INSS provides cutting-edge research, analyses, and innovative solutions on critical national security issues in support of the joint warfighter and Department of War stakeholders.
May 12, 2017
Peril and Promise: Emerging Technologies and WMD
Emerging technologies are transforming life, industry, and the global economy in positive ways, but they also have significant potential for subversion by states and nonstate actors. National security experts, lawmakers, and policymakers have become increasingly concerned about the interactions among a number of emerging technologies that could alter and increase the threats from weapons of mass destruction (WMD).
May 2, 2017
Tell-Tale MRAPS
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 The April 24, 2017 article by Bill Gertz reports on a new unpublished study by retired Marine, Steve Chill.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.
April 21, 2017
The Armed Forces Officer
In 1950 when he commissioned the first edition of The Armed Forces Officer, Secretary of Defense George C. Marshall told its author, S.L.A. Marshall, “that American military officers, of whatever service, should share common ground ethically and morally.”
April 14, 2017
The Department of Defense Chemical and Biological Defense Program: An Enabler of the Third Offset Strategy
In the current era of rapidly emerging technologies, adversaries are not only rediscovering chemical and biological weapons; they are also displaying an increased propensity to employ them to cause strategic instability among deployed forces or nations undergoing conflict. The United States's investments in its Chemical and Biological Defense Program (CBDP) can be a critical enabler of the third offset strategy, which is a DOD initiative that seeks to maximize force capability to offset emerging threats.
April 12, 2017
Vice President Pence in Indonesia: U.S. Interests in the South China Sea
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.
April 11, 2017
Joint Force Quarterly 85 (2nd Quarter 2017)
What do you see happening in the joint force today? Are we a better fighting force 30 years after Goldwater-Nichols? What do you see as the important issues today and going forward? Our JFQ audience wants to hear what you have to say. You have made JFQ “one of the most thoroughly read and influential journals” in the military profession, as General Powell had wanted. Only you can continue to let leadership know what you are thinking. JFQ is here to help you do just that.
March 21, 2017
Chinese Military Reforms in the Age of Xi Jinping: Drivers, Challenges, and Implications
Chinese military modernization has made impressive strides in the past decade. The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has achieved progress in key technological areas, ranging from precision-guided missiles to advanced surface ships and combat aircraft; PLA personnel are more highly trained and skilled, capable of carrying out increasingly complex operations near to and farther away from China’s shores; and Chinese military doctrine and strategy have been updated to emphasize modern, joint maneuver warfare on a high-tech battlefield. This progress has been supported by significant increases in Chinese defense spending every year since 1990. Taken together, these changes better enable the PLA to fight what the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) describes as “short-duration, high-intensity regional conflicts.”
March 20, 2017
March Issue, Arms Control Today: "Deter and Downsize: A Paradigm Shift for Nuclear Arms Control"
The nuclear triad approach to nuclear arms control deserves recognition for playing an important role in limiting and ultimately contributing to the reduction of their respective deployed nuclear forces, but it is unable to address the nuclear competition within the present geostrategic environment, where multiple states view nuclear forces as critically important to their long-term security. If nuclear arms control is to play a key role in preventing friction between nuclear powers and reducing nuclear risks in the 21st century, there needs to be a shift in focus and an expansion in participants.
March 14, 2017
India-Japan Strategic Cooperation and Implications for U.S. Strategy in the Indo-Asia-Pacific Region
The emerging strategic relationship between India and Japan is significant for the future security and stability of the Indo-Asia-Pacific region. It is also a critical emergent relationship for U.S. security objectives across the Asia-Pacific. India possesses the most latent economic and military potential of any state in the wider Asia-Pacific region. Therefore, India is the state with the greatest potential outside of the United States itself to contribute to the objectives of the “Rebalance to the Pacific” announced by Washington in 2011. This “rebalance” was aimed at fostering a stable, prosperous, and rules-based region where peace, prosperity, and wide respect for human rights are observed and extended. Implicit in the rebalance was a hedge against a China acting to challenge the existing post–World War II rules-based international and regional order.
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.