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Category: Strategic Insights

July 5, 2024

Lethal Targeting and Adaptation Failure in Terrorist Groups

This study argues that terrorist groups’ command relationships and resources bases can hinder their ability to adapt to lethal targeting. It evaluates this argument by examining Arabic language correspondence from Usama bin Ladin’s compound related to the drone campaign in Pakistan.

May 9, 2024

Unpacking China’s PLA Restructuring: A Conversation with Dr. Joel Wuthnow

Dr. Joel Wuthnow (INSS/Center for the Study of Chinese Military Affairs) was interviewed on the Center for Strategic & International Studies’ (CSIS) ChinaPower podcast.

March 7, 2024

The Russo-Chinese Alliance and Great Power Competition with Dr. Tom Lynch

Dr. Tom Lynch offers us a Great Power Competition understanding of the evolving Russo-Chinese strategic partnership on the Georgetown University “Diplomatic Immunity” podcast. His 30-minute podcast conversation, posted on March 7, 2024, tells us why China and Russia now appear more strategically aligned than they actually are and why they are not destined to be formal allies into the future.

March 6, 2024

America’s New Twilight Struggle With Russia

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine forced Washington to rethink its fundamental assumptions about Moscow. Every U.S. president from Bill Clinton to Joe Biden had sought some degree of engagement with Russia. As late as 2021, Biden expressed hope that Russia and the United States could arrive at “a stable, predictable relationship.” But Russia’s brutal war on Ukraine has radically altered that assessment. It is now clear that the two countries will remain antagonists for years to come. The Kremlin possesses immense disruptive global power and is willing to take great risks to advance its geopolitical agenda. Coping with Russia will demand a long-term strategy, one that echoes containment, which guided the United States through the Cold War, or what President John F. Kennedy called a “long, twilight struggle” against the Soviet Union.

Feb. 24, 2024

CSR's Dr. Tom Lynch Participates in the Inaugural Quad Think Tank Forum

Dr. Tom Lynch participated in the Inaugural Quad Think Tank Forum in New Delhi, India.

Feb. 23, 2024

CSR's Dr. Tom Lynch Participates in the Ninth Annual Raisina Dialogue

Dr. Tom Lynch participated in several panel breakouts in the Ninth Annual Raisina Dialogue in New Delhi, India.

Jan. 12, 2024

Why China can't invade despite it's Taiwanese rival being elected

China is rewriting war plans and could have the military capability to invade Taiwan in ‘four or five years’, Dr Philip Saunders tells Frontline on Times Radio

Dec. 11, 2023

Imagining the Future of Landpower

Book review of The Arms of the Future: Technology and Close Combat in the Twenty-First Centry by Jacking Watling.

Dec. 4, 2023

AI’s Impact on War’s Enduring Nature

Despite the remarkable progress in generative AI, the authors contend that war’s essential nature will be impacted to a degree but will not be substantially altered.

Dec. 1, 2023

Assessing Russian Cyber and Information Warfare in Ukraine

This article examines Russian use of cyber and information capabilities to influence the course of the Ukraine war by analyzing prior expectations, public knowledge of wartime realities, potential reasons for disparity between the two, and the distinct and sometimes contradictory takeaways that have been drawn to date within the analytical community.


Strategic Insights | July 14, 2025

Major Concerns About Microelectronics

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is decisively shaping the future of warfare. It accelerates decision cycles, extends operational reach, and enables exercised control of the informational, and cognitive dimensions of engagement.

Strategic Insights | July 8, 2025

Strategic Innovation in the DoD FY 2026 RDTE Budget: Leveraging Disrupti...

The Department of Defense FY 2026 Research, Development, Test and Evaluation (RDTE) budget request marks a strategic inflection that reflects a doctrinal shift toward convergent disruptive technologies, and with it, a re-posturing of how deterrence,


INSS Around the Web | July 7, 2025

Iran’s Strategic Crossroads: Options Beyond the Axis?

Events of 2023-2024, culminating with the collapse of the Assad regime in Syria, have brought Iran’s regional strategy—a triad of ballistic missile capabilities, nuclear latency, and a decentralized network of regional armed partners—to a moment of



Strategic Insights | July 1, 2025

The Orb’s Eye: Seeing the National Security Implications of Iris Based ‘...

As recently reported in the cover story of Time[JG1] magazine, the launch of The Orb—a beach‑ball‑sized biometric device developed by Tools for Humanity (co‑founded by Sam Altman)—marks a paradigmatic shift in digital identity and biosecurity

Strategic Insights | June 24, 2025

Brain Scanning: Assessing Emigration of U.S. Scientific Talent to Survei...

Intensifying global competition in science and technology (S/T), particularly in fields with considerable disruptive potential - such as artificial intelligence (AI), quantum computing, synthetic biology, and neurotechnology—has become a defining