Strategic Assessment 2025: Evolving Great Power Competition at Mid-Decade explores the ongoing dramatic evolution of strategic competition among and between today's three Great Powers — the United States, China, and Russia.
Every week, Strategic Insights brings analyses of critical policy issues that affect U.S. national security interests - from disruptive technologies to cognitive warfare, and more.
INSS was pleased to host the Disruptive Technology for Future Warfare Conference at NDU on 4 Sept 2025.

Highlighted Articles

Cover of the Journal of Strategic Studies

When Competition Becomes Contagious: Strategic Arms Racing Spillovers, Alliance Politics, and the Sino-American Nuclear Competition

Samuel M. Seitz and Elliot S. Ji

The emergence of increasingly sophisticated conventional counterforce and missile defense systems is altering the dynamics around the nuclear security dilemma, in both its traditional and alliance forms.

The image shows a silhouette of a human head in profile, with the brain area illustrated using circuit-like patterns.

Darwin Monkey: Next Generation Neuromorphic Computing and Competition for Cognitive Capability and Control

Elise Annett and Dr. James Giordano

The Darwin Monkey System represents a substantive pivot from conventional AI toward synthetic cognition through neuromorphic architectures that emulate the structural and functional dynamics of the brain.

Cover of Open Journal of Philosophy

The Logos and Limits of Artificial Cognition: The Exemplar of Military Use

Elise Annett and Dr. James Giordano

As AI increasingly emulates tasks of human judgment, abstraction, and decision-making, it challenges foundational conceptions of mind, agency, and moral responsibility.

High altitude balloons, such as this one being launched from Andoya Air Station in 2021, raise important questions about the legal protections of very low Earth orbit and high altitude airspace. Credit: U.S. Army

China’s "near space" legal warfare

Todd Pennington and Emmy Kanarowski

A recurring Chinese narrative about so-called "near space" is an expression of the People's Liberation Army doctrine of Legal Warfare.

Featured Experts

Photo of James Giordano, Director of The Center of Disruptive Technology and Future Warfare.
James Giordano
Director, CDTFW

Areas of Expertise: Emerging Science and Technology; Neurocognitive Technology; Bioweapons, Biowarfare, and Biosecurity; Ethics


Distinguished Research Fellow, CSR / Director, CSCMA
Phillip C. Saunders
Director, China, Asia, Weapons of Mass Destruction

Areas of Expertise: China, Asia, Weapons of Mass Destruction

 


Distinguished Research Fellow, CSR
Thomas F. Lynch III
Distinguished Fellow, Strategic Competition & Indo-Pacific Security

Areas of Expertise:  Asia and the Indo-Pacific (South and Central Asia); Great Power Competition (GPC); Middle East and North Africa (Gulf Arab States); Counter-terrorism


T.X. Hammes, Distinguished Research Fellow, CSR
T.X. Hammes
Distinguished Fellow, Future Conflict and Technology

Areas of Expertise: Future conflict; Changing Character of Warfare; Military Strategy; Insurgency/Irregular Warfare; Operational Concepts

Research & Analysis

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