Submission Statement

Part of the reason indigenous production is so attractive to countries is that once an assembly line shuts down, it can take significant investment to reopen. Workers develop best practices and optimizations to make their tasks more efficient, many of which are lost when they move on to other positions or retire. At best, losing that knowledge can result in slower production. At worst, a critical unwritten rule can be the difference between a part working or failing. This article provides a good example of the effort required to restart a production line.

Marcus Weisgerber is the global business editor for Defense One, where he writes about the intersection of business and national security.

Raytheon has called in retired engineers to teach its employees how to build the Stinger missiles heavily used by Ukraine’s military—using blueprints drawn up during the Carter administration.

It’s the latest example of a private company working to ramp up production of a now-in-demand weapon that the Pentagon hasn’t purchased in decades.

“Stinger's been out of production for 20 years, and all of a sudden in the first 48 hours [of the war], it's the star of the show and everybody wants more,” Wes Kremer, the president of RTX’s Raytheon division, said during an interview last week at the Paris Air Show.

When the U.S. Army placed an order for 1,700 Stingers in May 2022, the Pentagon said the missiles wouldn’t be delivered until 2026. Kremer said it will take about 30 months for Stingers to start rolling off of the production line largely because of the time it takes to set up the factory and train its employees.

On top of that, the electronics used in the missile are obsolete, said RTX CEO Greg Hayes.

“We're redesigning circuit cards [and] redesigning some of the componentry,” Hayes told Defense One in a June 14 interview. “That just takes a long time.”

While engineers these days often tout 3D printing and automation as a way to speed up the manufacturing process, that’s not possible with the Stinger—because doing so would not only mean redesigning the weapon, but also undergoing a lengthy weapon certification process.

“You'd have to redesign the entire seeker in order to automate it,” Kremer said.

That means they must build the weapons the same way they were built four decades ago: including installing the missile’s nose cone by hand.

Submission Statement

The shift towards UAVs as wing"men" for pilots was mentioned in a previous submission. Now, the UK seems to be trending in the same direction, looking to add catapult capabilities and a suite of unmanned aircraft to its carrier complement.

Frankly, this seems a bit like a waste, especially when the Prince of Wales remains stranded in drydock with a constantly slipping date for its return to service and dogged by rumors that it is being stripped for parts to sustain its sister ship, the HMS Queen Elizabeth. It's hard to imagine that a handful of bespoke drones(that will likely be competing with F-35Bs for limited hangar space) outweigh the additional capabilities that would be granted by sustaining an additional STOVL carrier. Perhaps the MOD anticipates a sustained surge in funding due to the war in Ukraine, but I'm skeptical of that as well. As the course of the war becomes increasingly well-defined, the risks to the UK will become easier for politicians to brush aside. Any increased funding will have to go toward rebuilding stockpiles before it can be splurged on pricey upgrades.

Richard Scott is a well-known U.K.-based writer on the Royal Navy and other naval forces worldwide.

The U.K. Royal Navy is studying the introduction of aircraft launch and recovery systems onboard its two Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers to “open up” the flight deck to a broader range of crewed and uncrewed air systems.

Speaking at the Defence Leaders’ Combined Naval Event 2023 conference in Farnborough on May 24, U.K. Royal Marine Col. Phil Kelly, the head of carrier strike and maritime aviation within the Royal Navy’s Develop Directorate, outlined a plan to retrofit the arresting gear and assisted launch equipment as part of a broader Future Maritime Aviation Force (FMAF) vision. FMAF is a multi-strand program exploring the widespread fielding of uncrewed aviation across the surface fleet, with a specific focus on future carrier aviation.

In its current configuration, the Queen Elizabeth-class flight deck arrangement – with a 12.5 degree ski-ramp fitted forward and a vertical recovery deck offset to port – has been shaped by the operation and support of a single fixed-wing aircraft type: the F-35B Lightning II short takeoff vertical landing Joint Strike Fighter. No assisted launch or arresting machinery is installed.

According to Col Kelly, one strand of FMAF – known as Project Ark Royal – is exploring options for the phased introduction of aircraft launch and recovery equipment to enable the operation of high-performance uncrewed strike and support systems, and potentially fixed-wing crewed aircraft.

“We are looking to move from STOVL to STOL [short takeoff and landing], then to STOBAR [short takeoff but arrested recovery] and then to CATOBAR [catapult-assisted takeoff but arrested recovery]. We are looking at a demonstrable progression that spreads out the financial cost and incrementally improves capability,” Kelly said.

The first step would be to increase the available length for the unassisted launch of uncrewed air systems.

“This November we will [launch] a Mojave [STOL] aircraft off the angle of the flight deck off the U.S. east coast,” said Col Kelly. “This aircraft can take off in 300 feet of runway, so enough for the trial, [but] we have already undertaken design work to add sponsons and make a full run of 700 feet available.”

The next stage would be to introduce a recovery system into the Queen Elizabeth design. The large fixed-wing UAS envisaged under FMAF – a persistent capability known as Vixen – is expected to depend on some form of arrestment for recovery.

