• Alaska: U.S. Bolsters “Last Frontier” Bases on NATO's Western Flank

    Despite Alaska’s geographic and environmental challenges, the U.S. military has staked its claim there since the 1860s, when the U.S. bought the territory from Russia and nearly a century before Alaska became a U.S. state. In the last decade, the military has redoubled its efforts in the far north, investing billions of dollars upgrading air and missile defenses while completely revamping the foundational structure of its Army forces.

  • The Department of the Navy Hosts Climate Tabletop Exercise

    The Department of the Navy hosted a first-of-its-kind Climate Tabletop Exercise to examine the impacts that climate change has on mission, readiness, and warfighting capacity.

  • Global Summit on the Use of Drones

    Over 300 participants from more than 50 countries have converged in the Norwegian capital to attend INTERPOL’s fourth expert conference on the use of drones, representing a multitude of law enforcement agencies as well as attendees with security and emergency preparedness functions.

  • Would Russia Use Bioweapons in Ukraine?

    In March, claims from the Kremlin of a U.S.-funded bioweapon program in Ukraine flooded global media. Those reports were amplified by China and picked up by conservative news outlets and conspiracy groups in the U.S. U.S. warned that Russia could be using this thread of disinformation to stage a false-flag incident using bioweapons, or to justify the use of its own bioweapons against Ukraine. It wouldn’t have been the first time Russia used false-flag tactics, and the threat of Russia using bioweapons in either scenario isn’t an outlandish prospect.

  • Examining Scenarios of U.S.-China War Over Taiwan

    For years, U.S. policy has been to effectively deter a military conflict in the Taiwan Strait while preparing for contingencies in the event of a Chinese attack. More recently, top officials from President Joe Biden’s administration have repeatedly warned against Beijing’s use of force to alter the status quo.

  • Third Aircraft Carrier to Help China Match U.S., Japan in Western Pacific: Analysts

    China has launched a third aircraft carrier, likely a way to upgrade overall defenses in the face of stronger navies rather than to target any specific future battleground, analysts believe. A third aircraft carrier would place China in a group of just 16 countries worldwide with the massive seaborne military airports. Around the Pacific, India, Japan and the United States operate carriers or are developing them.

  • Preparing National Security Officials for the Challenges of AI

    Artificial intelligence (AI) is one of several rapidly emerging technologies that promise to disrupt not only multiple sectors of the U.S. economy but also the manner in which the U.S. government carries out its foundational responsibility to protect national security consistent with the rule of law and constitutional values. Steve Bunnell writes that “The United States’ national security apparatus is not known for nimbleness, nor is the law that governs it. When it comes to AI, the risk is not just that our generals will fight tomorrow’s war with yesterday’s strategy but also that the United States will lack the legal and policy guardrails that are essential to a lawful, accountable, and ethical protection of the nation’s security.”

  • The Risk of Russian Cyber Retaliation for the United States Sending Rockets to Ukraine

    U.S. rocket shipments to Ukraine will not trigger Russian cyberattacks against the United States. Russian is too focused on attacking Ukrainian systems and defending their own networks to mount a response to the weapons shipments.

  • The Military Cannot Rely on AI for Strategy or Judgment

    Using artificial intelligence (AI) for warfare has been the promise of science fiction and politicians for years, but new research argues only so much can be automated and shows the value of human judgment.

  • Fearing Iranian Attacks, Israel Urges Israeli Travelers in Turkey to Return Home

    The stealthy war between Israel and Iran is escalating. In late May, Israeli intelligence uncovered a secret Iranian plot to kill and kidnap Israeli tourists in Turkey, a favorite tourist destination for Israelis. The Turkish authorities were alerted, and the Iranian agents were captured. A few days later, a colonel in Iran’s Revolutionary Guard was killed in broad daylight in the middle of Teheran. The colonel’s unit was responsible for planning and carrying out attacks on Israelis abroad.

  • Germany's Military Upgrade Hobbled by Bureaucracy

    Germany’s military suddenly has €100 billion to spend on new equipment. Thousands of people in one of Germany’s largest government agencies are tasked with procurement. But that may turn out to be a major problem.

  • How the U.S. Has Struggled to Stop the Growth of a Shadowy Russian Private Army

    Vladimir Putin has increasingly relied on the Wagner Group, a private and unaccountable army with a history of human rights violations, to pursue Russia’s foreign policy objectives across the globe. For nearly a decade, U.S. officials watched with alarm as this shadowy network of Russian mercenaries connected to the Kremlin wreaked havoc in Africa, the Middle East and most recently Ukraine.

  • Israel Sets to Deploy Laser Weapons to Counter Missiles, Rockets, and Drones

    Laser weapons have long been the stuff of science fiction films and video games, but the last few years saw more and more laser system developed and deployed. Israel says it has successfully tested an effective, and cost-effective, solid-state laser weapon that can shoot down missiles, rockets, mortars, and drone – and a cost of about $3.50 per kill.

  • Breaking the Black Sea Blockade

    There is an aspect to Ukraine war which has received insufficient attention, though it is now slowly coming into focus and where pressure could build for a NATO operation. This is the need to relieve the blockade Russia has successfully inflicted on Ukraine’s southern ports in the Black Sea. This is urgent not only because of the effect on Ukraine’s battered economy but also on supplies of essential agricultural products to the rest of the world.

  • The Meaning of Biden’s Big Shift on Taiwan

    The Taiwan Relations Act (TRA) does not obligate the United States to directly intervene on Taiwan’s behalf. Instead, for four decades Washington has maintained a policy of “strategic ambiguity,” leaving unanswered the question of whether it would defend Taiwan. In moving away from strategic ambiguity, Biden made a long overdue adjustment to U.S. policy.