Scholar

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…

The U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, ending in August 2021, created favorable conditions for Russia to reassert itself as a regional hegemon in broader Central Asia. Historically, as great powers retrench from a territory, the resulting void can be filled…

For decades, military practitioners and academics have come up with theories, evidence, and examples that indicate that offensive cyber operations might revolutionize modern warfare. Others have made an equally impressive case that refutes that such operations…

Access decisions play a crucial role in war, with belligerent states employing various methods to gain access into neutral states. Yet, the decision-making process of potential host nations has largely been unexplored for modern, large-scale conflicts. This…

A growing number of scholars and policymakers are showing interest in a grand strategy that calls on the United States to retrench from key global regions while devolving the burden of checking the expansion of hegemonic aspirants to local allies. I highlight…

While most economic sanctions are explicitly announced, Chinese economic sanctions tend to be vague — not explicitly announced. China rarely threatens sanctions — instead, it directly executes them. What explains these vague and executed Chinese sanctions?…

China’s defense spending is opaque, and China spends more on defense than its official 2024 defense budget of 1.67 trillion yuan ($232 billion) indicates. Some analysts claim China’s defense spending is equivalent to $700 billion, approaching the level of…

Is statesmanship compatible with constitutional government? Scholars have posited the possibility of “constitutional statesmanship” in America but have done little to probe its historical reality or to evaluate its consequences. To illustrate some of the…

American leaders and scholars have long feared the prospect that hostile foreign powers could subvert democracy by spreading false, misleading, and inflammatory information by using various media. Drawing on both historical experience and empirical literature,…