Red Sea rivalries: The Gulf, the Horn, and the new geopolitics of the Red Sea
Karen E. Young | Brookings Institution U.S., INDIA: U.S. Naval Chief in India for High-Level Defense Talks By Ankit Panda, The Diplomat: "“Major issues discussed during the visit included operations and exercises, training interactions, information exchange, capacity building and capability enhancement,” a statement from the Indian Navy describing Richardson’s visit said." The US and India practiced hunting subs for the first time since signing a deal making it easier to keep track of China (Business Insider) The exercises, which took place near Diego Garcia, were the first ASW drills since India and the US signed the Communications, Compatibility and Security Agreement in September. A Historical Analysis of the Guadalcanal Campaign 1942-1943
By Ronald W. Sprang, Small Wars Journal: “Guadalcanal marked a more than ten-month campaign by U.S. combined, joint forces to transition from the strategic and operational defense to the strategic and operational offense in the Pacific during World War II. In order to fully understand the case study, an understanding of the strategic context is necessary." The Line Between Conflict and Stability in Great Power Competition By Jeff Goodson, Stratfor Worldview: “Confrontation between the United States, China and Russia will deepen in many countries, with the great powers relying on proxies to wage conflict short of war." The Structure of a Diplomatic Revolution By Richard Haass, The Strategist (ASPI): “It has been nearly 60 years since the philosopher and historian Thomas Kuhn wrote his influential book The structure of scientific revolutions. Kuhn’s thesis was simple but heretical: breakthroughs in science occur not through the gradual accumulation of small changes to existing thinking, but rather from the sudden emergence of radical ideas that cause existing models to be replaced with something fundamentally different." Why Military Leaders Should Study Human Nature By Joe Byerly, From the Green Notebook: “It seems obvious, but today we live in a time of numbers and algorithms where, at least in business, leaders spend more much more time concerned with data. The element of human nature, the psychology of the people you are leading into battle, is absolutely the most critical factor. Knowledge of human nature is essential to do this well." All About the Bomb? Cold War Influences on ‘Modern Deterrence’
By Gareth W, Wavell Room: "Every generation sees themselves living through the most complex of times. Such perceptions can lead to an oversimplification of the past and the influence it has on our future. This is the position today regarding the Cold War experience of deterrence in some quarters. Yet those who found themselves planning for and executing deterrence activities during the Cold War certainly found them complex and challenging problems." Counterterrorism in the era of great-power competition (Defense One) Debate is bubbling about whether the United States remains too focused on counterterrorism when the Trump administration has set priority on “global power competition” with China and Russia, not to mention other threats we expect to face. The Russian State’s Use of Irregular Forces and Private Military Groups By Sergey Sukhankin, Eurasia Daily Monitor: “Russia’s growing employment of non-linear forms of warfare (including private military contractors) has long historical traditions." Reassuring Allies and Strengthening Strategic Stability: An Approach to Nuclear Modernization for Democrats by Frank A. Rose and Benjamin Bahney Why the the days of ‘fighter jock culture’ may be numbered (Air Force Times) For the past half century, fighter pilots have dominated high-level leadership roles in the Air Force, much as bomber pilots did during World War II and the Cold War. How Does the Next Great Power Conflict Play Out? Lessons from a Wargame by James Lacey
Bringing the Air Division Back to the Future by Mike Pietrucha and Jeremy Renken Insurgency in 2030 By Peter W. Singer, New America Foundation: "Exciting, and scary, new technologies are shaping the 21st century. They will also shape the worlds of insurgency and terrorism. Nation-Building in a Time of War: Revisiting Vietnam by Martin Clemis Preparing for China’s Rapid Rise and Decline by Collin Meisel and Jonathan D. Moyer To Deter Russia, the U.S. Army Must Be Permanently Based in Poland By Dan Gouré, RealClearDefense: “The RAND Corporation has intensively analyzed the military balance in the Baltic region. The conclusions of this effort are, to say the least, sobering." ‘A War to the Death’: The Ugly Underside of an Iconic Insurgency by Lincoln Krause An Assessment of the Small Wars Manual as an Implementation Model for Strategic Influence in Contemporary and Future Warfare By Bradley L. Rees, Divergent Options: "A disparity between how most within the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) understand 20th-century information operations and 21st-century information warfare and strategic influence has produced a cognitive dissonance." An Assessment of Population Relocation in 21st Century Counterinsurgencies
By Sam Canter, Divergent Options: "As other methods of counterinsurgency fail, population relocation will continue to hold the fascination of military planners, even as it grows increasingly controversial." ![]()
