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The Institute for National Strategic Studies serves as a focal point for analysis of critical national security policy and defense strategy issues.

 

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July 5, 2024

The Elusive Promise of “Over-the-Horizon” Counterterrorism

Dr. Kim Cragin, INSS Distinguished Fellow for Counterterrorism, has a new journal article on the opportunities and challenges posed by an over-the-horizon approach to counterterrorism.

July 5, 2024

Small, smart, many and cheaper: Competitive adaptation in modern warfare

Q&A with T. X. Hammes, a nonresident senior fellow in the Forward Defense program of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security and a distinguished research fellow in the Center for Strategic Research.

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.


INSS Around the Web | Dec. 3, 2025

Strategic Ambiguity: Erdoğan’s Turkey in a Multipolar World

Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Finland and Sweden made the historic decision to seek membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

INSS Around the Web | Dec. 2, 2025

Can Seoul Take the Lead & The Alliance Expand Its Aperture?

South Korea taking a lead role in conventional deterrence of North Korea, appears linked with enabling the U.S. conventional posture and the alliance's combined posture on the peninsula to better handle multiple threats to the alliance on, around,

INSS Around the Web | Dec. 2, 2025

The Variables of OPCON: What ‘Conditions’?

Language around wartime operational control (OPCON) transition has evolved over the last decade, revealing important patterns and subtle (or not so subtle) shifts in position and policy.

INSS Around the Web | Dec. 2, 2025

Human Agency Under Predictive Insight: Neuroethical Guidance of Behavior...

The examination of the Centaur AI system highlights a turning point at the intersection of behavioral science and artificial intelligence, and reveals a compelling truth: human choice displays structured regularity that advanced analytic systems can




INSS Around the Web | Nov. 17, 2025

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

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

INSS Around the Web | Nov. 17, 2025

China’s "near space" legal warfare

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