• The Time to Prevent Shortfalls in Critical Materials Is Now

    Rare earth elements are—despite their name—everywhere. They’re in your cellphone, your car, maybe even in a crown in your mouth. They’re in satellites, wind turbines, night-vision goggles, laser-guided missiles, and fighter jets. All of which makes China’s near-total domination of the rare earth market a matter of economic and national security concern.

  • A Balancing Act: What to Do About Taiwan

    If one of the world’s liberal democracies were to be taken over by a neo-totalitarian superpower, what would this imply for the future of freedom in Asia? What should we make of China’s claims about Taiwan? Should the U.S. replace its current policy of “strategic ambiguity” with a more explicit commitment to Taiwan’s defense?

  • The Iraq Invasion, Twenty Years Later

    Last week marked the 20th anniversary of the United States-led invasion of Iraq. Code-named “Operation Iraqi Freedom” by the George W. Bush administration, the goal was to eliminate weapons of mass destruction, topple Saddam Hussein, and remake Iraq into a democracy. What lessons should we learn from the war and its aftermath?

  • Western “Self-Deterrence” is Aiding Putin’s War of Aggression

    Putin’s only viable strategy is to outlast Western patience by pursuing a bloody and brutal war of attrition. But the West should not relent in its support of Ukraine, becasue “Stopping attempts to change borders by force is the right thing to do, as the founders of the United Nations agreed almost 80 years ago. It is also a powerful signal to other ambitious autocrats who are eyeing their neighbors and dreaming of annexation through force,” Erlingur Erlingsson and Fridrik Jonsson write.

  • Surge in Arms Imports to Europe, While U.S. Dominance of the Global Arms Trade Increases

    Imports of major arms by European states increased by 47 percent between 2013–17 and 2018–22, while the global level of international arms transfers decreased by 5.1 percent. The United States’ share of global arms exports increased from 33 to 40 percent while Russia’s fell from 22 to 16 percent.

  • Taiwan’s High-End Semiconductors: Supply Chain Interdependence and Geopolitical Vulnerability

    What are the geopolitical implications of Taiwan’s dominance in global semiconductor production? How would the peaceful annexation or outright invasion of Taiwan by China affect the United States, its allies and partners, and the global economy? What are the United States’ options for mitigating or reversing the unfavorable effects of either unification scenario?

  • Australian Government Needs to Go ack to Basics to Build an Australian Rare-Earths Industry

    China has moved well beyond an aspiration to monopolize the production of rare earths. It aims for leadership in the production of the full range of goods making use of rare earths—from electric cars to wind turbines, MRI scanners, lasers and rocket motors.

  • Garland Would Not Object to Designating Wagner a Foreign Terrorist Organization

    Founded in 2014, the Wagner Group is run by Yevgeny Prigozhin, a sanctioned oligarch with close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin. With an estimated 50,000 fighters in Ukraine, the majority recruited from Russia’s prisons, the paramilitary force has become a veritable arm of the Russian military in Ukraine.

  • The U.S. Needs to Ditch Its America-First Approach to Critical Minerals

    More and more countries with advanced economies have begun to prioritize the supply and value chains for critical minerals and rare-earth elements because of their links with advanced and low-emissions technologies. In some countries, governments have responded to the critical minerals challenge by adopting a new version of economic nationalism. But unilateral responses will not produce secure or reliable supply chains. Indeed, economic nationalism may actually aggravate the problem.

  • Havana Syndrome Not Caused by Directed-Energy Weapons: U.S. Intelligence

    In 2016 in Havana, Cuba’s capital, a growing number of U.S. diplomats reported symptoms of unexplained ailment, and over the next five years, employees in many other U.S. embassies complained about identical symptoms, which included dizziness, nausea, headaches, ringing ears, and disorientation. A comprehensive investigation by several agencies of the U.S. intelligence community has now concluded that the symptoms of what came to be called the Havana Syndrome were not the result of an adversary nation using directed-energy or radiation weapons.

  • Directed Energy Weapons Shoot Painful but Non-Lethal Beams – Are Similar Weapons Behind the Havana Syndrome?

    The latest episodes of so-called Havana syndrome, a series of unexplained ailments afflicting U.S. and Canadian diplomats and spies, span the globe. The cause of these incidents is unknown, but speculation in the U.S. centers on electromagnetic beams.

  • China’s Militarization of Meteorological Balloons

    Beijing’s spy balloon is a clear example of an emerging technology developed for military and intelligence operations but that crucially evolved out of civilian and scientific programs. China’s balloon-technology programs contain sober lessons about Beijing’s incremental acquisition of foreign intellectual property and its technology partnerships with Western research institutions.

  • Spy Balloon Reveals China’s ‘Near Space’ Military Program

    Chinese spy balloon drifting across the United States this month was a demonstration of a little-noticed program which has been discussed in China’s state-controlled media for more than a decade in articles extolling its potential military applications.

  • One Year After: How Putin Got Germany Wrong

    Vladimir Putin has made many strategic mistakes, but one misjudgment stands out: Germany. Putin considered Germany too dependent on Russian energy, too weak militarily, and too business-minded to mount any significant resistance to his war. He was wrong. Germany, once dangerously dependent on Russian energy, has defied Russian expectations in its reaction to war in Ukraine.

  • Why Did So Many Get the Ukraine Invasion Predictions So Wrong?

    As the drumbeat of war grew louder in the months before February 24, 2022, many Western intelligence officers, military analysts, and political scientists believed Russia would not invade. Wrong. They also looked hard at what was known about Russia’s modernized, reformed, and well-financed armed forces — and many believed that if Russia invaded, Ukraine’s military would be routed. Wrong again.