Sept. 7, 2023

The Fifth Act: America’s End in Afghanistan

Elliot Ackerman’s The Fifth Act: America’s End in Afghanistan reads like one of his award-winning novels. It is fast-paced and thrilling. It also is full of flashbacks, similar to movies and extended television murder mysteries. But this latest Ackerman volume is not a novel. It is the very real story of how the author, together with many others, worked to rescue as many Afghans as they could during the chaotic days of Kabul’s downfall to the Taliban. And it contrasts not only the fate of these people with the author’s current peaceful life but with the anguish that characterized his own service in Afghanistan both as a Marine and as a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer a decade into what became America’s endless war.

Sept. 7, 2023

War Transformed and White Sun War:

Every military strategist is cautioned against the temptation of fighting the last war. This pair of books by retired Australian Major General Mick Ryan makes clear that, whatever criticisms might be addressed against his predictions, he has not succumbed to that temptation. Instead, he has decided to try his hand not just at envisaging the next war but fleshing it out in a novel.

Sept. 7, 2023

Interview with the Honorable Arvydas Anušauskas: Minister of National Defence of Lithuania

Lithuania’s defense policy is based on three pillars. These are the strengthening of the armed forces, a resilient society, and reliance on collective defense. In order to achieve these three, we are increasing our spending on defense.

Sept. 7, 2023

Interview with the Honorable Hanno Pevkur: Minister of Defense of Estonia

We are quite like Finland in the sense that we have a clear understanding that everyone must be involved in protecting the country. We have a conscript service for the reserve army. This is mandatory for all men and voluntary for women. What we have changed since the full-scale war in Ukraine is that we have increased the number of wartime structures. We had 31,000 fighters before, but now we have almost 44,000. Most of those come from the Volunteer Defense League. The Estonian army is based on the regular army, the reserve army, and the Volunteer Defense League which at the moment has 30,000 people of which 10,000 are combatants. This will be increased this year to 20,000, which brings us to 44,000 combatants in our wartime structure.

Sept. 7, 2023

NATO’s New Center of Gravity

“Russia considers the Baltic states to be the most vulnerable part of NATO….” This is the conclusion of a recent report by Estonia’s Foreign Intelligence Service.1 The three small Baltic states, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, have a 1,360-kilometer border with Russia and its client state Belarus. With a joint population of just over 6 million and 47,000 active-duty armed forces the Baltic states are on the frontline of any confrontation with Russia. Their vulnerability is keenly felt having all been under brutally oppressive Soviet occupation until quite recently; many still living recall that oppression that lasted until the demise of the Soviet Union in 1991. Russia’s unprovoked February 2022 invasion of Ukraine has reminded Latvians, Lithuanians, and Estonians of the horrors of occupation, and rekindled fears of what until recently was considered unimaginable—a land war of territorial aggression in Europe—a contingency for which the Baltic states are urgently preparing.

Sept. 7, 2023

Organized Crime as Irregular Warfare: Strategic Lessons for Assessment and Response

Organized crime both preys upon and caters to human need. It is corrosive and exploitative, but also empowering, and therefore pervasive. Indeed, though often out of sight, organized crime is everywhere: wherever governments draw the line, criminal actors find profitable ways of crossing it; wherever governments fail to deliver on human need, criminal actors capitalize on unmet desire or despair. For those excluded from the political economy, from patronage systems or elite bargains, organized crime can offer opportunity, possibly also protection.

Sept. 7, 2023

Challenges and Opportunities in Global Supply Chains: The Role of Critical Minerals

The strength and security of global supply chains are vital for the stability and growth of the global economy as well as for national security. However, supply chains, which form the foundations for a number of industries and products in the defense and non-defense markets. are highly dependent on a variety of factors and countries to provide key critical minerals as inputs.

Sept. 7, 2023

Neutrality After the Russian Invasion of Ukraine: The Example of Switzerland and Some Lessons for Ukraine

In 1956, former American Secretary of State John Foster Dulles stated that “neutrality has increasingly become an obsolete conception.” Dulles’s statement seemed to be vindicated after the end of the Cold War as only a handful of countries in Europe identified themselves as neutral. Whereas in the past Belgium, Cyprus, Finland, Ireland, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, and Sweden adopted neutrality, only two countries in Europe—Austria and Switzerland—are considered permanent neutral states under international law after the Cold War. Together with Sweden and Finland, Austria although maintaining a constitutional basis for its neutrality, became a non-allied state when it joined the European Union (EU) on January 1, 1995.