A final step would be to add an assisted launch system. “Adding catapults would allow us to operate the heaviest aircraft you can imagine,” Kelly said.

USNI News understands that various assisted launch and recovery system options have already been reviewed under Project Ark Royal. These include the Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System and Advanced Arresting Gear equipment delivered by General Atomics for the U.S. Navy’s Ford-class aircraft carriers, and the U.K.’s own Electro Magnetic Kinetic Induction Technology demonstrator, developed by GE Power Conversion.

The FMAF plan remains pre-decisional at this stage. The U.K. is continuing to explore capabilities, undertake experimentation and gather evidence in order to inform its next Integrated Review in 2025.

Submission Statement

From the Wikipedia article on mission command: Mission command, also referred to as mission-type tactics, is a style of military command, which is derived from the Prussian-pioneered mission-type tactics doctrine, combines centralized intent with decentralized execution subsidiarity, and promotes freedom and speed of action, and initiative within defined constraints. Subordinates, understanding the commander's intentions, their own missions, and the context of those missions, are told what effect they are to achieve and the reason that it needs to be achieved.

While in theory this form of command is widely adopted by Western militaries in practice political objectives and commanding officers' own tendency to micromanage often end up constraining subordinates to narrow courses of action. This article details a particularly salient case where the opposite occurred. NORDBAT2 was able to flaunt political constraints to carry out what it saw as the overarching mandate, contrasting with other UN forces at the time. This is an entertaining read that encapsulates the promise(and perils) of mission command.

Tony Ingesson is currently an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Lund University. His research is primarily focused on the political impact of tactical-decision-making and organizational cultures. He has previously served in the Swedish Army, Air Force and Navy.

In late 1993, a reinforced Swedish-Danish-Norwegian mechanized battalion (Nordbat 2) deployed to Bosnia as part of an ongoing UN peacekeeping mission, known as UNPROFOR (United Nations Protection Force).[1] The battalion was under Swedish command, and with the exception of a Danish tank company and a Norwegian helicopter detachment, was comprised of Swedish former conscripts, led by active-duty officers. The former conscripts had volunteered to return from civilian life to serve in a professional capacity. These Swedish troops, coming from a nation that had not experienced war for almost 200 years, faced a rigid UN bureaucracy, an unclear mandate, and the UN-imposed rules of engagement bordered on the absurd.[2] However, the Swedes had one thing the others didn't: a culture of mission command that had grown and developed for decades.

To the surprise of many, even in Sweden, Nordbat 2 quickly established a reputation as one of the most trigger-happy UN units in Bosnia. The troops and officers from some of the least belligerent nations in the world turned out to be quite adept at both using force and playing the odds in a high-stakes political game. This article outlines how a well-entrenched culture of mission command enabled Nordbat 2 to take on completely new and unexpected situations with remarkable results. While this culture of mission command turned out to be a potent force multiplier and an exceptionally effective strategic asset, it also had another side: Nordbat 2 on multiple occasions utterly disregarded orders from its highest political authorities, to the frustration of the Swedish government.

In "The Language of Mission Command and the Necessity of an Historical Approach," Jörg Muth argues that the U.S. Army needs to understand the culture of mission command in order to implement it.[3] This article provides a brief case study of the tactical and strategic impact of one such culture. While the events described here occurred over twenty years ago, they are as relevant as ever to further our understanding of the strategic role of leadership culture in mission command.

The most essential component of mission command is trust. As long as political leaders can trust the local commander to make the right choices, mission command can be an incredibly powerful force multiplier. Even though Nordbat 2's first battalion commanders were very unpopular with the Swedish government for their refusal to take orders from home, they were nevertheless greeted as heroes upon their return and remain viewed so to this day. This meant the Swedish government did not have to deal with the political fallout of the otherwise failed UN mission. The Dutch government, for example, was hard-pressed by public opinion after the massacre at Srebrenica in the summer of 1995. In 2002, the entire Dutch government was forced to resign over Srebrenica, after a detailed report blaming the government for the failure was released to the public.

While unrestrained mission command can be an effective tool, it also requires that political leadership relinquishes a significant degree of control. Thus, to be effectively harnessed in complex operational environments, the culture of mission command is one that has to be understood and to some extent shared by the civilian leadership as well as the military. This approach is clearly not without risk, but in a life-and-death scenario the basic rule of mission command remains relevant: it is better to make a mistake than to do nothing at all.

I’m trying this out on a purely experimental basis. Please strive to keep your discussions focused, courteous, and credible. Links to combat footage without significant further analysis will be removed. That sort of footage should be posted to !combatfootage@lemmy.world.

Also, please report things which break the rules! It’s unlikely I’ll see everything that happens in a thread, so reporting is the best way to remove content that doesn’t fit our standards.

The megathread is for asking questions and posting submissions that would not fit the criteria of our post submissions. As such, submissions are less stringently moderated, but we still do keep an elevated guideline for comments. Comment guidelines: ​ Please do: ​

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Submission Statement

This 45 minute interview of two senior officers synthesizes some of their takeaways from a NATO meeting regarding lessons learned from Ukraine. Takeaways include:

-Air superiority is key to choking off logistics and ensuring fast victory. Russia failed to achieve this air superiority because of a lack of joint operations and failure to evolve beyond its platforms. Russia's air force's sum was less than its parts.

