OPINION

Staying resilient is a huge part of a military family’s job. We may never wear the uniform or go into combat, but we certainly pay our dues in other ways.

OPINION

All conventional support had failed her. I discovered, to my wonder, that it wasn’t that hard to be the stranger who didn’t.

OPINION

As NATO’s first secretary general, Lord Ismay, put it in the 1950s, the alliance’s purpose was “to keep the Soviet Union out, the Americans in, and the Germans down.”

OPINION

Friends and family pose well-meaning questions: Did I pick up my prescription? Did I order food? Did I order enough food? Is there enough parking? Did I get some sleep? Tonight, two more hours of sleep.

OPINION

President Donald Trump could hardly have set a more dramatic stage for his Monday meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

OPINION

The danger is that the summit will implicitly condone Putin’s brutal tactics in Ukraine, Syria, the European Union, and America — and foster further discord in the NATO alliance, a Russian goal for 70 years.

OPINION

By learning to appreciate soccer, I have also learned to appreciate the limits of American exceptionalism.

OPINION

It’s fair to say that, in recent weeks, stupidity has reigned within both major political parties, reminding us again why, in politics as in football, more elections are lost than won.

OPINION

Much like tragic drama, the anti-elite revolts in places like Greece, Italy and the U.K. are starting to follow a similar pattern.

OPINION

Trump is investing in a new set of friends and forgiving past transgressions to build a new portfolio.

OPINION

The current rate of suicide is shockingly high by any historical and social standard. It is simply unacceptable to let so many people die in the prime of their lives.

OPINION

Trump had — right in front of him — the judge who could be populist and principled; the person who could galvanize the base and be an originalist judicial bedrock for the next 30 years.

OPINION

Conservatives can trust, from Kavanaugh’s vast record, that he will not become a liberal upon joining the court, as David Souter did.

OPINION

The key to winning back the House, veteran party strategists argue, is appealing to voters in the center.

OPINION

Helping those left behind may not be easy. But the president needs an invigorated domestic policy agenda to get the job done.

OPINION

Americans have an obligation that exceeds even the government’s to tolerate free speech, even speech that they find repugnant.

OPINION

Chief Justice John Roberts got at the truth of things in his ruling that said it was not the job of the court to judge Trump’s statements but to judge whether they influenced what he did.

OPINION

Putin has a reputation as an ex-KGB thug. But his Syrian strategy evokes the subtler Chinese precept of subduing the enemy without fighting.

OPINION

As charter schools proliferate across the country, their organization into New Orleans-style charter-only school districts under local control may be the next step in the continuing evolution of American education.

OPINION

How can someone who calls herself pro-choice oppose Roe v. Wade? Let me count the ways.

OPINION

President Donald Trump has turned to military bases as a “solution” to the crisis he created on the nation’s border. With a policy of detention rather than resettlement, Trump’s program builds on the shameful precedent set at Guantanamo during the 1990s.

OPINION

Even if Trump doesn’t understand it yet, the U.S. won’t necessarily be competitive for long if global security turns into a marketplace.

OPINION

Video review is used in professional basketball, baseball and other sports, but it’s an awkward fit for soccer, a flowing game with a clock that doesn’t stop.

OPINION

By Trump’s logic, Putin would have cause to seize the parts of Latvia and Estonia that are Russian-speaking, not to mention Belarus and Kazakhstan.

OPINION

For me, outlawing abortion is much like the failed effort to enforce prohibition during the 1920s. The problem is not the legality of the practice; it’s that there is a demand for it at all.

OPINION

Trump’s pique at Europe has been evident since the first days of his presidency.

OPINION

It’s a good week to think about Richard Nixon’s presidency, both the evil in it and the good. President Donald Trump is replicating many of Nixon’s worst qualities and almost none of his strengths.

OPINION

Congress and the administration are now in the position of dealing with recently created disasters rather than the long-standing issues that have been the focus of previous immigration debates.

OPINION

Its roots stem from the 1980s, when real estate developer Trump first foresaw a role in forging a superpower nuclear deal and envisioned extending his real estate empire toward the Soviet Union.

OPINION

The best we may be able to do in the short term is to manage the competition and reduce the risk of direct conflict, both through deterrence and by using Cold War tools such as arms control and military transparency.