Future of Hypersonic Weapons: Defending Against Super-Fast Missiles By Talal Husseini, Airforce-Technology: “Hypersonic weapons are missiles that can travel at speeds of Mach 5 or higher, which makes them particularly difficult to defend against. What are the most advanced hypersonic weapons and how can we stop them?" Air Force to Test Fire Fighter Jet-Configured Laser Weapons Pod From the Ground By Kris Osborn, Warrior Maven: “As a part of its preparation, the service is refining its combat strategy, tactics and concepts of operation to accommodate the rapid emergence of laser weapons, technologies which promise to alter the landscape of modern warfare and substantially expand the envelope of attack possibilities for fighter jets.” How SOF Will Operate in ‘Great Power Competition’ By Todd South, Military Times: “As the services shift to “great power competition,” some on Capitol Hill are asking what that might mean for special operations forces." Keep those Iraq War notes handy: Small wars, not great power battles, still the most likely future fight (Military Times) The findings in the long-awaited Iraq War Study at first glance appear to not be in lockstep with the Pentagon’s new focus on China and Russia, but are perhaps more important than ever. Less door kicking, more partner building for special operations in ‘great power competition’ (Military Times) As the services shift to “great power competition,” some on Capitol Hill are asking what that might mean for special operations forces. America, You're Not Listening to Us // Anatoly Antonov You can’t have a conversation if one party won’t listen to the other. Read full article » The Navy’s Newest Nemesis: Hypersonic Weapons By John Isaac, CIMSEC: "In January 2019, Chinese Communist Party leaders announced that the newest iteration of their DF-17 missile system was being designed to overwhelm and sink U.S. aircraft carriers and surface combatants stationed in the West Pacific." Hypersonic Weapons – A Threat to National Security
By John L. Dolan, Richard K. Gallagher & David L. Mann, RealClearDefense: “As evidenced by numerous media accounts and Department of Defense (DoD) senior leaders’ comments, the impact and challenges posed by hypersonic missile systems are a growing and extremely complex threat to our national interests." Dumping Abraham Lincoln: Tactical Digital Intelligence Strategy Insights in Afghanistan By Nick Rife & Josh Brown, Small Wars Journal: “In the age of Tesla and Twitter however, the well of results seems to be running dryer than a Sonoran lake bed under summer’s heat. The underlying Army intelligence establishment, whose proponent coincidentally calls the Sonoran Desert home, is challenged in pacing with an evolving contemporary threat environment." Future War
By Walker D. Mills, Strategy Bridge: "Future War is the whole-of-society sibling to Scales on War’s hard-nosed call to action with the cynicism of James Fallows’ “The Tragedy of the American Military.”" In Remembrance Of US Entry Into World War I
via The Hoover Centennial Remembering the war that changed everything.
The Inner Workings of Russia's Military Industrial Behemoth
By Pavel Luzin, Riddle: "Russia’s arms industry comprises over 1,300 companies, employing around two million people. A key player in this field is Rostec, Russia’s military industrial behemoth, which incorporates over 700 companies and employs over half a million people." U.S. Strategy in Syria Is Dangerously Adrift By Christopher J. Bolan, FPRI: “The absence of a feasible American strategy that looks beyond the narrow issue of ISIS undermines U.S. regional leadership, places remaining U.S. troops in Syria at unnecessary risk for undefined goals, and will likely only prolong the suffering of the Syrian people." A New Conception of War By Dan Grazier, Strategy Bridge: “On the otherwise quiet Monday morning of March 6, 1989, a revolution occurred in the private office at the Commandant of the Marine Corps’ home when General Al Gray affixed his signature to a document. Until that moment, the Marine Corps thought about warfare in terms of the firepower and attrition doctrine that had characterized its operations in World War II, Korea, and the worst parts of Vietnam." Prototype Warfare in the Fourth Industrial Age
By Peter Layton, Small Wars Journal: "A new industrial process is rapidly emerging. This fourth industrial revolution (4IR) based on hyper-connectivity brings with it both continual – indeed relentless – innovation and the possibility of practical large-scale prototype warfare." Getting Back to Basics Tony Badran | Research Fellow The US Role In The Middle East In An Era Of Renewed Great Power Competition
by Eric Edelman via The CaravanWhat role should the United States play in the Middle East as its attention shifts to the objectives outlined in the National Security Strategy and the National Defense Strategy of competing with near peers like Russia and China? Today pundits and observers are posing this question against a backdrop of more than a decade and a half of costly, inconclusive and seemingly “endless” wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as the more recent deployment of roughly two thousand Special Forces troops to Syria as part of the counter ISIS campaign. To President Trump the answer seems clear. He noted in April 2018 at an Ohio rally “we’ll be coming out of Syria, like, very soon. The Case Against Maneuver Warfare By Michael Gladius, Small Wars Journal: “Ever since the 1970s/1980s, maneuver warfare has been regarded as the ideal form of warfare. It’s associated primarily with the German Army of WWII and the Mongol Empire, and everybody wants to emulate their successes. However, Maneuver Warfare has several real weaknesses that do not translate well into the American way of war." Scharnhorst: The Vision of an Enlightened Soldier “On Experience and Theory”
By Vanya Eftimova Bellinger, Strategy Bridge: “Without Gerhard von Scharnhorst, it is unlikely there would be a Carl von Clausewitz." |
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April 2023
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