Scholar

Critics of autonomous weapon systems (AWS) argue that these weapons cannot reliably distinguish between legitimate targets and those protected from attack. As a result, the use of AWS seems to violate the principle of distinction under international…

Can conventional military success lead to coercive success in a nuclear crisis? Some scholars argue that achieving limited conventional success can be used to coerce nuclear adversaries. Others argue that conventional capabilities coerce by manipulating…

This article examines the history of war and society during the Cold War in the Middle East and parts of South Asia—two regions linked by geography, history, and culture. Few other regions have been so touched by war, or so fixed the attention of world…

Will the US-led technology control regime against China have a meaningful impact on the emerging great power competition? Supporters praise the effort’s targeted approach and optimistically see the case as a prime example of weaponized interdependence. But…

This article analyzes more than 60,000 assessments of uncertainty made by national security officials from more than forty NATO allies and partners. The findings show that national security officials are overwhelmingly overconfident and that their judgments…

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…