March 8, 2017

PLA Reform in 2017: Likely Directions and Implications for Taiwan

2017 will be a busy year for PLA reform. Key goals include rebalancing towards a greater focus on the navy and air force, restructuring the ground forces, and revising the personnel system to promote stronger joint operations capabilities. Taiwan needs to work, both individually and in concert with the United States, to mitigate the risks of a PLA that will be better organized, trained, and equipped to threaten the island’s safety.

March 7, 2017

President Trump’s Defense Budget: Just a Down Payment

President Trump took the right approach: an incremental first step that demonstrates his commitment. Before he lays out the required long-range strategy to correct the shortcomings in our armed forces, he will need to explain his vision for America’s leadership role in the world. His forthcoming National Security Strategy will lay out that vision, and the National Security Council must assist him in laying out the underpinning role of defense within that overarching strategy. It must also define parameters for a subordinate National Defense Strategy that Secretary of Defense James Mattis and his still understaffed team at the Pentagon are responsible for. These more detailed plans will lay out the larger architectural design that the American people and our allies so clearly need to see. But in the absence of the entire design, we should cash the down payment immediately and begin to sharpen the tired instruments we have to work with now.

March 1, 2017

Strategic Culture and Ways of War: Elusive Fiction or Essential Concept?

This review essay appeared in the Spring 2017 issue of the Naval War College Review in March 2017.Is there such a thing as “strategic culture” and a distinctive “American way ofwar”? What defines this supposedly unique approach to warfare? What elementsor habits comprise this approach, and how has itbeen applied over the course of time? Do

Feb. 27, 2017

Facilitating Japan’s Participation in Multinational Defense R&D: A Japanese Approach to Strategic Management of Technology Transfer and Intellectual Property Rights Issues

In 2014, Japan made a high-profile policy reversal toward the export policy of major most technologically and militarily advanced nations, that permits the export of defense equipment, articles and services, involving technology transfer. Since then, however, Japan has made little substantial progress to date, except several bi-national research and development (R&D) projects for individual element technologies as well as some limited legal-administrative instruments thereof.2 For several decades, Japanese defense firms have produced arms mostly for domestic use, with some under manufacturing agreements of U.S. defense contractors. Unsurprisingly, Japanese arms do not sell well overseas, due to their low international price competitiveness consequent upon the nature of domestic defense markets that are generally closed, highly monopsonistic, and comparatively small-sized; and due to the total lack of battlefield operational experience and combat-proven performance that results from the postwar pacifist constitution.

Feb. 24, 2017

The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Negotiations: A Case Study

On July 16, 1945, the United States conducted the world’s first nuclear explosive test in Alamagordo, New Mexico. The test went off as planned; a nuclear chain reaction, in the form of an explosion, could be created. Less than a month later, nuclear weapons were used to support Allied efforts to end World War II.

Feb. 7, 2017

Managing Military Readiness

Understanding the limits of the Nation’s ability to generate and deploy ready military forces is a basic element of national security. It is also the element most likely to be taken for granted or assumed away despite ample historical evidence of the human and operational costs imposed by such an error. As budgets shrink and threats grow more diverse, national security leaders need a specific accounting of the readiness limits of the force and the consequences of those limits as well as the insight to make timely and effective mitigation decisions.

Jan. 1, 2017

Joint Force Quarterly 84 (1st Quarter 2017)

This issue of JFQ brings you the best new ideas from and for the Joint Force.

Dec. 8, 2016

Charting a Course: Strategic Choices for a New Administration

The new administration takes office in a time of great complexity. Our new President faces a national security environment shaped by strong currents: globalization; the proliferation of new, poor, and weak states, as well as nonstate actors; an enduring landscape of violent extremist organizations; slow economic growth; the rise of China and a revanchist Russia; a collapsing Middle East; and a domestic politics wracked by division and mistrust. While in absolute terms the Nation and the world are safer than in the last century, today the United States finds itself almost on a permanent war footing, engaged in military operations around the world.

Dec. 7, 2016

PRISM Volume 6, No. 3

As the commander of United States Special Operations Command (SOCOM), I welcome you to an issue of PRISM dedicated to special operations. SOCOM is responsible for the critical dual missions of providing the U.S. Geographic Commands with trained and ready special operations forces (SOF), as well as synchronizing their actions—we are uniquely created by law to perform both service-like activities and serve as a functional Geographic Combatant Command. In addition, SOCOM serves as the coordinating authority for the Department of Defense National Military Strategic Plan to Counter Trans-Regional Terrorist Organization (NMSP-CTTO). In light of the complexity of today’s security environment, SOF are spread broadly across the spectrum of conflict. As a SOF enterprise we continually strive to be ready, and I am confident we are postured to address today’s trans-regional challenges by virtue of our global perspective and authorities. Nevertheless, we must push ourselves to transform to meet evolving challenges, which entails leveraging developmental technologies and critically revisiting our structures and processes, while at the same time adjusting our tactics, techniques, and procedures to enhance effectiveness.

Nov. 28, 2016

China’s Future SSBN Command and Control Structure

China is developing its first credible sea-based nuclear forces. This emergent nuclear ballistic missile submarine (SSBN) force will pose unique challenges to a country that has favored tightly centralized control over its nuclear deterrent. The choices China makes about SSBN command and control will have important implications for strategic stability.