and see an island where people are free, prosperous, and choose their leaders. They don’t like that. They insist that the people of Taiwan must be ruled by the Communist Party of China. They vow that this is the future and that they will make it happen through the use of military force if other approaches fail. But that’s not all Beijing wants in the va...

War games are not entertainments. They are simulations; a way to develop insights into what would happen in an armed conflict – who would prevail and at what cost, should push come to shove. War games test strategies and capabilities. They are a tool for both research and training. Recently, Dr. Ben Jensen and FDD’s RADM (Ret) Mark Montgomery conducted for Congress a war game simulating a conflict...

Samuel Ramani teaches politics and international relations at Oxford. He’s the author of Russia in Africa and Putin’s War on Ukraine . His articles appear in a range of top-tier publications. He’s often on the BBC and other international broadcast media. His Twitter feed is granular and prolific. He joins host Cliff May to discuss Russia's war in Ukraine and its footprint in Africa.

Host Cliff May recently wrote a column for the Washington Times guessing what Vladimir Putin might do next if he should succeed in Ukraine. He suggested Putin would take over Moldova, formalize his control over Belarus, and then turn his hungry eyes toward the Baltic states — with the primary goal of establishing a land bridge to Kaliningrad, a Russian territory 400 miles west of the Russian mainl...

Major General Paul J. Rock Jr. commands United States Marine Corps Forces Central Command, or MARCENT. That makes him the top U.S. Marine in the Middle East. MajGen Rock is a Marine aviator with combat deployments to Iraq, and he was the commanding general of the 3d Marine Expeditionary Brigade before his current position. He believes the biggest threat to U.S. interests in the Middle East is Iran...

Walter Russell Mead is the Global View Columnist at the Wall Street Journal , the James Clarke Chace Professor of Foreign Affairs and Humanities at Bard College in New York, the Ravenel B. Curry III Distinguished Fellow in Strategy and Statesmanship at the Hudson Institute, and he’s a member of Aspen Institute Italy. He’s the author of five books. His latest: The Arc of A Covenant: The United Stat...