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Cultural Change in Military Organizations: Hackers and Warriors in the US Army

Cultural Change in Military Organizations: Hackers and Warriors in the US Army

Why did the US Army decide to create a new basic branch for cyberspace? This decision is puzzling because it broke with long-standing patterns. We argue that it reflects an attempt at cultural change within the military. The establishment of a new branch for…

Legal Deterrence by Denial: Strategic Initiative and International Law in the Gray Zone

Legal Deterrence by Denial: Strategic Initiative and International Law in the Gray Zone

International security competition in the twenty-first century is likely to remain largely within the “gray zone”—a category of aggressive activities that threaten core aspects of statehood while avoiding the threshold of armed force that has…

So What? Reassessing the Military Implications of Chinese Control of Taiwan

So What? Reassessing the Military Implications of Chinese Control of Taiwan

China and the United States are locked in an intensifying security competition, much of it revolving around—but increasingly transcending—Taiwan's continued autonomy. The operational value of a Chinese-controlled Taiwan has been cited as one reason for the…

Lost Seoul? Assessing Pyongyang’s Other Deterrent

Lost Seoul? Assessing Pyongyang’s Other Deterrent

For decades the North Korean military has fallen ever further behind its South Korean and US rivals. Unable to compete symmetrically on the battlefield, Pyongyang has enhanced its military’s ability to coerce the South. In addition to its nuclear program,…

Ghost in the Machine: Coming to Terms with the Human Core of Unmanned War

Ghost in the Machine: Coming to Terms with the Human Core of Unmanned War

The widespread assumption that the United States can achieve favorable outcomes in war with more machines and fewer humans must be subjected to rigorous scrutiny. This article challenges that assumption through a historical inquiry guided by the catalysts for…

Negotiating Primacy: Strategic Stability, Superpower Arms Control, and the End of the Cold War

Negotiating Primacy: Strategic Stability, Superpower Arms Control, and the End of the Cold War

The United States successfully used the concept of strategic stability to tip the nuclear balance against the Soviet Union during the Strategic Arms Reduction Talks (START) of the 1980s and early 1990s. Both superpowers sought to employ strategic stability to…

Expanding the Margins for Success: Corbett’s Maritime Strategy Theories and the United States Since 1945

Expanding the Margins for Success: Corbett’s Maritime Strategy Theories and the United States Since 1945

Though Julian S. Corbett wrote for Britain at the turn of the twentieth century, his maritime strategic concepts can apply more broadly to spotlight key challenges the United States has faced since the Second World War. Corbett’s theoretical concepts can…

Called to Testify: Congressional Oversight of the Armed Forces

Called to Testify: Congressional Oversight of the Armed Forces

Committee hearings are a key mechanism by which Congress conducts oversight and shapes defense policy. The expertise Congress chooses to draw upon in these settings can have important implications for the substance of national security choices, the time…

The Main Drivers of Soviet Foreign Policy Towards India, 1955–1991

The Main Drivers of Soviet Foreign Policy Towards India, 1955–1991

India is a case study for how the Soviet Union tried to use the Third World and decolonization to advance its geostrategic position in the Cold War world. From Nikita Khrushchev’s celebrated visit to India in 1955 until the dissolution of the Soviet Union in…

Machine Failing: How Systems Acquisition and Software Development Flaws Contribute to Military Accidents

Machine Failing: How Systems Acquisition and Software Development Flaws Contribute to Military Accidents

How does software contribute to military accidents? The stakes are high. During the Cold War, computerized early warning systems produced “near-miss” nuclear crises. In the future, military AI applications could fail with devastating consequences. To…

Davy Crockett and the Boy Scouts: The Korean War and Mismanaging Protracted Conflict

Davy Crockett and the Boy Scouts: The Korean War and Mismanaging Protracted Conflict

The specter of protracted large-scale ground combat has grown more real in the wake of Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine. As the United States and its partners debate the best way to prepare for such a conflict, it would be wise to review the experience of the…

Bringing Politics Back In: The Neglected Explanation of the Oct. 7 Surprise Attack

Bringing Politics Back In: The Neglected Explanation of the Oct. 7 Surprise Attack

Civil-military relations are a neglected dimension in the explanation of surprise. I integrate the worldviews and political priorities of civilian leaders with the psychological processes and organizational pathologies within the military and intelligence…