Modern War Institute – Political and defense leadership among the world’s most powerful democracies is coming to terms with the rise of China and what it means for our shared future. The United States, NATO, and Asian democracies should collectively harden infrastructure and supply chains to prepare for a generations-long standoff with an ambitious China that acts with strategic foresight and intends to increase its global influence and force projection. 

CIMSEC – Perhaps the great irony of contemporary American political economy is that many of the proponents of MMT are also the biggest critics of the other aspects of U.S. power that make MMT possible. 

1945 – James Holmes writes that Taiwan can take a pass on nuclear weapons—and husband defenses better suited to the strategic surroundings.

Modern War Institute – NATO is the most formidable military alliance in the world, capable of deploying and sustaining forces anywhere around the globe—an unprecedented degree of power projection. However, analyzing the contemporary geopolitical situation in the eastern Mediterranean shows that NATO is only one of the key players. Russia has strategically acquired the lion’s share of political and military influence in Syria and Libya, while also gradually empowering a potential rift in the alliance, enticing Turkey to change its course and drift away from the West. This fact is in stark contrast with basic NATO principles and goals, as dominance in the Mediterranean is critically vital to Europe’s stability and prosperity. 

CIGI – Nuclear submarines are first among the pact’s initiatives. But security collaboration between Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States will also extend to advanced technology, cybersecurity and defence cooperation more broadly.

IISS – For European powers, AUKUS raises uncomfortable questions about their willingness and capacity to contribute to a hard-power response in the Indo-Pacific. As Tim Huxley and Ben Schreer argue, their policies of strategic ambiguity will become increasingly difficult to sustain.

War on the Rocks – To effectively defend its security interests and shape the strategic environment in the interim, Canberra needs a more active strategy to deter China’s gray-zone coercion now. The United States and Australia should pursue this together.

Nikkei Asia – The abrupt U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, and the American public’s quickly fading support for military endeavors in the greater Middle East, could send the wrong message to Beijing and push it to take action in Taiwan, historian Niall Ferguson told Nikkei in an interview.

StrategyBridge – China is infusing support into the Pacific island countries via Belt and Road Initiatives, mainly infrastructure, revealing China’s desire to influence its security posture in the South Pacific. China, like the U.S., recognizes the strategic geographic value of the region and is actively investing in the region. This is a threat to the U.S. influence and values in the region.

New Statesman – For decades, the West has ignored the significance of China’s rise – but we must recognise that it will be instrumental in all our futures

Foreign Affairs – How Chinese Grand Strategy exploits U.S. power.

The Economist – A favourable geography gives the United States many advantages over its rivals, including the freedom to make calamitous mistakes.

War on the Rocks – What are the Chinese Communist Party’s intentions? Does it seek to turn China into the hegemon of Asia and a global superpower? Or does it just aim to stay in power by whatever means necessary? Unfortunately, U.S. policymakers and analysts haven’t come to an agreement on how to answer these questions. That’s a problem, because China’s intentions ought to shape how the United States develops its strategy toward the Indo-Pacific.

USNI Proceedings – Continental powers covet conquests; Maritime powers compound wealth.

War on the Rocks – Despite the Biden administration’s growing interest in Oceania, the U.S. government does not have a comprehensive strategy for the Pacific island nations, and time is running out.

War on the Rocks – The lack of convergence in the interests of Mauritius, the United Kingdom, the United States, and India has produced a stalemate over the status of the Chagos Archipelago. 

Strategy Bridge – While a global superpower like the United States is capable of rapidly deploying small forces abroad, the logistical demands of sustaining such a force incurs greater costs and requires greater international acquiescence than that of a state within the same region. Thus, it remains an imperative that the United States cultivate and support regional allies as meaningful security partners, a fact made even more crucial as it enters a new era of great power rivalry.

StrategyBridge – The conventional wisdom in Washington today is that China is committed to achieving global supremacy. But that conventional wisdom is built on the dubious assumption that China’s economic growth of the past several decades will continue unabated into the future. The reality, however, is quite different. China is not destined to continue its meteoric rise as an economic power. Indeed, China’s economy is already beginning to stall. This being the case, China is unlikely to be able to pursue a revisionist policy of upending the liberal international order, even if the current leadership continues to pursue an assertive foreign policy while it is able to do so. But while the U.S. foreign policy establishment ought to plan for a period of turbulence as China’s leaders reluctantly come to grips with the reality of peak China, the more pressing need is to begin a conversation about the future of American grand strategy that takes as its jumping off point the fundamental reality that China’s rise is coming to an end.

USNI Proceedings – The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed critical weaknesses in the human domain of warfare at just the moment technology has emerged that gives bad actors new power to exploit those weaknesses. Developments in synthetic biology will create next-generation bioweapons, “human-domain fires” that will fundamentally change the strategic environment and create a threat naval planners must consider now, before it is encountered at sea.

War on the Rocks – If the United States is to have a reasonable hope of winning a war, it needs to think very seriously about what it would be like to lose.

USNI Proceedings – Alfred Thayer Mahan and Sir Julian Corbett are as relevant today as ever.

War on the Rocks – In order to better position the United States for geopolitical competition in the region, the Biden administration should write and publish a new national security strategy for the Arctic.

USNI Proceedings – The United States was dragged, largely against its will, into international importance. It must not walk–or be pushed–away.

CIMSEC – NATO must find a solution to address the current limitations of its Black Sea maritime posture, in particular the Montreux Convention, but also the low capacity of Black Sea NATO navies and the lack of sufficient NATO maritime command and control in the region.

CIMSEC – It is clear that the status quo or retrenchment will have negative consequences for the United States, the region, and the world. It is equally clear that Washington must act now to turn the tides in the SCS and avert a dystopian future when Beijing exerts administrative control and jurisdictional authority of the strategic waterway.