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.
July 6, 2017
Putin’s Syrian Gambit: Sharper Elbows, Bigger Footprint, Stickier Wicket
Thanks in large part to Russia’s military intervention, Syrian president Bashar al-Asad’s fortunes have made a remarkable recovery since May/June 2015. Russia, together with the Lebanese Hizballah, Iran, and Iranian-organized Shia militias from Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and elsewhere, has succeeded in averting Asad’s military defeat. What Russian president Vladimir Putin has accomplished in Syria is important for American national security interests and policy in the region because it frames some of the hard choices Washington must now make.
June 22, 2017
Joint Force Quarterly 86 (3rd Quarter 2017)
One of the most important questions we ask students of national and international security is “What is war?” Many will provide a solid response citing one of the great war “thinkers” like Thucydides or Carl von Clausewitz. An equally important set of questions flows from these responses. When should a country like the United States become involved?
June 20, 2017
Leave Mountain People Alone
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.
May 24, 2017
Another Week; Another Missile Test: Inching Toward a Freeze – With Eyes Wide Shut?
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.
May 22, 2017
Like, Comment, Retweet: The State of the Military's Nonpartisan Ethic in the World of Social Media
Past research contends that with the exception of voting in presidential elections, military officers’ political participation is fairly muted. Moreover, most allegations of political outspokenness tend to be levied at retired officers, not those on active duty. Department of Defense directives provide guidelines on permissible but traditional forms of political expression for active duty members of the military, but largely neglect social media as a forum for political activity. Through a survey of more than 500 military elites attending the United States Military Academy and National Defense University, this project seeks to establish the nature and extent of political expression by members of the military throughout social media and whether or not such expression is in keeping with the norm of nonpartisanship.
May 15, 2017
Developing an Innovation- Based Ecosystem at the U.S. Department of Defense: Challenges and Opportunities
The U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) is looking at new ways to spur entrepreneurship and innovation among its stakeholders and related constituencies.
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.