Through its publications, INSS aims to provide expert insights, cutting-edge research, and innovative solutions that contribute to shaping the national security discourse and preparing the next generation of leaders in the field.
May 5, 2021
Alliance in Evolution: The Biden-Suga Summit
The Biden‒Suga Summit represents the latest phase in the evolution of the U.S.‒Japan Alliance. What follows outlines the steps in the adaptation of this critical alliance made by governments in Washington and Tokyo. This paper relies upon key statements made in the most recent summits to strengthen the alliance and broaden its perspective and interests.
March 11, 2021
Want to Grow the Economy? Try Fermenting It Instead
U.S. industry’s distribution system and supply chains were vulnerable before COVID, but pandemic-related disruptions to supply chains fully exposed this already alarming problem. U.S. manufacturers have relied too heavily on foreign materials for production, and the steady off-shoring of critical industries over a course of decades has reduced direct control of vital defense-related manufacturing should it be needed.
Feb. 4, 2021
Intellectual Overmatch Is Impossible If We Teach Only Half the Team: A Call for Professional Civilian Education
Last May, the Joint Chiefs of Staff published a combined vision for military education and talent management that correctly emphasized the need for both technical and intellectual overmatch to successfully compete in the modern warfare environment. However, without a parallel emphasis in developing the intellectual skills of the civilian workforce (in DOD and across the Federal national security enterprise), we will not achieve the overmatch we need.
Nov. 12, 2020
China – Next Steps
If we are to compete successfully with China for influence in Asia and across the globe, where to begin? In short, back to basics – our alliances.
April 27, 2020
Beyond 1918: Bringing Pandemic Response into the Present, and Future
The current pandemic gives us an opportunity to envision new tools, methods, and response policies that leverage emerging technologies, which, if adopted and prudently employed, would enable capability to far better predict, prepare, if not prevent the “next” biosecurity war, and not merely repeat the errors of the “last”.
April 23, 2020
Today the Spratlys and Paracels, Tomorrow…
Our alliances and regional strategic partnerships must be the foundation of a concerted effort, led by the United States, to push back against China’s on-going efforts to unilaterally change the status quo and incrementally chip away at the existing international order.
April 10, 2020
Ready or Not: Regaining Military Readiness during COVID19
The COVID19 pandemic has critically shaken the health, civil society, and economic security of the United States. It also has tested the readiness management processes of the U.S. Defense Department. While we wait for treatments, the Department of Defense needs to maintain readiness of the force in the interim. Force readiness and management will be improved by rapidly deploying a point of care serological test to all in the U.S. military.
Feb. 4, 2020
Qassem Soleimani: Moscow's Syria Decision – Myth and Reality
On January 3, 2020, Iran’s Special Forces leader– IRGC Quds Force – Major General Qassem Soleimani, was killed by an American drone strike outside of the Baghdad International Airport in Iraq. Commentators noted that Soleimani had been the subject of a United Nations (UN) travel ban and an asset freeze by the United Nations Security Council (UNSCR) since 2007. Soleimani had, however, traveled frequently to Syria, Iraq and Lebanon in the decade since these prohibitions. Notably, Soleimani also reportedly made a covert trip to Moscow in July of 2015 that was conspicuous for its flouting of UN travel restrictions and for the lore associated with it having facilitated what became a precipitous escalation in Russian intervention into the Syrian civil war.
Oct. 8, 2019
Putin Heads For Riyadh
October 7, 2019 — At their summit later this month, Putin and his Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) hosts will highlight progress on the economic agenda laid out during King Salman’s October 2017 visit to Moscow. Questions about the American commitment to protect the free flow of energy from the region will play in the background, and Putin will lobby the Saudis to buy Russian air defense systems. The Russian president will use the September 14 strikes on Saudi energy facilities and the lengthy Yemen conflict to advance Moscow’s Concept for Collective Security in the Persian Gulf and encourage peace talks. Moscow and Riyadh will underscore their intent to continue working together in OPEC+ to stabilize global oil prices, and use the Riyadh summit to bolster the room for independent action on the world stage of their energy tandem.
May 30, 2019
The Mueller Report: The Missed Accelerants to Putin’s Interference
May 30, 2019 — The March 2019 Mueller Report – discussed by Mueller himself in a brief, televised press conference on May 29, 2019 - provides enormous detail on the patterns and impacts of Russian interference in America’s 2016 election that were authorized by the very top leadership in Moscow. However, the report does not explore the context behind Moscow’s choice for this brazen course of action. Combining Mueller’s insights and my past research and writing about President Vladimir Putin’s increasing appetite for foreign policy risk taking, this Strategic Insight contends that three main accelerants and one huge contextual factor encouraged Putin’s fateful early 2014 choice to meddle in and manipulate the US electoral process.