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 China is in the process of “destroying our alliances” on the Pacific Rim, a prominent Republican lawmaker warned Wednesday. “They are on the verge of achieving their goal of destroying our alliances in the Indo-Pacific by making keeping our defense commitments too costly to keep,” - Washington Examiner
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 Contested Ship-to-Shore Movement: The Role of Quantity By Josh Abbey, CIMSEC: “The role of quantity in contested ship-to-shore movement undertaken by surface craft is especially key.” How Much is Enough? Matching Ends with Means at the Pentagon by Frank Hoffman and Molly Dinneen
 What Comes After INF? By John Maurer, RealClearDefense: “While Russia’s cheating provides the most immediate cause for withdrawing, in fact, the greatest challenge to the INF Treaty is the ever-growing missile arsenal of China, which poses the clearest contemporary threat to American power projection into the Eurasian littoral. Time to Withdraw From the INF Treaty By Colin S. Gray & Matthew Costlow, NIPP: “While the decision may grate against American strategic culture which encourages boundless optimism for negotiations and agreements, the United States should give the Russian Federation the required six-month advance notification of its intent to withdraw from the INF Treaty due to continuing Russian violations.” In Defence of Nuclear Deterrence
By Rod Lyon, The Strategist (ASPI): “With the industrial revolution, war’s centre of gravity moved away from the battlefield and towards national industrial capacity. Wars became uncapped contests in national endurance. People died in the tens of millions.”  Pentagon Preparing to Test MQ-9 Reaper for Missile Defense Missions
By Daniel Cebul, C4ISRNET: “The agency will test the MQ-9 with the advanced sensor “in realistic test scenarios” at locations inside and outside the continental United States, according to a Department of Defense statement.”  Strategic Thought and the Military Officer By Reed Bonadonna, Strategy Bridge: “For military officers, strategic thought is a subset, along with tactical and operational thinking, of their roles as organizer, planner, and warfighter.” Why History Matters: Making Junior Leaders More Effective By Tyler Fox, Small Wars Journal: “With posters on Mission Command adorning virtually every classroom at the US Army's Command and General Staff College, and with its prominence as one of the pillars of the Army's Operational Concept, the term Mission Command has become a buzzword.” The Clash of Generations and American Foreign Policy by Trevor Thrall, William Ruger, and E
 Defending East Asia – moving towards a virtual alliance BY STEPHEN BRYEN No aircraft, no air defenses and no troops are required in computerized war games, but it helps the players plan for the real thing The 2019 NDAA: A Step Forward on Strategic Minerals
By Jeff Green, RealClearDefense: “One of the most meaningful items in the bill would prohibit the Department of Defense and its contractors from acquiring certain sensitive materials from non-allied countries, including Iran, China, Russia, and North Korea.”  Information, Interdependence, and Friction in Strategy By Mitchell D. White, Strategy Bridge: “Economic strength has not yet been supplanted by raw data processing capacity, though interdependence between the two is rapidly increasing. The intensification of that interdependence complicates military action in the information space and converges toward reframing the utility of force. ” On the Eve of Destruction? (Part 2) By Andrew Davies, The Strategist (ASPI):: “Humans don’t seem to be particularly good at dealing rationally with existential threats.” China’s New Missile Force: New Ambitions, New Challenges
By Bates Gill & Adam Ni, China Brief: “In addition to land-based nuclear missiles, the PLA is also working to develop sea- and air-based nuclear deterrent as part of an emerging nuclear triad...”   Allies, Alliances, and the Fourth Strategic Offset By Michael Miklaucic, RealClearDefense: “Now that some of our most steadfast NATO allies have reluctantly realized that Europe can no longer rely on the United States for security, who will be next?” The Intelligence Reachback Conundrum By Adam Maisel, Modern War Institute: “In 2016, US Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley called for greater reliance on smaller and leaner forward headquarters. Long a staple of the “long wars” in Afghanistan and Iraq, bloated brigade- and division-level commands became the norm, lulling a generation of Army soldiers into assuming the luxury of seemingly permanent, large headquarters in war zones would be the rule rather than the exception.” The Missile Defense Agency awarded General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems a $134 million dollar contract Aug. 21 for the development, integration, and flight testing of an advanced sensor in an MQ-9 unmanned aerial vehicle. The agency will test the MQ-9 with the advanced sensor “in realistic test scenarios” at locations inside and outside the continental United States, according to a Department of Defense statement. - C4ISRNET
