Commentary

During the Cold War, the Soviet Union sent thousands of troops and military advisors abroad to fight in foreign wars. Today, Russia recruits thousands of foreigners to fight in its war in Ukraine. For Russia, a nation with a reputation for…

Editor’s Note: This is an adaptation of an article originally published in Le Rubicon, which is affiliated with War on the Rocks. Russia is faced with an insoluble equation: how to finance a war in the long term, for which expenditure is…

In February, a tweet by Rep. Mike Turner created national news and panic around a possible new Russian on-orbit nuclear anti-satellite weapon. In the following weeks, senior Biden administration officials responded publicly to provide…

U.S. maritime policy is a grievous failure. Whether evaluated in terms of effectively meeting national security requirements or bolstering the country’s economy, America can point to few successes. Inefficient commercial shipbuilding barely…

In July, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said he would be open to hosting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for a visit to Turkey. Normalization will not come easily or soon, but Erdoğan’s push for rapprochement is in itself…

In Western military thinking, air superiority has long been considered the key to victory. However, achieving complete dominance of the skies not only comes with excessively high costs but is also unrealistic, especially in a near-peer…

“China already has a bigger hacking program than every other major nation combined.” So warned FBI Director Chris Wray last year. He continued: “If each one of the FBI’s cyber agents and intelligence analysts focused on China exclusively,…

American political and military leaders are amplifying flawed estimates that China’s annual defense spending is much higher than it actually is. In these mistaken calculations, China’s defense spending has reached $700 billion, approaching…

It’s time for the national security enterprise to take non-lethal weapons seriously. Yes, non-lethal weapons. The Defense Department has been trying to come to terms with the use of non-lethal weapons in military operations for at least…

This week the Italian carrier strike group centered on the aircraft carrier ITS Cavour and the frigate ITS Alpino is pulling into Tokyo Bay. The carrier strike group is taking to Japan a 13-strong air wing of AV-8B Harrier II jets and…