While Congress hashes out the details of President Donald Trump’s proposed “U.S. Space Force” — who will oversee it, how many personnel are needed, whether we can afford it, where will it be located — I am selfishly wondering what the future holds for the military spouse community after this sixth branch of the armed forces stands up.

OPINION

What’s the sound course, between the moral hazard of recklessly encouraging risk and the moral blindness of ignoring brave people fighting for their rights? The right answer is awkwardly somewhere in the middle.

OPINION

Democrats argue a state has the constitutional authority to regulate presidential elections. But that relates to election procedures, not candidate qualifications.

OPINION

Islamic State has largely taken control of a huge camp in northeast Syria, and there’s no plan for what to do with the 70,000 people there (including more than 50,000 children). The United States and Europe must immediately address this urgent national security and humanitarian crisis before a new caliphate is established while we watch.

OPINION

Cuccinelli conveniently forgot the history that not too many of those arriving at Ellis Island toted sacks of cash or spoke perfect and unaccented English, and that his own ancestors who sought opportunity in America might not pass muster.

OPINION

The short-term loan industry went into Chicken Little mode as soon as the new rules were announced a few years ago, arguing that the requirements would put thousands of lenders out of business. That means, of course, the industry was acknowledging its business model depends on ensnaring consumers in endless debt.

OPINION

There’s something deeply disturbing about Congress and the federal government standing powerless before U.S. drug companies and relying on little Canada to bail us out.

OPINION

Bacterial drug resistance is a major public health problem that potentially affects all of us. Using accurate language is necessary to keep the public optimally informed about this important threat.

OPINION

The use of advanced genomic tests is helping better determine a veteran’s risk of harboring undetected prostate cancer.

OPINION

He needed to sit in court. He needed to hear woman after woman explain that they weren’t having fun; they were traumatized. He wasn’t an eccentric playboy; he was a predator. Nobody wanted his sperm.

OPINION

Fully 38 percent of murder offenders with known ages are below age 25. This is due in part to ongoing development of brain domains that regulate impulse control, judgment and long-term planning.

OPINION

I do not believe Trump is a racist, much less a white supremacist. I think the rhetoric of the Democratic candidates is incendiary and dangerous, and also politically self-destructive.

OPINION

With a shocking set of facts such as this one, that kind of speculation, frequently based on naked suspicion, is inevitable and, in today’s world, impossible to stop. The only antidote is a swift, thorough and objective search for the truth.

OPINION

National conservatives preen as defenders of the dignity of the rural and small-town — mostly white and non-college educated — working class. However, these defenders nullify the members’ dignity by discounting their agency.

OPINION

Our industry’s corrosive ideas about manhood and power bleed into too many of the products we ship. We’ve told one kind of player that they are the center of the universe, and we’ve catered to their every whim for 30 years.

OPINION

We could easily tighten up the current law of incitement without undermining free-speech protections.

OPINION

It’s true that Trump campaigned on getting the United States out of foreign wars. But he also campaigned on not repeating the mistake Obama made in Iraq when he completely withdrew and left a vacuum ISIS filled.

OPINION

The Pentagon is buzzing about a potentially revolutionary order by the new Marine Corps commandant that bluntly answers the essential question for would-be military reformers: What should we discard from the legacy arsenal to make room for what we need to fight the wars of the future?

OPINION

What makes the attack on political correctness so disturbing is that the ideology doesn’t exist anywhere but in the radioactive contempt for it.

OPINION

In Iran and Saudi Arabia alike, the persecution and prosecution of women’s rights activists shows the ruling patriarchy’s unchanging attitude toward women.

OPINION

There is no political justification for acts of mass murder of civilians. When political leaders give such acts cover, even inadvertently, the movement spreads and innocent people die.

OPINION

While Beijing fortifies contested islands to its southeast, it remains silent on its long-surrendered northeastern lands, leaving Russia the undisputed sovereign of Eurasia’s far northeast.

OPINION

Each time, someone bent on mass murder found it possible — easy, really — to get the weaponry with which to carry out those intentions.

OPINION

The task of moving this massive bureaucracy toward audit compliance is a significant one.

OPINION

Can the news media manage to become part of the solution to this mind-numbing curse?

OPINION

I can’t think of another situation where we would not do something together about wolves roving among us.

OPINION

After two rounds of quasi-debates — “10-participant debate” is a quasi-oxymoron — the Democratic field is well on its way to contraction.