OPINION

We know how more immigration benefits big business and the Democratic Party. No one has yet to convincingly explain how it benefits the American people as a whole.

OPINION

The brain science is in, and has been for years, yet it is ignored or given short shrift because drinking is such a huge part of our cultural fabric.

OPINION

The fact that it’s private companies taking these steps suggests a breakdown in the government’s ability or willingness to carry out one of its core functions.

OPINION

Then they’ll go home and tell their constituents that the immigration system is a mess and we absolutely have to do something about it.

OPINION

The Trump administration and the Republican congressional majority have offered little reason to hope this could be a defining moment for a change to their approach.

OPINION

As the Great Dealmaker should know, it’s important to read the fine print.

OPINION

So long as the powerful “push factors” of poverty and violence in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador persist, the U.S. will continue to wrestle with the problem of illegal migration on the border with Mexico.

OPINION

There are echoes of this age in literally every aspect of our lives today.

OPINION

Legal efforts to mandate and/or reward regular work scheduling shouldn’t be viewed as helping workers at the expense of employers, but as a way to help both at once

OPINION

For those senators who consider the president a challenge to the fundamental ideas of conservatism, Cory Gardner’s example is instructive.

OPINION

Pruitt’s continued presence at the EPA sends a powerful message to government employees everywhere that he, President Donald Trump and congressional leadership believe Pruitt’s unethical behavior is not only condoned but should be a model.

OPINION

If testimony from Trump were essential to finding out what happened, this confrontation might be worth it. But it is not.

OPINION

When Sessions invoked Romans 13 — a verse infamous for earlier bad-faith invocations to justify slavery — he shifted the subject of the question from himself and his own department to those under his control.

OPINION

Last week, the 97-year-old Miss America organization removed the word “pageant” from its name and dropped the swimsuit competition, caving to the opinion that such events demean women. But that’s not how I experienced it.

OPINION

The former Georgia governor’s unpreparedness, rigid personality and disdain for politics in decision-making had a negative effect on his presidency.

OPINION

Originally meant to supplement U.S. commitment to NATO, the European Deterrence Initiative has taken on a funding life of its own.

OPINION

A physical injury may result in a medal. A brain injury may result in feelings of isolation.

OPINION

There is a larger, more important point here. The inspector general is an integral part of a department dedicated to principled conduct and accountability.

OPINION

Why risk the most important and battle-tested global alliance we have over a relatively minor disagreement on trade policy?

“Time is that irritating inconvenience between soccer matches.” That’s an almost-certainly apocryphal line, usually attributed to the French-Algerian philosopher — and handy schoolboy goalkeeper — Albert Camus. But whatever its provenance, it rings true as the World Cup gets underway in Russia.

OPINION

It was a breathtaking piece of mutual audacity for Kim and Trump to push each other to the edge of the cliff and then walk back. But by Tuesday, it was clear that Kim was getting more than he was giving,

OPINION

There may be a method to Trump’s madness. There is at least reason to hope for a successful arms control and broader detente process.

OPINION

Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un didn’t agree on anything of global importance, and the grandiose photo opportunity that took place in Singapore probably benefited Kim more than it did Trump. But the beauty of the moment is that Trump doesn’t care about that sort of thing, and that could be good for world peace.

OPINION

If Beijing’s strategic aim is to weaken America’s standing in its region, Trump just did a good bit of their work for them.

OPINION

History encourages persistence, despite setbacks, and the Korean Peninsula is an especially important example.

OPINION

In Trump’s quest for “wins,” he could be too quick to discard allies like South Korea — and in the process, unravel the security order that has preserved American dominance in Asia since the end of World War II.

OPINION

With the U.S. economy strong and unemployment low, why is wage growth so sluggish?

OPINION

People are complex. So are the places they come from. Bourdain saw humanity (and food) everywhere and connected with it.

OPINION

To be unhappy enough to end it all, a person must first imagine a condition of greater happiness, then lose hope that the greater happiness can be achieved.

OPINION

The North Korean regime has wagered that nuclear weapons would guarantee the loyalty of the only possible internal threat to the family, the armed forces, and would immunize the nation from external threats.

OPINION

In various quiet corners of Europe, small groups of Americans and Europeans are still devoting their time to one another’s mutual safety. If a crisis comes, we might need them.

