Regional Issues - Category External Articles

Regional Issues

China Landpower Studies Center | June 24, 2026

GL-6–Equipped ZTZ-96A Main Battle Tanks Highlight the PLAA’s Emphasis on...

Joaquin Camarena and Anthony Costanzo

China Landpower Studies Center | June 24, 2026

China Maritime Report #55: Loading the Well Deck: The PLA Navy's Maturin...

Since 2023, the People's Liberation Army (PLA) has established an annualized rhythm of loading PLA Army (PLAA) combat, engineering, and support units onto PLA Navy (PLAN) amphibious ships for international exercises. This integration signals a

China Landpower Studies Center | June 22, 2026

Systems Over Steel: How China is Redefining Amphibious Armor Survivability

The contemporary discourse on drone-driven warfare rarely suggests the end of maneuver, but it highlights an increasingly perilous gap between tactical movement and force survivability in a hypertransparent environment. Against this backdrop, the

China Landpower Studies Center | June 5, 2026

The Z-21’s External Fuel Tanks Expand the PLAA’s Planning Options for He...

Joaquin Camarena

China Landpower Studies Center | June 2, 2026

Between Beijing and the Budget: The Domestic Realities of Taiwan’s Defen...

Taiwan's legislature spent six months blocking a major defense budget, then passed a scaled-down version days before the Trump-Xi summit. Jessica C. Liao and Kyle Marcrum argue why the story the US media tells is flawed.

Category: External Articles

China Maritime Report #55: Loading the Well Deck: The PLA Navy's Maturing Role in Projecting Joint Ground Forces
June 24, 2026 — Since 2023, the People's Liberation Army (PLA) has established an annualized rhythm of loading PLA Army (PLAA) combat, engineering, and support units onto PLA Navy (PLAN) amphibious ships for international exercises. This integration signals a maturation in Chinese expeditionary logistics, providing Beijing with the proven framework to project sustained, multi-domain combat mass well beyond its regional periphery... MORE

China Maritime Report #55: Loading the Well Deck: The PLA Navy's Maturing Role in Projecting Joint Ground Forces by Joshua Arostegui

Academic Year 2026–27 Annual Estimate of the Strategic Security Environment
June 22, 2026 — The United States faces a complex and ever-changing global environment. The Annual Estimate of the Strategic Security Environment is designed to guide the collective defense community to research and write about critical national security challenges to prepare the Army for a wide range of potential conflicts and threats... MORE

Slide for Academic Year 2026–27 Annual Estimate of the Strategic Security Environment

Systems Over Steel: How China is Redefining Amphibious Armor Survivability
June 22, 2026 — The contemporary discourse on drone-driven warfare rarely suggests the end of maneuver, but it highlights an increasingly perilous gap between tactical movement and force survivability in a hypertransparent environment. Against this backdrop, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s sustained commitment to amphibious armor invites examination of how a high-end force intends to bridge that gap in the contested littoral space... MORE

Systems Over Steel: How China is Redefining Amphibious Armor Survivability by Joshua Arostegui, published by the Modern War Institute at West Point

Between Beijing and the Budget: The Domestic Realities of Taiwan’s Defense Spending Drama
June 2, 2026 — Taiwan's legislature spent six months blocking a major defense budget, then passed a scaled-down version days before the Trump-Xi summit. Jessica C. Liao and Kyle Marcrum argue why the story the US media tells is flawed... MORE

Slide for Between Beijing and the Budget: The Domestic Realities of Taiwan’s Defense Spending Drama, by Jessica C. Liao and Kyle Marcrum

Decoding China’s 15th Five-Year Plan
May 15, 2026 — China’s latest Five-Year Plan signals that it has become more pessimistic about the global environment, seeing it as uncertain and unstable. However, the Chinese Communist Party sees opportunity in that instability to promote the Community of Common Destiny, their new model of global governance. The Five-Year Plan also signals that the Chinese will continue to use the United Nations to advance this new global governance system... MORE

Slide for Decoding China’s 15th Five-Year Plan by COL Kyle Marcrum, published by the Foreign Policy Research Institute

Taking a Toll: How Allowing Iran to Charge for Transit in the Strait of Hormuz Could Undermine US Strategy in the Pacific and Beyond
May 11, 2026 — In April, Iran began charging ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz a “toll” for safe passage. By itself, this represents a dangerous new dynamic in the Middle East that may have begun with the Houthis in Yemen as early as 2024, wherein parties extort international commerce by imposing fees in exchange for safe transit as part of their war effort. Although some countries have agreed to pay Iran’s fees, many countries such as the United Kingdom as well as organizations, including one representing the majority of tanker firms, have condemned it... MORE

Just Security: Taking a Toll slide By Daphné Richemond-Barak and Jacob Stoil

China Maritime Report #53: Filling the Ranks: China's Military Recruiting System and the PLA Navy
May 6, 2026 — This report outlines People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) recruiting processes within the overarching context of China’s military personnel accession systems. Within China, most recruitment, mobilization, and service assignment of military personnel is managed through a centralized national military service system, with individual services retaining some recruitment authorities for officers, sergeants, and civilians. It is not possible to effectively discuss Navy recruitment without understanding this overarching system. ... MORE

Slide for China Maritime Report #53: Filling the Ranks: China's Military Recruiting System and the PLA Navy by Erin Richter and Joshua Arostegui

Can AI Pass the US Army War College?
April 29, 2026 — The US Army War College oral comprehensive examination serves as the institution’s capstone, measuring its senior officers’ strategic thinking. In early 2026, three faculty panels applied that standard to four leading commercial artificial intelligence (AI) systems: ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and Grok. Prompted without core curriculum materials, all four models passed. Unlike static benchmarks, the examination’s impromptu dialogue format revealed meaningful performance differences that were invisible in general-purpose evaluations, with one model performing at a statistically significant advantage. These findings challenge how the Department of War assesses commercial AI for strategic applications and point toward domain-specific, dialogue-based benchmarking as a more rigorous standard... MORE

Parameters Now: Can AI Pass the US Army War College? by Kevin M. Boyce, John A. Nagl, and Kristan J. Wheaton

What is Strategic Rivalry? Why Should We Care?
April 9, 2026 — The states most likely to draw America into its next major crisis or war are not unknowns. They are the usual suspects: The same handful of states that have threatened the United States repeatedly across decades. Interstate rivals have caused roughly 80 percent of history’s wars and the odds of any given rivalry ending peacefully are little better than a coin toss. Yet America’s key strategy documents since the 2017 National Security Strategy have used phrases like great power competition, interstate strategic competition, and strategic competition without acknowledging the essential difference between a competition and a rivalry... MORE

Slide for the external article What is Strategic Rivalry? Why Should We Care?

Fighting for Intelligence in Large-Scale Combat Operations: The Role of the Intelligence and Electronic Warfare Battalion–Next
March 3, 2026 — This article contends the US Army’s proposed intelligence and electronic warfare battalion–next concept constitutes an organizational solution essential for achieving intelligence dominance in large-scale combat operations. Transcending legacy formations that are predicated on specific intelligence disciplines, this innovative design furnishes a functionally oriented, modular, and layered architecture that affords the requisite analytic capabilities, agility, and endurance for the contemporary battlefield. The analysis incorporates lessons extracted from the Russia-Ukraine War, US Army experimental endeavors, assessments of peer threats, and doctrinal evolutions, thereby providing readers of US Army War College Press publications with vital insights into how the Army is adapting to the future of warfare... MORE

Slide far Fighting for Intelligence in Large-Scale Combat Operations: The Role of the Intelligence and Electronic Warfare Battalion–Next