-Air access--use of air assets strategically in a contested environment for maximum effect.

-Building broad-based counter-A2AD capabilities in NATO is a major priority. Want to avoid brutal artillery slog like in Ukraine.

-Private space power is making access to space cheaper and more important than ever. Starlink has been critical for Ukrainian efforts, but other space capabilities have been important as well. Space is likely to grow more contested--it's key to develop defensive and offensive capabilities in this area. Commercial satellite imaging has democratized access and understanding of the war like never before.

-Low-end munitions(eg drones) + networking blur the line between unmanned systems and precision weapons.

-Collaborative Combat Aircraft will work with F-35s, including those of NATO partners. Idea is still being finalized, may include countermeasures, weapons load, sensors, etc. while being more expendable than a manned aircraft.

-Russians may see their cruise and ballistic missiles as an asymmetric advantage at the moment. A more complex air environment overall demands a more layered approach. Ex: unexpected resurgence of gun-based AD.

-Deeper magazine depths are critical, perhaps more important than being at the absolute cutting edge. Quantity gives leeway in being able to use capabilities more freely.

-Information sharing is another priority. US went from sharing 30 points of interest a month with NATO partners to sharing 3,000 a month with a stroke of a pen. More to be done in other areas, like F-35 info sharing.

-Dispersal of units is getting more focus. The rise of precision munitions means that aircraft must be dispersed across multiple airbases. Locations are changed to remain inside of the enemy's decision cycle.

This is a podcast, if you are looking for a similar resource in text form, I highly recommend RUSI's article "The Russian Air War and Ukrainian Requirements for Air Defence".

This episode comes to you from Ramstein Air Base, where Ryan spoke with Gen. James Hecker of the U.S. Air Force and Air Marshall Johnny Stringer of the Royal Air Force about what we can learn from airpower and spacepower almost a year and a half into the war in Ukraine.

Submission Statement

There's been a lot of discussion about Prigozhin's abortive uprising--probably too much if we're honest. However, I found this article by Alexander Burns still worth sharing. the article is a high-level contextualization of Prigozhin's coup and a comparison of its current state to possible historical analogs. Before reading this article I had been falling into the trap of comparing Prigozhin's rebellion to Soviet political machinations, or to the tsardom that preceded the USSR. However, I was convinced by the historian's argument that the rebellion bore more resemblance to feudal-era coups, and that's the comparison I think I'll lean toward in the future. The aftermath of the Pilgrimage of Grace in particular I think is very relevant here, especially given recent reporting that the criminal case against Prigozhin has not been dropped.

Alexander S. Burns is an assistant professor of history at the Franciscan University of Steubenville, studying the American Continental Army’s connection to European militaries. His edited volume, The Changing Face of Old Regime Warfare: Essays in Honour of Christopher Duffy, was published in 2022. You can follow him @KKriegeBlog.

Part of what held our attention stemmed from surprise. How could Putin’s Russia, a state famously run prioritizing loyalty over competence, be facing a coup? My doctoral advisor, Professor Katherine B. Aaslestad, had the answer. Before her passing in 2021, she constantly reminded her lecture halls and graduate seminars: “Regimes that choose war rarely achieve their goals at the outset. War has a way of changing the situation. War takes on a life of its own.” She most frequently said this in the context of the wars of the French Revolution, but it is the case across military history. While Spartan King Archidamus and Athenian Pericles reluctantly led Sparta and Athens into the Peloponnesian War in 431 BC, neither was alive in 404 when the war ended. The political landscape had been totally reshaped by war, reshaping each side’s goals and objectives with it. We can observe a similar change in Russia today.

Despite all of the possible parallels in Russian history, I believe that the most interesting parallel to the current situation is the Pilgrimage of Grace, a rebellion during Henry VIII’s reign in England.

In October of 1536, Catholic believers in the North of England rose in revolt against the church reforms of Henry VIII. Although their motivations were economic and religious, important similarities between these peasants and Prigozhin exist. They called their rebellion the Pilgrimage of Grace, trying to disguise it as a military movement. They insisted that their grievances lay not with the actions of the king, but with “persons of low birth and small reputation” who were, they claimed, advising him poorly.

Knowing that it would be difficult to stop the pilgrim army, which numbered in the tens of thousands, Henry VIII’s government chose to negotiate. The pilgrims were promised immunity, that a special parliament would meet and address their grievances, and that the king would agree to their immediate demands until the parliament met. Seizing upon a pretext to abandon this pledge, forces loyal to Henry then suppressed a new uprising and executed around two hundred leaders of the initial rebellion.

