CounterStrikeMedia - Geography, Strategy, Great Power Competition

THE FRENCH SAINT OF COUNTER-INSURGENCY: SAINT MARC & A LOOK AT GREAT POWER COMPETITION

7/26/2019

Shapes, Part II: The Shape of Strategy by Mike Pietrucha

The Insurgent Counter-Insurgent: The French Army’s Hero and Some Truths About Modern Warfare by Michael Shurkin

In the Year of the Tiger
By Nathaniel L. Moir, Strategy Bridge: "In a sense, the First Indochina War may appear neglected by historians and political scientists when compared to the far greater amount of studies devoted to the Second Indochina War (1955-1975). Despite these perceptions and the region’s complicated history, the First Indochina War, and anti-French colonial agitation by many Vietnamese before it, is thoroughly studied and represented in work by Vietnamese studies scholars and a small number of American historians.

Political Interference, Strategic Incoherence, and Johnson’s Escalation in Vietnam
By Joseph Stabile, Strategy Bridge: "Ultimately, Johnson’s decision to escalate the war reflected a broader failure of the American foreign policy establishment in which internal divisions prevented a comprehensive understanding of the enemy, leading to years of commitment to a fruitless and destructive war."

DASD Mulroy on Israel and Great Power Competition
Remarks by Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Middle East Michael (Mick) P. Mulroy to FDD's Center on Military and Political Power

Covert Wars, To What End? by Christopher Preble

The Future of Countering Terrorism: Ideas Not Bullets
By Jason Howk, ClearanceJobs: "In World War II the Germans complained that it was so difficult to fight the Americans because the U.S. commanders didn’t follow their own written doctrine. That isn’t the case with many of our modern enemies."

A LOOK AT "TOP GUN" AT 30 & HOW GROUP THINK PERVADES INDIAN FOREIGN POLICY ESTABLISHMENT AFTER MUMBIA

7/20/2019

Top Gun at 30: A Retrospective from Two Naval Aviators by Greg Malandrino and Jeff McLean

Ten Years After Mumbai, The Group Responsible Is Deadlier Than Ever by Stephan Tankel

THE GREAT DELUSION OF INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS, A NEW REAGAN DOCTRINE FOR CHINA & NEW FORMATIONS FOR SMALL WARS; WHY SMALL WARS ARE FOR FOREVER

7/14/2019

Creating a Culture to Support Mission Command
By Thomas M. Williams, Small Wars Journal: "We say that we want Soldiers who can practice disciplined initiative, who can change the task to meet the purpose. We profess to want shared understanding and teams built on trust (more than rules). We want them to be risk tolerant."

How Many Leaders Can the Navy Afford to Throw Out the Window?
By Andrew C. A. Jampoler, Proceedings: In 1618, in one of the trigger events of the Thirty Years War, infuriated Protestants, fearful that their right to practice their religion was under assault, threw two Catholic aristocrats and their secretary out of a third-floor window of Prague’s Hradčeny Castle to the courtyard seventy feet below. Astonishingly, some said miraculously, the trio survived the fall. The event has gone down in history as the “defenestration of Prague.” “Defenestration” seems to be an apt word to describe the recent fate of Admiral Bill Moran, U.S. Navy, who was nominated by the President in April and confirmed by the Senate in May to become the Navy’s thirty-second Chief of Naval Operations in midsummer following the retirement of the incumbent, Admiral John Richardson."

‘The Great Delusion: Liberal Dreams and International Realities’
By Mark Beeson, The Strategist (ASPI): "As Mearsheimer rather mournfully concedes, ‘realism does not inspire a hopeful outlook for the future.’ Looking around today’s world, with its catalogue of ineffective institutions, rising authoritarian powers, failing democracies and international flashpoints, one can see his point."

A New Reagan Doctrine for a New Cold War
By Aaron Kliegman, The Washington Free Beacon: " In the military realm, China is determined to push American forces away from the western Pacific. The United States, which considers itself a Pacific power, is equally determined not to budge."

Fixing Light Reconnaissance Formations
By Sean Parrot, Small Wars Journal: "The light reconnaissance formation is undergoing an identity crisis. As the Army begins its transition to fight the next high intensity conflict, mounted and dismounted reconnaissance units across the formation risk being left behind."

Limited Wars Are Forever Wars
By Eoin Higgins, Foreign Affairs: "A new book looks at why the U.S. military keeps trapping itself in endless conflicts."

