Insights

Join 450+ former national security and intelligence officials as they break down today's most complex issues. Bound by a shared oath to defend the Constitution, The Steady State provides the expert commentary you need to navigate uncertain times.

Katherine Culliton-Gonzalez 6/27/26 Katherine Culliton-Gonzalez 6/27/26

Birthright Is America’s Strategic Advantage

The fight over the Fourteenth Amendment is about more than immigration—it’s about whether America abandons a democratic principle that has long strengthened its security and leadership.

James P Petrila 6/26/26 James P Petrila 6/26/26

Tulsi’s Final Intelligence Failure

When truth and propaganda can occupy the same briefing

Charles A. Ray 6/25/26 Charles A. Ray 6/25/26

The Termites of Authoritarianism

A quiet war on truth, expertise, and critical thinking.

Greg Rushford 6/24/26 Greg Rushford 6/24/26

Common Sense, Take 2: Congress as the Hinge- Institutions That Must Work Again

Congress Needs to Do the Hard Things

Martha Duncan 6/24/26 Martha Duncan 6/24/26

When Questions Become Enemies

Attacks on journalists are teaching Americans to stop defending democracy’s first line of accountability.

Steven Cash 6/22/26 Steven Cash 6/22/26

Trust Me. I’m Lying

The dangerous paradox at the heart of authoritarian rule

The Steady State 6/21/26 The Steady State 6/21/26

"The Bob Mueller Standard"

In the Words of His Colleagues

Michael Eiland 6/20/26 Michael Eiland 6/20/26

Fascism Is as Fascism Does

How the Administrative State Became an Enemy Class

Brian Naranjo 6/19/26 Brian Naranjo 6/19/26

Barrels, Ballots and now Bullets

Venezuela in the continuing U.S. embrace

Katherine Culliton-Gonzalez 6/17/26 Katherine Culliton-Gonzalez 6/17/26

Common Sense, Take 2: The Why Before the How- Equality of Opportunity

Who Belongs in America?

Bree Fram 6/17/26 Bree Fram 6/17/26

The Price of Pride

When a military organization stops feeling like home, it starts losing the very people it needs most.

Mark A. Fowler 6/16/26 Mark A. Fowler 6/16/26

The Intelligence Community Has a Consumer Problem

America’s spies can collect the truth, analyze the risks, and warn of the consequences. But they cannot force a president to listen.

Steven Cash 6/15/26 Steven Cash 6/15/26

Is Putin Winning Without Firing a Shot?

The Kremlin never needed Americans to love Russia. It only needed them to distrust democracy, despise institutions, and turn against one another.

Annie Pforzheimer 6/13/26 Annie Pforzheimer 6/13/26

It’s a Free Country … Isn’t It?

One emigrated from Russia in 2013 as a teenager. One spent three decades serving the United States. Both are asking the same unsettling question: Is it still a free country?