• Aces-High Frontier: Space War in 2053

    There are good reasons why the best science and speculative fiction ranks high on the reading lists of many military scholars and leaders. Done well, speculative military fiction projects thoughtfully beyond the here and now, and renders real operational and strategic concepts in terms of plausible future technologies.

  • 8 Lessons for Taiwan from Russia’s War in Ukraine

    While the fighting in Ukraine is on land, and thus very different from the maritime battlefield that would surround Taiwan, there are still many things Taiwan can learn from Ukraine’s defensive operations.

  • Protecting U.S. Overseas Air Bases

    In January 2022, U.S. Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall warned that the U.S. Air and Space Forces must move quickly to offset actions—mostly by China, but also by Russia—which have eroded the U.S. military advantage: “We cannot go forward with a presumption of superiority that our military dominance demonstrated in the first Gulf War… . A lot of things can change in 30 years and they have.”

  • China Is a Threat Not Because It is Ascendant, but Because It Is on a Downward Trajectory

    The prevailing consensus for the past few years has been that an ascendant China is threatening to overtake a slumping America. Because research suggests that a geopolitical power transition is most likely to take place when a surging challenger overtakes an exhausted hegemon, many believe that a turbo-charged China has increased the likelihood of conflict with America. In their book Danger Zone: The Coming Conflict with China, Hal Brands and Michael Beckley challenge this notion and offer a more nuanced view.

  • Supply-Chain Disruptions a Threat to Maintenance of Infrastructure, Critical Equipment

    The ability to deploy and maintain infrastructure and equipment is crucial to military operations and national security. But there is a problem: the ability to make and repair equipment in a wide range of operational environments is increasingly vulnerable to disruptions in global supply chains and to attacks.

  • DARPA Kicks Off JUMP 2.0 Consortium Aimed at Microelectronics Revolution

    JUMP 2.0, led by the Semiconductor Research Corporation, expands collaboration in new program spanning 7 U.S. university research centers.

  • 2022 UFO Report Released by U.S. Intelligence Community

    The 2022 UFO report says that 510 objects were reported – they include 144 objects previously reported and 366 new sightings. Most of both the old and new cases were determined, after analysis, to exhibit “unremarkable characteristics.”

  • Pentagon Overhauls Chem-Bio Defense

    DOD last week said it was overhauling its approach to countering chemical and biological weapons. Rather than continuing to focus on developing countermeasures for a specific list of threat agents, the Pentagon will develop measures that can adapt to a range of evolving biological and chemical threats.

  • What Does China's Arctic Presence Mean to the United States?

    Researchers looked at where China is operating in the Arctic, what it wants, and what that could mean for regional security. They concluded that China has made only limited inroads in the Arctic, but that’s not for lack of trying.

  • Leveraging U.S. Capital Markets to Support the Future Industrial Network

    $56 trillion is nearly three times the size of the U.S. economy.  This vast pool of capital in U.S. capital markets — $46 trillion in public capitalization and another $10 trillion in private money – dwarfs that of China. Tapping U.S. equity and debt markets would enable the Department of Defense to remedy current capability shortfalls, fund technological advances from leading private-sector innovators, invest in generational transformation efforts across the military services, and upgrade antiquated global infrastructure to sustain U.S. forces.

  • Bringing Manufacturing Back to the U.S. Requires Political Will, but Success Hinges on Training American Workers

    The lack of manufacturing competitiveness in the U.S. leaves the U.S. vulnerable to shortages of critical goods during times of geopolitical disruption and global competition. The strategies the U.S. employs in bringing back manufacturing, along with innovative practices, will be key to ensure national security.

  • The Center of Gravity for Chemical Threats

    DHS S&T’s Chemical Security Analysis Center (CSAC), located on the U.S. Army’s Aberdeen Proving Ground, CSAC is the nation’s only federal laboratory dedicated to assessing threats associated with large-scale chemical incidents or acts of chemical terrorism.

  • Makiivka and Bakhmut: The Impact of Russian Casualties

    When we step back from the daily news the underlying trends of this war favor Ukraine. It is learning to cope with the repeated Russian attacks on its critical infrastructure, and once spring comes the impact will decline, while it has been getting bolder in its attacks on facilities on Russian territory. Here lies the biggest danger for Putin - more retreats rather than more casualties - and a developing aura of futility. The question of what it takes to get Russia to abandon its war of conquest remains unanswered but that does not mean that no answer will ever be found.

  • What Killer Robots Mean for the Future of War

    As AI weapons become increasingly sophisticated, public concern is growing over fears about lack of accountability and the risk of technical failure.

  • Russia Increases Use of Kamikaze Drones in Ukraine

    Russia is using simply constructed, single-use drones to terrorize civilians in Ukraine. Launching a proper defense against the attacks can be a costly exercise.