• Two Things to Know about the U.S.-China Competition

    By William Giannetti

    A debate about China’s “inexorable” rise has been occupying the op-ed pages of leading newspapers and the conference rooms of leading think tanks for some time now. China’s rise is real, but the U.S. has the means to keep it in check. The U.S. boasts 24 percent of global GDP and almost half of business worldwide. It is already the leading power by these metrics alone. Two more data points demonstrate the United States has an opportunity to keep its competitive advantage provided Congress is willing to reduce defense procurement regulations.  

  • Dolphins Guard U.S. Nukes

    Despite all the technological advancements warfare has seen in the last century, the U.S. Navy demonstrates that sometimes, nature offers intriguing options – like using dolphins to protect the waters around Bangor, Washington, which is the largest single nuclear weapons site in the world.

  • Using IT to Defeat Evolving Threats: The Case of the Marine Corps

    By Matt Gonzales

    Since the dawn of the 21st century, the Marine Corps has progressively placed a greater emphasis on leveraging IT components. It has since become nestled within the Corps’ supply chain and is integral in achieving present and future goals.

  • Ukraine: Russian Hand Behind Spate of Bomb Scares at Schools Nationwide

    By Nina Bakhmach

    As tensions mount between Ukraine and Russia amid an alarming buildup of Russian forces near the border, Ukraine’s schoolchildren, their families, and their communities have already found themselves on the front line of what Kyiv’s intelligence service, the SBU, describes as a “hybrid war.”

  • Putin “Playing Poker Rather Than Chess”: Former U.K. Spy Chief

    By Jamie Dettmer

    In an interview Tuesday with the BBC, former head of Britain’s MI6 external intelligence agency, Alex Younger, said he cannot see how the Russian leader can back down as fears mount that Putin is poised to order a Russian invasion of Ukraine, a former Soviet republic.

  • Why NATO Has Become a Flash Point with Russia in Ukraine

    Russian leaders have watched with mounting resentment as the transatlantic alliance has nearly doubled its membership since the end of the Cold War. President Vladimir Putin has drawn a red line in Ukraine.

  • How Long Could Ukraine Hold Out Against a Russian Invasion?

    By Mike Eckel

    A RAND report from last year and more recent military analyses have examined Russian operational tactics, but far fewer have looked at the other side of the coin: How long could Ukraine’s armed forces hold out against a bigger, more powerful military force like Russia’s?

  • U.S. Still Searching for “Havana Syndrome” Answers

    By Jeff Seldin

    The CIA has concluded a mysterious illness plaguing American diplomats and other officials around the world is not nearly as widespread as initially feared and is most likely not the work of a foreign adversary. But the agency also cautioned that a smaller number of cases continue to defy explanation.

  • Massive Cyberattack Targeting Ukraine’s Government Websites

    Several Ukrainian government websites have been targeted in a massive cyberattack amid heightened tensions between the West and Russia, which has massed troops and military equipment near the border with Ukraine.

  • The Big Promises and Potentially Bigger Consequences of Neurotechnology

    By Elise Thomas

    Neurotechnology is an umbrella term for a range of technologies which interact directly with the brain or nervous system. This can include systems which passively scan, map or interpret brain activity, or systems which actively influence the state of the brain or nervous system. There are growing excitement and growing concern about the potential applications of neurotechnology for everything from defense to health care to entertainment.

  • Are New and Emerging Technologies Game-Changers for Smaller Powers?

    We are now entering into what is usually referred to as the fourth industrial revolution, which is characterized by the fusion of technologies and platforms in the form of a “system of systems.” Michael Claesson and Zebulon Carlander write that “In previous industrial revolutions, innovation was integrated into military capabilities, such as weapons systems, logistics, and organization. The fourth industrial revolution will be no different.” The add that “New and emerging technologies might therefore offer a new arena for small and medium states in which they can exploit possibilities to offset the capabilities of bigger and better-resourced adversaries.”

  • Autonomous Air and Ground Vehicles Swarms Take Flight in Final Field Experiment

    DARPA’s OFFSET program envisions future small-unit infantry forces employing large-scale teams of unmanned air and/or ground robots to accomplish diverse missions in complex urban environments. OFFSET specifically focused on advancements in collaborative swarm autonomy and human-swarm teaming capabilities.

  • What Will Taiwan Do If China Invades?

    By Ralph Jennings

    China claims sovereignty over the self-ruled island 160 kilometers away and has not dropped the threat of force, if needed, to capture it. The two sides have been separately ruled since the Chinese civil war of the 1940s. The specter of a war has captured attention since mid-2020 when the People’s Liberation Army began almost daily military aircraft flyovers over a sea west of the island, which experts said is China’s attempt to normalize its military operations near Taiwan.

  • UN Fails to Agree on “Killer Robot” Ban While Nations Pour Billions into Autonomous Weapons Research

    By James Dawes

    Autonomous weapon systems – commonly known as killer robots – may have killed human beings for the first time ever last year, according to a recent UN Security Council report on the Libyan civil war. History could well identify this as the starting point of the next major arms race, one that has the potential to be humanity’s final one.

  • To Intervene or Not to Intervene: That Is the Question

    When a crisis or conflict threaten U.S. interests, a direct military intervention is one of the options American decisionmakers must consider. A new report offers a framework that can be used to rigorously consider the trade-offs between intervening militarily early in a war or crisis, intervening later, and not intervening at all, as well as the trade-offs involved in decisions regarding the size of the potential intervention force to be employed.