Skip to content
TRENDING:
Donald Trump
Advertisement
Author profile
Guy Taylor

Guy Taylor

gtaylor@washingtontimes.com

Guy Taylor is the National Security Editor at The Washington Times, overseeing the paper's State Department, Pentagon and intelligence coverage and driving the daily Threat Status newsletter. He has reported from dozens of countries and been a guest on the BBC, CNN, NPR, FOX, C-SPAN and The McLaughlin Group.
A series Mr. Taylor led on Russia's attempts to influence the 2016 U.S. election was recognized with a Gerald R. Ford Journalism Prize for Distinguished Reporting on the Presidency, and a Society for Professional Journalists award. In 2012, he won a Virginia Press Association award reporting from Mexico.Prior to joining The Times in 2011, Mr. Taylor was supported by the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting and the Fund For Investigative Journalism. He wrote for a variety publications, from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch to Salon, Reason, Prospect, the Daily Star of Beirut, the Jerusalem Post and the St. Petersburg Times. He also served as an editor at World Politics Review, wrote for America's Quarterly and produced videos and features for Agence France-Presse.Mr. Taylor holds an M.S. in Global Security Studies from Angelo State University and a B.A. from Clark University. He was part of a team who won a Society of Professional Journalists award for their reporting on the terrorist attacks of 9/11.
He can be reached at gtaylor@washingtontimes.com.

Threat Status Influencers Videos

Go behind the scenes with Washington Times National Security Editor Guy Taylor as he interviews officials and experts directly involved in the most important global security, foreign policy, and technology issues impacting America's position in the world.

Threat Status Podcast

An edgy and informative look at the biggest U.S. national security and geopolitical issues making headlines right now. Less about hot takes and more about depth, the Threat Status podcast is helmed by veteran Washington Times journalists Ben Wolfgang and Guy Taylor and features regular appearances by insiders with expertise on war, politics and global affairs.

Special Report: Vlad's Vengeance

Inside Putin's 'hybrid warfare' on the U.S. Click here to read more.

Articles by Guy Taylor

Some argue that Kim Jong-un's appetite for defying the international community is far greater than anything his father showed while presiding over Pyongyang's opaque dictatorship from the mid-1990s until his death in 2011. (Associated Press)

Kim Jong-un hydrogen bomb claim underscores North Korean leader’s volatility

North Korea's surprise claim Wednesday that it detonated a miniaturized hydrogen bomb was the latest proof that regime leader Kim Jong-un is even less predictable than his unpredictable father, according to experts, who say the isolated, untested young leader poses a particularly difficult problem for the U.S. and its allies as he presses for an ever more menacing nuclear arsenal.

January 6, 2016
This picture released by the official website of the Iranian Defense Ministry on Oct. 11, 2015, claims to show the launching of an Emad long-range ballistic surface-to-surface missile in an undisclosed location. (Iranian Defense Ministry via Associated Press) **FILE**

Iran moves ‘Emad’ ballistic missiles to underground base

Iran's leaders on Tuesday revealed the existence of a previously undisclosed weapons bunker stocked with ballistic missiles, adding to President Obama's diplomatic headaches in the region at a time when tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia have soared to new heights.

January 5, 2016
Ras Lanuf is home to oil refineries and storage facilities in Libya. Islamic State militants on Monday set a storage tank ablaze as they pushed eastward into the "oil crescent." (Associated Press)

Islamic State’s thirst for oil highlighted by attacks in Libya

The Islamic State's main branch in Libya launched attacks Monday near a key oil export terminal on the Mediterranean, the latest in a growing offensive that national security sources say underscores the terrorist group's desire to seize lucrative territory in the war-torn North African nation to fund its global ambitions.

January 4, 2016
Iraqi Shiite protesters chant slogans against the Saudi government as they hold posters showing Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, who was executed in Saudi Arabia last week, during a demonstration in Najaf, 100 miles (160 kilometers) south of Baghdad, Iraq, Monday, Jan. 4, 2016. Demonstrations against the al-Nimr execution and Saudi Arabia are also being called for in the predominantly Shiite southern cities on Monday. (AP Photo/Karim Kadim)

Obama admin treads lightly amid Iran-Saudi friction

The Obama administration responded cautiously Monday to growing friction between Saudi Arabia and Iran, as regional tensions continued to soar around the Sunni kingdom's execution of a prominent Shiite cleric and the subsequent sacking of the Saudi embassy in Tehran.

January 4, 2016
With a total annual budget of roughly $730 million for the government's international media operations, the U.S. is "spending a small fraction of what our adversaries are spending," said Jeff Shell, chairman of the Broadcasting Board of Governors. (Associated Press)

Russian, Chinese propaganda muffling U.S. government’s message to world

NEWSMAKER INTERVIEW: The U.S. government's international media operations grossly lack funding to counter effectively the rising global blitz of state-sponsored propaganda from Russia, China and other rivals, says the head of the federal board that oversees such Washington-financed outlets as Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Voice of America.

