Commentary

In 2023, a dramatic series of events led Western observers to declare the imminent demise of the Wagner Group, Russia’s infamous paramilitary force. First, there was Wagner’s costly assault on Bakhmut in the spring, where the organization…

The Ukrainian counter-offensive in 2023 delivered a grim lesson in the brutal effectiveness of counter-mobility operations. Advancing Ukrainian forces found themselves in vast Russian minefields in the Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk regions,…

The Department of Defense has a building alliance capability problem. Through the 2018 and 2022 National Defense Strategies, the Department of Defense has trumpeted its alliance system as a primary pillar of national security. Yet as of…

Despite the operational and intelligence successes of Israel in Lebanon in September 2024, a troubling question hangs over the country: Who bears responsibility for the failure to anticipate the Oct. 7 Hamas assault that led also to the war…

As North Korea continues to advance its nuclear capabilities along with long-range missiles and China’s potential invasion of Taiwan, along with U.S. military responses, dominates discussions on Far East Asian security, the recent…

In May of this year, the Biden administration announced sweeping 100 percent import tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles as well as the batteries and minerals that go in them. These tariffs were announced at a time when very few Chinese…

The U.S. military’s technological edge is increasingly defined by software: It rapidly creates new capabilities for tanks, planes, and weapons systems to outsmart and outmaneuver the enemy without fielding new hardware. While America’s…

The U.S. troop presence in Europe was never meant to be permanent. Overseeing preparations for an Allied landing on the continent to defeat Adolf Hitler’s Germany, President Franklin D. Roosevelt explained in 1944: “the United States will…

Since 2020, a number of African governments have distanced themselves from the United States and its allies while deepening ties with Russia and its Wagner Group mercenaries. Moscow has ramped up its security, diplomatic, economic, and…

For major wars like the one being fought between Russia and Ukraine, the military, the people, and the state interact with one another to constitute a collective national will to fight. In most wars, one side loses its will to fight and is…