Scholar

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…

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…

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…

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,…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…