• Makiivka and Bakhmut: The Impact of Russian Casualties

    By Lawrence Freedman

    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

    By Jonathan Erskine and Miranda Mowbray

    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

    By Christoph Hasselbach

    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.

  • New Study Suggests Climate Change Will Make Submarine Warfare More Complex

    By Rhys Kissell

    Over the coming decades, soundwaves will travel further through a warmer, chemically different, less dense ocean—and it will be noisier underwater than ever. With sound traveling further, undersea stealth platforms such as submarines will find it more difficult to hide in the open ocean. But they may also find it easier to hide in coastal waters, as the ocean becomes noisier.

  • U.S. Military Expert: “Ukraine's Position on the Battlefield Is Very Strong”

    By Vazha Tavberidze

    John Spencer says Russian President Vladimir Putin is unlikely to end the Russian invasion of Ukraine anytime soon but he predicts Ukraine will ultimately prevail. He says the recent decision by Washington to deliver a Patriot missile battery to Ukraine may not be a game-changing move, but it could trigger other Western allies to donate similar systems, bolstering Kyiv’s defenses.

  • What’s Happened to Russia’s Much-Vaunted Battlefield AI?

    By Huon Curtis

    So far, Russia’s deployment in Ukraine has been a demonstration of some of the limitations and vulnerabilities of AI-enabled systems. It has also exposed some longer-term strategic weaknesses in Russia’s development of AI for military and economic purposes.

  • What the Patriot Missile System Can -- and Can't -- Do for Ukraine

    By Amos Chapple

    Washington will supply an expensive, highly advanced Patriot missile battery to Ukraine, but experts say the defensive weapon may not be the game changer many are hoping for.

  • Experts: North Korea's ICBMs Pose Preemption Challenges for US

    By Christy Lee

    North Korea’s rapidly advancing ICBM capabilities pose a growing threat to the United States and its allies, especially as it will become increasingly difficult to destroy Pyongyang’s missiles prior to launch with preemptive strikes.

  • Accepting Reality: For the Foreseeable Future, Denuclearizing North Korea May Be Unattainable

    For two decades now, U.S. policymakers have sought North Korean denuclearization. In the early 2000s, it appeared to be a necessary goal, because a nuclear North Korea would threaten U.S. allies, spread nuclear weapons beyond the Korean Peninsula, damage the sanctity of the nuclear taboo, and eventually threaten U.S. territory. But the enemy gets a vote, and it is now clear that for the foreseeable future, there is nothing the United States can do, short of a direct military attack, to eliminate North Korea’s nuclear weapons.

  • Successful Sounding Rocket Campaign Advances Hypersonic Weapon Tech for Navy, Army

    By Troy Rummler

    Hypersonic weapons are weapons travelling at hypersonic speed – at between 5 and 25 times the speed of sound, about 1 to 5 miles per second (1.6 to 8.0 km/s). Sandia Lab’s researchers use a new vehicle which imitates boost-glide trajectory for over a minute.

  • Puma Tanks Unusable: Is Germany's Military Fit for Action?

    By Ben Knight

    Following Russia’s attack on Ukraine, German leaders vowed to boost the Bundeswehr and take on a leading role in NATO. But now there is yet another debacle: All of the cutting-edge Puma tanks are unfit for action.

  • “It's Not Napoleon or the Wehrmacht. It's the Ukrainians”': Military Strategist Sean McFate on What Could Stop Russia

    By Vazha Tavberidze

    In the eyes of American military strategist Sean McFate, Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February transformed a devastatingly effective strategy — from the Kremlin’s perspective, at least — into a failed blitzkrieg and a validation of his assertion that “conventional war is dead.”

  • Washington’s Semiconductor Sanctions Won’t Slow China’s Military Build-Up

    By Gary Clyde Hufbauer and Megan Hogan

    Advanced semiconductors underpin everything from autonomous vehicles to hypersonic weapon systems. Chips are imperative to the defense industry and technologies of the future. By targeting this critical input, the Biden administration aims to freeze China’s semiconductor suite at 2022 levels and impede its military development. Despite the bleak short-term outlook, it is wrong to assume that US controls will hobble China for years.

  • Ukraine War: Drones Are Transforming the Conflict, Bringing Russia on to the Frontline

    By Stefan Wolff and David Hastings Dunn

    Russia and Ukraine have deployed a wide range of military and commercial drones since the early days of the war. But their increasingly frequent – and effective – deployment indicates a potential new stage of escalation with important consequences for Ukraine and its western backers.

  • How Doctrine and Delineation Can Help Defeat Drones

    As Iranian-made drones continue to spread destruction across Ukraine, observers have been reminded once again of the dangers unmanned aerial systems pose. Nicholas Paul Pacheco writes that the United States, to its credit, has made significant progress in bolstering its capabilities to combat this threat, particularly through the investment of the Pentagon and the defense industrial base in counter-drone research and development. But “there remain two areas that have not been properly tackled: base defense and warfighter-policymaker synergy,” he writes.