• 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

    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?

    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

    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

    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

    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.

  • The Global Race to Secure Critical Minerals Heats Up

    The World Trade Organization last week ruled that Indonesia had no right to ban the export of nickel or to require that raw nickel ore be refined in Indonesia. Handing a comprehensive victory to the complainant, the European Union, the WTO decision highlights the clash between national security and global trade rules over critical minerals.

  • How a Notorious Mercenary Company Scours Siberian Prisons for Soldiers to Fight in Ukraine

    Desperate to replace dead and wounded Russian troops in Ukraine, the Kremlin, in addition to mobilization, has also turned to less traditional methods to bolster troop numbers. That includes loosening age and other physical requirements for newly mobilized soldiers, as well as outright recruitment of new volunteers. And since at least July, that effort has included recruiting some of the estimated 470,000 inmates in the custody of the Federal Penitentiary Service. Leading that effort is the Vagner Group, the private company owned by a Kremlin-connected businessman.

  • Drones Employed in the Ukraine War

    Unmanned systems have revolutionized modern warfare – and pilotless aircraft have had a significant impact in the war in Ukraine.

  • Anticipating Chinese Reactions to U.S. Posture Enhancements

    What are the key factors that U.S. policymakers and military planners should consider when assessing how China is likely to react to planned or proposed U.S. posture enhancements in the Indo-Pacific region?

  • Three Charged with Giving Secrets to China, and Selling DOD Chinese-Origin Rare Earth Magnets

    DOJ charged three residents of Kentucky and Indiana with sending technical military data drawings to China, and then unlawfully supplying the U.S. Department of Defense with Chinese-origin rare earth magnets for aviation systems and military items.

  • It’s Time to Designate Wagner Group as a Foreign Terrorist Organization

    The international sanctions imposed on Russia for its invasion of Ukraine have not targeted a key component in the Kremlin’s toolbox for international terror and coercion: the private military company (PMC) Wagner Group, which is owned by Vladimir Putin confidant Yevgeny Prigozhin. Wagner Group’s activities in Ukraine have been notorious since 2014, but they also have had a persistent presence in Syria, Libya, the Central African Republic (CAR), and—most recently—Mali.

  • U.S. Imposes Sanctions on Network Supplying Russia with Weapons Tech

    The United States has imposed sanctions on a network of entities and individuals that it says are involved in supplying Russia with military technology to use in its war against Ukraine.

  • “We’ve Got to Change”: U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff

    The U.S. Air Force chief of staff is warning that the U.S. military must “change” if it wants to stay ahead of China and Russia.