 The Return of the Asia-Pacific Quad By Jeff Smith, The National Interest: ““A great deal of ink has been spilled dissecting the failure of the first QSD but its great flaw wasn’t its underlying purpose, agenda, or membership; it was its timing. In 2007 Beijing was still effectively marketing a soft power offensive while the four democracies struggled to reach internal and external consensus on the nature of the challenge China was posing and the appropriate response.”” Is India the Weakest Link in the Quad? By Derek Grossman, RAND: “Since the Trump administration's announcement that it seeks a “free and open” Indo-Pacific, observers have spilled much ink on the revival of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, or Quad, to achieve this objective.” Ham and Eggs: Who’s Really Committed in the Indo-Pacific?
By John Powers, The Strategist (ASPI): “When you order ham and eggs, you can be sure the pig is committed. The chook, well, it’s interested, but not like that pig. The same could be said about the Pacific region. By specifically calling out the Indo-Pacific geographic seam, Mattis is keen to show U.S. allies, and potential peer competitors, that despite the White House’s ‘America First’ rhetoric, the Defense Department will maintain its relationships and presence in the region.”  Black Sea’s Back, Alright? A New Special Series by Chris Miller
OPEN SOURCE INTELLIGENCE FOR IRREGULAR WAR & A NEW JOINT COMBATANT COMMAND FOR THE INDO-PACIFIC7/25/2018  The Unrealized Value of Open Source Intelligence for Irregular Warfare
By Riley Murray, Strategy Bridge: “It can also be used to build an intelligence picture of a target before combining this information with other assets, especially since open source intelligence can provide information and cueing well before many other sources at a relatively low cost and risk.” An Indo-Pacific Joint Multinational Training Command and Readiness Center? By Patrick Blannin, RealClearDefense: “The broad acceptance of the joint concept has undergirded the creation and maintenance of the contemporary multinational security-oriented coalitions, creating a situation in which joint military operations have become the norm rather than the exception.  Divergent Trajectories for U.S. Military Power
By Jeff Becker, Divergent Options: “Today U.S. understanding of the long-term trajectory of its power is at a crossroads, with two divergent and highly consequential potential futures as options.”  Bolshevik Hybrid Warfare
By Jon Askonas, Strategy Bridge: “In the Russian revolution, we can glimpse one of the most powerful tactics of maneuver warfare in the political dimension: changing the strategic framework to bewilder or sideline the enemy.”  Strategy, Grand Strategy, And The Enduring War On Terror by Hal Brands via Analysis The United States has now been fighting a global war on terror (GWOT) for nearly two decades, but the threat posed by extremist groups remains. This essay seeks to reconcile the strategic requirement of prosecuting an aggressive campaign against the most dangerous extremist groups with the grand strategic constraints that the United States currently faces. U.S. Needs Comprehensive National Maritime Strategy By Otto Kreisher, USNI News: “The United States has not had a maritime strategy that would allow Congress to “look at maritime issues in a logical way” since the Roosevelt administration... The Relevance of Clausewitz and Kautilya in Counterinsurgency Operations
By Debasis Dash, Strategy Bridge: “Kautilya was a third-century Indian political scientist, a strategist of the Mauryan Empire, and had envisioned asymmetric war in his treatise Arthashastra.  The Army's New Drone Killer, the Coyote UAS By Oriana Pawlyk, DefenseTech: “The intent is to use the drone, equipped with a small-blast warhead and a radio frequency seeker at the nose to track and engage targets, at forward operating bases around the world. War Books: The Era of Drone Warfare
