• 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.

  • Winners and Losers in the Russia–Ukraine Cyberwar

    Much of the focus has been on the kinetic war in Ukraine, but the cyber conflict has also continued unabated with both sides engaged in a variety of maneuvers, from attacks on critical infrastructure to spreading misinformation. Along the way, a number of existing preconceptions about cyber conflict in an active war scenario have been upended —chief among them was the expectation that cyber attacks would play a decisive part in the conflict and that Russia would dominate in this domain.

  • “The Most Dangerous Possibility”: U.S. Fears of a Russia-Ukraine War, 30 Years Ago

    On January 5, 1993, just days before Bill Clinton was inaugurated as U.S. president, the outgoing secretary of state, Lawrence Eagleburger, finished a 23-page memo to his successor, Warren Christopher, who would be taking over in a few weeks. The memo was a rundown of global hot spots “Ukraine not the most likely but certainly the most dangerous possibility,” he wrote.

  • U.S., China Compete for Africa's Rare Earth Minerals

    African countries like the Democratic Republic of Congo have some of the largest deposits of these resources, but China currently dominates the supply chain as well as their refinement and the U.S. wants to reduce its reliance on the Asian giant.

  • What China’s Surveillance Balloon Says About U.S.-China Relations

    The question of what information the Chinese were trying to uncover using a balloon – when China’s many satellites could glean this same information – is intriguing. A far more important issue, however, is what this episode says about the ability, or more accurately inability, of Washington and Beijing to manage a future crisis. Worryingly, it appears that neither the United States nor China is prepared for a serious crisis.

  • Chinese Spy Balloon Over the U.S.: An Aerospace Expert Explains How the Balloons Work and What They Can See

    Balloons are much closer to the ground than any satellites, so they can see even more clearly. And balloons are moving relatively slowly, so they also have a degree of persistence. However, spying is not usually done these days with balloons because they are a relatively easy target and are not completely controllable.

  • China 'Spy Balloon:' Why Doesn't the Pentagon Shoot It Down?

    Espionage is all about secrets — keeping and revealing them. But here’s what we can say about the alleged spy balloon.

  • Suspected Israeli Drone Strike in Iran Part of New 'Containment Strategy'

    Four Israeli kamikaze quadcopters hit and destroyed an Iranian military facility in Isfahan on January 28. The production facility, located inside a military base, was used to produce drones and mid-range missiles. In the last months, Israel has expanded its attacks on Iran’s military, targeting not only nuclear weapons-related targets but also production facilities for advanced arms.

  • German and U.S. Tanks Will Be Critical in Ukraine’s Next Phase Against Russia

    The main battle tanks that the United States and Germany have agreed to provide Ukraine will help its forces punch through Russian fortifications and retake lost territory.

  • 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.