Sept. 7, 2023

Russia, Ukraine, and the Future Use of Strategic Intelligence

Before Russia’s unprovoked February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, the United States and the United Kingdom undertook an aggressive public and private information campaign to attempt to achieve two concurrent objectives. The primary goal was to convince their allies of the threat of Russia’s pending offensive (and to smooth the mobilization of support to Ukraine after the fact) and to a lesser degree a secondary goal was to attempt to deter Moscow from acting. Central to this campaign was the very visible and highly publicized use of intelligence. Indeed, as Dan Drezner wrote in the Washington Post, “The U.S. intelligence community sure has been chatty as of late about what it thinks Russia is doing.”1 The use of intelligence to support policy or diplomatic efforts and to achieve a strategic effect is, in and of itself, not novel. Intelligence is meant to inform policymakers and their decisions.

Sept. 7, 2023

Innovation and National Security: Ash Carter’s Legacy

I had the great privilege of working very closely with Secretary Ash Carter on many occasions over the years. He was a great patriot and a great American. In October 2022 this country, each and every one of us in this country, lost a transformational leader, a friend, and a champion of selfless service. Ash Carter’s decisionmaking was always motivated by the care and safety of the men and women in uniform. He was incredibly talented at cutting red tape and speeding up the bureaucracy in order to improve the lives of our soldiers, our sailors, airmen, and marines.

March 10, 2023

Denmark's Security Starts in the Baltic States

The Russian invasion of Ukraine and resulting war has caused a significant change in the perception of the European security environment. Consequently, Denmark made the choice to abolish its opt-out from EU cooperation on security and defense matters, increased defense spending, committed to reach the 2 percent target in 2033, and increased its contributions to NATO’s deterrence and defense posture. In 2023, the Denmark’s major political parties will negotiate the country’s new defense agreement. It was already determined that the agreement will reach over a 10-year period, in contrast to the more usual 5 years of the past defense agreements. A substantial increase in budget and capabilities is expected, but its extent and the prioritization of tasks and capabilities remains to be seen.

March 10, 2023

Germany and the Baltic Sea Region

The security of the Baltic Sea region (BSR) has gained importance for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and Germany in the past decade, even prior to the February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. Since 2014, the Russian Federation has waged continuous political warfare against its neighbors. Actions include the annexation of Crimea and the war in the Donbass region, as well as ongoing disinformation campaigns, cyber attacks, and violations of air and maritime spaces. The BSR is a preferred target of these attacks and provocations, and as attacks on the cyber infrastructure of the German Bundestag in 2015 and the infamous “Lisa” disinformation campaign in 2016 have shown, neither Germany’s size nor its comparatively good relations with Russia guarantees Berlin’s security from Russian political warfare.

March 10, 2023

Societal Security and Total Defense: The Swedish Way

Sweden has recovered from several severe security challenges over the past two decades. In 2004 more than 500 Swedish citizens died in the Boxing Day tsunami in Southeast Asia. During the suddenly escalating Lebanon conflict of 2006, more than 8,000 citizens were hastily, but successfully, evacuated out of harm’s way. Days before Christmas 2010, the first suicide bomber in the Nordic region, luckily prematurely, exploded his bomb near a crowded shopping street in the city center of Stockholm. Sweden’s neighbor Norway experienced a terrible mass murder in July 2011 undertaken by a solo terrorist. In April 2017, terror struck with deadly force in the shopping area of the city center of Stockholm. Dramatic forest fires rampaged in the summers of 2014 and 2018. In the fall of 2015, a massive flow of migrants poured into the country, with major immediate effects and long-term consequences for Swedish society. Most recently, the deadly COVID-19 pandemic, which began in March 2020, became a stress test of endurance and societal resilience for the Swedish population. Compared with the other Nordic states Sweden has suffered much higher rates of infections, and it has seen more than 14,000 deaths, putting into question the Swedish strategy for managing this public health disaster.