There are many similarities between Prigozhin’s uprising and the Pilgrimage. Prigozhin referred to the events of June 23rd to 24th as “марш справедливости” or “the March for Justice,” rather than a coup. He insisted that Russian Defense Minister Shoigu, not Putin, was at fault for the failures and that they deliberately misled Putin. Like the Pilgrimage of Grace rebelling against the “evil councillors” of Henry VIII, Prigozhin cloaked a formidable military effort to destabilize the state in language that suggested loyalty to the monarch. Likewise, once the initial emergency had passed, both Henry VIII and Putin appeared all too eager to change the terms of the deal. Although it initially seemed that Putin might have caved to Prigozhin’s demands for Shoigu’s removal, Putin appeared alongside his defense minister in a meeting on June 26th.

What comes next? I’ve previously argued that Prigozhin reminds me of a Freikorps Inhaber rather than Prince Wallenstein, and his possible fate of Belarussian exile reminds me of the story of Polish Prince Jerzy Marcin Lubomirski, a mercenary commander who had to stay one step ahead of his former employers. So where does this leave us? I’ll admit to being quite surprised by these developments, and echo my comments that historians should be historians, not ersatz policy commentators and predictors. History provides a range of possibilities from which to understand the present, and in history, unlike Putin’s Russia, we know where we are in the story. With that said, although cracks are appearing in the foundation of Putin’s Russia, Prigozhin will be lucky to avoid the fate of Pilgrimage of Grace leaders like Sir Robert Aske, who was hung in chains.

Submission Statement

Though this paper focuses on arms control through the lens of AI-enabled measures, I found it a useful primer on the dynamics of arms control more generally. While I don't believe AI meets the six criteria to be amenable to regulation, I can see a path for certain AI applications to be regulated via treaty. For example, mandates requiring a man-in-the-loop or man-on-the-loop seem to minimally disrupt weapon effectiveness, while greatly limiting the disruptive nature or "horribleness" of autonomous killers.

Paul Scharre is the Executive Vice President and Director of Studies at CNAS. He is the award-winning author of Four Battlegrounds: Power in the Age of Artificial Intelligence. Megan Lamberth is a former Associate Fellow for the Technology and National Security Program at CNAS. Her research focuses on U.S. strategy for emerging technologies and the key components of technology competitiveness, such as human capital, R&D investments, and norms building.

Watts identifies six criteria that he argues affect a weapon’s tolerance or resistance to regulation: effectiveness, novelty, deployment, medical compatibility, disruptiveness, and notoriety.11 An effective weapon that provides “unprecedented access” to enemy targets and has the capacity to ensure dominance is historically resistant to regulation. There is a mixed record for regulating novel weapons or military systems throughout history. Countries have pursued regulation of certain new weapons or weapons delivery systems (e.g., aerial bombardment) while also resisting regulation for other novel military systems (e.g., submarines). Weapons that are widely deployed—“integrated into States’ military operations”—tend to be resistant to arms control. Weapons that cause “wounds compatible with existing medical protocols” in military and field hospitals are historically difficult to ban or regulate. Powerful nations have historically tried to regulate or ban weapons that are “socially and militarily disruptive” out of fear that such weapons could upend existing global or domestic power dynamics. Campaigns by civil society groups or widespread disapproval from the public can increase notoriety, making a weapon potentially more susceptible to arms control.12

Whether arms control succeeds or fails depends on both its desirability and its feasibility. The desirability of arms control encompasses states’ calculation of a weapon’s perceived military value versus its perceived horribleness (because it is inhumane, indiscriminate, or disruptive to the social or political order). Thus, desirability of arms control is a function of states’ desire to retain a weapon for their own purposes balanced against their desire to restrain its use by their adversaries.

AI technology poses challenges for arms control for a variety of reasons. AI technology is diffuse, and many of its applications are dual use. As an emerging technology, its full potential has yet to be realized—which may hinder efforts to control it. Verification of any AI arms control agreement would also be challenging; states would likely need to develop methods of ensuring that other states are in compliance to be comfortable with restraining their own capabilities. These hurdles, though significant, are not insurmountable in all instances. Under certain conditions, arms control may be feasible for some military AI applications. Even while states compete in military AI, they should seek opportunities to reduce its risks, including through arms control measures where feasible.

Submission Statement

The destruction of the Kakhova Dam earlier this month has resulted in renewed anxiety that Russian occupation may result in the destabilization or destruction of Ukraines nuclear power infrastructure. Damage done to the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant's facilities and Russia's continuing choice to use said plant as a base for military operations raises the specter of a nuclear disaster that could spread radiation across a broad swathe of Europe. Such an event could result in the triggering of Article 5, the collective defense clause of the NATO alliance. This article details possible Western policies that could decrease the likelihood of such an event occurring. Appealing to Russian economic interests as a major supplier of nuclear power infrastructure is an angle I had not considered before.

Ultimately, the only sustainable resolution to the threats facing the ZNPP is the withdrawal of Russian troops and personnel from the plant and the return of the facility to Ukrainian authorities. In the meantime, though, Ukraine’s partners should pursue four lines of effort to help to prevent a radiological incident at the plant.

