Recent Publications

The Implications of Preemptive and Preventive War Doctrines: A Reconsideration
July 1, 2007 — Author: Dr Colin S Gray Preemption and prevention are different concepts. To preempt is to attempt to strike first against an enemy who is in the process of preparing, or is actually launching, an attack against you. Preemption is not controversial. The decision for war has been taken out of your hands. Prevention, however, is a decision to wage... MORE

Knowing when to Salute
July 1, 2007 — Author: Prof Douglas C Lovelace Jr, Dr Leonard Wong Each month a member of the SSI faculty writes an editorial for our monthly newsletter. This is the Op-Ed for the July 2007 newsletter.Read Now MORE

Rethinking Insurgency
June 1, 2007 — Author: Dr Steven Metz The U.S. military and national security community lost interest in insurgency after the end of the Cold War when other defense issues such as multinational peacekeeping and transformation seemed more pressing. With the onset of the Global War on Terror in 2001 and the ensuing involvement of the U.S. military in... MORE

Political Trends in the New Eastern Europe: Ukraine and Belarus
June 1, 2007 — Author: Dr Arkady Moshes, Dr Vitali Silitski This monograph contains two individual reports: Belarus and Russia: Comradeship-in-Arms in Preempting Democracy by Dr. Vitali Silitski and Ukraine: Domestic Changes and Foreign Policy Reconfiguration by Dr. Arkady Moshes. Belarus remains the last true dictatorship in Europe, and as such, its internal and... MORE

Treating Allies as Allies in the Arab World
June 1, 2007 — Author: Dr W Andrew Terrill Each month a member of the SSI faculty writes an editorial for our monthly newsletter. This is the Op-Ed for the June 2007 newsletter.Read Now MORE

China’s Nuclear Forces: Operations, Training, Doctrine, Command, Control and Campaign Planning
May 1, 2007 — Author: Dr Larry M Wortzel Recent books and journal articles published in China provide new insights into nuclear doctrine, operations, training, and the employment of the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) strategic rocket forces. The major insights come from exploiting sections of a doctrinal text published for PLA institutions of higher military... MORE

Strategic Competition and Resistance in the 21st Century: Irregular, Catastrophic, Traditional, and Hybrid Challenges in Context
May 1, 2007 — Author: Mr Nathan P Freier The 2005 National Defense Strategy introduced the now prolific concept of the four challenges--traditional, irregular, catastrophic, and disruptive. Reference to the challenges is now an essential feature of defense deliberations. Yet in spite of the concept’s central place in the defense debates in and out of government,... MORE

Ukraine’s Military Between East and West
May 1, 2007 — Author: Prof Marybeth Peterson Ulrich America’s new allies in Central and Eastern Europe have been struggling with defense reform since the end of the Cold War. Only recently since the Orange Revolution has Ukraine’s national political and military leadership seriously engaged the process of radical and comprehensive defense reform. This monograph... MORE

Manning the Force
May 1, 2007 — Author: Dr Douglas V Johnson II Each month a member of the SSI faculty writes an editorial for our monthly newsletter. This is the Op-Ed for the May 2007 newsletter.Read Now MORE

Roots of Terror
May 1, 2007 — Author: Ms Corinna Johnson Many of the traditional processes used to identify and prosecute terrorists operate at a pace too slow to keep up with terrorists’ ability to change and reorganize. Terrorists have adopted structurally independent modes of organization in diverse environments; counterterrorism policies must adopt methods to track... MORE

Global Climate Change: National Security Implications
May 1, 2007 — Author: Dr Douglas V Johnson II On March 29-31, 2007, the Strategic Studies Institute and the Triangle Institute for Security Studies conducted a colloquium on “Global Climate Change: National Security Implications.” Other supporting organizations included the Army Environmental Policy Institute, The Center for Global Change (Duke University),... MORE

Russian-American Security Cooperation after St. Petersburg
April 1, 2007 — Author: Dr Richard Weitz Until Russia and the United States experience a change on government in 2008, the prospects for additional strategic arms control agreements, limits on destabilizing military operations, and joint ballistic missile defense programs appear unlikely. Yet, near-term opportunities for collaboration in the areas of cooperative... MORE