March 10, 2023

Finnish Defense "Left of Bang"

Finland has a long tradition of combining military and non-military aspects of defense. During the Cold War this crystallized within the concept of “total defense,” the mobilization of the entire society for the potential purpose of war. Throughout the Cold War, the all-penetrating threat from the Soviet Union was felt constantly within Finnish society. This threat was not only military in nature but also contained political, economic, energy-related, and even cultural aspects. In today’s parlance, the Soviet Union prosecuted an aggressive campaign of information warfare, hybrid war, and political warfare against Finland.

March 10, 2023

Lithuania’s Total Defense Review

This article describes the development of Lithuania’s total defense policy, which focuses on a whole-of-government and whole-of-society approach. It discusses the major changes in the Lithuanian security and defense policy during the last 8 years, concentrating on political-military and strategic issues. The article is organized in three parts. The first discusses major conceptual debates concerning the best options for the state defense. These discussions mainly circled around the ideas of hybrid warfare, total defense, and the Suwalki Corridor dilemma. The second part focuses on institutional and political changes in Lithuania’s defense sector with an emphasis on such issues as Lithuania’s international cooperation and conscription. The third part deals with the dilemma of society’s engagement in defense issues and the challenges that presents.

March 10, 2023

Estonia: Size Matters

Despite its small size, Estonia has had some success in the application of instruments of national power across the whole DIMEFILPSI spectrum to counter Russia. In recent years, infrastructure considerations have been included, with well-advanced plans for Rail Baltica to connect the Baltic states to the wider European and the more speculative idea of a tunnel to connect Tallinn and Helsinki. Aside from the economic benefits of such projects, there are security advantages to be gained from closer integration with other European states.

March 10, 2023

The Baltic Sea Region at an Inflection Point

Russian President Vladimir Putin, seeking to reverse the tide of NATO expansion and to dominate a sphere of influence resembling that of the defunct Soviet Union, has inadvertently catalyzed a major inflexion point in global geopolitics resulting in fundamental political re-alignments.

March 10, 2023

If You Want Peace...

This issue of PRISM—titled “Forward Defense”—examines the security transformations taking place in these diverse but aligned countries. As distinct as these nine countries are they are each reinforcing, or in some cases rebuilding, their armed forces and reviving the Total Defense or Comprehensive Defense concepts they embraced during the Cold War. Total or Comprehensive Defense is a strategic approach that recognizes the multidimensional threat posed by autocratic countries and the existential threat to the liberal, rules-based world order. It understands that effective deterrence depends on both resistance and resilience and codes those into the respective security and defense strategies.

Sept. 30, 2022

Old and New Battlespaces

How and why warfare is changing has become its own genre of late. Enter Jahara “Franky” Matisek and Buddhika “Jay” Jayamaha. Both have military backgrounds and are on faculty at the U.S. Air Force Academy. Old and New Battlespaces builds on their previous scholarship regarding “social media warriors.” Like their articles, readers will find the book either astonishingly naïve or extraordinarily prescient, depending on what war they inhabit.

Sept. 30, 2022

2034: A Novel of the Next World War

This is a thriller that carries a cautionary note for those interested in national security who worry about the risks of human miscalculation. The point that the book makes is that in the emerging threat environment, when state players rely heavily upon technology to improve military capabilities, the human factor remains central.

Sept. 30, 2022

The Ledger and The American War in Afghanistan

The American war in Afghanistan has finally come to an ignominious end, but the inevitable post-mortems have only just begun to trickle in. No doubt soon they will become a flood, adding to the mountains of studies, analyses, and full-length volumes that have appeared virtually since the onset of the war two decades ago. In no small part because of the chaos that surrounded America’s final withdrawal from that embattled country, many analysts and observers have been quick to draw parallels with its equally chaotic departure from Vietnam nearly a half century earlier.

Sept. 30, 2022

The Digital Silk Road

The Digital Silk Road is Jonathan Hillman’s hi-tech companion to his book The Emperor’s New Road: China and the Project of the Century, published in 2020, which dealt with the vast Chinese Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the largest developmental project of our time. The Digital Silk Road (DSR) is the BRI’s high-tech portion, its transoceanic fiber-optic cables and its space-based satellite chains every bit as much a part of the BRI as a railroad project in Africa or port construction in South Asia. And like the BRI, the DSR’s goal is global and hegemonic: in establishing it, China intends to be the world’s “indispensable hub and gatekeeper” of the digital space.