By Dan Gettinger, Modern War Institute: “After taking over a decade to reach one million flight hours by 2011, the Air Force’s MQ-1 Predator and MQ-9 Reaper reached two million flight hours just two years later in 2013. By September 2016, the Predator family of drones had collectively reached four million flight hours.” Strengths of the Current National Security Strategy By James Torrence, Small Wars Journal: “The 2017 United States National Security Strategy (NSS) “is a strategy of principled realism that is guided by outcomes, not ideology.””  Analysis: The Turkistan Islamic Party’s jihad in Syria
(Long War Journal) On May 21, the Turkistan Islamic Party’s (TIP) arm in Syria released an hour-plus, documentary-style video encouraging Muslims in the West to emigrate for jihad. There is a deluge of jihadist-related content online these days, with much of it being redundant. But the production was noteworthy because the TIP, which is predominately comprised of ethnic Uighurs, framed its jihad as part of al Qaeda’s global struggle.  Make Defensive Operations Great Again
By Brandon Morgan, Modern War Institute: “In his seminal work On War, Carl von Clausewitz famously declared that, in comparison to the offense, “the defensive form of warfare is intrinsically stronger than the offensive.” And yet within the doctrinal hierarchy of the four elements of decisive action (offense, defense, stability, and defense support of civil authorities), the US Army prioritizes offensive operations.”  GMD: Key to U.S. Missile Defense By Loren Thompson, Forbes: “Today, the only defensive system the U.S. has that can intercept long-range ballistic missiles is the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) – so-called because it intercepts intercontinental ballistic missiles in the middle of their arcing trajectories while they are in space. North Korea: There Is No Such Thing As Stable Deterrence By Kevin R. James, RealClearDefense: “The history of how deterrence actually worked during the Cold War shows that any deterrence arrangement between the U.S. and North Korea will necessarily be subject to a substantial risk of catastrophic failure.” Wargaming and Deterrence Options: Signalling a Low-Yield Response By Adam Cabot, RealClearDefense: “RAND found that a NATO force of about seven brigades, including three heavy armored brigades supported by air power and adequate land-based fire support would be necessary to prevent a rapid defeat until more forces can arrive in Europe.” Evaluating Integrated Defense Systems: How to Proactively Defend the Final Frontier By Frank Bednar, Jim Davitch & Cara Treadwell, Strategy Bridge: “For air power practitioners, the Italo-Turkish conflict demonstrated that military forces in the future would now need a plan to suppress enemy air defenses. Since then air warfare strategists have had to grapple with the problem of gaining and maintaining control of air and space while dealing with enemy defenses designed to prevent exactly that.” Modern solution, ancient problem: Measuring military effectiveness in the age of artificial intelligence
(War On The Rocks) A likely apocryphal exchange after the Vietnam War captured the problem of fighting without keeping effectiveness in mind: An American colonel tells a Vietnamese colonel, “You know, you never defeated us on the battlefield.” “That may be so,” replies the Vietnamese colonel, “but it is also irrelevant.” |
SHAKESPEARE & STATECRAFT
FDD: CENTER U.S. MILITARY POWER
JAMES HOLMES:
CHINA vs. US
GREAT POWER COMPETITION EXAMINED
Dr. Colin S. Gray
GLOBAL GEOPOLITICS
ATLAS PRO YOUTUBE
DOUGLAS BARRIE: SPACE DEFENSE
THOMAS BUSSING: RAYTHEON MISSILE DEFENSE, STRATEGIEST
JAMES ACTON: NUCLEAR MISSILE DEFENSE
DR. MICHAEL PILLSBURY
AMERICA NEEDS NEW ALLIANCES
CENTER FOR POLITICAL & MILITARY POWER
SUN TZU ISN'T WORKING FOR CHINA ANYMORE
THE QURAN & MORAL STRATEGY FOR THE LONG WAR
WHEN WAR WITHOUT END, FINALLY ENDS
THUCYDIDES & THE LONG WAR PROBLEM
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR
THUCYDIDES TRAP IS GREAT POWER COMPETITION
ARTHUR WALDRON
NO THUCYDIDES TRAP
CENTER STRATEGIC, BUDGETARY ASSESSMENTS: U.S. GRAND STRATEGY
DAVID P. GOLDMAN COLUMN ASIA TIMES
HOW BEST TO UNDERSTAND U.S. - CHINA RELATIONS
STRATEGY BRIDGE
THE NEW ASIAN OBSERVER
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