First, pressure should be placed on Russian authorities and Rosatom management at the ZNPP to grant the International Atomic Energy Agency all requested access. This is critical to enable the agency to continue regular reporting on the status of the ZNPP’s operations — including the state of water levels and key support systems. While the agency may not always wish to publicize key thresholds, it should continue to warn of critical developments and correct alarmist narratives. The agency should also be empowered to report on any denial of access or failures to cooperate. While water supply remains a concern, it is also important that the agency consider and report on ways to minimize water usage at the plant. This should include exploring options for moving ZNPP’s unit five reactor from hot to cold shutdown as soon as this can be safely done.

Second, diplomatic pressure should be applied to create a deconfliction mechanism between the Ukrainian and Russian militaries to allow for the continued supply of water, diesel fuel, emergency equipment, and spare parts, as well as the rotation of workers and International Atomic Energy Agency personnel. This could be supervised by international observers who could identify any disruptions and establish responsibility for them. Moscow places considerable strategic and economic importance on its civilian nuclear sector and exports. With this in mind, appealing to Russia’s desire to maintain its reputation as a responsible nuclear operator may be one admittedly imperfect way of incentivizing cooperation. Stressing the damage that a radiological incident could have on the global nuclear sector and demands for the construction of new nuclear facilities worldwide might also help motivate Russia to keep the ZNPP operating safely.

Third, Ukraine’s partners should make clear to Russia that it does not stand to benefit from engineering — or carelessly permitting — an accident at the ZNPP. Russia does not want further involvement in the conflict from Ukraine’s partners and may calculate that a radiological incident would act as a deterrent or result in pressure on Ukraine to negotiate. Kyiv’s partners should stress to Moscow that they would respond to a radiological incident at the ZNPP by providing Ukraine with more — not less — support. The precise nature of that support would need to be negotiated among Ukraine’s allies and with Kyiv to ensure that it is credible.

Fourth, the attractiveness of manufacturing a radiological incident could be further decreased by reducing its likely impact on Ukrainian military forces. This could be achieved by providing them chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear training and equipment to ensure that they have the right capabilities to respond to the situation. Czechia, Germany, and the United Kingdom, in particular, have considerable expertise in this area. By collaborating to provision and train Ukrainian forces, they could help to convince Russia that there would be little military utility in causing or allowing an accident at the ZNPP.

"War is the continuation of policy with other means."

Clausewitz's statement may be so broadly accepted as to be a truism, but the forces and motives which drive a nation to go to war remain topics of great debate and study. Many wars not only fail to advance a nation's goals but actively undermine or defeat them entirely. The 2002 invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq sit within those ranks, having sapped US soft and hard power while delivering benefits that were questionable at best. Given its recency and cultural cachet, a number of thinkers have tried to discern the precise concerns that led the US to conclude that invading Iraq was necessary to achieve its policy goals. This article provides a useful summary of two of those camps, those that believe the US was motivated by concerns over its security, and those who believe it was driven by a desire to protect US hegemony. It makes an attempt at synthesizing the two schools and speaks to the implications of each interpretation on US policy. Finally, the authors call for broader and more culturally/globally inclusive scholarship on the war.

This article is an excellent resource for readers of all stripes. For novices, this is an excellent birds-eye view of the current state of Iraq War scholarship. Those who already have a strong inclination toward one of the two schools described will find valuable sources for broadening and adding depth to their understanding.

This article maps out the debate on the Iraq War’s origins as they have developed over the last 20 years. It aims to play honest broker between competing schools of thought, clearly laying out their interpretations, assessing points of tension, and factoring in the influences of politics and ideology on scholarship. Below, I will show how divergent interpretations of the war have emerged from the different lenses, methodologies, and objectives that scholars have brought to the table.

No single article can tackle every aspect of Iraq War scholarship. Thus, this essay focuses on three questions that are essential for explaining the war’s origins but that continue to divide scholars. First, was the Bush administration’s decision to invade Iraq driven more by the desire for security or the pursuit of primacy? Second, was the Bush administration’s decision to pursue “coercive diplomacy” in the fall and winter of 2002–2003 a genuine attempt to avoid war or a means to legitimize a decision for war made earlier in 2002? Third, how much did neoconservatives matter in the making of the Iraq War?

The first question — security vs. hegemony — constitutes the primary point of scholarly disagreement about the Iraq War. Security-focused explanations like those found in Leffler’s new book argue that the Bush administration’s primary motive was protecting the nation from future terrorist attacks in the transformed, post-9/11 environment in which threats like Iraq had to be re-evaluated.2 Scholars in the hegemony school like Ahsan Butt argue, in contrast, that the Bush administration used 9/11 and the threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction as a pretext to justify a war that was motivated primarily by the desire for regional and/or global hegemony.3 Other important questions flow from this security-hegemony divide, including the nature of Bush’s coercive diplomacy strategy and the role of neoconservatives in causing the war.

A few caveats: This essay does not defend the existence of the security-hegemony divide nor take sides in this debate. Instead, it seeks to explain its parameters, evolution, and stakes. Some may object to this depiction of two broad interpretive camps as oversimplifying a vast body of nuanced scholarship. To address this problem, this article tries to identify possible means of synthesizing these interpretations. The security and hegemony camps do overlap in some ways, as discussed below, but this divide also reflects that scholars themselves have identified genuine differences about what set of factors drove the causal boat. Finally, this essay concludes with a plea for more global and cultural analysis of the Iraq War as a way to challenge this binary.