Sept. 30, 2022

Why Nation-Building Matters

The recent fall of Kabul is a stark reminder that policymakers need to understand much more about the problems of nation-building. Some may try to swear off any further involvement with nation-building, but these problems cannot be ignored when failures of law and governance in weak states underlie a pressing migrant crisis on America’s own borders. As the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction has noted, America’s refusal to prepare for future stabilization missions after the collapse of South Vietnam did not prevent the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq but instead ensured that they would become quagmires. To begin thinking more carefully about these vital problems, a good place to start is with Keith Mines’s book Why Nation-Building Matters.

Sept. 30, 2022

Interview with Kevin Rudd

The interview was conducted by Michael Miklaucic on March 29, 2022. The Honorable Kevin Rudd served as Prime Minister of Australia from 2007 to 2010, and again in 2013.

Sept. 30, 2022

Defining and Achieving Success in Ukraine

This article examines the ongoing war in Ukraine and explores options that lead to ending the conflict in some way that would constitute success or “victory.” Decisive victory in a purely military sense is an unlikely prospect. A frozen conflict, a larger and longer version of Donbas across the entire Ukrainian frontier, is increasingly likely despite the efforts by the West to induce Russia to back down. The prospects of a grinding stalemate are evident and extending the fighting creates spillover consequences for other U.S. strategic priorities. A war of endurance may play to U.S./European economic advantages but could evolve in a way that harms longer-term interests.

Sept. 30, 2022

China, the West, and the Future Global Order By Julian Lindley-French and Franco Algieri

The primary purpose of this article is to respectfully communicate to a Chinese audience a Western view of the future world order. China needs the West as much as the West needs China. However, the West has awakened geopolitically to the toxic power politics that Russia is imposing on Ukraine and China’s support for it. China is thus faced with a profound choice: alliance with a declining and weak Russia or cooperation with a powerful bloc of global democracies that Russia’s incompetent and illegal aggression is helping to forge.

Sept. 30, 2022

The Limits of Victory: Evaluating the Employment of Military Power

On November 28, 1984, then-Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger appeared before the National Press Club in Washington, DC, to deliver a speech titled “The Uses of Military Power.” The previous year had brought mixed results in the deployment of U.S. combat troops overseas. An invasion of the small West Indies country of Grenada wrested regime control from the one-party socialist People’s Revolutionary Government in favor of a relatively stable democracy. In Lebanon, however, the bombing of a Marine Corps barracks complex in Beirut killed 305 troops and civilians, including 241 Americans, and led to the withdrawal of the multinational peacekeeping force months later. Perhaps most central to Secretary Weinberger’s speech was the Vietnam War, an event that two decades later still struck deep into the institutional fabric of the U.S. military.

Sept. 30, 2022

Panda Power? Chinese Soft Power in the Era of COVID-19

The rivalry between the United States and China is not only one of military-strategic and economic challenges but also one of ideas. The West has had the advantage of presenting the more compelling image to the rest of the world. While China makes propaganda efforts, the United States enjoys soft power—the attractiveness of its culture, political ideas, and policies—and this gives America an international advantage. With a recent analysis suggesting that China’s economy will overtake that of the United States in 2028, China’s attempts to rebrand its image will not only have more resources but also find an increasingly eager international audience that seeks to engage the newly emerging number one global economy.

Sept. 30, 2022

The BRI and Its Rivals: The Building and Rebuilding of Eurasia in the 21st Century

China’s re-emergence as a global power after 400 years raises profound questions about not only China’s place in the truly new world order in which no superpower can reign supreme but also the international system itself, as well as the ways in which China’s policies may be reorientating Eurasia’s regions in the direction of China.

Sept. 30, 2022

The 21st Century's Great Military Rivalry

The era of uncontested U.S. military superiority is likely over. While America’s position as a global military superpower remains unique—both China and Russia are now serious military rivals and even peers in particular domains. If there is a “limited war” over Taiwan or along China’s periphery, the United States would likely lose—or have to choose between losing and stepping up the escalation ladder to a wider war. Choices the administration and Congress will make in 2022 and beyond can significantly impact the current trajectories. But the decisions likely to have the greatest positive impact are the hardest to make and execute.

