War on the Rocks
A platform for analysis, commentary, debate and multimedia content on foreign policy and national security issues through a realist lens.
What Thucydides Teaches Us About War, Politics, and the Human …
Aug 9, 2017 · Thucydides’ pessimistic answer seems to be “No”: War was inevitable, we are told, when emergent power Athens contested Sparta’s supremacy 2,500 years ago. Allison offers only a slightly more optimistic take (“War is more likely than not”) in analyzing China’s growing challenge to America’s dominating position globally.
Delivering the Army of 2030 - War on the Rocks
Aug 6, 2023 · Delivering the Army of 2030. Gen. James Rainey and Lt. Gen. Laura Potter. August 6, 2023. Commentary. The U.S. Army is transforming how it prepares to fight and win the nation’s wars. Senior Army leaders developed fresh concepts and logic to guide the Army’s most significant transformation in the past 40 years to ensure the service retains ...
In Search of a 21st-Century Joint Warfighting Concept
September 12, 2019. Commentary. After two decades of counter-insurgency campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. military is re-learning how to fight large, conventional conflicts against nuclear-armed powers — namely, China and Russia. The stakes are high. Battlefield victories aren’t an American birthright, and a military loss to ...
The Gulf War 30 Years Later: Successes, Failures, and Blind Spots
September 9, 2020. Was the Gulf War (1990 to 1991) a success for the United States? To many, the answer is unequivocally “yes.”. After all, the United States rallied the international community to punish aggression and liberate a small country (Kuwait) that had been invaded by its larger, authoritarian neighbor (Iraq).
The Russia Contingency with Michael Kofman - War on the Rocks
The Russia Contingency with Michael Kofman. A bi-weekly podcast featuring in-depth analysis of Russia's military power and the war in Ukraine, with your favorite expert on the topic. Become a member.
The Mythical War Scare of 1983 - War on the Rocks
Mar 16, 2021 · Elizabeth Charles of the Department of State’s Office of the Historian has put together an invaluable collection of new materials on superpower relations at the beginning of the 1980s, including two meticulous editorial notes on Able Archer. Those who present Able Archer as a near miss with nuclear war zero in on a passage in a 1989 memorandum by Lt. Gen. …
A Better Approach to Organizing Combatant Commands
Aug 27, 2021 · A new way of organizing the combatant commands should have three missions in mind. First, the U.S. government should align peacetime responsibilities across agencies. This would enable the rapid coordination of all relevant instruments of national power to achieve a desired effect, instead of an approach that develops siloed plans within each ...
Loitering Munitions in Ukraine and Beyond - War on the Rocks
Apr 22, 2022 · Loitering munitions are not new to Russian operations. Russia’s military has two systems comparable to anything that Ukraine may build or acquire. The first system, the Lancet, was successfully employed in Syria in 2021 by Russian special operations forces. With a loiter time of 30 to 40 minutes and a range of approximately 40 kilometers ...
U.S. Troops in Syria Are Critical For Multiple Missions: Keep Them On
Mar 8, 2024 · The U.S. government uses northeast Syria as its platform for intelligence collection and for raids against the Islamic State’s leadership in parts of Syria controlled by Assad. It also justifies the critical mission of controlling airspace over northeast Syria and at Tanf based on providing force protection to the troops on the ground below.