In a new request for information, the United States Special Operations Command is looking for a range of computer and computer-enabled technologies, all designed to make Special Operators function in some way more than human. [...] Taken together, the list of desired capabilities is a preview of what may be possible in the near-future to shape the intimate fights on the edges of wars. - C4ISRNET  Strategika Soner Cagaptay, Austin Bay, and Paul Rahe discuss Turkish politics, President Erdogan's leadership, and, more generally, Turkey's relationship to NATO and the West. The New Sultan and the Crisis of Modern Turkey
By Soner Cagaptay The failed coup of July 15, 2016 has irreversibly transformed Turkish politics. Although the coup attempt was thankfully thwarted, the path that Erdogan chose to take after the coup—using the state of emergency powers he was given to go specifically after coup plotters, to embark instead on a much broader campaign against all dissidents, many of whom possessed no ties to the coup in any form—highlights an unfortunate truth about the country: Turkey is in a deep crisis. FEATURED COMMENTARY Is Turkey No Longer Part of the West? By Paul Rahe Almost a century has passed since the Ottoman Empire was dismembered and Mustafa Kemal set out to build the modern Turkish state on its ruins. Twenty years ago, no one in the West would have called into question the achievement of the man who eventually, with considerable justice, styled himself Atatürk (“Father of the Turks”). But many now fear that the political and cultural revolution he instigated in the 1920s will be overturned and that Turkey will cease to function as normal nation state, turn on the West, and try to upend the existing order in the eastern Mediterranean, the Balkans, and the Middle East. Erdogan’s Turkey and NATO By Austin Bay The phrase “the struggle for Turkey’s soul” once served as shorthand for the perceived conflict between the country’s secular democratic values and Muslim religious values. With the July 8, 2018 inauguration of Recep Tayyip Erdogan as Turkey’s President, democratic values and Muslim values now struggle with hyper-empowered Erdogan’s personal political goals and his devilish acquisition of authoritarian power.  Patrick Porter writes: Grand strategic change is possible. But it requires two interacting elements that come together rarely: a major strategic shock and a determined president willing to bear the costs of overhauling American security commitments. Trump provides us with a live experiment that tests the argument, or at least the proposition that short of a major shock and a committed agent of change, the existing strategy will endure. - War on the Rocks The Strategy Delusion
By Jeffrey W. Meiser & Sitara Nath, Strategy Bridge: “Strategy is a theory of success. If you do not have a theory of success, you do not have a strategy. If you do not have a strategy, you are unlikely to achieve your goals. These are straight-forward, and perhaps even obvious principles. However, judging from what passes as strategic analysis and strategic thought, these principles are not obvious; in fact, these principles are consistently violated.”  When the U.S. Missile Defense Agency was created in 2002, the expectation was that it would initially develop missile defense systems but then transfer responsibility for their procurement to the military services that would operate them. The process has not worked out quite as expected. - Defense News
 Inside SecDef Jim Mattis’ $2.5 Billion Plan to Make the Infantry Deadlier By Matthw Cox, Military.com: “The task force's mission isn't just about funding high-tech new equipment for Army, Marine and special operations close-combat forces. It is also digging into deeply entrenched policies and making changes to improve unit cohesion, leadership and even the methods used for selecting individuals who serve in close-combat formations.” Army Accelerates New Future Vertical Lift
By Kris Osborn, Warrior Maven: “Senior Army leaders are now advancing and refining plans to speed up development and delivery of a new faster, more-lethal and high-tech Future Vertical Lift aircraft currently slated to be operational by the 2030s.”  A Middle East Strategic Alliance
By Daniel Gallington, The Washington Times: “Perhaps most important — because it’s the Middle East — is what about Israel and the dynamics associated with the “Israeli relationship” — if any — with an organization such as MESA?” 