CAPTURING THE HEARTS AND MINDS OF THE AFRICAN HORN AND GULF; HOW CHINA DOES A RIM-PAC

6/29/2019

Is China Starting Its Own RimPac?
By Tuan N. Pham, Proceedings: "The road to ‘Rim of China’ is through southeast Asia and ASEAN."

In brief: Road to the caliphate: The Salafi-jihadi movement’s strengths
Katherine Zimmerman | American Enterprise Institute

People problems between the Gulf and the Horn of Africa
Karen E. Young | AEIdeas
The Gulf isn't just sending billions of dollars to the Horn of Africa. It's also receiving (and deporting) millions of migrant workers, which is affecting the region's development east and west of the Red Sea.

THE INDIAN - US ALLIANCE & RICHELIEU'S GRAND STRATEGY

6/29/2019

From Inertia to Integration: Getting Serious About U.S.-India Defense Cooperation
By Benjamin E. Schwartz, The American Interest: "India and the United States are declared “major defense partners.” But as Secretary Pompeo visits New Delhi this week, they are still not nearly as aligned as interests and values suggest they should be."

The Elephant in the Room: Auditing the Past and Future of the U.S.-India Partnership by Sameer Lalwani and Heather Byrne

Raison d'Etat: Richelieu's Grand Strategy During the Thirty Years' War by Iskander Rehman

THE STRATEGIC IMPORTANCE OF THE MIDDLE EAST & THE THUCYDIDES TARIFF TRAP

6/29/2019

Strategic Geography Of The Middle East
by Tony Badran via The Caravan
With the end of the Cold War the United States lost a sound understanding of the strategic geography of the Middle East. Before the fall of the Soviet Union, US strategy focused, correctly, on historical power centers on the outer rim of the Levant and Mesopotamia. The land in between these power centers – Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan – was the arena for proxy war and competition between great powers.

U.S.–China Trade War, Part Two: The Thucydides Trap
By Chet Nagle, CD media: “Intellectual elites and mainstream media have been captivated by Dr. Graham Allison and his prediction that China and the United States are inexorably heading toward war. Like Francis Fukuyama’s 1992 book, “The End of History and the Last Man,” Dr. Allison’s book is fatally flawed."

CONSTITUTIVE FACTORS OF THE US ALLIANCE SYSTEM; HINT, RAYTHEON

6/24/2019

Moving on from INF: Let’s harness the potential of the Missile Technology Control Regime
(Defense News) Two agreements struck in 1987 have served U.S. interests well for most of their lives in terms of arms control and nonproliferation: the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, known as INF, and the Missile Technology Control Regime, a voluntary multilateral export control regime among 35 member states that seek to limit the proliferation of missiles and missile technology.

Who needs ICBMs?
(Defense One) The recent news that Boeing will not bid to build the U.S. Air Force’s next-generation ICBM sent ripples of concern throughout the defense world. Absent Boeing’s participation, Northrop Grumman will have no competition for the contract on one of the biggest replacement programs in the U.S. nuclear modernization plan.

Five Factors Will Decide the Survival of the U.S.-Led Alliance System
By Mason Richey, the interpreter: "The hub-and-spokes alliance model – comprising the U.S., Japan, South Korea, Australia, the Philippines, and Thailand – has been a pillar of stability in the Asia-Pacific throughout the Cold War and into the contemporary period. But 2019 is very different from 1999, much less 1969, as the U.S.-led alliance architecture faces numerous new threats."

Raytheon designs sensors for Blackjack — & OPIR
(Breaking Defense) Raytheon currently is sitting in the catbird’s seat when it comes to missile warning satellites, with a hand — and contracts — in both the Air Force’s flagship Next Generation Overhead Persistent Infrared (Next-Gen OPIR) and DARPA’s hot Blackjack program.

Next gen jammer deliveries & OPIR: New Raytheon SAS boss
(Breaking Defense) One of the most sensitive and important unclassified programs, Raytheon’s Next Generation Jammer, should see its first two pods delivered to the Navy by the end of this year for the first phase of testing.

Aerojet Rocketdyne Competing for Engines on Future ICBM
By Loren Thompson, Forbes: "The unsettled state of the program, known as the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent (GBSD), doesn’t just impact the big aerospace integrators who want to be prime contractor. It also affects a highly specialized supply chain of domestic contractors whose ranks have thinned dramatically since the end of the Cold War."

