Last year while in Japan for a meeting with senior defense and military leaders, the question most often posed to me was, “How is Yoda?” The questions were in reference to the nickname given to Andrew Marshall, arguably the foremost defense strategist of the past sixty years, who passed away this week at the… Keep reading →

“The Battle of Guadalcanal was a brutal campaign, but shows us what the next fight could be like,” Vice Adm. Brown said. “Usually, the CO (skipper), XO (executive officer) and senior officers – even admirals – were killed immediately – but what happened?”

The actual Robotic Combat Vehicle that gets mass-produced and fielded by 2028 will be an all-new design, not a converted M113. But why wait for someone to design and build the perfect hardware, when you can start testing the software and the tactics on something cheaply available today?

Presidents Putin and Trump will meet soon in Helsinki.  At a time of uncertainty in the US-Russia relationship, the meeting is an important step forward in clarifying that relationship, one that should be not reduced to a Trump tweet or a Putin chess move. Where it is being held is significant. Helsinki was part of the… Keep reading →

China’s increasingly aggressive rise puts the Pacific theater in play in a way it hasn’t been since 1945. In this essay, Singaporean scholar Ben Ho Wan Beng and retired US Marine Gary Lehmann look at what a critical but overlooked World War II battle has to tell us about the potential strengths — and weaknesses — of the Marine Corps’s new concept for waging the next Pacific war. — the editors

The stakes are high for President Trump’s nascent Space Force because a poorly integrated service is a price America cannot afford to pay. This means a careful, thoughtful, conditions-based approach must be followed to assess if and when an autonomous military space organization will provide the best path forward. All four services will contribute to… Keep reading →

“I know that I have good numbers in ’18. I think if the budget agreement holds, we’ll have good numbers in ’19. I cannot predict the future,” Sec. Esper said. “What’s in my control to lay out the clearest possible vision of what the Army of 2028 should look like.”

“The United States has been fighting weak and isolated regional adversaries for the last 25 years, and a result we have a very inflated view of how good we are,” warned the study’s lead author, Mark Cancian of CSIS.

For the first time since December 1941, when Wake Island’s shore gunners sank the invading destroyer Hayate, Marine Corps artillery wants to kill ships. That could be a big boost for the Navy, which confronts ever more powerful Russian and Chinese fleets. Army artillery is also exploring anti-ship missiles, and the Marines may buy the… Keep reading →

A clarion call. Our readers (being wise and smart) know what that means. Sen. John McCain issued one last night in a speech to the next generation of naval leaders at Annapolis. McCain’s words are aimed straight at the heart of the Republican Party and of our country: “We have to fight. We have to… Keep reading →