North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)

Syria—with five million refugees, 500,000 dead, the Pandora’s box of chemical warfare reopened, a cesspool of terror groups, and Russians and Americans, Israelis and Iranians shooting at each other—is the very definition of chaos.

Although Turkish human rights abuses may seem like a secondary concern for the US in light of Turkish threats against US partners in Syria and Turkey’s deepening relationship with Russia and Iran, these issues cannot be separated.

Like it or not, the land of the free and the home of the brave has found itself smack dab in the middle of another Cold War with Russia. This time, the Russians have hit our shores with something we thought we had invented: social media such as Facebook and Twitter.

HBO’s The Final Year traverses the globe, from Africa to the Arctic, Havana to Hanoi, but it is in Syria where the cockfight personified by Samantha Power and Ben Rhodes climaxes. Indeed, President Obama claims that “on no other issue was there such a split” between them.

What does NATO need to do going forward? The short answer: more and less.

So far, the United States has failed to articulate any clear strategy in Syria. It is not even clear who our allies are anymore.

There’s at least one place that likes President Trump so much he’s been awarded a medal for bravery. The honor was bestowed by the people of Logar province, Afghanistan, after he announced that the U.S. would freeze military assistance for Pakistan, due to what he described as a record of “lies and deceit.” The president was right to take this action.

The United States must be able to convince our adversaries that Americans have the will and capability to inflict punishment on them in response to an act of aggression such that they would not carry out the act of aggression in the first place, and so the United States won’t have to inflict the punishment it promises.

The purpose of a National Security Strategy (NSS) is to explain how each administration views the security challenges facing the United States—and how it plans to address them. Love it or hate it, President Donald Trump’s NSS does this with often-blunt language and an unapologetic defense of the “America First” approach that shaped his campaign and his first year in office.