Recent Publications

Parameters | Summer 2025
June 18, 2025 — Welcome to the Summer 2025 issue of Parameters. This issue consists of an In Focus special commentary, three forums (Indo-Pacific Challenges, Russia-Ukraine Issues, and Historical Studies)... MORE

More Than a Numbers Game: Comparing US and Chinese Landpower in the Pacific Requires Context
July 22, 2025 — As the US Army organizes, trains, and equips for an unforeseen future, service decisions should create or amplify relative operational advantages over the US military’s rising foe—the People’s Liberation Army. Discerning critical differences between American and Chinese land forces is a prerequisite for such efforts... MORE

Slide for More Than a Numbers Game: Comparing US and Chinese Landpower in the Pacific Requires Context

Weaponizing Risk: Recalibrating Western Deterrence
July 22, 2025 — Can NATO increase the risks and costs of war for an adversary without unduly raising the alliance’s own? Can the alliance strengthen the credibility of NATO’s extended deterrence through a proxy strategy of “waging war without going to war”? ... MORE

Slide for Weaponizing Risk: Recalibrating Western Deterrence

Integrating Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning Technologies into Common Operating Picture and Course of Action Development
July 15, 2025 — Explore artificial intelligence’s potential for military planning! This study examines how artificial intelligence and machine learning can enhance the US Army’s common operational picture and course of action development. Learn how advanced technologies streamline decision making, improve situational awareness, and tackle resource challenges for the modern battlefield... MORE

Slide for Integrating Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning Technologies into Common Operating Picture and Course of Action Development

Academic Year 2025–26 Annual Estimate of the Strategic Security Environment
July 9, 2025 — 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 help the Army prepare for a wide range of potential conflicts and threats... MORE

Slide for the Academic Year 2025–26 Annual Estimate of the Strategic Security Environment

Thompson’s Rifle Battalion: The Original Unit of the Army of the United Colonies (Now the United States Regular Army)
April 22, 2025 — Why is 1775 depicted on the official flag of the US Army? Why did Congress form the Pennsylvania Rifle Battalion as the first non-militia unit in the army of the United Colonies? Who was the battalion’s commander, William Thompson? What happened to Thompson and his rifle battalion during the rest of the American Revolution?... MORE

Thompson’s Rifle Battalion: The Original Unit of the Army of the United Colonies (Now the United States Regular Army) | John A. Bonin

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

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

Toward a More Effective DoD Contribution to Strategic Competition in the Western Hemisphere
February 21, 2025 — Innovative new thinking is needed on the security challenges the People’s Republic of China poses in Latin America and the Department of Defense’s role in the US response, including (1) enhanced security cooperation that helps key democratic partners succeed and provides the United States leverage and situational awareness, and (2) anticipating how the People’s Republic of China may exploit its commercial and other activities in the region in times of war... MORE

Toward a More Effective DoD Contribution to Strategic Competition in the Western Hemisphere | R. Evan Ellis

Assessing the Effectiveness of US Army Campaigning in the Indo-Pacific
January 8, 2025 — Applying the military instrument of power is essential to deterrence and assurance in the Indo-Pacific. This essay explores the underappreciated application of Landpower in this critical region and assesses the effects of a few activities that assure allies and partners and deter the People’s Republic of China. The discreet examples in this short article hopefully provide a better foundation for understanding military dynamics in the region and allow for better future assessments of integrated deterrence efforts... MORE

Assessing the Effectiveness of US Army Campaigning in the Indo-Pacific | Colonel Richard D. Butler and Jimmy Bell

China’s Next Step in Modernizing the People’s Liberation Army: A New Reserve Service System
December 5, 2024 — The Chinese Communist Party’s massive active-duty army—the largest in the world—understates the manpower available to the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) during a future protracted war. Despite the hundreds of thousands of combat troops garrisoned around the country, a prolonged war of attrition will require more than movement of forces from one side of the country to another... MORE

China’s Next Step in Modernizing the People’s Liberation Army: A New Reserve Service System | Joshua M. Arostegui

Pretexts for War and the Preinvasion Crisis in Ukraine
December 5, 2024 — The US strategy in the run-up to the invasion of Ukraine appeared to undermine Russian efforts to justify the war. While studies of international crises typically focus on the goals of deterrence and escalation management, recent events in Ukraine show that counterjustification is another important objective. Russia used covert activities and deception to try and create a pretext for its invasion, and the United States aggressively countered these efforts... MORE

Pretexts for War and the Preinvasion Crisis in Ukraine | Ron Gurantz