An Emerging Indo-Pacific Infrastructure Strategy By Roland Rajah, the interpreter: “When set against potentially upwards of U.S.$1 trillion in financing for China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) – to which the new U.S. fund is a thinly veiled response – that certainly seems the case. Yet the outlines of an Indo-Pacific infrastructure strategy that looks potentially more promising can also be seen.” How to Keep the US-India Defense Relationship Moving Ahead (DefenseOne) Both countries can help each other in a rapidly changing Asia — if they can pick their way past several looming obstacles. Scott D. McDonald writes: Hesitancy among Indo-Pacific leaders is understandable. [...]Regional leaders continue to fear the United States is not wholly committed to a role in the Indo-Pacific region, subject to strategic distraction at the next crisis, and incapable of building an architecture that will maintain stability in the face of rising tensions. - The National Interest Defence Innovation Is Critical for the Future of the Australia–U.S. Alliance By Daniel Kliman & Brendan Thomas-Noone, The Strategist (ASPI): “On the defence collaboration front, a new agreement was signed to jointly develop, research and test new cyber capabilities. Hypersonics were singled out as an area where cooperation between the two countries should be strengthened, particularly on concept development, testing and ‘validation’ of high-speed flight technologies.” Karl Hendler writes: Xi and Pompeo offer two different visions of the future for the Asia/Indo-Pacific. They ostensibly espouse many of the same values and goals but originate from opposite perspectives about which country should take a leading role. China has a head start, having already made massive investments in Asia and Africa. - Center for Strategic and International Studies
 Nuclear Constraints and Concepts of Future Warfare By Zachary L. Morris, Strategy Bridge: “Russia’s preparation for future warfare better appreciates the realities of nuclear constraints; rather than preparing for large-scale operations...” AI Will Change the Balance of Power
By John Allen & Amir Husain, Proceedings Magazine: “...we will find that AI combined with myriad exponential technologies will carry us inexorably toward a different form of warfare that will unfold at speeds we cannot fully anticipate—a form of warfare we call hyperwar.”
Is Turkey No Longer Part Of The West?
by Paul Rahe via Strategika Almost a century has passed since the Ottoman Empire was dismembered and Mustafa Kemal set out to build the modern Turkish state on its ruins. Twenty years ago, no one in the West would have called into question the achievement of the man who eventually, with considerable justice, styled himself Atatürk (“Father of the Turks”). But many now fear that the political and cultural revolution he instigated in the 1920s will be overturned and that Turkey will cease to function as normal nation state, turn on the West, and try to upend the existing order in the eastern Mediterranean, the Balkans, and the Middle East.  Navy's Aegis Combat System Takes Center Stage As Missile Threats Proliferate By Loren Thompson, Forbes: “The Navy traditionally hasn't thought about its Aegis destroyers and cruisers as strategic weapons, but they contribute to nuclear deterrence in many ways, from detection and tracking of threats to interception of incoming missiles to cueing of other defensive systems.” A Navy SEAL's Guide To Aligning Leadership, Strategy And Culture By Brent Gleeson, Forbes: “And while there are many takeaways from my experience as a SEAL in combat, the one that ranks at the top of the list is the critical importance of aligning culture and leadership behavioral norms with strategy and desired results.” Strategy and the Sea: Essays in Honour of John B. Hattendorf
By John T. Kuehn, Strategy Bridge: “The anthology is reminiscent of a famous earlier effort for British naval historian Arthur Marder and perhaps attempts to be an updated version of sorts for a new generation, a way of chronicling how the bat has passed across the Atlantic.” PUTIN IS MAN-IN-THE-MIDDLE: GRAND RUSSIAN STRATEGY CALLED SYRIA & HOOVER'S LATEST ISSUE STRATEGIKA8/6/2018 |
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