TRUMP'S THIN INDO-PACIFIC POLICY: ENVELOPING A RELOADED CHINA

6/22/2019

HOW TO FIGHT CHINA

BLOOMBERG

Addressing America's Operational Shortfall in the Pacific by Mark Montgomery and Eric Sayers

China’s People’s Armed Police: Reorganised and Refocused
By Henry Boyd & Meia Nouwens, IISS: "Now with a more centralised command structure and enhanced use of new technology like uninhabited air vehicles, China’s People’s Armed Police is being transformed into a more reliable and effective force focused on three core missions – internal security, maritime security and supporting the People’s Liberation Army in times of war."

New US Indo-Pacific strategy isn’t going to scare China
Hal Brands | Bloomberg Opinion
The Department of Defense's new Indo-Pacific strategy clearly identifies some key tasks the US must accomplish to counter China’s rise. But the Indo-Pacific report is more interesting in that it highlights, intentionally and unintentionally, the key challenges the US has yet to overcome.

THE PLAYGROUND OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE: DIVIDING A FALLEN CALIPHATE

6/21/2019

Playground for Powers
by Camille Pecastaing via The Caravan
In August 1920, in the Parisian suburb of Sèvres, envoys of the allied powers signed an eponymous treaty dividing into zones of influence the fallen Ottoman Empire and Islamic Caliphate. The regime of "mandates" it instituted was simultaneously the culmination of European imperialism in the Middle East, and its final undertaking. Mandates were not meant to last: it was a phase of foreign trusteeship, in anticipation of independence that, by the 1970s, would be the norm across the region.

MANAGING THE CHALLENGE THAT IS CHINA, NUCLEAR RUSSIA; REASSESSING NET ASSESSMENT

6/15/2019

Blessed Be Thy Nuclear Weapons: The Rise of Russian Nuclear Orthodoxy
by Michael Kofman

On Will and War by Douglas A. Ollivant

Net Assessment: Is Realism Realistic? by Melanie Marlowe, Bryan McGrath, and Christopher Preble

Managing The China Challenge
by Larry Diamond via PolicyEd
Due to China’s covert, coercive, and corrupting efforts to gain cultural and informational influence, America must reevaluate its relationship with China and find ways to counter its attempts to manipulate American entities.

THE SIX DAY WAR FOR THE SOUL OF ISRAEL

6/15/2019

The Six-Day War and the Israeli Dream
By Maj. Gen. (res.) Gershon Hacohen, June 13, 2019
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: The Six-Day War was a decisive turning point in the Zionist enterprise. But the project of building Israeli communities on the West Bank and the messianic aspects of Zionism were not born in 1967. They are stages in processes that were initiated by the workers’ parties and the Herut movement.
Continue to full article ->

INNOVATION IN OPERATIONAL THINKING

6/15/2019

Why America Needs a New Way of War
By Chris Dougherty, CNAS: "Despite the warning signals and the dire consequences, changes to U.S. military strategy and operational thinking have been incremental, lethargic, and too focused on finding “silver bullet” technological solutions."

Giselle Donnelly writes: The nuclear “triad” of ground-based and submarine-launched ballistic missiles and intercontinental-range bombers has been the basis of American great-power deterrence since the Soviet Union’s first nuclear test in 1949. Be it causation or simply correlation, it is remarkable that there has been no direct great-power war since then. To be sure, proxy and third-party conflicts have abounded, but the motto of the late Air Force’s Strategic Air Command, “Peace is our profession,” deserves more than ridicule. Yet over the past several decades, the strength of this triad has been slowly deteriorating. – American Enterprise Institute

Dissecting Strategic Decision Making
By Frank Hoffman, Strategy Bridge: ""The rationale for going to war was not deeply interrogated—indeed it was never even debated in an NSC meeting. The President and his senior officials did not make certain to acquire all the information available at the time; repeatedly they ignored or bypassed the testimony of experts.""

BUILDING MILITARIES IN FRAGILE STATES

6/12/2019

Building Militaries in Fragile States
By Matthew J. Kuhlman, Strategy Bridge: "To be effective at helping partner militaries establish internal defense the U.S. must become deeply involved in the partner state’s sensitive military affairs, and the role of antagonistic external actors must be mitigated."

CHINA, RUSSIA & THE WORLD ISLAND

6/12/2019

CHINA:
China Tests New Sub-Launched Strategic Missile
By Bill Gertz, The Washington Free Beacon: "JL-3 flight test timed to Shanahan visit to Singapore."

China and Russia Want to Control the ‘World Island’
By James Stavridis, Bloomberg: “Increasing military cooperation helps both sides now, but in the long run Beijing will rule."

