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Time to Accept Risk in Defense Acquisitions
U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth launched enterprising Pentagon reforms that prioritize speed in acquiring new military capabilities, but this ambitious proposal is at risk of running into the same bureaucratic obstacles that have plagued past efforts.
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How Drones Are Altering Contemporary Warfare
A new book by scholar and military officer Erik Lin-Greenberg examines the evolving dynamics of military and state action centered around drones.
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Trump’s Squeeze of Venezuela Goes Beyond Monroe Doctrine – in Ideology, Intent and Scale, It’s Unprecedented
The actions of the current U.S. administration smack of a long history of interventions in the region. But while it does hearken back to some quasi-piratical practices of the U.S. Navy, the U.S. military buildup now is in key respects both unprecedented and shocking. It could also damage U.S. relations with the rest of the hemisphere for a generation to come.
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Don’t Repeat Libya: The Dangers of US Intervention in Venezuela
Calls for US military action against the cartels have evolved in some circles into a push for regime change in Venezuela, and the US has assembled the force to do it. If Trump pulls the trigger on a “Libya model” intervention, it would risk repeating a disastrous foreign policy mistake that resulted in civil war, a refugee crisis, and regional instability.
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Cold War Arms-Control Pioneers Perhaps Weren’t Peacemakers We Thought They Were
Nuclear-age historian argues scientists who backed arsenals as deterrent aided military-industrial complex, hampered disarmament.
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Collaborating Toward a Shipbuilding Renaissance
America is a maritime nation, and its security and prosperity are inexorably linked to the sea. Yet the United States has let its ability to design, build, and sustain the fleet of ships that are the backbone of this prosperity atrophy. A maritime nation that cannot build ships cannot long thrive.
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U.S. and Australia Deepen Critical-Minerals Engagement to Counter China
Engagement between Australia and the United States on critical minerals has matured from technical cooperation into a strategic partnership, aligning resource security with clean energy and defense priorities.
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Nuclear-Powered Missiles: An Aerospace Engineer Explains How They Work – and What Russia’s Claimed Test Means for Global Strategic Stability
Russian President Vladimir Putin, dressed in a military uniform, announced on Oct. 26, 2025, that Russia had successfully tested a nuclear-powered missile. Here is how these weapons function, the advantages they present over conventional missile systems, and their potential to disrupt global strategic stability.
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For Air-and-Missile Defense, Israel Offers the Economic Solutions
As more countries contemplate building multi-layer, integrated air-and-missile defense (IAMD) capabilities (such as the proposed Golden Dome in the U.S., an Israeli solution may offer the best value-for-money.
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Trump Plans to Tell Congress About New Drug War, Won't Seek Permission
Since September, Trump has been using the U.S. military to destroy suspected drug boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific Ocean. On Friday, Trump ordered the Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group to the U.S. Southern Command.
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The Key to Winning a Pacific War: Cheap Cruise Missiles
Cheap ground-launched cruise missiles could be the decisive weapons of the next Pacific war. They’re concealable, mobile, just accurate enough to hit some of the time, just powerful enough to inflict meaningful damage and—most importantly—simple enough to be inexpensive and mass-producible. These munitions could sink fleets, wipe out air forces, unravel supply lines and devastate war industries.
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Can the U.S. Navy Stay Ahead of Russia and China? This Expert Has a Plan
To put this 5-part plan in action, Northeastern University’s Stephen Flynn is advocating not for a national, top-down process but for a “federated approach” that emphasizes regional strengths.
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China, the United States, and a Critical Chokepoint on Minerals
Critical minerals today are “America’s most dangerous dependence,” in the words of CFR’s Heidi Crebo-Rediker. With near total control of the world’s critical minerals production, China maintains significant economic leverage over access to inputs that are necessary for everything from everyday products like smartphones to advanced weapons systems like the F-35.
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Europe’s Banks Quietly Mobilize for Economic Warfare
For years, banks treated defense as a reputational issue, as well as an environmental, social and governance risk, often lumping it with tobacco or fossil fuels as something to be managed at arm’s length. That era is ending. Russia’s war in Ukraine, China’s coercive trade tactics and the United States’ pressure on Europe to shoulder more of its defense burden have exposed the limits of moralistic restraint. Financial mobilization is the new norm.
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Despite Hiccups, Chinese Military Modernization Still a Threat to Region
Modernization is at the core of the CCP’s mission to change China, and the world beyond. But while Xi has provided the armed forces with cutting-edge weaponry, key signs point to his lack of confidence so far in the process of modernizing its top personnel.
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The long view
New System Designed to Protect Drones from Cyber Threats
Adelaide University researchers have initiated the development of a world-first cybersecurity system designed to protect drones from increasingly sophisticated cyber threats.