Ideas

While the Pentagon waits for Congress to pass a budget for the fiscal year that’s one-third over, the world moves on. A new year brings a new federal budget cycle, despite the delays in getting last year’s spending enacted. Unfortunately,…

Princess Ingrid Alexandra of Norway has just begun a year of military service after qualifying for one of the country’s sought-after conscription slots. That’s right: even though military service is mandatory in Norway, the fact that it’s…

Kim Jong Un has had a busy and bellicose start to 2024. On Jan. 14, the North Korean leader presided over the test of a “new solid-fuel hypersonic missile with intermediate range.” Two days later, during a speech at the Supreme…

Domestic turmoil may be dominating headlines about the 2024 elections, but threats from abroad have not dissipated. During the 2022 midterms, state actors from China, Russia, Iran, and elsewhere increased their attempts to…

From attacks by rebels in the Red Sea to raids in northern Israel and the Oct. 7, 2023, assault by Hamas, Western analysts have pointed a finger of blame toward Iran.Regardless of how involved Tehran is directly in…

Last week, the chief of space operations publicly released a white paper he has been talking about for the past year. Gen. Chance Saltzman’s paper comes with a bold title, “Competitive Endurance: A Proposed Theory of Success for the Space…

Amid the recent catastrophes in the Middle East—the renewed Israel-Hamas war; widening violence in Lebanon, Iraq, the Persian Gulf, and the Red Sea—one player counts the past year a success: China. Beijing stacked up strategic win…

The Belarusian government has drafted a new military doctrine that, for the first time, accounts for the usage of nuclear weapons. The new doctrine will reflect the rapid change in Belarusian strategic thinking in recent years…

Since the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in 2021, the terror group Islamic State Khorasan Province, or ISIS-K, has sought to internationalize its operational and recruitment campaign. Utilizing a sweeping propaganda campaign…

The situation surrounding Air Force Col. Benjamin Jonsson and Sen. Eric Schmitt's, R-Mo., opposition to Jonsson's views on diversity, equity, and inclusion policies in the military raises crucial questions about the role of these…