THE FRENCH IN ALGERIA

6/9/2019

Symbols of Change
By Matthew Kopp, Strategy Bridge: "The French experience in Algeria provides an example of the difficulty of managing complex collective historical memory."

Assessment of the Legion as the Ideal Small Wars Force Structure
By Brandon Quintin, Divergent Options: "After the Massacre at the Wabash in 1791, George Washington and Henry Knox reformed the U.S. Army as the Legion of the United States. The Legion was a self-contained modular army composed of four identical combined-arms units. During the Fallen Timbers campaign, the Legion proved itself the ideal force structure for use in small wars."

HOW PRE-EMPTIVE WAR KEEPS THE PEACE & HOW THE US ISN'T DOING GREAT POWER COMPETITION, ESPECIALLY WITH NUKES

5/31/2019

Great Power Competition in a Multipolar World
By James P. Micciche, Divergent Options: “ ... limited military operations (small wars) will be useful in transforming counterterrorism methods, which previously dominated U.S. foreign policy, into being only one facet of a synchronized whole of government response in pursuit of U.S. policy objectives in contested spaces."

Deterrence and Intelligence in the Western Pacific
By Seth Cropsey, RealClearDefense: "Military historians tend to emphasize dramatic turning points and climactic engagements. Salamis, Lepanto, Aboukir, Trafalgar, Jutland: each confrontation functionally decided the victor of the conflict in question."

Corvette Carriers: A New Littoral Warfare Strategy
By Colin D. Smith, Proceedings: "With the renewal of great power competition, the Navy–Marine Corps team must employ ships that can threaten adversaries in their home waters."

Preemptive War Helps Keep the Peace—Preventive War Needlessly Destroys It
By Daniel L. Davis, RealClearDefense: "Unlike “preemptive” war—launching a first strike to forestall an actual or imminent attack, a critical component of U.S. deterrence—going to war merely to destroy the weapons of another nation we don’t care for (even absent any intent to use it against the U.S.) is a dangerously low threshold for using military force. And it’s all too common in establishment thinking."

'This Is Not a Great-Power Competition
'Many foreign policy experts have said that the world is in a new era of great-power competition. But viewing today's global politics this way is both inaccurate and dangerous, says RAND's Michael Mazarr. If Washington thinks of itself as "one desperate, self-interested geopolitical chess player among many, grasping for temporary and transactional advantages," then its role as leader of the international order will likely further diminish. Read more »

A New Nuclear Strategy For 21st Century Realities
by James Goodby via PolicyEd
Failing to move on from the Cold War mindset about nuclear weapons encourages their development and increases the risk that they will be used.

Beyond INF: An Affordable Arsenal Of Long-Range Missiles?
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
The US could develop more than a dozen different land-based weapons for $7 to $12 billion, thinktank CSBA estimates.

The Russian Nuclear Threat
By Mark B. Schneider, RealClearDefense: "The U.S. mainstream view of Russia has changed quite a bit in the last twenty years, particularly in the last five. We have moved from the fantasy that there was no threat from Russia after the demise of the Soviet Union to a recognition of a serious Russian threat to the U.S. and its allies, including a nuclear threat in the last two years of the Obama administration and the Trump administration."

“We are now entering into a period of great power rivalry. The outcome is unclear, but it is critical that we stabilize the system.” […]The Singaporean deputy prime minister’s sentiment was echoed by other political figures and experts gathered in Tokyo for a conference on the future of the region. At the event, which was sponsored by Japanese media group Nikkei, one of the repeated messages was meant for both Washington and Beijing: The world’s economic and military powerhouses need to find ways to coexist before things spiral out of control. – CNBC

Matthew P. Goodman writes: Again, the United States starts with tremendous advantages in the Indo-Pacific. We don’t need to spend trillions of dollars on grand initiatives to sustain our economic leadership there. Nor will we succeed by hunkering down behind a wall of tariffs, investment restrictions, and visa denials; that is the road to perdition for a United States that has built its strength on openness. What we do need is a comprehensive, coordinated, and confident economic diplomacy that plays to our strengths—the kind of strategy I’m sure George Kennan would advocate were he writing from our embassy in Beijing today. – Center for Strategic and International Studies

RESOLVING "THE TROUBLES" OF NORTHERN IRELAND

5/23/2019

The Good Friday Agreement: Ending War and Ending Conflict in Northern Ireland by James B. Steinberg

THEODORE DALRYMPLE
Call It a Crime
A recent murder reveals the distorted language employed by British police.