In sum, competing interpretations of the war’s origins are entwined with debates about its lessons. It is proper that scholars contest how this war should inform the future of U.S. foreign policy. Nonetheless, partisans in this debate risk filtering history through ideological prisms and using it to win arguments. Still, this article suggests that even as the United States refocuses toward great-power competition, the meanings and lessons of the Iraq War remain hotly contested and highly consequential for America’s global role. This is especially true as the generation that fought the Iraq and Afghanistan wars enters leadership positions in the military and politics. Their interpretations of that conflict will matter immensely for how they think and act, just as competing viewpoints about the Vietnam War mattered for that generation.

Submission Statement

Stephen Kotkin is a highly respected Russian historian. This interview did an excellent job situating Prigozhin's insurrection within the broader context, both in terms of Russian history and the war effort as a whole. I was particularly struck by the comparison of this to 1917, where security measures taken to stabilize the country unintentionally accelerated its collapse.

Stephen Mark Kotkin is an American historian, academic, and author. He is the Kleinheinz Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University.

Key points:

Prigozhin is improvising, but his successes have already changed the game.

Social media is a massive X-factor for modern governance. This coup was executed more on smartphones than on the streets.

Instability is being watched closely by all powers, but especially China.

Allowing an alternative to arise was a colossal mistake, not what Kotkin expected from Putin.

Ukraine is presently ill-positioned to take advantage of Russian instability, but that could change as rifts in the Russian military/government continue to deepen.

Right now, Western powers need to stay out, lest Putin paint Prigozhin as a Western puppet.

Submission Statement

Several analysts have pointed out that the approaching multipolar world is quite different in character from the Cold War era and even the periods before. Unlike then, the powers of the modern-day are not characterized by an ideology or system they wish to impose upon a sphere of influence. Rather, they are defined by their support or opposition to the current liberal order as a whole. China and Russia seek to weaken and subvert the world order, without articulating a real alternative to said order. Conversely, the US and the West seek to preserve the world order. In that vein, this article submits a hypothesis on why China feels its actions are the most optimal for its own success. The pessimistic view on the gamble China is making is that China sees the changes in the liberal international order right now as inevitable and continuous. They believe that the order will continue to decline regardless of their actions and that they are simply positioning themselves to take advantage of the world to follow.

Interestingly, implicit in this article is a theory of victory for the United States. If America can ensure that the institutions of the liberal international order remain intact and inclusive, that smaller countries have more to gain from engaging with the rest of the world than withdrawing, and that current attempts to sabotage that world order do not succeed, then China will find that bet they have made on a fragmented world will turn out to be an unwise choice after all.

MARK LEONARD is Director of the European Council on Foreign Relations and the author of What Does China Think? and The Age of Unpeace: How Connectivity Causes Conflict.

Although China and the United States agree that the post–Cold War order is over, they are betting on very different successors. In Washington, the return of great-power competition is thought to require revamping the alliances and institutions at the heart of the post–World War II order that helped the United States win the Cold War against the Soviet Union. This updated global order is meant to incorporate much of the world, leaving China and several of its most important partners—including Iran, North Korea, and Russia—isolated on the outside.

But Beijing is confident that Washington’s efforts will prove futile. In the eyes of Chinese strategists, other countries’ search for sovereignty and identity is incompatible with the formation of Cold War–style blocs and will instead result in a more fragmented, multipolar world in which China can take its place as a great power.

The very different responses of China and the United States to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine revealed the divergence in Beijing’s and Washington’s thinking. In Washington, the dominant view is that Russia’s actions are a challenge to the rules-based order, which must be strengthened in response. In Beijing, the dominant opinion is that the conflict shows the world is entering a period of disorder, which countries will need to take steps to withstand.

Chinese leaders see the United States as the principal threat to their survival and have developed a hypothesis to explain their adversary’s actions. Beijing believes that Washington is responding to domestic polarization and its loss of global power by ramping up its competition with China. U.S. leaders, according to this thinking, have decided that it is only a matter of time before China becomes more powerful than the United States, which is why Washington is trying to pit Beijing against the entire democratic world. Chinese intellectuals, therefore, speak of a U.S. shift from engagement and partial containment to “total competition,” spanning politics, economics, security, ideology, and global influence.

China is confident that the United States is mistaken in its assumption that a new cold war has broken out. Accordingly, it is seeking to move beyond Cold War–style divides. As Wang Honggang, a senior official at a think tank affiliated with China’s Ministry of State Security, put it, the world is moving away from “a center-periphery structure for the global economy and security and towards a period of polycentric competition and co-operation.” Wang and like-minded scholars do not deny that China is also trying to become a center of its own, but they argue that because the world is emerging from a period of Western hegemony, the establishment of a new Chinese center will actually lead to a greater pluralism of ideas rather than a Chinese world order. Many Chinese thinkers link this belief with the promise of a future of “multiple modernity.” This attempt to create an alternative theory of modernity, in contrast to the post–Cold War formulation of liberal democracy and free markets as the epitome of modern development, is at the core of Xi’s Global Civilization Initiative. This high-profile project is intended to signal that unlike the United States and European countries, which lecture others on subjects such as climate change and LGBTQ rights, China respects the sovereignty and civilization of other powers.

