Elise Annett and Dr. James Giordano

INSS has relaunched Strategic Insights. Read the latest post by Elise Annett and Dr. James Giordano.

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Keisuke Mizuhiro

The contemporary Indo-Pacific security environment is very challenging. It is complicated by the Taiwan issue, China's territorial friction with Japan, Philippines and India, North Korea's nuclear and missile development, and Russia's increased military activity. Critical infrastructure to support U.S. forces in Japan and joint operations between the Japan Self-Defense Forces and the American military are essential for the U.S. to deal capably with these and other pressing regional security issues. Japan must ensure its own resilience and improve its cyber capabilities, not just rely on the United States. The success or failure of cyber cooperation with Japan will undoubtedly be key to the realization of the U.S. Indo-Pacific strategy.

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Diane DiEuliis & Patrick Terrell

Many have acknowledged that the COVID19 pandemic was not a failure of our imagination – we’ve been preparing for such an event for decades by building biotechnologies for biosurveillance and medicines, conducting exercises, and stockpiling of medical supplies. Response to a spreading illness in many ways is not rocket science:  treat the sick, protect the vulnerable, and stop the spread – mainly accomplished via the tools and products of biotechnology.  Many are now asking, what could we have done better in the pandemic response?

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James Przystup

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.  

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Peter Emanuel Ph.D., Brian Feeney Ph.D. and Diane DiEuliis Ph.D.

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.

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Laura Junor Pulzone and Justin Lynch

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.

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R. Kim Cragin and Lachlan MacKenzie

In May 2020, fourteen unmarked Russian Mig-29 and Su-24 combat aircraft appeared in the possession of Russian paramilitaries in Libya. This transfer was unprecedented. While outdated, the aircraft have air-to-air and ground-attack capabilities similar to the United States (U.S.) Air Force F-15 and A-10. Why would Moscow send this equipment to a ragtag group of former military personnel moonlighting in Libya? As the United States military refocuses its attention on strategic competition with great powers, it will need to answer not only this question, but also broader questions related to how and why Russia utilizes its proxy forces.

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James Przystup

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.

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Diane DiEuliis, Peter Emanuel, Alexander Titus, and James Giordano

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”. 

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James Przystup

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. 

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Diane DiEuliis and Laura Junor

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. 

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John W. Parker

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.

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John W. Parker

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.  

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John W. Parker

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. 

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Irene Kyriakopoulos

Is Europe under siege?  Maybe not.  But the ongoing European migration crisis has reinforced pre-existing centripetal forces generated by serious economic imbalances in the European Union (EU), especially in the financially fragile states at the EU’s external borders.  Unless all twenty-eight states of the EU agree to harmonize their approach and resource commitments to border security, asylum laws, and equitable distribution of the migration burden, fragmentation and growing disunity will cause serious damage to European integration. 

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Steven Philip Kramer

The gilet jaune movement seemed to come out of nowhere, shook the very foundations of the French Fifth Republic, but now seems trapped in a dance of death, unable to free itself from its own contradictions. It began by calling attention to the forgotten men and women of la France profonde; it is ending with a display of its sad permeability to conspiratorial thinking, hate, and anti-Semitism. It remains to be seen if the crisis will have an impact on French President Emmanuel Macron’s presumed leadership of the forces defending European integration over the forces of continental fragmentation.

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John W. Parker

In INSS’s Strategic Perspectives No. 27 – “Between Russia and Iran: Room to Pursue American Interests in Syria,” I argued that Russia’s solution to restraining Iranian behavior in Syria has been one of addition and mediation rather than subtraction. Since then, there have been dramatic developments in the region and in U.S. policy on Syria. Despite -- and at times thanks to -- these twists and turns, Moscow has kept its ties with Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey on track, while doing little more than marching in place in its management of relations with Iran. Here are the recent highlights and the future implications for American policy in Syria.

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Christopher J. Lamb

Is there a hidden gem in the recently released National Defense Strategy Commission report? Distinguished Research Fellow Dr. Christopher Lamb thinks so. The report recommends cross-functional teams (CFTs), which have the potential to transform the national security system. But few people are aware of what is happening, what is at stake and what it will take to ensure the success of CFTs.

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James Przystup

Despite President Trump's claim to have "largely solved" the North Korea problem, the President's ambition is now meeting reality as Secretary Pompeo and his North Korean counterparts attempt to fill in the blanks of what President Trump and Kim Jong Un thought they had agreed to at the Singapore Summit. At the same time, progress in President Moon's efforts to engage North Korea is fast outpacing progress in U.S.-North Korea negotiations on denuclearization. This trend is likely to continue and strain U.S.-ROK relations. The policy challenge facing the Trump administration is formidable and will test the President's diplomatic skills.

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Thomas F. Lynch III

On Monday, August 28th, China and India announced a de-escalation of their two month old confrontation along the tri-border area with Bhutan near Doklam. Beijing and New Delhi made this announcement about a week in advance of Prime Minister Modi’s simultaneously-announced intent to visit to China from September 3-5 for the annual BRICS (Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa) Summit.

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Joel Wuthnow

The Trump Administration has hailed a recent 15-0 UN Security Council vote imposing new sanctions on the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) as a diplomatic victory. The sanctions include a complete ban on coal, iron, and lead exports, a major source of foreign currency for Pyongyang. Success will depend on how effectively China, as North Korea’s predominant trading partner, enforces the new sanctions. In deciding how vigorously to implement them, Beijing will have to weigh multiple competing factors, including assessments of North Korea’s reaction, Chinese public expectations, and the possibility of additional U.S. secondary sanctions on Chinese firms. A less obvious, but potentially crucial, variable in China’s calculus is whether Russia will take advantage of a curtailed Sino-DPRK economic relationship to build its own influence in North Korea.

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T.X. Hammes

We have over 4,000 years of recorded history of human conflict. As Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis has noted “There is nothing new under the sun.” And from this wealth of experience, a number of rules of thumb for military operations have evolved. Perhaps the most famous is “Don’t get in a land war in Asia.” Interestingly, I have never seen a similarly obvious rule – “Leave mountain people alone.” Yet even a brief historical survey shows that campaigns against mountain people rarely pay off. Afghans, Chechens, Kurds, Montagnards (which literally means “mountain people” in French), Scots, Welsh, Swiss, Druze, Maronite Christians, and West Virginians have all repeatedly seen off outsiders.

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James Przystup

On January 20, North Korea became the responsibility of the new Trump administration. After eight years of “strategic patience,” North Korea, as President Obama advised his successor, now poses the greatest threat to the security of the United States.

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Christopher Lamb

A recent article in the Washington Free Beacon, “Biden Used False Data to Smear Marine Corps over Armored Vehicle Request from Iraq,” accomplishes the rare feat of politicizing a bipartisan issue; blackguarding both parties erroneously; and unnecessarily embarrassing Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis. The April 24, 2017 article by Bill Gertz reports on a new unpublished study by retired Marine, Steve Chill. Chill participated in Marine Corps decision making on the Mine-Resistant, Ambush-Protected (MRAP) vehicles used to protect servicemen in Iraq and Afghanistan. Chill wrote his study to “correct the record” and prove the Marine Corps did not “drag its feet” in deploying MRAPs. Gertz and Chill get the story wrong, and thus obscure the lesson the Pentagon should have learned from the MRAP experience, which is that its decision making processes need reform.

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James Przystup

If the past decade is prologue, sometime in the next four years developments in the South China Sea will again call into question U.S. interests and commitments in Southeast Asia. The mid-April visit of Vice President Pence to Indonesia and Australia offers an opportunity to define U.S. policy toward the region.

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