Scholar
The Truth About Tripwires: Why Small Force Deployments Do Not Deter Aggression
A pillar of American grand strategy since 1945 has been the deployment of forces — sometimes smaller and sometimes larger — abroad. A key logic underpinning smaller deployments is that they serve as tripwires: Attacking them is assumed to inevitably…
An Episode of Existential Uncertainty: The Ontological Security Origins of the War in Donbas
Despite the fact that the war in eastern Ukraine has been ongoing for over seven years, there remains no satisfactory answer as to what prompted Moscow to invade Donbas in the first place. Explanations range from materialist to ideational — however, none get…
Keeping Norms Normal: Ancient Perspectives on Norms in Civil-Military Relations
The norms that uphold democratic values are a vital part of a healthy system of civil-military relations, but they are not well understood in the United States today. Ancient political philosophers, however, developed rich analyses of what norms are and how…
The Future of Sino-U.S. Proxy War
Strategic thought in both the United States and China has focused on the potential for a Sino-U.S. interstate war and downplayed the odds of a clash in a foreign internal conflict. However, great-power military competition is likely to take the form of proxy…
From Citizen Soldier to Secular Saint: The Societal Implications of Military Exceptionalism
For nearly 40 years, the American public has placed extraordinary trust and confidence in the military, celebrating heroism and service in diverse venues ranging from religious services to theme parks to sporting events. Survey after survey has shown that…
The Gulf War’s Afterlife: Dilemmas, Missed Opportunities, and the Post-Cold War Order Undone
The Gulf War is often remembered as a “good war,” a high-tech conflict that quickly and cleanly achieved its objectives. Yet, new archival evidence sheds light on the extended fallout from the war and challenges this neat narrative. The Gulf War left…
What Is a Cyber Warrior? The Emergence of U.S. Military Cyber Expertise, 1967–2018
How have military cyber operations, a diverse set of activities that often differ little from civilian cyber security work, achieved the status of “warfighting”? What activities have the greatest warfighting status, what activities have the least, and why?…
Citizens, Suspects, and Enemies: Examining Police Militarization
Concern about the increasing militarization of police has grown in recent years. Much of this concern focuses on the material aspects of militarization: the greater use of military equipment and tactics by police officers. While this development deserves…
A Crisis of Diverging Perspectives: U.S.-Russian Relations and the Security Dilemma
Aspects of the relationship between Russia and the United States can be conceptualized as a security dilemma. Each side perceives a serious threat from the other and takes countermeasures that further provoke insecurity for the adversary. Bilateral ties have…
France’s War in the Sahel and the Evolution of Counter-Insurgency Doctrine
Criticism of French military operations in the Sahel region of Africa raises questions about the French army’s heritage of colonial and counter-insurgency (COIN) operations and its relevance today. The French army is heir to practices and doctrines that…
Preparing the Cyber Battlefield: Assessing a Novel Escalation Risk in a Sino-American Crisis
Do cyber capabilities create novel risks of a future political crisis between the United States and China escalating into a conflict? This article outlines one potential pathway for interstate crises to escalate: the use of force in response to adversary…
The Escalation Inversion and Other Oddities of Situational Cyber Stability
As the United States shifts to a new military strategy of defending forward against adversaries in cyberspace, research into the role of cyber capabilities in crisis stability is especially relevant. This paper introduces the concept of situational cyber…