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Rumors of War
A Taipei Airlift: Lessons from Berlin
China’s 2024 Joint Sword exercises, and more recent Strait Thunder-2025A exercise, awakened the public psyche to the reality that the People’s Liberation Army is not just training, but rehearsing to blockade Taiwan. Such a blockade would…
Rethinking Rome’s “Most Reluctant” Emperor
Iskander Rehman, Iron Imperator: Roman Grand Strategy Under Tiberius (Bokförlaget Stolpe, 2024)
In AD 9, three Roman legions suffered a massacre in a region of Germania undergoing pacification. In the years that followed several attempts…
Norms have changed in South Asia, making future de-escalation much harder
India and Pakistan have seen the scenario play out before: a terror attack in which Indians are killed leads to a succession of escalatory tit-fot-tat measures that put South Asia on the brink of all-out war. And then there is a…
Golden Dome push sets stage for telecom battle over spectrum access
The wildly ambitious Golden Dome missile-defense vision is turning up the heat on a long-running fight between the Pentagon and the telecommunications industry for control of certain radio frequencies.“That area of the spectrum is golden,…
Today’s D Brief: Russia’s barrage; India-Pakistan ceasefire; SOCOM gear; Qatar’s proposed gift; And…
Russia barrages Ukraine as West turns up pressure for talks. AP: “Russia launched more than 100 Shahed and decoy drones at Ukraine in nighttime attacks, the Ukrainian air force said Monday, after the Kremlin effectively rejected an…
Anchoring Peace: The Battle of Lake Champlain, the End of the War of 1812, and How Ships That Didn’t…
Editor’s Note: This is part of a new series of essays entitled “Battle Studies,” which seeks, through the study of military history, to demonstrate how past lessons about strategy, operations, and tactics apply to current defense…
Make big things small and small things big: SOCOM’s gear wishlist
TAMPA, Florida—At least part of the public's fascination with special operations forces concerns the cutting-edge gear they use. Some of it gets its start at the SOF Week conference here, where operators peruse state-of-the-art products and…
Air Force Special Operations wants to fire cruise missiles from Reaper drones
TAMPA, Florida–Cruise missiles are getting smaller and that’s opening up ways to give older drones fighter jet-like capabilities, the head of Air Force Special Operations Command said Tuesday. “If you could use a gunship, or an MQ-9,…
State defense forces can fill a homeland gap
A recent executive order from the White House, "Achieving Efficiency Through State and Local Preparedness,” calls on state and local agencies to take greater responsibility in building resilience to cyber threats, natural disasters, and…
The D Brief: State’s cuts; Trans ban, in effect; Concerns about Army plan; B-52s join B-2s; And a…
The State Department aims to cut substantially more employees than generally expected: some 3,400 instead of roughly 2,000, report GovExec’s Eric Katz and Nextgov’s David Dimolfetta. That's because the 700 jobs that will be eliminated in a…
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