China’s leaders have made an audacious strategic bet by preparing for a fragmented world. The CCP believes the world is moving toward a post-Western order not because the West has disintegrated but because the consolidation of the West has alienated many other countries. In this moment of change, it may be that China’s stated willingness to allow other countries to flex their muscles may make Beijing a more attractive partner than Washington, with its demands for ever-closer alignment. If the world truly is entering a phase of disorder, China could be best placed to prosper.

Submission Statement

Michael Kofman shares his thoughts about the last 24 hours in Russia. Unfortunately, I have no way of sharing the podcast in a publically available manner, but the key points are below.

Michael Kofman is the Director of Russia Studies at CNA and a Senior Adjunct Fellow at CNAS.

Summary of Events

-Almost exactly 24 hours ago, it looked like Prigozhins conflict with the MOD had reached a boiling point, when he announced a march on Moscow, demanding the resignation of Shoigu and Gerasimov.

-The Russian government moved quickly to shore up its ranks, releasing public statements from within the Russian military(General Surovikin) and Russian government(FSB) against the coup

-Most of Wagner was likely not at the front when the announcement was made. They were likely in training camps in Luhansk. This facilitated a very quick advance into Rostov-on-Don and the Southern Military District headquarters located therein.

-Most Russian units stood by due to chaos and confusion, as well as the perception of Wagner forces as friendly units.

-By morning, a relaxed "standoff" had developed between Wagner and MOD forces in the city, with some Wagner and infantry pointing guns at the SMD building while others drank coffee or smoked cigarettes.

-This was not bloodless. Wagner was bombed by SU-34s and took down several aircraft themselves. Wagner may have done more damage to Russian aviation than Ukraine has in the past month.

-Kofman cannot imagine that this ends here.

Analysis

-Prigozhin is clearly getting desperate and running out of options, but he may understand something about Shoigu and the regime that we do not as outside observers. Prigozhin saw that Shoigu was weak, that the regime was far more hollow than it looks, and that he had the opportunity to launch this attack and extract concessions even when from the outside it looked pretty futile.

-Even if Prigozhin is talking about Shoigu and Gerasimov, this is a coup against Putin. It is Putin's power that is being challenged here.

-Wagner's forces were let through unopposed likely due to confusion and stupidity rather than as a show of support.

-Coup failed to generate support from elites within the system. Clearly, key security systems(FSB) were on the side of the regime.

-Prigozhin's timing is terrible. the Russian army is clearly doing better defensively than most had expected, sapping some of the weight from his arguments.

-Most coups fail very quickly and early on. Russia in particular does not have a good history of successful military coups.

-If Prigozhin walks out of this with a deal and his head, we will have learned a lot about Russia in the past 24 hours.

-Personalist authoritarian systems must prevent alternatives from emerging. A coup-proofing system emerges from this. Whether or not he was under a delusion about it, what Prigozhin did was a challenge to that system. Based on what Kofman saw in Rostov-on-Don, the performance of that system was not encouraging.

-Wagner's regime ties may be through the GRU, and the FSB was likely opposed to its existence. FSB is likely to send an "I told you so" message to Putin.

-Probably 1500-2000 Wagner forces crossed the border with Prigozhin. The forces that entered Rostov-on-Don looked like two companies worth. Prigozhin is overstating the size of Wagner overall(not 15,000, and certainly not 25,000).

-Prigozhin planned this, but he was also pushed to this by RUMOD ultimatums that would mean the functional destruction of Wagner(forcing Wanger soldiers to sign contracts with military). Russia made the mistake of pushing Prigozhin into a desperate act while also not preparing for that act. Very stereotypical of the competence level of this regime.

-Wagner troops are going to be fine, they are going to be given a general amnesty for this. Putin clearly and publically put the blame on Prigozhin, not his soldiers.

-If Kofman was Prigozhin, he would not trust that deal for a minute. If RUMOD is using this deal to buy time to mobilize their forces, this will not go his way.

-This could have been the beginning. If this had gone on for more than a day, it could have catalyzed the disintegration of the regime as a whole.

-Key questions: Will Wagner abandon their main bargaining chip, Rostov? What are troops and commanders on the front lines thinking about what's going on back home? What was Prigozhin's theory of victory, and why did he turn back? Does he understand the full implications of what he did?

Submission Statement Given recent events, the dynamics underpinning military coups are understandably in vogue at the moment. This article focuses specifically on military coups and the factors which determine their success: the capacity to perform a coup, the motivation to do so, the lack of opposition, and the amount of popular support.