MISSILE DEFENSE AGAINST CHINA IS HERE & SOCOM DOES GREAT POWER COMPETITION

5/22/2019

China’s Long Game
By Andrew A. Michta, The American Interest: "The West can have an unbeatable hand against Beijing, if it plays its cards right."

How China Could Shut Down America’s Defenses
By Keith Johnson & Lara Seligman, Foreign Policy: "Beijing maintains powerful leverage over the warmaking capability of its main strategic rival through its control of critical materials."

Download the newest report now.
And check out the first two volumes of our major ongoing analytic effort, The Changing Nuclear Balance: a Net Assessment: Understanding Strategic Interaction in the Second Nuclear Age and Assessing the Arsenals: Past, Present, and Future Capabilities.

SOCOM Pivots Toward Great Power Competition
By Paul McLeary
The Pentagon’s new Special Ops leader is looking to the defense industry for help in meeting peer adversaries, but he also has a bone to pick.

New SOCOM Leader Lays Out Command Priorities
By Mandy Mayfield, National Defense Magazine: “United States Special Operations Command has five top priorities as the nation's elite warfighters adjust to a new strategic era."

Senators Push for Army to Fully Own Terminal Missile Defense System
By Jen Judson, Defense News: "Senate authorizers would transfer responsibility of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense System, or THAAD, from the Missile Defense Agency to the Army, according to an executive summary of the Senate Armed Services Committee’s version of the fiscal 2020 defense authorization bill."

U.S., CHINA:
DIA: China Doubling Nuclear Warhead Arsenal
By Bill Gertz, The Washington Free Beacon: "China is rapidly expanding its nuclear forces with new missiles, submarines, and bombers and will double its warhead stockpile in the coming decade, the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency said this week."

Jaw-Jaw: Peter Mattis On The Intentions Of The Chinese Communist Party
quoting Elizabeth Economy via War on the Rocks
What threat does a revisionist China pose to the United States and democratically minded states around the world? Where should we look to find out the intentions of the Chinese Communist Party? If left unchecked, will China export its illiberal form of government? These and other questions are explored in this week’s episode of Jaw-Jaw.

NATIONALISM - NEW INSTRUMENTS OF POWER AND INFLUENCE FOR STATECRAFT IN THE INFORMATION AGE & EXAMINING MAXWELL TAYLOR'S WAR

5/20/2019

Navy Culture Must Be Adapted to Fit the Information Age
By Travis D. Howard, CIMSEC: A" recent independent review of the Navy's cybersecurity posture, completed in March 2019, was predictably harsh on our Navy's current culture, people, structure, processes, and resourcing to address cybersecurity. For many of us within the Information Warfare discipline, much of this report does not come as a shock, but it does lay bare our cultural, structural, and procedural problems that the Navy has been struggling with since the turn of the century."

Dissecting Strategic Decision Making
By Frank Hoffman, Strategy Bridge: ""The rationale for going to war was not deeply interrogated—indeed it was never even debated in an NSC meeting. The President and his senior officials did not make certain to acquire all the information available at the time; repeatedly they ignored or bypassed the testimony of experts."

Why the Military is the Wrong Tool for Defending Western Society
By Stanley J. Wiechnik, Strategy Bridge: "Sometimes social events occur that change the character of interstate conflict in ways no new military technology or improved doctrine can address. The last time this happened was during the Napoleonic Wars (1799-1815)."

Threat of Nationalism to the State Power of Democracies in the Information Age
By James P. Micciche, Divergent Options: "Historically, both scholars and political leaders have viewed nationalism as an advantageous construct that enhanced a state’s ability to both act and exert power within the international system. Contrary to historic precedence, nationalism now represents a potential threat to the ability of modern democracies to project and exercise power due to demographic trends, globalized economies, and the information age."

Is the U.S. Planning for the Right War?
By Aaron Kliegman, The Washington Free Beacon: "America's geopolitical situation and strategic thinking during the pre-9/11 Bush years resemble those of today in many ways."

Hope as a Method: Maxwell Taylor and America’s Cold War
By Gregory Daddis & Jesse A. Faugstad, War on the Rocks: "There is an inherently aspirational quality to strategic planning. Former U.S. Army Chief of Staff Gordon R. Sullivan may have famously argued that “hope is not a method,” but strategy still centers upon hoping to achieve or avoid possible outcomes."

From the Somme to the Persian Gulf, Lessons on Shows of Force
By Charles Glass, Stratfor Worldview: "Wars rarely turn out as their authors predict. For the United States, this has been true of Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq. The same may be said one day of Iran."

