Recent Publications

On Today's Recruiting Crisis
December 21, 2023 — Dr. Conrad C. Crane and Dr. Brian McAllister Linn address the Army’s recruiting crisis—especially for combat arms. Talent management was identified as an issue for the Army in 1907 in a General Staff report and continues to be a challenge. The results of the President’s Commission on an All-Volunteer Force in 1970 may have complicated matters further... MORE

“Ambivalent Balancer in the Middle East and Beyond”
December 15, 2023 — This podcast enters the debate on American grand strategy by questioning the logic underpinning offshore balancing. It concludes that the United States is an ambivalent balancer due to the stopping power of water. It builds on the relevant literature in international relations, producing a novel set of theoretical propositions that are applied to the contemporary Middle East. There and elsewhere,... MORE

"Deterring Russian Nonstrategic Nuclear Weapons A Revised Approach"
December 7, 2023 — A change in deterrence thought and strategy is necessary to avoid nuclear escalation in armed conflict with Russia. Traditional threat-based deterrence strategies will not be successful, and a new strategy must address the conditions that might cause Russian leadership to employ nuclear weapons. An examination of the Able Archer 83 exercise using an original framework highlights the ways Russian interests ... MORE

Americans and the Dragon: Lessons in Coalition Warfighting from the Boxer Uprising
December 5, 2023 — Drawing from archival materials at the US Army Heritage and Education Center and the United States Military Academy at West Point, numerous published primary sources, and a range of secondary sources, this monograph offers an overview of the China Relief Expedition from June 1900 to the moment of liberation in August. Its considerations range from the geopolitical to the strategic... MORE

Ukraine's Lessons for Future Combat: Unmanned Aerial Systems and Deep Strike
November 30, 2023 — The Russia-Ukraine War holds many lessons for the US Army and American policymakers and leaders on the nature and role of reconnaissance-strike complexes in modern combat, especially Ukraine’s development of a battle-management system that uses unmanned aerial systems and satellite reconnaissance to enable the fire coordination for deep strikes into the enemy rear. In the research presented here ... MORE

“Was the Russian Invasion of Ukraine a Failure of Western Deterrence?"
November 22, 2023 — In February 2022, many observers initially evaluated the Russian invasion of Ukraine as a failure of Western deterrence. That assessment was and is flawed inasmuch as the West never articulated a clear strategy to deter such an invasion. Engaging with relevant conceptual debates about how deterrence works and relating this information to what the West did and did not do in the run-up to the invasion, this article shows that... MORE

On The Annual Estimate of the Strategic Security Environment
November 22, 2023 — The Annual Estimate of the Strategic Security Environment serves as a guide for academics and practitioners in the defense community on the current challenges and opportunities in the strategic environment. This year’s publication outlines key strategic issues across the four broad themes of Regional Challenges and Opportunities, Domestic Challenges, Institutional Challenges, and Domains Impacting US Strategic... MORE

Revisiting “Diverging Interests: US Strategy in the Middle East”
November 20, 2023 — The October 2023 attacks on Israel by Hamas are only the latest in a series of global crises with implications for the regional order in the Middle East. These changes and the diverging interests of actors in the region have implications for US strategy and provide an opportunity to rethink key US relationships there... MORE

The Impact of Antarctic Treaty Challenges on the US Military
November 17, 2023 — The Antarctic Treaty of 1961 largely prevented conflicts on the continent, but growing pressure on the treaty system could affect the global community and the United States. This article utilizes historical documents and press reports to examine these challenges, which include ice deterioration, unreported and unregulated fishing, resource extraction preparation, and hostilities between treaty members... MORE

Urban Resistance to Occupation: An Underestimated Element of Land Warfare`
November 16, 2023 — Due to a global trend toward urbanization and Russian and Chinese aggression toward Ukraine and Taiwan, respectively, urban resistance to occupation merits greater study. The research here presents a much-needed and unique analysis of Dutch-language primary sources on the Netherlands’ World War II urban resistance to occupation. It provides deeper insights into the occupation experiences of a highly urbanized... MORE

The Strategic Importace of Tawian to the United States and Its Allies: Part Two
October 30, 2023 — Taiwan has become increasingly important to the United States and its allies as the Russia-Ukraine War has united democracies against authoritarian expansionism and indeed has developed an international democracy-authoritarianism dynamic in global affairs. Part one of this article clearly outlined the geopolitical, economic, and soft-power reasons why Taiwan is strategically important. Part two reviews the development... MORE

US-Russia Foreign Policy: Confronting Russia’s Geographic Anxieties
October 16, 2023 — The United States must place Russia’s focus on geographic concerns at the center of future strategy development to build a constructive relationship with Russia and achieve US regional goals. This article analyzes Russia’s geography and historical impact on Russian foreign policy, outlines Moscow’s current foreign policy goals, and highlights underlying concerns for US policymakers and military practitioners... MORE