War On The Rocks

Ryan popped across the Potomac to the Pentagon to speak with Secretary of the Army Daniel Driscoll and Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George about the ambitious Army Transformation Initiative. Following a directive from the secretary of…

What if the U.S. Air Force could adapt small, low-cost drones on the battlefield in a single day, and do that each and every day? That reality might be realized sooner than you think, if leaders make the right decisions. The ongoing war in…

Michael Kofman and Dara Massicot join Ryan to unpack how the Trump administration’s ambitious peace efforts have collided with reality. They dive into how strategic calculations, politics, military conditions, and societal developments have…

The Pentagon is claiming to make room for small businesses, but in practice it’s reinforcing a new class of giants, and propping up legacy companies. Despite policy shifts, the Defense Department’s appetite for consolidation remains as…

Dmitri Alperovitch, World on the Brink: How America Can Beat China in the Race for the Twenty-First Century (PublicAffairs, 2024). Visit the home of any D.C. foreign policy watcher and you will be sure to find bookshelves groaning under the…

What could be the make-up of the next Iraqi government, as geopolitical drama continues to play out across the Middle East? As Iraq gears up for its pivotal parliamentary elections on Nov. 11, the atmosphere is charged with anticipation.…

<!-- category --> May 1, 2025 Welcome to The Adversarial. Every other week, we’ll provide you with expert analysis on America’s greatest challengers: China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, and jihadists. Read more below. ***…

Despite the Department of Defense spending $14 billion a year on cyber forces and technology, U.S. military cyber forces have never met the department’s readiness standards. This decade-long failure has motivated Congress, the…

In today’s world, turbulence isn’t temporary — it‘s the new normal. In this episode, Gen. (ret.) David Berger, former commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps, shares why adaptability, resilience, and…

<!-- category --> April 30, 2025 In his 2022 article “The Bay of Bengal Could be the Key to a Free and Open Indo-Pacific,” Anu Anwar argued that the Bay of Bengal is a microcosm of the emerging multi-polar world order, with its…