WHERE THE NATIONAL DEFENSE STRATEGY FAILS: TALENT, 'NUF SAID

5/16/2019

Distributed deterrence: The continuing utility of ICBMs
(Defense News) Like its three predecessors, the 2018 Nuclear Posture Review reaffirmed the need for the nuclear triad of bombers, submarine-launched ballistic missiles and intercontinental ballistic missiles. Now comes the hard part.

‘Hard Choices’ and Strategic Insolvency: Where the National Defense Strategy Falls Short
by Rick Berger and Mackenzie Eaglen

The Case for a Narrower View of ‘Empire’ in the Study of U.S. Foreign Relations by Joseph Stieb

Net Assessment: A Failure of Leadership? Americans’ Views of U.S. Foreign Policy by Rachel Hoff, Bryan McGrath, and Christopher Preble

Great Power Rivalry Is Also a War for Talent
By Elsa Kania & Emma Moore, Defense One: "China’s military is working harder to find and keep good people. The U.S. must step up its own efforts."

Where do special forces fit in the National Defense Strategy?
(Defense News) The most valuable role for U.S. special operations forces within the National Defense Strategy is to build relationships with countries in hot spots around the globe to keep Russia and China at bay.

Where the National Defense Strategy falls short: A conversation with Rick Berger
Matt Winesett, Max Frost, and Rick Berger | "Banter"
The latest National Defense Strategy shifts our focus from the Pentagon's "two-war" metric. Now instead of ensuring the US could simultaneously defeat two regional militaries, the new emphasis is on deterring China and Russia. But is the defense budget up to the task?

The latest National Defense Strategy shifts our focus from the Pentagon’s “two-war” metric with regional powers to an emphasis on deterring China and Russia. But is the defense budget up to the task? Rick Berger joined AEI’s “Banter” podcast to discuss the Trump administration’s proposed defense budget, whether the administration’s shift in focus to great-power conflict is a good policy, the strategic worth of US aircraft carriers, and much more. Listen here.

HITTING THE AXIS OF OPPRESSORS

5/15/2019

The axis of oppressors
The U.S. needs to be stronger than any combination of colluding adversaries
Clifford D. May | Founder & President

DEFENDING AGAINST HYPERSONICS & COLLATERAL DAMAGE

5/13/2019

Rick Berger writes: The advanced capabilities pursued by transformation advocates — artificial intelligence, hypersonic weapons, advanced networking — will prove necessary, if not sufficient, for deterring high-end conflict with China and Russia. But financing these new capabilities by cutting existing weapons systems amounts to robbing Peter to pay Paul, a choice that Congress will never make. While some trade-offs make sense, policymakers should accept that the need for new, leap-ahead weapons systems is an additional burden on the Pentagon, unable to be met through rearranging programs under a flat budget. – Defense News

Net Assessment: Hypersonic Weapons – Gimmick or Game Changer?
by Melanie Marlowe and Bryan McGrath

Navy's SPY-6 Radar Boosts Sea-Based Defense Against Hypersonic Threats
By Loren Thompson, Forbes: " ... the networking features that Raytheon has engineered into the system, so that radars on vessels scattered across vast expanses of ocean can cooperate in detecting, tracking and targeting threats. This will enable them to maximize the effectiveness of a new generation of interceptor missiles"

What’s great power competition? No one really knows
(Defense One) More than a year since the new National Defense Strategy refocused the U.S. military away from counterinsurgency and back towards the country’s greatest strategic competitors, some policy and strategy experts say the Pentagon hasn’t yet figured out how to “compete” with Russia and China.

Marine Corps Gets Long-Range Anti-Ship Missiles
By Hope Hodge Seck, Military.com: "The Marine Corps is dropping nearly $48 million on Raytheon's Naval Strike Missile (NSM) as it moves toward a series of experiments involving striking enemy ships and maritime targets from land."

Navy, USMC Advancing New Operating Concept
By Mandy Mayfield, National Defense Magazine: "The concept, formally known as expeditionary advanced base operations, or EABO, is “all about distributing lethality across the battle space in support of a larger maritime campaign,” said Brig Gen. Stephen Liszewski, director of operations for the Marine Corps."

Marines: FVL Intriguing, BUT CH-53K Is Essential
By Sydney Freedberg, Breaking Defense: "LtGen Steven Ruder said, for heavy lift — the logistical lifeline of the missile batteries and forward airfields the Marines envision for the next war — the CH-53K King Stallion “is the only aircraft today that can do what we are asking it to do.”"