OPINION

What precisely is the “point in time” to which Americans today can refer as they try to make sense of ongoing events?

OPINION

One needn’t agree with their opinions to appreciate the skill of those who see public debates and participants through more imaginative eyes than our own.

OPINION

The money spent on researching, producing and distributing new uniforms every few years would have been immensely more effective if instead it had been used to provide the best possible equipment to the soldiers who need it the most.

OPINION

The rural evangelical voters in states that will likely decide 2020 talk less about social issues and more about the economy. What they appreciate is a sense that Trump speaks directly to them.

OPINION

Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard’s plan to overtly side with Assad and Russia while they commit crimes against humanity would be a strategic disaster, a gift to the extremists and a betrayal of decades of U.S. commitments to stand up to mass atrocities.

OPINION

Tactically speaking, look for things in the Gulf to get worse before they get better. But over time, it’s not in anyone’s interest to stumble into a war.

OPINION

Even if a Democrat defeats President Donald Trump, the political situation in 2021 is unlikely to be ripe for sweeping changes.

OPINION

To truly address gun violence, we need to view it through a public health lens — one that reframes the issue as a preventable disease that can be cured with the help of all community members.

OPINION

Without the resources necessary for maritime protection, there is little that African coastal governments can do to protect their waters. This is where the U.S. military could be especially helpful, and there is precedent.

OPINION

There is a lesson in Cuba's revolution about the relationship between economic factors — often said to determine political outcomes — and the human factor, which may be what really counts.

OPINION

The deepest worry among intelligence professionals is how the Ratcliffe nomination, and the intense partisanship that fueled it, will be perceived by America’s intelligence partners overseas.

OPINION

After two years of draining the swamp of several of its slimiest occupants, Mueller had to present himself one final time for the benefit of politicians bent on showboating at his expense.

OPINION

Buying into Pakistan’s proclaimed bona fides, and making concessions up front to its proxies won’t bring peace to Afghanistan.

OPINION

The Democratic presidential circus pitches its tent in Detroit this week. It will be especially entertaining if the presidential aspirants are asked some questions like these.

OPINION

Which decade’s standards should we apply when we think about Al Franken? Then or now? I don’t think there’s necessarily a right answer to that question, but I do think it’s one of the right questions.

OPINION

The privacy reckoning for Facebook and the rest of the internet is denting the company’s ad machine.

OPINION

“13 Reasons Why” presents suicide as a way to get revenge and sends a message that seeking help is pointless.

OPINION

With the conclusion of former special counsel Robert Mueller’s testimony on Wednesday, Trump has decisively repulsed the attempt to deny him the opportunity to win vindication at the polls in November 2020.

OPINION

Over the past several decades, small cities throughout upstate New York and mid-America have counted on refugees to fill jobs left open as more Americans flock to the coasts and bigger cities. Now, with the refugee cap at a historic low, economic development in these cities is stalling.

OPINION

When the evidence did not support criminal conspiracy charges, Mueller had no problem stating that conclusion. That he has never made the same statement concerning obstruction has always suggested Mueller believes the evidence of obstruction was sufficient but his hands were tied. His testimony Wednesday only strengthened that impression.

OPINION

The main reason unlicensed doctors were permitted to practice was because VHA employees were not properly trained on the resources available to check the status of these licenses.

I was running late, as usual. A mini-crisis had erupted on email at home, and typing an emergency response had put me behind schedule. My tires squealed turning past the “Lot Full” sign at the parking lot entrance across from the ballpark. I gave the attendant as pathetic a look as I could muster, but before I could beg, he waved his hand toward a space that had just opened up.

OPINION

An agreement along these lines would benefit U.S. and Israeli interests, meet important Russian objectives and deescalate tensions in the region.

OPINION

Hope sometimes needs fear as its fuel. Perhaps the candidate who can best harness both is the one we need to lead us out of here.

OPINION

The big swing factor is whether Boeing is right that the planes will be able to fly again before the end of 2019. Time and again during the Max crisis, Boeing has been on the wrong side of conservatism.

A few months ago, I was cursing my place in the world. I mean literally, the actual spot where we live here in “Rhode Iceland.” After my husband retired from the Navy, I thought I could handle the harsh, bitter, seemingly endless New England winters, but every time it snows in April (and it does every year), I curse the ground it falls upon.

OPINION

Congress has abdicated its responsibility as Democratic and Republican presidents alike have invoked the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force against targets across 19 countries, many of which have no actual ties to al-Qaida or affiliated groups.

