If You Build It, They Will Lose: Competing With China Requires New Information Warfare Tools

CIMSEC – Great Power Competition will dominate our military’s focus for the foreseeable future and the Information Warfare Community, including Naval Intelligence, must adjust accordingly. Understanding that China intends to enhance its military modernization efforts with AI, that it thinks differently about warfare in the 21stcentury, and that we need to modify our own warfare model to effectively respond, the Information Warfare Community’s newfound status should elevate new technologies into our Navy’s decision-making and combat DNA.

How Franco-Australian Cooperation Can Help Stabilize the Into-Pacific

War on the Rocks – Last November, a Royal Australian Navy base near Perth was the port of call for an unusual patrol composed of two French ships, the nuclear-powered attack submarine Emeraude and the support and assistance vessel Seine. The French patrol trained with the Australian navy before sailing to the South China Sea, where it served as part of France’s efforts to challenge China’s sweeping maritime claims in the region. In addition to serving as another example of France’s ambition to be a real player in the Indo-Pacific, this long-distance and long-duration deployment demonstrated the growing importance of French-Australian cooperation.

Pier Competitor: Testimony on China’s Global Ports

US Naval War College Review – The United States–China Economic and Security Review Commission convened a daylong hearing on the global power-projection capabilities of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) on 20 February 2020. What follows is a version of the testimony with which the author responded to the commission’s questions on Chinese bases and access points, drawing on an original data set of the ninety-five overseas port terminals that Chinese firms—primarily three entities, two of which are central state–owned enterprises—own, operate, or both.

War Studies Primer

We invite you to try War Studies Primer – an introductory course on the study of war and military history. Its purpose is to provide an introduction to the study of war.

War Studies Primer is presented as a lecture curriculum at the university level. It is a free, non-credit, self-study course that consists of 28 topics and over 1,900 slides and is updated on a yearly basis.

Look at slides 2 and 3 in the War Studies Primer for its Table of Contents, and then choose a lecture to read and enjoy.

The Coastwatchers: Intelligence Lessons Learned For the Future Single Naval Battle

CIMSEC – The historic success of the Coastwatchers provides valuable insight for naval intelligence in the future single naval battle. Proactive intelligence, multi-domain intelligence, and local access and support remain necessary for an effective naval intelligence operation. Naval forces will grow stronger through these lessons as the world’s security environment becomes more complex and dynamic. The future challenge is to harmonize these lessons into a single integrated naval force. As the naval force tackles this and other challenges, remember the Coastwatchers.

The Longest Telegram: A Visionary Blueprint For the Comprehensive Grand Strategy Against China We Need

War on the Rocks – In February 1946, the diplomat George Kennan — then serving as charge d’affaires at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow — authored a 5,000-word telegram analyzing the sources of Soviet conduct and laying out the case for what would become the Cold War strategy of containment. Seventy-five years later, as the United States enters a new era of great-power competition with the People’s Republic of China, War on the Rocks is pleased to publish a landmark essay in this same tradition by acclaimed international relations strategist and renowned Sinologist C. Lea Shea, drawing on his decades of scholarship and service in Democratic and Republican administrations alike.

Calling in Thunder: Naval Intelligence Enabling Precision Long-Range Fires

CIMSEC – The Naval Information Warfare Community has been a cornerstone of every decisive point in every major naval battle in history. Despite this pedigree, GPC has placed an exciting challenge on the NIWC. To deter and win a GPC fight in 2035 and beyond, the NIWC must evolve to meet the challenge. To embrace the problems of the future, the NIWC must build a force that can integrate with the most important disruptive technologies like AI, train the force to quickly integrate and employ those technologies, and to acquire those technologies at the right pace.