Secret Knife Missile That Kills Terrorists Without Harming Civilians
By Ryan Pickrell, Busiuness Insider: "The U.S. has developed a secret missile to kill terrorists in precision strikes without harming civilians nearby, and it has already proven its worth in the field."

Rolls-Royce Unveils Hybrid Power System for Laser Weapons
By Jen Judson, Defense News: "Rolls-Royce has been quietly developing an integral system required to operate laser weapons on the battlefield for about a decade in its LibertyWorks division, which is the company’s internal advanced technology unit based in Indianapolis."

Here's how the F-35's electronic warfare system gives it an edge
(Forbes) You can’t fully understand the F-35 value proposition unless you have some grasp of the plane’s electronic warfare capabilities.

Muting the Hype over Hypersonics:
The Offense-Defense Balance in Historical Perspective
By Heather Venable & Clarence Abercrombie, War on the Rocks: “The “allure of battle,” writes Cathal Nolan, is a powerful one. The compelling idea that the first mover wins has drawn many to start wars; as such, it can be deeply destabilizing. Technological developments amplify these tendencies, especially when emerging technologies seem to favor the offense. This is the case for fear-filled discussions about hypersonic weapons, for which no defensive measures currently exist. When The New York Times reported that Russia had likely deployed a nuclear-armed cruise missile in violation of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear.""

RISING TO THE THREAT THAT IS CHINA

5/12/2019

Getting to Know the Competition
By Cortez A. Cooper III, RealClearDefense: " ... PLA concepts and capabilities also include military and para-military forces that operate below the threshold of war, such as increased presence in contested waters of fishing fleets and supporting maritime militia and navy vessels. These operations might spark conflict when an opposing claimant such as the Philippines, Vietnam, or Japan responds.”

Rising to the Threat: Revitalizing America’s Military and Political Power
FDD Event
This conference marked the launch of FDD’s Center on Military and Political Power (CMPP), which focuses on the defense strategies, policies, and capabilities necessary to deter and/or defeat threats to the freedom, security, and prosperity of Americans and our allies... Read more

China isn't what it used to be
Clifford D. May — The Washington Times
Last week, presidential contender Joseph Biden asked rhetorically: “China is going to eat our lunch? Come on, man!” He added: “I mean, you know, they’re not bad folks. But guess what, they’re not competition for us!” As vice president and, before that, as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Mr. Biden met foreign leaders and voted on foreign policy legislation. On that basis, he fancies himself a foreign policy expert. But at least where China is concerned, he has not kept up. Evidence of China’s grand ambitions... Read more

The Sources of CCP Conduct
By Mike Gallagher, The American Interest: "The Chinese Communist Party is hard-wired for hostile expansion—and it poses a threat to the free world unlike any since George Kennan’s time."

Testimony: Bridging the transatlantic divide on China
Zack Cooper | House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Europe, Eurasia, Energy, and the Environment
The growing transatlantic divide on China policy poses a serious challenge — not just for America’s relationships with its European allies and partners, but also for US grand strategy more generally. The United States’ greatest strength in the competition with China is our global network of alliances and partnerships. It is vital that the US pursue policies that unite these allies and partners in support of our shared interests and a rules-based international order.

ANDREW MARSHALL, DECENTRALIZED COMMAND OF WAR, gaps in us war strategy & WHAT MAKES FOREIGN WARS SUCCESSFUL

5/9/2019

Surveying the Responsibility of Command by Maj. Gen. William F. Mullen II

Surveying the Responsibility of Command
By William F. Mullen III, War on the Rocks: "Based on my observations from my most recent tour in Iraq from 2015 to 2016, I believe it still comes down to the personality of the commander. In that time, I saw division commanders who were comfortable with a more decentralized decision-making process and others who still attempted to control every last detail."

The Brain of the Pentagon
By Eliot A. Cohen, The Atlantic: "Andrew Marshall leaves behind an American tradition of strategic thinking that will live well beyond him."

Our Risk-Averse Army: How We Got Here and How to Overcome It
By John Amble, Modern War Institute: "There are three main reasons Army commanders tend avoid risk: loss aversion, institutional risk norms, and senior leaders’ lack of comfort with risk."

