United States
Trapped by the Tradition: Reading Thucydides on Strategy and Policy
Thucydides’ history of the Peloponnesian War has gained new prominence as the United States engages in great-power competition with China, as that emerging geopolitical competition is often explained through parallels with the ancient rivalry between Athens…
Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya’s Battle for Belarus
Recorded on location at the Aspen Security Forum, this discussion centers on the geopolitical status and democratic movement of Belarus. Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya details her transformation from a political outsider into the leader of the country's democratic…
Embracing (Not Bridging) the Gap: Integrating Intelligence Analysis, Social Science, and History
Intelligence analysts, social scientists, and historians produce authoritative insights that often conflict, reflecting deep epistemological differences among these professions. The predominant approach to bridging the scholar-practitioner gap emphasizes…
A Plum for a Peach? Issue Linkage, Taiwan, and China’s Policy toward North Korea’s Nuclear Weapons Program
This article offers a novel explanation for the variation in China’s policy toward North Korea’s nuclear program. It argues that Beijing’s willingness to constrain Pyongyang is shaped by the perceived level of US assurance regarding Taiwan. Specifically,…
On War and Politics
The articles in this issue highlight enduring questions around how states use military force to achieve (or fail to achieve) their strategic and political objectives.
Deep Ocean Danger: Unveiling the Threats to Global Connectivity
Charles Mok speaks on the rising pace of attacks on undersea cable infrastructure and why these vulnerabilities remain under-discussed despite carrying about 99% of intercontinental data. He explains how growing geopolitical tension, choke points, and greater…
25 Years of the US-China Commission: Taiwan, Tech Competition, and Over-the-Horizon Risks
Twenty-five years after its creation, how does the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission evaluate the evolving threat landscape? TNSR Editor-in-Chief Sheena Chestnut Greitens hosts Randall Schriver (Chairman of the Board, Institute for Indo-Pacific…
Toward Undersea Cable Resilience: The Case for Global Collaboration
Escalating threats to undersea cable networks, stemming from gray-zone sabotage at vulnerable chokepoints, are receiving long-overdue attention from policymakers and the public. Recent incidents highlight the strategic vulnerability of this infrastructure, due…
New Tech, Old Traps: The Persistent Pitfalls in Military Innovation
Herb Lin joins the podcast and explains US reliance on technological overmatch through the first offset (nuclear deterrence against Soviet conventional superiority), second offset (high-tech conventional systems like precision-guided munitions and stealth),…
On Optimism About New Military Technologies
This article identifies psychological, cultural, and organizational factors that drive optimism about emerging military technologies. Psychological influences include bounded rationality, cognitive biases (like the planning fallacy and confirmation bias), and…
Cyber Operations and Nuclear Stability: Networked Instability?
The digital transformation of nuclear forces made modern nuclear forces more effective but potentially introduced strategic cyber vulnerabilities. Despite warnings about the cyber threats to nuclear stability, our understandings of when and why cyber…
The Influence of Psychological Factors in the Search for Strategic Stability
Many of the leaders of new nuclear powers sit atop regimes that are personalistic in nature, and thus less constrained by institutions or public opinion than more democratic regimes. Such authoritarian leaders have more freedom to allow their psychological…