Regional Issues - Category External Articles

Regional Issues

China Landpower Studies Center | May 22, 2026

“An Enviable Position in the Pacific,” an interview with GEN Xavier Brunson

Guest host Tom Spahr interviews General Xavier Brunson, Commander United Nations Command, ROK-U.S. Combined Forces Command, and United States Forces Korea (UNC/CFC/USFK). They discuss Korea, the Indo-Pacific, and mission command.

China Landpower Studies Center | May 20, 2026

Corruption and PLA Generals

Rick Gunnell

China Landpower Studies Center | May 15, 2026

Decoding China’s 15th Five-Year Plan

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

China Landpower Studies Center | May 14, 2026

Taiwan’s Special Defense Budget and KMT Trip to Beijing, Part 2

In part two of this two-part episode, COL Kyle Marcrum and Dr. Jessica Liao discuss Taiwan President Lai’s special defense budget and the Kuomingdang Chair, Cheng Li-wun, visit to Beijing.

China Landpower Studies Center | May 13, 2026

Taiwan’s Special Defense Budget and KMT Trip to Beijing, Part 1

In part one of this two-part episode, COL Kyle Marcrum and Dr. Jessica Liao discuss Taiwan President Lai’s special defense budget and why it is stalled in Taiwan’s Legislative Yuan.

Category: External Articles

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

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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

Is there still a Path for an International Security Force in Gaza
February 26, 2026 — The US twenty-point peace plan that marked the end of Gaza War created an opportunity to break the... MORE

MITVIM article - Is there still a Path for an International Security Force in Gaza

If China Attacks Taiwan: Beijing Risks Social Instability in a Conflict
February 4, 2026 — A conversation between Dr. Sheena Chestnut Greitens, Dr. Jake Rinaldi, and Bonnie Glaser on the risk of domestic social instability for Beijing if China attacked Taiwan. A podcast from The German Marshall Fund of the United States... MORE

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If China Attacks Taiwan: Beijing Risks Social Instability in a Conflict

Can the 15th Five-Year Plan Fix the People’s Liberation Army’s Procurement Bottlenecks?
January 14, 2026 — China’s newly released 15th Five-Year Plan (2026–2030) proposal, unveiled after the Fourth Party Plenum in October 2025, not only marks Beijing’s quest to achieve the People’s Liberation Army’s goal of building a so-called world-class military by 2049. As the last major planning cycle before the 2035 benchmark for “basically achieving full modernization,” the plan also reaffirms General Secretary Xi Jinping’s core priorities: operational efficiency, technological self-reliance, and the Chinese Communist Party’s absolute command... MORE

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A Human-Centric Framework: Employment Principles for Lethal Autonomous Weapons
January 12, 2026 — As lethal autonomous weapon systems become a battlefield reality, the Department of War must establish unambiguous employment criteria to allow war fighters to use these controversial systems ethically and responsibly. The updated policy should shift the conversation from the weapon system to humans by defining pre-deployment judgment and emphasizing accountability... MORE

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