Gaps Exist Between U.S. Strategy and Military Capacity
There will not be enough resources to close the technological, doctrinal, and budgetary gaps between stated U.S. aims and the military capabilities needed to achieve them. What changes to U.S. strategy and investments could help close these gaps, and which missions should be prioritized? Read more »

What Makes U.S. Military Interventions Successful?
An analysis of 145 U.S. military interventions identifies the factors that have made them more or less successful at achieving their political objectives. They were successful 63 percent of the time, but levels of success have declined over time as the United States has pursued more ambitious goals. Before intervening, planners should carefully match strategy with political objectives.
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THE END OF CHIMERICA, A LOOK AT CHINA'S STRATEGY AGAINST THE US & TRENDS DOMINATING THE INDO-PACIFIC

5/3/2019

H. R. McMaster takes on China
H. R. McMaster, Michael R. Auslin, and John Yoo | "The Pacific Century"

Problematic Thinking on China from the State Department’s Head of Policy Planning
by Abraham M. Denmark

China is laying the groundwork for war with Taiwan
(Defense News) China is improving and increasing its options for a possible future invasion of Taiwan, with military reforms and investments in multi-domain military capabilities offering a range of options to defeat the self-governing island, according to a Pentagon report.

The End of Chimerica
By John Lee, The Strategist (ASPI): "Competition in all areas has been deepening between the U.S. and China for some time. So, what has changed? In a new Strategic Insights paper, released today by ASPI and the United States Studies Centre, I identify three major shifts from what has been before."

A Closer Look at China’s Strategy — And Why the U.S. Keeps Losing to It
By Morgan Wright, The Hill: " From 900 AD to 1905, China used a form of execution known as lingchi. Referred to as the lingering death or slow slicing, it became commonly known as “death by a thousand cuts.” Banned in 1905, Lingchi now has become a parallel for how the United States is losing a battle across many fronts to China.”

The Expanding Chinese Nuclear Threat
Editor's Note: This article is a complement to the below article on Chinese Military Strategy.
By Mark B. Schneider, RealClearDefense: "We face a very serious threat from China and its growing nuclear weapons capability is a key component."

Nuclear Weapons in Chinese Military Strategy
By Mark B. Schneider, National Institute for Public Policy (NIPP): "China does not assume or plan for a “peaceful rise,” as its actions in the South China Sea demonstrate. At a minimum, China seeks hegemony in the Far East and claims sovereignty over Taiwan, and shifting the balance of nuclear power is an important element of China’s drive to regional hegemony."

Strategic Trends Across the Indo-Pacific Region
By Kevin Rudd, the interpreter: "The U.S. might be reorienting to the region, but so is the region responding to the deep gravitational pull from China."

Pacific Century: H.R. McMaster Takes On China
with H. R. McMaster, Michael R. Auslin, John Yoo via The Pacific CenturyHoover fellow and former national security advisor H.R. McMaster joins the Pacific Century to discuss the rise of China.

DOUGLAS BARRIE: SPACE DEFENSE

THOMAS BUSSING: RAYTHEON MISSILE DEFENSE, STRATEGIEST

JAMES ACTON: NUCLEAR MISSILE DEFENSE

DR. MICHAEL PILLSBURY

HENRY ROWEN
File Size:	78 kb
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CHARLES WOLF JR.
File Size:	665 kb
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ANDREW MASHALL 'YODA'
File Size:	1471 kb
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AMERICA NEEDS NEW ALLIANCES

why_america_needs_new_alliances_-_wsj.pdf
File Size:	158 kb
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POLYBIUS & ANCIENT GRAND STRATEGY
File Size:	2040 kb
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CENTER FOR POLITICAL & MILITARY POWER

SUN TZU ISN'T WORKING FOR CHINA ANYMORE

SUN TZU ISN'T WORKING FOR CHINA
File Size:	285 kb
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THE QURAN & MORAL STRATEGY FOR THE LONG WAR

WHEN WAR WITHOUT END, FINALLY ENDS

WHEN WAR WITHOUT END, FINALLY ENDS
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THUCYDIDES & THE LONG WAR PROBLEM

HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR

WHAT HAPPENED DURING PELOPONNESIAN WAR
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THUCYDIDES TRAP IS GREAT POWER COMPETITION

THUCYDIDES TRAP = GREAT POWER COMPETITION
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CENTER STRATEGIC, BUDGETARY ASSESSMENTS: U.S. GRAND STRATEGY

DAVID P. GOLDMAN COLUMN ASIA TIMES

HOW BEST TO UNDERSTAND U.S. - CHINA RELATIONS

STRATEGY BRIDGE

Winning World War IV David P. Goldman.pdf
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THE NEW ASIAN OBSERVER

Tweets by WilliamHolland

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