RealClearDefense Articles

Many have walked the halls of power, but few are deserving of the title of statesman. General Brent Scowcroft, who passed away on August 6, embodied statesmanship and leaves a legacy that will survive his passing to shape U.S. foreign and national security strategy and policy for generations to come. Indeed, the country and the world have lost an historic force for stability and security, a legendary strategist who ended the decades-long Cold War without a shot. Without General Scowcroft’s guidance, the course of history could have been drastically altered. Who knows how the Cold War...

Even the pandemic has the potential for fomenting political unrest. In recent days, thousands of Serbs have taken to the streets to protest Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic’s announced strict curfew in response to a surge in Covid-19 cases. Many have pointed a finger at pro-Russia ultra-right groups and foreign intelligence services for fueling the violent riots. Moscow denies any “Russian trace” in the unrest. Whether Russia is behind the violent protests in Belgrade remains to be seen. One thing is for certain. The Kremlin’s efforts to sow mayhem in the...

U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command’s (TRADOC) Pamphlet 525-3-1, The U.S. Army in Multi-Domain Operations 2028, lays out how the U.S. Army intends to prepare for conventional war, and win, if need be, through devastating multi-domain offense. Multi-Domain Operations (MDO) is an effective operational concept. However, in its current form, it may fail to uphold U.S. strategic interests. In conflict, MDO argues for enhancing and capitalizing on U.S. long-standing offense-based doctrine driven by advantages in precision strike and command and control. Enemy forces would wisely fear...

China’s barricades against foreign tech helped its companiesgrow massive. Now they’re being blocked in other markets. The White House's approach to managing the potential security threats posed by TikTok, WeChat and other Chinese-owned apps is hardly a model of procedural justice. Without a clear legal or regulatory framework, the Trump Administration has issued executive orders banning transactions with the apps’ respective parent companies (Bytedance and Tencent). China’s leaders have not minced words in expressing their displeasure with U.S. actions,...

The Pentagon’s decision to withdraw several thousand troops from Germany, moving some back to the U.S. and others elsewhere in Europe, has engendered much controversy. There is, for example, good reason to argue that it does nothing to strengthen NATO’s forward presence. Yet parts of the plan certainly do make good sense. The redeployment of air assets, for example, would make U.S. presence in Europe more survivable, cost-effective, sustainable and versatile.  For the last seven years, the vast majority of the nearly 5,000 airmen at Spangdahlem AB, Germany, have supported a...

President Vladimir Putin used the July 26, 2020, Navy Day and the Main Navy Parade in St. Petersburg to once again promote Russia’s “superweapons,” which will ostensibly give the Russian Military-Maritime Fleet (Voyenno-Morskoy Flot—VMF) “a unique advantage” over its Western counterparts. According to Putin, “The deployment of advanced technologies that have no equals in the world, including hypersonic strike systems and underwater drones, will increase naval combat capabilities” (Interfax, July 26). The Main Navy Parade displayed some...

Manus Island is a vital strategic location. Why is a Chinese company being paid to upgrade its airfield? Judging by recent satellite imagery, it appears that significant progress is being made on an expansion and upgrade project at Momote Airport, the nearest airfield to Lombrum Naval Base on Manus Island in Papua New Guinea. The runway’s usable length has been extended by about 200 metres, precision landing aids appear to have been added to at least one runway, and the apron area has been expanded significantly, with more work clearly in progress. the interpreter via Googe...

China has dominated the world’s supply of rare-earth elements for decades. Over the past year, however, there has been a growing recognition among the U.S. and its allies (including Australia, South Korea, Japan and India) that sources of critical minerals outside of China need to be secured and that solutions need to be driven by governments rather than market forces, particularly since demand for these materials will skyrocket in the near future. Recent tensions in the Australia–China relationship have made the need to diversify rare-earths production even more pressing. China...

Editor’s Note:  This article is part of our Below Threshold Competition: China writing contest which took place from May 1, 2020 to July 31, 2020.  More information about the contest can be found by clicking here. Matthew F. Smith is an active duty officer in the United States Army. He can be found on Twitter @Matt_F_Smith. The views expressed in this paper represent the personal views of the author and are not necessarily the views of the Department of Defense or of the Department of the Army.  Divergent Options’ content does not contain information of an official...

