A shapeshifting technology: sometimes in the form of a child’s toy to see the world from up high, most other times a vehicle for explosives or tools for aerial assaults. Both versions are now more accessible than ever. The Recent Evolution of Drone Warfare Access to drone warfare used to be limited to state power, […]
Tag: military
San Francisco’s Fleet Week Should Have Been Cancelled
The ongoing federal government shutdown threatened to cancel San Francisco’s annual celebration of the United States military. But with the aid of international allies, Fleet Week prevailed. Over Italian Heritage Weekend, four military jet fleets and one commercial airline team roared across the Bay Area skies. Rather than the traditional parade of ships that grace […]
Marching on a “Sacred Trust”
In 1770, eight British soldiers pointed their muskets at unarmed civilians, and six years later, America was born out of the idea that a government is built on consent, not coercion. The Boston Massacre wasn’t just about anti-British sentiment reaching its breaking point; it was also about defining what kind of nation America would become. […]
In Myanmar, Military Drafts Scare Away the Educated
“There’s no future for the youth.” —Tun Myint, Professor of Political Science at Carleton College VOA In Myanmar, youth are forced to confront a deadly choice. The country’s precarious position is under constant threat from rebel groups. Since the 2021 coup that replaced democratically elected leadership with a military junta, Myanmar has teetered on the […]
Controversy Sparks Amid Chinese Military Bases in Africa
In an international world of constant strategic moves, especially when it comes to military assets, there is bound to be conflict between countries. This time, one such conflict happens to be flaring between China and the United States over nothing less than the continent of Africa. A proposed naval base on Africa’s coastline is causing major […]
Japanese Military Expansion: A Story of War Amnesia
In late December of last year, the Japanese parliament approved a 112.07 trillion yen ($787 billion) draft budget for the 2024 fiscal year. Although the aggregate budget is lower than that of the previous year, the defense budget increased by around 16%, with the parliament voting to allocate almost eight trillion yen to defense spending. […]
Gen Z’s Military Malaise
This article features commentary from active-duty Marine, Captain Michaela Larson. The views are solely her own and are not intended to represent the official views of the United States Marine Corps A troubling threat is encroaching upon the U.S military, and I’m not talking about the threat of world war. All six branches of the […]
The Mahatma & The Politics of Pakistan
Clinging onto hope is a core tenet of the Quranic scripture, a book that Ulemas (Islamic Jurists)—who, as everybody knows, represent 100% of Pakistan’s population— believe form the basis of all institutional & civilian structures in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. But latching onto false hope for the coming of a Mahatma (Great Soul) like […]
A Bookend to 20 Years of Turmoil? What Thailand’s New Government Means for the Country
After four months of political limbo, yet another dramatic episode of Thai politics drew to a close. The general elections in May offered a scathing rebuke of the military-backed government. The progressive Move Forward Party (MFP), led by Pita Limjaorenrat, pulled a huge upset that headed 151 out of 500 seats in the lower House […]
Confronting China: The Best Deterrence Lies in a Multilateral Alliance
In my last article, I detailed some of the strategic and technological changes that the U.S. needs to make to its military strategy to successfully deter China from military action in East Asia. Though maintaining our military edge is important, China is a rising power while the U.S. is in relative decline. China has both […]
Confronting China: Restoring U.S. Military Hegemony in East Asia
Over the last decade, Americans of all political parties have been waking up to the threat posed by China. With rapidly growing military and economic might, China seems determined to further its own interests at the expense of the freedom, liberties, and sovereignty of neighboring countries and the liberal-democratic institutions which underpin the global order. […]
Boots on the Moon: Weighing the Pros and Cons of the Space Force
The Space Force has been the subject of much ridicule in the media. The release of Netflix’s Space Force earlier this year and several comedians picking the force as a comedy bit have added to this mainstream conversation and have painted a rather odd picture of what the Space Force is designed to achieve. But, […]
The Arctic Thaw is Cooling West-Russian Relations
“From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the continent.” — Winston Churchill, 1946 Churchill’s oration as Westminster College is considered one of the landmark moments announcing the beginning of the Cold War, a half-century global struggle between the United States and the Soviet Union which redefined […]
Captain of the Team, But Is He the Captain of the Country?
Imran Khan is a cricket-star-turned-politician who used a mixture of religious zeal and anti-corruption anger to catapult himself from the cricket ground to the office of the Prime Minister in August 2018. He ran a bruising campaign that damaged his relationships with other political parties in Pakistan. However, upon deeper reflection, there were forces other […]
The Civilian-Military Gap and the Undermining of the US Military
Civilian control of the military is one of the hallmarks of a democratic society. A government whose military is not under civilian control is effectively an authoritarian government, with the power to conduct state-sponsored violence on a whim. As mandated by the Constitution, the U.S. Armed Forces are under complete civilian control, meaning the decisions […]
Interview with Jonathan Reiber, cybersecurity expert
Jonathan Reiber is a security expert currently serving as Senior Advisor at Technology for Global Security, a think-tank in Palo Alto, California, and a Visiting Scholar at UC Berkeley’s Center for Long-Term Cybersecurity. A frequent public speaker, his writing and work has been featured in Foreign Policy and Literary Hub and highlighted by the Atlantic and […]
China and India: The Emerging Power Struggle of the 21st Century
Over the past 40 years, Asia has experienced unprecedented levels of peace and prosperity, as the bloody conflicts of the Cold War gave way to a relatively stable order. This stability has allowed trade and commerce in the region to flourish, facilitating the emergence of China and India as substantial economic powers. China’s economy is […]
To Engage or Not to Engage: Diplomacy with North Korea?