Feb. 24, 2022

The Geography and Politics of Kenya’s Response to COVID-19

On 12 March 2021—the one-year anniversary of the first case of COVID-19 in Kenya—its President Uhuru Kenyatta spoke to the Kenyan people about the past year’s events, discussing the highs, the lows, and everything in between. He recounted the loss of 1,879 Kenyans due to COVID-19 and referred to the struggle with the pandemic as a “fog of war,” an enemy unseen and undefined. He discussed both the political and the economic challenges that Kenya experienced and might continue to face in the future. In a measured address to the Kenyan people, he ended on a realistic note: “I must remind you that Government will do its part to protect Kenyans; but the first line of defence against an invisible enemy like Covid is the people. If we exercise civic responsibility and act as our ‘brother’s keeper,’ we will have won half the battle against this pandemic.”1 As with most, if not all, political speeches, Kenyatta’s words and sentences were filled with both truths as well as partial truths. This article aims to fill in the gaps, adding much needed perspective to the reality of the COVID-19 pandemic in Kenya, its impacts and effects on the political, security, and strategy dimensions of the country.

Feb. 24, 2022

Korea’s Exemplary Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic: Successes and Challenges

South Korea was early-on considered a model of pandemic management during the COVID-19 crisis. Considering South Korea’s proximity to China, it is no surprise that it was one of the first countries to be affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. As of May 2021, the South Korean government reports that there were 136,467 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the country since the outbreak, of which 1,934 patients died. The impact of the crisis on South Korea’s health system had therefore been limited. In comparison, Japan reported 718,864 confirmed cases of COVID-19 with 12,312 casualties, as reported to the World Health Organization (WHO). This is despite the fact that South Korea experienced its first outbreak in February 2020, only one month after the first case of COVID-19 was reported in the country. South Korean authorities responded very quickly to this first outbreak, taking public safety measures that were comparatively mild compared to China’s swift but repressive response, or Europe or the United States’ successive, and yet much less effective, nation-wide or region-wide lockdowns. South Korea’s effective response to the COVID-19 pandemic has combined technical, cultural, and political factors. It can be differentiated from neighboring countries’ approaches, including those that have obtained similarly good results, but there might also be some common policy responses across countries such as Thailand, Taiwan, Vietnam, or New Zealand.

Feb. 24, 2022

Taiwan Under the Pandemic: A Security Perspective

The drastic changes in Taiwan’s COVID-19 situation present an unusual national security case study. Despite its proximity to the initial outbreak in China, Taiwan was in a “parallel universe” from the beginning of the pandemic with a total of only 1199 confirmed cases and 12 deaths as of May 10th 2021.1 While many countries have suffered seriously from the pandemic Taiwan did not experience any lockdown throughout 2020, and its economy even grew.2 When vaccinations began in March 2021, Taiwan looked likely to escape the pandemic without major disruption; an outbreak in May 2021 however removed the laurel of success and plunged Taiwan into uncertainty.3

Feb. 24, 2022

Eurasia Rising: COVID-19 in Latin America

Latin America is slowly becoming a venue for the United States’ strategic competition with Russia and China. Despite the regional illusions during the early 21st century, the Brazilian leadership of Latin America has disappeared, regional integration has lost its climax and external state actors have increasing geoeconomic interests throughout the Western Hemisphere from the Rio Grande to Antarctica. To complicate matters further, COVID-19 has impacted Latin America more deeply than other regions, thus expanding the range of health, economic, and security needs in the continent. China and Russia have appeared as alternative providers of medical equipment, humanitarian aid, and vaccines, thus trying to replace the traditional role of Western developed nations, especially the United States, on the continent.

