No More Situationships: Why Rethinking Foreign Partnerships is Essential to Right-Sizing U.S. Global Force Posture and Creating a Sustainable Defense Strategy (Marcellus Policy Analysis)
By David C. Lane, Spring 2025 Marcellus Policy Fellow Since the end of the Cold War and onset of the “unipolar moment,” U.S. strategic doctrine has remainedrelatively unchanged. U.S. global primacy has been largely uncontested, but fissures are beginning to show, as American power enters relative decline, with rising global powers like China and other […]
Our Fall 2025 Marcellus Policy Fellows
After receiving a record number of applications and a highly competitive selection process, the John Quincy Adams Society is pleased to announce its Fall 2025 cohort of Marcellus Policy Fellows. This is the Society’s eleventh cohort of fellows. The Fellows will spend the next twelve weeks learning from top experts on foreign policy as they […]
Meet Adam Abdel-Qader, the Society’s Newest Team Member
What are you most excited about in your new role? I am most excited about the opportunity I have been given to connect and build relationships with restrainers and realists in the Marcellus Policy Fellowship. I can’t wait to contribute to their professional development both as writers and thinkers of prudent policy but also as […]
Advancing a Restraint-Focused Cyber Strategy in the Indo-Pacific (Marcellus Policy Analysis)
By Joseph Brennan, Spring 2025 Marcelus Policy Fellow The Indo-Pacific is becoming the strategic hotspot of global competition where cyber power converges with increased geopolitical tensions, particularly between China and the United States. With digital technology embedded into military strategy, economic infrastructure, and everyday lives, cyberspace emerged as the area of contention and collaboration. The […]
A New Strategy for NATO (Marcellus Policy Analysis)
By Corey Shiver, Spring 2025 Marcellus Policy Fellow The transatlantic relationship is at a crossroads. Currently engrossed in the transformative foreign policy of President Donald Trump, the United States and its North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) partners are consumed in debate as to how European security should be achieved. This debate on burden-sharing has created […]
A Better US China Strategy Requires Realism in Southeast Asia (Marcellus Policy Analysis)
By Jack Erickson, Spring 2025 Marcellus Policy Fellow China’s rise during the early 21st century constitutes the most significant development in Asia since the end of World War II. Because of China’s considerable geographic, demographic, and economic size, it will prove difficult to consider American strategy in any part of Asia without respect to China […]
A Reassessment of U.S. Freedom of Navigation Operations in the South China Sea (Marcellus Policy Analysis)
By Stockton Raso, Spring 2025 Marcellus Policy Fellow There was a time when U.S. freedom of navigation operations (FONOPs) were relatively low-key and routine operations signaling U.S. commitment to international law and the freedom of the seas. However, in the past decade, these operations in the South and East China Seas have become a topic […]
Too Big to Succeed? Towards a Reformed AUKUS (Marcellus Policy Analysis)
By Marko Gural, Spring 2025 Marcellus Policy Fellow The United States should reform AUKUS to emphasize the partnership’s Pillar II (technology sharing) while sidelining Pillar I (transfer of U.S. nuclear-powered submarines to Australia). There are two problems with the U.S.-U.K.-Australia defense partnership. Canberra is unnecessary for a balancing coalition against China in the Indo-Pacific, as […]
Modernizing Arms Control: The Case for Codifying Oversight in AI and Nuclear Command Policy (Marcellus Policy Analysis)
By Sofia Guerra, Fall 2024 Marcellus Policy Fellow The rapid integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into nuclear command, control, and communications (NC3) systems presents both opportunities and risks. While AI can enhance decision-making and operational efficiency, it also increases vulnerabilities, such as automation bias, miscalculation risks, and compressed decision timelines. In the U.S.-China context— marked […]
Realism and Restraint Advances America’s Interests in Latin America (Marcellus Policy Analysis)
By George Barber, Fall 2024 Marcellus Policy Fellow The new administration of President Donald Trump should not go to war in Mexico to eradicate Mexican drug cartels and stop the flow of fentanyl. The United States would be drawn into a costly and likely unwinnable war that it simply cannot afford at the current moment. […]