National Security

AbstractGrand or national strategy has emerged as a critical issue in security studies. Adam Garfinkle recently opined that American grand strategy has died a silent death. Too much attention has been devoted to definitions, or debates over the utility...

Emile Simpson, War From the Ground Up: Twenty First Century Combat as Politics (Oxford University Press, 2013) Read the full article here....

Abstract This article reviews power transition theory and emerging threats to U.S. national security. It then analyzes how the 2014 QDR will ensure U.S. relative power decline and how the strategy fails to effectively counter the rise of China...

Abstract The West’s treatment of irregular fighters in the “war on terror” was highly problematic. This article contends that we must look beyond the assumption that political and strategic considerations compromised the law and led to the “invention” of...

Abstract As the Department of Defense strives to take the social sciences more seriously in the face of threats emanating from the non-West, it confronts several challenges. Among them, we Westerners cannot model non-Western minds. Nor can we devise...

Abstract NATO special operations forces (SOF) are at a crossroads as the NATO role in Afghanistan winds down. After more than a decade of development, NATO SOF have greatly increased their ability to operate together in the field and...

Abstract This article examines the strategic decisions that led to the struggle between Britain and Germany, exploring how a great war involving Europe’s leading powers could come to pass. In 1914, there were no forces beyond the control of...

Abstract The centenary of the outbreak of the First World War has so far produced a great deal of attention from scholars, history buffs, and policymakers alike. Much of this attention says more about attitudes in 2014 than the...

The past few weeks of events in Iraq have been both personally and professionally depressing. The fall of Tal Afar was personally depressing because I spent a year in that area back in 2006-2007 living with and serving alongside...

In 1970, the President’s Commission on an All-Volunteer Armed Force delivered its report to the President of the United States, Richard Nixon.  In the report, better known as the Gates Commission due to the leadership of former Secretary of...