An explosion at the Natanz nuclear complex on July 2 laid waste to the Iran Centrifuge Assembly Center (ICAC), a workshop designed to mass produce thousands of advanced centrifuges for enriching uranium. Satellite pictures strongly suggest that the blast's cause was a powerful bomb placed at a critical juncture inside the facility. Not implausibly, many experts pointed to Israel—not least because “a Middle Eastern intelligence official,” widely suspected to be Mossad chief Yossi Cohen, told the New York Times that Israel was, in fact, responsible. If true, it’s a...

David J. Trachtenberg is Vice President of the National Institute for Public Policy.  Previously, he served as Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Policy from 2017-2019.  In a series of excellent analyses in the 1970s, strategist Albert Wohlstetter challenged the conventional wisdom that the United States was the leading cause of an arms race with the Soviet Union.[1]  Through a detailed empirical analysis of arms racing dynamics, Wohlstetter demonstrated that the United States was not the instigator of an arms race with the USSR.  Likewise, Colin Gray, in several...

Last month, Prime Minister Abe ignited a trans-Pacific debate over how best to protect Japan from North Korean missile attack by canceling Aegis Ashore—the largest joint missile defense program ever attempted by Washington and Tokyo. Now U.S. and Japanese military planners are scrambling to come up with alternatives, including floating Aegis missile defenses on barges or preemptively attacking North Korean launchers with hypersonic weapons.  The allies’ continued focus on destroying enemy missiles, however, doesn't address the fundamental problem of long-range defenses like...

Vietnam assumed the chair of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations last November for 2020—perhaps the most challenging year ever to take on the role. The Covid-19 pandemic has changed the nature of diplomacy, particularly the somewhat old-fashioned style that ASEAN most favoured: frequent consultations, informal negotiations and confidence building through meetings and retreats—none of which are possible given the restrictions. But an even greater challenge to ASEAN’s usual diplomatic style has been posed by the critical tensions between the United States and China....

The triple crises of geopolitical power shifts, the Covid-19 pandemic and the economic disasters that flow from it will shape global politics, restructure global supply chains and bring an end to unregulated globalisation. The post-pandemic world is yet to take shape, but it’s likely to be as divided and bifurcated as occurred after World War II. We are entering a new cold war with eyes wide open, not sleepwalking into it as some would argue. The vast Indo-Pacific region from the western Pacific to the western Indian Ocean is its ground zero. Every crisis has winners and losers. China...

The CNO challenged the Navy last year with his Frag Order 01/2019, “A Design for Maintaining Maritime Superiority.  This article will examine maritime superiority efforts of both the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the U.S. in recent years, including shipbuilding.  It will also examine ideas on how to pay for future U. S. Navy shipbuilding. China’s Navy.....Seeking Maritime Superiority: The PRC is modernizing virtually every element of its military.  It has plans to field a world-class military by 2035 and a dominant military by mid-century.  One of...

“Vincere!” The Italian Royal Army’s Counterinsurgency Operations in Africa, 1922-1940. Federica Saini Fasanotti. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2020. BUY ON AMAZON On 9 May 1936, after seven months of conventional warfare, the Italian Royal Army seized control of Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, and proudly announced the realization of an Italian empire in the Horn of Africa—Africa Orientale Italiana. In her new book, “Vincere!” The Italian Royal Army’s Counterinsurgency Operations in Africa, 1922-1940, military historian Federica...

In the midst of President Harry Truman’s controversial firing of General Douglas MacArthur during the Korean War, Air Force General George Kenny, who brilliantly led MacArthur’s air force in the Southwest Pacific in World War II, wrote that when the histories of the Korean War are written, they will "add still more to the luster of MacArthur's reputation as a military leader." General Kenny was wrong about historians, who have largely taken Truman’s side in the debate over how to deal with China’s entry into the war. But in a larger geopolitical sense, General Kenny...

In the opening days of the Yom Kippur War, Egypt’s triumph over Israeli forces shocked the world. Soviet-supplied Sagger missiles allowed the Egyptian infantry to outrange the Israeli tank units, securing an initial overwhelming victory. Many military officials saw these missiles as the direct counter to the tank, which appeared on the verge of obsolescence. The Israeli counterstrike, however, disproved these fears. In a combined arms action with infantry providing screening, Egyptian anti-tank weapons faltered. On the modern battlefield, the U.S. Marine Corps currently...

The Current U.S. Security Environment is Ripe for Disruption The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has asserted new pressures on the United States’ national security space due to the exponential nature of biological threats and the lack of a coordinated response. The response has publicly demonstrated the United States’ failure to develop and implement a coherent plan, leading the Trump Administration to cease U.S. funding of the World Health Organization, exposing the Administration’s tendency for harried decision-making processes. More alarming is how the United States’...