Feb. 24, 2022

COVID-19 Pandemic and its Impact on Italy’s Governance and Security

Italy has been severely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, with a proportionately high number of infections, and even higher mortality rate, due to the large number of elderly people (22.7 percent of the residents being over 65 years, the highest percentage in Europe). As of 30 April 2021, in a population of 60.35 million, 4,044,762 had been infected, with 121,177 casualties. The impact was extremely uneven among Italy’s regions in the “first wave” (February-June 2020), with the overwhelming majority of cases being concentrated in just a handful of regions in the north. These areas are the more industrialized parts of Italy and hence more exposed to trade with foreign nations. In the “second wave,” that started in October 2020, the distribution of the infection was far more uniform.

Feb. 2, 2022

Neither Triumph nor Disaster: United Kingdom Responses to COVID-19 and the Future of National Security

Nations are from time to time subjected to the audit of war: a searching examination that looks beneath the myths, shiny surfaces, and sticking plasters to reveal those areas of society and government that are truly strong, actually weak, or just plain mediocre. What did 1914–1917 or 1941–1945 expose about Russia’s real strengths and weaknesses? How would the United States really stand up to German Panzer forces and the Japanese Navy in 1942? Fortunately, no Western nation has been through such an examination since 1945, but the massive social, political, and economic shock of COVID-19 has provided a searching peacetime test. Twenty months since reports of the first deaths circulated in Wuhan, China, we still have not marked the end of COVID-19. But we have learned a lot. Here we ask: what did the United Kingdom’s COVID-19 experience reveal; how does that relate to UK national security; and what does this mean for the UK moving forward in a post-COVID global order?

Feb. 2, 2022

Impact of the Global COVID-19 Pandemic on Finnish Views of Security

When Finnish authorities began meetings focused on the potential spread of COVID-19 in January 2020 they were still hoping that the outbreak would be contained abroad. The first confirmed case in Finland came on January 29, through a Chinese tourist visiting Lapland. In his speech to open Parliament on February 2 Finnish President Sauli Niinistö said the possibility of a global pandemic could not be discounted, and that global cooperation and national preparations were key. He noted that the low threshold for cross-authority cooperation and information sharing among Finnish authorities was a key strength. COVID-19 would ultimately expose this as not being entirely correct. The pandemic also made it clear that Finland’s comprehensive societal security concept is mainly focused on preparations for foreseen events, but has fewer provisions for operative management of dynamic crises, and unless it is a military crisis, no other authorities have the wherewithal or resources to manage a long-running society-wide emergency-crisis situation.

Feb. 2, 2022

Sweden’s Security Policy after Covid-19

The pandemic has caused ruptures in how nations view their vulnerabilities and partnerships but also generated new thinking on national and regional security assets. Sweden became the global outlier early in the outbreak—pictured as unconcerned with the spread of the disease, indeed shooting for herd immunity according to some experts and pundits. This image, whether justified or not, came with a cost. Borders with the neighboring Nordics were closed for long periods, its standing in the European Union (EU) arena suffered, and the reputation of this self-proclaimed humanitarian powerhouse took a beating.

Jan. 20, 2022

Welcome to the New Abnormal

The COVID-19 pandemic is the most globally disruptive event since the terrorist attack against the United States in 2001. Originating in China in late 2019 the disease rapidly spread throughout the international transportation network to every region and every country. Neither its velocity nor its magnitude were initially understood. In 2020 the entire world seemed to come to a standstill. International and even domestic travel came to an abrupt halt. Normally teeming cities were silenced. Streets, markets, and even schools were empty.

Jan. 20, 2022

U.S. SOUTHCOM Fights Through COVID-19

COVID-19 is not only a medical and humanitarian emergency that still requires immediate response, but it also remains an operating environment in which we must continue to conduct our missions as effectively and safely as possible. USSOUTHCOM was successful because of early, decisive action and our commitment and ability to work across the broad spectrum of those with whom we partner in DOD, the interagency community, with our country teams in U.S. Embassies throughout the region, and—of course—with our partners and neighbors who are eager to work with us in addressing the many security challenges that confront all the nations in the Western Hemisphere.

Jan. 20, 2022

COVID-19 and Superpower Competition: An Effective American Response

Before COVID-19 became a global pandemic, the growing consensus among analysts was that we were entering a period of deglobalization. According to the economic analyst Mohammed el-Erian deglobalization was taking place because by the 2000s the adverse economic impact of globalization had become apparent to the Western middle class. Secondly, the U.S.-China trade war saw rising tariffs and a call for rebuilding national manufacturing capabilities. The COVID-19 pandemic was the last nail in the coffin as countries adopted highly individualistic and nationalistic policies that put national interest above any global concerns.