January 3, 2016
President Obama meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington on Sept. 30, 2013. (Associated Press) **FILE**

White House on defense as furor grows over Israeli spying report

The Obama White House found itself playing defense Wednesday amid rising anger from lawmakers and Republican presidential rivals over a report that President Obama authorized spying on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other U.S. allies, snooping that may have swept up private conversations involving members of Congress and private U.S. pro-Israel groups.

December 30, 2015
In a strategic and symbolic victory, soldiers raise Iraqi national flags at the government complex in central Ramadi on Monday after retaking it from the Islamic State. Militants occupied the capital of Anbar province since May. (Associated Press)

Islamic State driven from Ramadi by Iraq with U.S. help

After months of training with U.S. advisers, Iraq's military scored a key and symbolic victory Monday by driving the Islamic State from a central clutch of government buildings in the western Iraqi city of Ramadi, although major challenges lie ahead as the terrorist group still holds vital pockets of the city.

December 28, 2015
As Russian President Vladimir Putin visits the headquarters of RT, U.S. lawmakers are concerned how Moscow has brought about a propaganda revolution in which America's government-financed news operations have remained largely stagnant in global reach. (Associated Press)

Russia propaganda machine gains on U.S.

Russia has reorganized and intensified its international propaganda machine so effectively over the past decade that some Western lawmakers and diplomats say Washington now is badly losing a global messaging war to the increasingly modernized blitz of anti-U.S. content from Moscow-backed news operations.

December 27, 2015
A Bosnian police officer secures an area in a Sarajevo suburb as authorities look for 15 people suspected of being in "close contact" with the Islamic State. (Associated Press)

ISIS targets Balkans as next recruitment hotspot

The arrest in Bosnia and Herzegovina on Tuesday of at least 11 people suspected of ties to the Islamic State has underscored growing concerns among U.S. and European intelligence officials that the Balkans region of southeastern Europe is emerging as the next big target of opportunity for the jihadi terrorist group.

December 22, 2015
Behind the scenes, the White House is embracing a strategy that would leave the Syria President Bashar Assad in place as the world unites against a greater immediate threat from Islamic State terrorists. (Associated Press)

Obama yields to Russia and Iran, puts Bashar Assad ouster on back burner

Publicly, the Obama administration says it still believes Bashar Assad must be ousted, but behind the scenes the White House is embracing a strategy that would leave the Syrian leader in place as the world unites against a greater immediate threat from Islamic State terrorists.

December 21, 2015
Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, speaks with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry during their meeting in the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, Tuesday, Dec. 15, 2015. (Sergei Karpukhin/Pool Photo via AP) ** FILE **

Obama pushes Syria peace talks as divisions persist over Bashar Assad’s fate

Having apparently abandoned demands for the immediate departure of Syrian President Bashar Assad, the Obama administration will push anew Friday for international powers -- including key Assad allies Russia and Iran -- to back peace talks aimed at ending the country's bloody 4-year-old, multifront civil war.

December 16, 2015
This still image made from video released by the U.S. Central Command on Tuesday, Sept. 23, 2014, shows a structure in Tall Al Qitar, Syria moments after a U.S. airstrike. In three waves of nighttime attacks launched over four hours early on Tuesday, the U.S. and its Arab partners made more than 200 airstrikes against roughly a dozen militant targets in Syria. (AP Photo/US Central Command)

U.S. has mapped ISIS propaganda centers but won’t launch military strikes

In a secret project tied to the overall U.S. campaign against the Islamic State, intelligence officials have spent months mapping out known physical locations of media safe houses where the extremist group's operatives are compiling, editing and curating raw video and print materials into finished digital propaganda products for dissemination across the Internet.

December 14, 2015
Rep. Edward R. Royce, California Republican (Associated Press) **FILE**

Ed Royce: Obama ‘whitewashing’ Iran bomb-making program

The top House Republican on foreign policy says the Obama administration is trying to "whitewash" Iran's history of nuclear bomb research by pressuring the U.N.'s atomic watchdog agency to formally end its probe into the "possible military dimensions" of the Islamic Republic's nuclear activities.

December 11, 2015
US Secretary of State John Kerry, right, walks with White House senior advisor Brian Deese, left, and US Special Envoy for Climate Change Todd Stern, centre, to attend a meeting with French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius during the COP 21 United Nations conference on climate change at Le Bourget, on the outskirts of Paris, on Thursday Dec. 10, 2015. (Mandel Ngan Pool via AP)

Kerry praises Syrian opposition gathering but divisions remain

Secretary of State John F. Kerry praised the "positive outcome" of a Syrian opposition conference in Saudi Arabia on Thursday, despite evidence of deep and ongoing divisions among rival rebel factions over the prospect of a future peace negotiation with the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad.

December 10, 2015
President Barack Obama speaks in Emancipation Hall on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Dec. 9, 2015, during an event to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the 13th amendment that abolished slavery. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Obama ignoring Iran’s missile tests, senators claim

Two hawkish Republican senators are pushing the Obama White House to clarify how it intends to respond to two ballistic missile tests carried out by Iran over the past two months -- one of which was declared by the administration to have been a "clear violation" of a United Nations Security Council resolution banning such tests.

December 9, 2015