Recent Publications

Parameters | Spring 2025
March 20, 2025 — Welcome to the Spring 2025 issue of Parameters. This issue consists of an In Focus special commentary, three forums (Russia, Ukraine, and NATO; Strategic Competition and Managing National Security; and Joint Sustainment Strategies), the regular Civil-Military Relations Corner installment, and a review essay... MORE

Amid Trump Tariffs, Where Do China-Mexico Ties Stand?
March 24, 2025 — Mexico’s government is attempting to downplay its relationship with China to avoid Trump’s ire, but ties continue beneath the surface. In the beginning of March 2025, I traveled to Mexico to speak with a range of officials and experts about activities by the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and its companies in the country, among other topics.In... MORE

Amid Trump Tariffs, Where Do China-Mexico Ties Stand? | R. Evan Ellis

North Korea in Ukraine: Analyzing Authoritarian Cooperation
March 18, 2025 — The deployment of North Korean forces to Ukraine marks a critical inflection point in global security dynamics, challenging long-held assumptions about the limits of cooperation between authoritarian states. This development, unprecedented in its implications, reveals even absent formal alliances or ideological cohesion, the strategic realignment among authoritarian states has the potential to reshape the global order and future conflicts... MORE

North Korea in Ukraine: Analyzing Authoritarian Cooperation
Jake Rinaldi

The Panama Canal
February 28, 2025 — In this episode, Dr. R. Evan Ellis discusses the Panama Canal, including its history and significance to the United States, China’s involvement in the region, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s visit to Panama in February 2025.Keywords: Panama Canal, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, China, trade, President Jimmy CarterTranscriptThis podcast was... MORE

Conversations on Strategy Podcast Episode 56

Assessing the Zeitenwende
February 27, 2025 — Table of Contents... MORE

Assessing the Zeitenwende
February 27, 2025 — Acknowledgments, Foreword, Summary, Executive Summary ... MORE

Assessing the Zeitenwende
February 27, 2025 — On February 24, 2022, Russia unleashed a brutal escalation of what is now its 10-year war with Ukraine, which began in 2014 with the partial occupation of the Donets Basin and the illegal annexation of Crimea. The 2022 invasion expanded the war into Europe’s largest since World War II. Advancing on Ukraine along multiple axes, roughly 120,000 Russian troops poured across the border from the north, east, southeast, and south, wreaking death and destruction indiscriminately on military personnel and civilians... MORE

Reichstagsgebäude (Berlin) kurz vor herbstlichem Sonnenuntergan [Reichstag building (Berlin) shortly before autumn sunset]

Assessing the Zeitenwende
February 27, 2025 — In June 2023, Germany released its first-ever National Security Strategy (NSS), making it, along with Italy, one of the last Group of Seven countries to produce such a document. For many years, calls were made for a national-level security policy document. Nevertheless, all the calls were ignored by the German government and the German chancellery, the most important actor in this process. Only in 2021 did the topic get picked up again. The coalition treaty of the new government, succeeding Angela Merkel after 16 years in power, pledged to work toward an NSS during its electoral mandate. Nevertheless, the Ampelkoalition government probably would not have committed to its pledge without Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Indeed, writing the NSS became part and parcel of the Zeitenwende. The strategy document was meant to codify many of the security policy and doctrine changes Germany would undertake. ... MORE

Business success concept with chessboard on wooden and foggy background side view. man placing figure on pyramid of blocks.

Assessing the Zeitenwende
February 27, 2025 — The Zeitenwende has been warmly welcomed in Washington. For American policymakers, the changes in German approaches toward defense spending, energy security, and Russia more broadly have all been exceedingly positive. For some American officials, the changes might even be viewed as necessary. For the last several years, the United States has been increasingly clear about the necessity of having willing and able allies by its side for the purpose of strategic competition with Russia and China, as well as for managing transnational challenges such as terrorism. United States (US) strategies characterize allies as a comparative advantage—something American adversaries lack—or even an irreplaceable component of Washington’s approach. Germany, given its leading role in Europe, plays a key role in the constellation of American allies worldwide... MORE

Assessing the Zeitenwende
February 27, 2025 — The renewed and large-scale Russian attack on Ukraine that started on February 24, 2022, necessitates a fundamental rethinking of Germany’s defense policy. Therefore, this chapter analyzes to what extent Germany’s defense approach, especially in the realm of conventional capabilities and capacities, has been adjusted, and analyzes whether speaking of a real turning point (Zeitenwende) is fitting three years after its announcement, or whether Berlin is still in the process of undergoing a fundamental transformation... MORE

A German Army Leopard II tank, assigned to 104th Panzer Battalion, moves through the Joint Multinational Readiness Center during Saber Junction 2012 in Hohenfels, Germany, Oct. 25. The U.S. Army Europe's exercise Saber Junction trains U.S. personnel and 1800 multinational partners from 18 nations ensuring multinational interoperability and an agile, ready coalition force.

Assessing the Zeitenwende
February 27, 2025 — A Zeitenwende in German defense policy is inconceivable without a Zeitenwende for Germany’s defense industry. Such a paradigm shift must first and foremost include a sustained and predictable increase in spending levels, but it entails much more than defense budgets. Germany’s relationship with its defense industry needs to undergo a broader cultural transformation and Berlin must adopt a more strategic approach to defense-industrial policy at the national and European levels. ... MORE

Ammunition is organized, May 22, while soldiers from the Georgia Nations Guard and soldiers from the Georgian military train together on mid-range weapons and machine guns at Exercise Noble Partner 16.

Assessing the Zeitenwende
February 27, 2025 — Russian fossil fuels underpinned decades of German economic success by providing a competitive edge for industry and a seemingly reliable energy supplier in Russia. The latter became a working assumption that was supported by political and business stakeholders. Energy relations with Russia underwrote German strategic decision making, even after Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014. These energy relations changed in February 2022 when Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Such irrefutable hostility forced Berlin to place energy at the heart of the Zeitenwende... MORE

LNG tanker, GULF ENERGY - IMO 7390143, at anchor in the Karmsundet Strait beside Bukkøy Island. Haugesund, Rogaland Sounty, Norway. on May 20, 2023. While this tanker is being maintained, it has been anchored at this location for some time.