Jan. 20, 2022

The Impact of COVID-19 on the U.S. Defense Industrial Base

The COVID-19 pandemic has imposed a number of challenges on countries and industries, some of which have been partially mitigated by government efforts, medical developments, and corporate strategies. Nevertheless, COVID-19, which, in March 2020, was identified as a pandemic by the World Health Organization and was declared by the U.S. government as a national emergency,1 will likely continue to have after-effects in the coming years.

Nov. 18, 2021

Anti-American Terrorism

This year (2021) the counterterrorism campaign that started out as the Global War on Terrorism is 20 years old. It has not ended, but with the death of Osama bin Ladin in 2011, the operational neutralization of the al-Qaeda core in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, it has moved on to other battle- fronts. It is time for a long-term retrospective and reckoning for the counterterrorism fight. The two volumes reviewed here are the start of that process.

Nov. 18, 2021

War: How Conflict Shaped Us

War: How Conflict Shaped Us, is an elegantly written examination of the subject, initially delivered by MacMillan as part of BBC Four’s Reith Lecture series in 2018. In it, MacMillan delivers on her promise to analyze the evolution of war and society and how one influenced the other.

Nov. 18, 2021

How China Loses: The Pushback Against China’s Global Ambitions

As the economy of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has grown, its military has modernized, and its global presence has expanded, there has been more and more concern about the prospect of a Chinese century, or even millennium, to replace the American century. President Joe Biden is now reportedly concerned with the rise of China—and the possibility that China might prevail in the current great power competition. Luke Patey’s book, How China Loses, discusses these issues in detail with his own take.

Nov. 18, 2021

An Interview with the Honorable Michèle Flournoy

In an exclusive interview with Prism, Michele Flournoy, former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, discusses the withdrawal from Afghanistan, China, Russia, and other national security challenges to the United States. She also speaks about China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and what the US can do to compete with China on the global stage.

Nov. 18, 2021

Modern Electromagnetic Spectrum Battlefield

As defined in the Joint Doctrine Note 3-16, the electromagnetic spectrum (EMS) is “the range of all frequencies of electromagnetic radiation. The electromagnetic radiation consists of oscillating electric and magnetic fields characterized by frequency and wavelength.” This radiation has fascinating properties: it can be visible or invisible, move at speeds approaching that of light, cross certain obstacles or, on the contrary, bounce off them (thus indicating their presence), transport energy or data.

Nov. 18, 2021

Project Governance for Defense Applications of Artificial Intelligence

The recent Department of Defense (DOD) Artificial Intelligence (AI) strategy calls for the Joint Artificial Intelligence Center (JAIC) to take the lead in “AI ethics and safety.” This article provides recommendations for implementing project governance controls based on an ethical framework while providing tailorable solutions to tightly control those projects with high ethical risk and speeding the implementation of those with low risk. In this way, a tiered approach to project governance will allow the Department to more closely balance the ethical challenges with the need for efficiency in the development of this technology.

Nov. 18, 2021

Rebuilding Total Defense in a Globalized Deregulated Economy The Case of Sweden

During the Cold War, Sweden had one of the most comprehensive total defense systems in the world, only to dismantle it following the collapse of the Warsaw Pact. This article gives a background on Sweden’s decision to reestablish total defense, highlights some of the shortcomings in national preparedness laid bare by the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic, lists a number of inherent challenges in creating a new total defense structure, and proposes some solutions to addressing these challenges.

Nov. 18, 2021

Countering Aggression in the Gray Zone

In recent years, much has been written and said about conflict in the so-called “gray zone,” often described as conflict below the threshold of combat. Gray zone aggression is an attractive option for Western rivals because it exploits the openness of Western societies. The fact that Western countries are characterized by small governments with limited powers to dictate the activities of their populations and businesses makes these countries even more attractive targets for non-kinetic aggression, ranging from hostile business activities to cyber-attacks, to kidnappings, assassinations, and even occupation by unofficial militias aligned with foreign powers.