Discoveries
America’s Education Crisis Is a National Security Threat
Since the end of World War II, the world’s population has not only gotten vastly bigger; it has also become vastly more educated. In nearly every country on earth, the total number of years that citizens have attended school has grown faster than the population itself, and the number of college degrees conferred has grown…
New Organization to Develop an Urgent National Higher Education Strategy to Secure the United States’ Global Competitive Position
WASHINGTON, DC (April 26, 2023)—Today, a coalition of national leaders hailing from higher education, government, business, the nonprofit sector, and the military announced the formation of the Council on Higher Education as a Strategic Asset (HESA). Over the next year, HESA will develop and propose recommendations for ensuring that higher education institutions can deliver the workforce and educated…
Maximizing the potential of American irregular warfare in strategic competition
The United States lacks the concepts and associated doctrine for its irregular warfare capabilities to achieve their potential in strategic competition. This challenge was articulated in 2013 in a hallmark collaboration of Army Chief of Staff Raymond Odierno, Marine Corps Commandant James Amos, and U.S. Special Operations Commander William McRaven. Center to their critique was the observation that the Pentagon’s concept of competition…
Pentagon Prepares for Space Warfare as Potential Threats From China, Russia Grow
The Pentagon is gearing up for a future conflict in space as China and Russia deploy missiles and lasers that can take out satellites and disrupt military and civilian communications. The U.S. military long ago dropped the notion of crewed, orbiting space weapons in favor of satellites because the logistics of supporting people outside of Earth’s atmosphere…
Former U.S. Combatant Commanders Urge Congress to Strengthen Civilian National Security Toolkit
Washington D.C. – Today, 18 former military leaders – all of whom served at the highest levels of military service and commanded regional or special operations combatant commands across the world – sent a letter to Congress urging robust support for civilian national security tools – including the State Department, USAID, and other development agencies –…
Preparing for strategic competition: The need for irregular warfare professional military education
The Department of Defense (DOD) does not provide the irregular warfare (IW) professional military education necessary for success in competition and conflict in the 21st century. This is a not a new problem, but it is one that may deserve new attention from the Congress and the Pentagon. More than 30 years ago, the late Ambassador Michael Sheehan,…
Educating future US Army officers to fight and win
Why West Point’s academic program is essential to our national security Is the United States Army ready to succeed on the battlefields of tomorrow? Given the breakdown of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, this question is not just being debated in the halls of the Pentagon. The American public is also watching Russia’s military performance and…
REDEFINING IRREGULAR WARFARE: LEGITIMACY, COERCION, AND POWER
The Department of Defense is working on a new definition of irregular warfare, and the stakes are surprisingly high. The danger lies not just in forgetting whatever was learned from twenty years of engagement with substate actors through counterinsurgency and counterterrorism. Rather, in seeking to apply the term to state-based actors, the better to capture…
How AI Distorts Decision-Making and Makes Dictators More Dangerous
In policy circles, discussions about artificial intelligence invariably pit China against the United States in a race for technological supremacy. If the key resource is data, then China, with its billion-plus citizens and lax protections against state surveillance, seems destined to win. Kai-Fu Lee, a famous computer scientist, has claimed that data is the new…