Editors’ disclaimer: this debate was crafted during early 2018, before the development of new events between North and South Korea’s possible peace treaty that would formally end the Korean War. The contents discussed in the debate below ought to be evaluated as if such a groundbreaking event has yet to occur. RESOLVED: The United States […]
To Boldly Go Where No Military Branch Has Gone Before
In 1969, the United States became the first country to land a man on the moon. While this was not the first time America had set its eyes upon the stars, it was one of the first realizations of that dream. Nearly fifty years later, a new era may have arrived as serious conversation has […]
The Danger of Land-Based Nuclear Weapons
“I am become death destroyer of worlds” said J. Robert Oppenheimer, quoting the Hindu scripture The Bhagavad Gita, as he watched the first nuclear weapon explode before his eyes. Since then, the US nuclear arsenal has changed dramatically to confront evolving adversaries, but our overreliance on land-based missiles may make Oppenheimer’s apocalyptic rhetoric a reality. […]
Soldiers of Fortune: the Rise of Private Military Companies and their Consequences on America’s Wars
By Alexander Casendino War and conflict are synonymous with human history, and where there is conflict, there are often mercenaries who reap the profits. These “armies for hire” appeared as early as Ancient Egypt and Rome, with rulers deploying paid auxiliary forces to supplement imperial armies. In present-day America, mercenaries have consolidated into one of […]
Still Stuck in the Cold War? Turkey, NATO, Russia, and the Art of Patronage
Russia announces new arms deals almost daily, and successfully completes them nearly as often. But the sale of Russian arms to a NATO member is a strikingly rare event. Last month, Turkey signed an agreement to purchase the S-400 Triumf surface-to-air missile system from Russia, following in the footsteps of Belarus, Algeria, and China, all […]
The Ghost of Zheng He: China’s Naval Base in Djibouti
Six hundred years after the Ming Dynasty explorer Zheng He landed in Mombasa and brought back a giraffe, China’s trade presence in East Africa is very much alive. In recent years, China has been expanding a web of infrastructure projects across the African continent. Now, China is in the process of constructing a naval base […]
Cybercrime: The Spark Which Started Russia’s Cyber Crusade
On the day the Soviet Union fell, the whole world watched, looking to see what would rise from the ashes of the fallen empire. By 1998, Russia’s military spending hit an all time low, and it was expected that the new federation could not compare to it’s glorious military past. Yet over the next decade, […]
The Military-Industrial Kleptocracy
The Growth of the Military-Industrial Complex Under Trump President Dwight Eisenhower’s foreign policy was an ode to interventionism. Eisenhower began the escalation of U.S. presence in Vietnam, toppled governments from Iran to Guatemala to Thailand and elsewhere, extending U.S. military involvement across multiple continents. Yet Eisenhower warned, “we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted […]
Frozen in Place: Canada’s Arctic Policy
Canadian Ranger transporting supplies in the Arctic during Canada’s annual sovereignty Operation Nunalivut It’s 1984. Cold War animosity is back to normal and the U.S.S.R has announced its boycott of the Los Angeles Summer Olympics. Ronald Reagan and his promise to fight the “evil empire” have succeeded in one of the greatest electoral landslides in […]
Terminator in Transition: Should drones be able to think for themselves?
The metal body flies without effort against the sky – searching, synthesizing, processing data at an inhuman speed. A specific face has been imprinted on this machine. Once found, the machine can summarily end that person’s life. This drone responds to no ground operator. It is autonomous – and lethal. This weapon does not come […]
Don’t Tell: Why Soldiers Are Not Reporting Rape
When Jennifer Machmer was commanding a platoon, she was raped by a soldier serving under her. Unable to bear the strain of the assault trauma on her marriage, Machmer turned to the chaplain of her unit for emotional comfort. While she attempted to confide in him, the chaplain took advantage of her vulnerability and sexually […]
The Waning Hermit Kingdom (Part II): The Challenges of Korean Reunification
In January 2014, the North Korean government supposedly announced that it had successfully landed a man on the sun. However, contrary to such macho announcements from government mouthpieces, the sun is beginning to set for the backwater Hermit Kingdom. Continued famine, declining international aid, and increased dissemination of non-governmental information (discussed in Part I) have […]
A Dying King, a Rising Military
Thailand is standing on the cusp of its most decisive event in modern history: the approaching death of King Bhumibol. The struggle for control and power has already started and includes a military coup, a populist billionaire politician in exile and a playboy Crown Prince with a pet poodle named Air Chief Marshal Foo Foo. […]
The Grim Reaper
In 2000, an unarmed, unmanned CIA surveillance aircraft overflew Tarnak Farm in Afghanistan, taking video of the sprawling agricultural complex and a tall man dressed in a white robe. The figure in the tape, which was leaked in 2004, was believed to be Osama bin Laden. Tarnak Farm was not attacked in part because it […]
Art of Intervention: The ISIS Threat to China
China’s foreign policy has traditionally revolved around a belief of non-intervention. Their so-called Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence was codified in 1953 and later added to the Preamble of the Chinese Constitution. China’s primary objective is stability, and from their perspective, the surest way to destabilize a region is by intervening militarily. However, despite its […]
America “Incorporated”
As of today, more than 3000 private companies have been assigned to do the job Americans believe are exclusive to U.S. agents and James Bond lookalikes: clandestine, special operations. The recently released “Remote Control Project” report reveals how the American government is now using private corporations for special operations like surveillance, “psychological operations,” and interrogation. […]