OPINION

At a time when nations have become so unwilling to play by the rules and restore reciprocity, tariffs are a wake-up call to the dangers of a broken trading system that is increasingly unfree.

OPINION

For the good of veterans, these reforms must be done on time and on budget — two metrics with which the VA has chronically struggled.

OPINION

This week we are all remembering, in our own ways, the lessons Robert F. Kennedy was in the process of teaching us — about our nation, our politics, and ourselves — when an assassin’s bullet ripped him from us 50 years ago.

OPINION

We could use a thoughtful analysis of how to build on what has worked in American anti-poverty policy and how to reform what hasn’t. But we’ll have to look elsewhere.

OPINION

He often asks his generals to explain the rationale for America’s deployments in Asia and expresses dissatisfaction with their answers.

Military update

Personnel chiefs jointly testified in January on the need to make targeted reforms to the 1980 Defense Officer Personnel Management Act to provide greater flexibility to recruit and retain the officers they need. Reforms unveiled Wednesday might be viewed by service leaders as having gone beyond what’s needed to modernize officer management.

OPINION

A danger in the cake case was that victory for the baker would make First Amendment law incoherent, even absurd.

OPINION

These midterms will be an important signal to the GOP as it considers if it wants more Trump or less.

OPINION

The Trump administration risks making the same mistake that the Obama administration made with its “rebalance” or “pivot” to Asia — raising expectations and then under-delivering.

OPINION

Comparing Barr’s fate to Bee’s as strictly political fails on its face. One uttered an obscenity; the other a mean-spirited, threatening slur that has caused immeasurable suffering.

OPINION

In the end, Johnson put aside his personal animosity toward his most bitter political rival to focus on the family and its loss. He showed compassion, even though it had rarely been reciprocated. It was a remarkable display of humanity in a difficult time.

OPINION

Charlie Craig and David Mullins could go right back into Masterpiece Cakeshop today and request a cake to celebrate their wedding anniversary — and if Jack Phillips refused them, he would have no First Amendment right to turn them away.

OPINION

The intriguing consequence of this decision is that it doesn’t really provide definitive guidance even for future wedding cake cases, much less other conflicts between religious conscience and gay rights.

OPINION

If forgiveness had a face, it would be hideous to us now; to the degree that beauty is a matter of socially constructed taste, we wouldn’t be able to look at forgiveness without revulsion.

OPINION

Fake news is fake news, whether it’s Russian meddling or Bryan Colangelo defending Bryan Colangelo while pretending to be a fan.

OPINION

The writing is now indisputably on the wall: The Syrian regime is going nowhere. Despite seven years of civil war, the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Syrians, the flight of millions of refugees, the hollowing out of the nation’s ancient cities and the horrific use of chemical weapons on civilians, President Bashar Assad remains in his post.

OPINION

The most important reason to pay attention to independents is that they often reflect the direction and magnitude of partisan changes.

Analysis

Poland is willing to spend $1.5 billion to $2 billion to entice the U.S. to build a permanent military base there, according to a Defense Ministry proposal. The plan offers a strong incentive for the U.S. to consider moving at least some of its forces from Germany, especially since the current deployment makes little military sense.

OPINION

President Donald Trump would be making a monumental mistake to pull U.S. troops from South Korea. But he may be onto something in wondering whether there is anything sacrosanct about the current number and configuration.

OPINION

The call to “speak English” in America has a long history that often drowns out our even longer history of diverse language use.

OPINION

Memorial Day 2018 resembled a Monday like too many others — the beginning of a week of sniping and fighting and irreconcilable views of what it means to be a patriot in these anything but United States.

OPINION

Art has been influencing war, and vice versa, since the beginnings of recorded human conflict.

OPINION

Racism and conspiracy theories have been made socially acceptable, and social media makes it harder to separate truth from lies.

OPINION

What comes next? I couldn’t get clear answers from U.S. or South Korean officials, maybe because there aren’t any yet.

Stars and Stripes Ombudsman

Just about every mainstream news organization includes some coverage of military interest. But only a relative few produce substantive original military journalism themselves. Doing so is one of Stars and Stripes’ unique market advantages.

OPINION

Because some immigrants think Trump is merely trying to blacken the names of all of them with his talk of “animals,” their aspirations fall short of cooperation.