OPINION

What does it mean to be an American? No chanting pseudo-patriot at the Trump rally could match Big Jim’s devotion to his country, as we were all reminded at his Arlington burial.

OPINION

While the media is pursuing the truth in its own fashion, the dictates of a good story are different from those of a righteous prosecution.

OPINION

Thinking that space offers an escape from Earth’s problems is a dangerous delusion. We must solve them here. Battling climate change may seem daunting, but it will be child’s play when compared with making Mars habitable.

OPINION

For just this one small moment, we need to look past ephemeral reelection cycles and instant polls and change the trajectory of our future.

Special to The Washington Post

OPINION

The next time you reach for the remote and begin surfing through the comedies on Hulu, take a moment to thank the man who made it all possible.

OPINION

If this were a boxing match, you’d say that the United States is trying to let Iran punch itself out.

OPINION

Ideally, any settlement would include a provision requiring legislatures to pass laws allocating the funds to treatment, harm reduction and overdose prevention programs, while leaving states the freedom to figure out specifics based on the realities in their state.

OPINION

How can the Pentagon “gain full value from every taxpayer dollar” or “deliver performance at the speed of relevance” without Senate-confirmed senior leadership?

OPINION

It is heartening to see the reaction to Trump’s remarks from countless Americans who recognized that his words were repulsive.

OPINION

Trump has managed to normalize, through repetition, a toxic standard of political behavior that may spread as his supporters imitate him — and his opponents consider themselves licensed to respond in kind.

OPINION

The current Japan-South Korea conflict does China’s work for it.

OPINION

As unsettling as the thought may be of Kim actually having all the pieces needed for deliverable nuclear weapons — with U.S. approval — it is a circumstance that can be managed militarily, through three key steps.

OPINION

There are two schools of thought, each with some merit, that support the suspicion that federal grant and loan policies have created a growing class of overeducated workers whose degrees won’t actually help them get high-paying jobs.

OPINION

Troops in training can find themselves on difficult territory in potentially unreliable machines.

OPINION

If the executive branch disclaims the courts’ authority to resolve disputes, we would be in wholly uncharted territory outside the ability of the Constitution to resolve.

OPINION

The Trump administration has massively increased the use of unilateral sanctions as a key instrument of its strategy to force behavior changes in other countries.

OPINION

The Democrats haven’t figured out a way to stop his forward momentum, even when they believe it’s taking the country over a cliff.

OPINION

You can espouse a border wall, family deportation and “zero tolerance,” as Trump does; that doesn’t excuse cruelty to children, whether by incompetence or design.

OPINION

Tying a withdrawal to a successful political resolution paves the way for a stalled exit, given that prospects for actual, long-term peace in Afghanistan remain poor.

OPINION

Acosta should step down from his Cabinet position for dereliction of duty in his prior role — and because he has the spine of a mollusk.

OPINION

The Democrats’ stance is important because the U.S.-Iran standoff has now entered a dangerous phase of escalation and brinkmanship bargaining.

OPINION

The memos are shocking because they show the dysfunction and ineptitude at the heart of Britain’s own governing institutions.

OPINION

To the lengthy list of issues that divide Republicans from Democrats, add this seemingly nonpartisan question: How proud are you to be an American? We shall find out soon enough which appeal — pride-promotion or shame-elimination — carries the day politically.

OPINION

In the children’s classic, Alice provides impressive examples of calm pragmatism. The British need those qualities now.

OPINION

Like Saddam Hussein before him, Mohammed bin Salman has concluded that he is immune.

OPINION

It’s never a good time to start using tobacco products and never too late to quit — your health, your performance, and your country depend on it.

OPINION

One cannot unring a bell and California Sen. Kamala Harris cannot erase the fact that she has repeatedly said she wants to take from 217 million Americans something most of them like.

OPINION

The immigration debate would go better if the focus could shift to legal, publicly recognized rights to citizenship, later to be declared openly in response to governmental inquiries.

OPINION

The stepped-up repression is being carried out through a series of Chinese military, political, economic and surveillance programs that constitute the most comprehensive system of population control and oppression anywhere in the world today.

OPINION

There are countless tales of POWs whose strength through faith is what enabled them to persevere and endure the unimaginable.

OPINION

The resonance of the Declaration of Independence might be in its universality, but its power derives from its ability to speak to changing circumstances.

OPINION

Credibility is less a function of using force than of demonstrating prudence.