• To Guard Against Cyberattacks in Space, Researchers Ask ‘What If?’

    If space systems such as GPS were hacked and knocked offline, much of the world would instantly be returned to the communications and navigation technologies of the 1950s. Yet space cybersecurity is largely invisible to the public at a time of heightened geopolitical tensions.

  • How to Equip the U.S. Coast Guard Against China’s Grey-Zone Operations

    America’s allies in the Indo-Pacific are getting pretty familiar with China’s grey-zone maritime behavior, but the United States itself is ill-prepared for dealing with it. Yet it should be prepared. The U.S. must not only counter the threat to its national security posed by China’s coercive operations, but also support its allies against Chinese efforts to rewrite the rule of law in the region.

  • High Noon at Second Thomas Shoal

    China has identified the beleaguered garrison at Second Thomas Shoal as a weak link among the South China Sea features physically occupied by the Philippines and, by extension, the US-Philippines alliance.

  • Record Number of NATO Allies to Hit 2% Defense Spending Goal

    NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has announced that more NATO member states than originally expected were set to fulfill the 2% target of GDP defense spending this year. The NATO defense investment target was agreed upon in 2014. Across the alliance, all member states aside from Slovenia and Italy have upped their defense budget.

  • Joining NATO Binds Countries to Defend Each Other – but This Commitment Is Not Set in Stone

    At the root of debates over policy toward alliances such as NATO is the assumption that NATO requires its members to step in and help with defense if another member of the alliance is attacked, but it is important to understand that, in reality, alliance agreements are more flexible than people think. In practice, it is possible for the U.S. and other Western countries to stay out of a conflict that involves a NATO country without having to break their alliance commitments.

  • Fact Check: Fake Footage of Russian Warships in Cuba

    The arrival of Russian navy ships, some carrying advanced weapons, off the coast of Havana has given rise to online disinformation. Some analysts breathlessly warned of a new Cuban Missile Crisis. But the story was fake news, using old footage and clever editing.

  • Cyber Conflict and Subversion in the Russia-Ukraine War

    The Russia-Ukraine war is the first case of cyber conflict in a large-scale military conflict involving a major power. Over the years, Russia-sponsored hacking groups have adapted their tradecraft to the war setting. “Contrary to cyberwar fears, most cyber operations remained strategically inconsequential,” Lennart Maschmeyer writes. “The case of Ukraine illustrates not only the limitations of cyber operations but also the relative superiority of old-school means of subversion.”

  • Fool’s Gold: Overhyped Tech Startups Distract from Military Innovation

    Technology startups almost never live up to all the hype they generate. Much of this innovation is fool’s gold. Often, these solutions are not developed beyond an initial concept. It’s a missed opportunity for the U.S. military. Startup companies often present the Pentagon with more cost-effective, swift, and adaptable solutions compared to the weapons systems typically provided by the handful of major contractors the Pentagon usually turns to.

  • China’s Control and Coercion in Critical Minerals

    Markets for critical minerals are no longer shaping up to be the next components of the global economy to be dominated by China. They already are. While Western nations were sleeping, China built vertically integrated supply chains for several critical minerals vital to the energy transition and high technology applications, including defense equipment.

  • Autonomous Vessels Need to Be More Afraid of Dying

    Could the Helge Ingstad maritime accident have been avoided if the Royal Norwegian Navy’s warships had been equipped with artificial intelligence?

  • The U.S. and China Need an AI Incidents Hotline

    The United States and China have been talking about AI security, but Christian Ruhl writes that this is not enough. Given the rapid rate of progress of frontier AI research, “diplomats will need to be quick to come up with risk-mitigation measures if they want to be more than a talk shop. Moreover, these measures will need to be ‘future proof,’ meaning they can’t focus solely on current capabilities that will remain relevant for no more than a few months; risk mitigation needs to be flexible to respond to ever-more capable models.”

  • Dependable AI for National Security Applications

    AI is rapidly becoming one of the most important assets in global competition, including AI-assisted autonomy and decision-making in battlefield applications. But today’s AI models are vulnerable to novel cyberattacks and could be exploited by adversaries, and are not sufficiently robust and dependable to orchestrate and execute inherently human-centric, mission-critical decisions.

  • U.S., Allies Warn China Aggressively ‘Headhunting’ Western Fighter Pilots

    China’s military appears to be intensifying its efforts to recruit current and former Western fighter pilots, employing new and more intricate tactics to snare Western expertise. The end goal, according to the U.S. and its allies, is for China to better train its own fighter pilots while gaining insights into how Western air forces operate, something that could erode Western advantages or even give Chinese fighter jets a boost in case of a conflict.

  • Radar Is Advancing at Historic Speed. How Engineers Are Setting the Pace.

    In a whirling geopolitical landscape of new nuclear weapons, hypersonic weapons, drones and satellites, the U.S. is hustling to test new kinds of radars aimed at detecting evolving threats.

  • Chinese Military Drills Test Taiwan’s Defense Readiness, Analysts Say

    China wrapped up a two-day, large-scale military exercise Friday after its forces deployed 111 aircraft and 46 naval vessels to areas around Taiwan. Experts say the Chinese military simulated some scenarios that would be involved in a potential invasion of Taiwan during the exercise.