While I did find this article to be illuminating, I do have some reservations. The factors listed seem to be descriptive rather than predictive--that is, they are good for describing why a coup was successful or a failure, but they are bad at predicting the course of coups in progress, or before they occur. An attempt to apply these factors to the recent move by Wagner, for instance, will quickly run into frustration. Wagner certainly has the motivation, but what about capacity? Certainly not in theory, but watching them march to Moscow unopposed it's hard not to imagine that Russia's actual capacity to resist Wagner is significantly less than it ought to be. Similarly, opposition. Putin should be capable of mounting a serious challenge to Wagner's attack, but it's easy to imagine a situation where he flees and the current government collapses in his wake. If anybody knows of any literature that attempts to predict the progress of a coup, I would appreciate it if you could share it.

Florence Gaub is a Franco-German researcher, security expert, and futurist who focuses on foresight-based policy formation for international relations and security policy. She is the director of the research division at the NATO Defense College.

Until three years ago, it was widely perceived in Europe that the era of military intervention in politics was over: strongmen like Idi Amin and Hafez al-Assad were long dead, and the world had seen the likes of Mubarak toppled and Pinochet voted out of power. The armed forces appeared to have returned to the barracks for good. Although the coups in Egypt and Thailand, in 2013 and 2014, respectively, were a reminder that the military can still play a political role, it was the recent failed coup attempt in Turkey which drove this point home. As the military’s raison d’être is clearly the defence of a state, any venture by it into politics is generally seen as an anomaly – yet this repeatedly occurs. So why (and when) do coups happen? Mainly for four reasons: the armed forces have the capacity, the interest, no legitimate opponent and a degree of popular support. If all four elements are not present, however, a coup will fail – as was, arguably, the case in Turkey.

Right now, the signal-to-noise ratio is heavily tilted in favor of noise. But there are a few things that are certain. About 5 hours ago, the commander of Wagner, Denis Prigozhin, claimed that the RUMOD had ordered a missile strike on Wagner fighters. He followed this up with what can only be interpreted as a threat of violence again the MOD. This was followed up by a number of statements by both Prigozhin and other Wagner telegrams backing up his message. Given these threats' public and unambiguous nature, this is very unlikely to be a false flag or 5D chess. Comments like this are at the heart of a state's monopoly on violence. Such an attack can only be responded to by the Russian government as an existential threat. By all indications, this is exactly what has happened. Major generals have come out to publicly condemn Prigozhin, and a warrant has been issued for his arrest. That's the summary of what we know for sure.

As far as on-the-ground information, there is very little to go on at the moment. Apparently columns of vehicles have been spotted in a city near the Russia-Ukraine border, but it is still unclear what units they belong to. Rosgvardia(Russian internal security forces) have clearly been deployed in force and are making themselves known in Moscow and Rostov. Obviously, Ukraine is watching this with great interest, and there have already been reports of advances in the Bakhmut area that could possibly be connected to this. In addition, the US government is clearly taking this seriously, with Biden having reportedly been briefed on the matter.

Submission Statement

The 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine has forced many countries to reevaluate their security postures, and Japan is no exception. In fact, the Ukraine War is exceptionally relevant to Japan's security situation, given that the island nation may soon find itself indirectly or directly supporting a different democracy under threat by an authoritarian power. Given that context, this article provides a valuable starting point for some of the lessons that Japan can take away from the current conflict. In particular, the emphasis on logistics, stockpiles, and sustainment is a key element that has received renewed focus during this war and will arguably be even more important in a war over Taiwan.

Jeffrey W. Hornung is a senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation and an adjunct professor at Georgetown University.

Japanese leaders have already begun internalizing key lessons from Ukraine. As shown in a triad of strategic documents released last December, Tokyo is ramping up spending on munition stocks, maintenance, and base hardening and readiness, as well as making new investments across all domains. But despite this, Japanese officials are silent on whether they are preparing for a short conflict or a long one. This matters because, as the Ukrainian war demonstrates, a protracted struggle could require different plans from the ones Japan is possibly making.

Any conflict involving China and the United States is unlikely to be a short one. For Japan to participate effectively in any East China Sea conflict — even in its own defense — Japanese forces should take six key lessons from the current fight in Ukraine: prepare for a protracted conflict; ensure an adequate logistics posture; be ready for active combat; assist the broader fight; use unmanned capabilities; and sustain the will to fight. Addressing these issues can help Japan — and the alliance — become better prepared to rapidly respond in support of U.S. operational timelines.

Submission Statement An excellent look into the feasibility of a Dnipro crossing, starting from first principles and satellite images of the terrain. In my opinion, this is the definitive assessment of the prospects of a Ukrainian offensive across the Dnipro, at least in the short term. Special attention should be paid to the second- and third-to-last paragraph--while a crossing would undoubtedly be difficult, it does come with some excellent tactical benefits, not least the element of surprise.

Riley McCabe is a program coordinator and research assistant with the Transnational Threats Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C. Alexander Palmer is a research associate with the Transnational Threats Project at CSIS. Joseph S. Bermudez Jr. is senior fellow for imagery analysis with the iDeas Lab and Korea Chair at CSIS.

Another key constraint on a Ukrainian offensive across the Dnipro River in Kherson Oblast is the logistics operations that would have to follow to support a large and sustained offensive. Forces can only fight if they are supplied, and Ukraine would have to regularly cross the river to deliver ammunition, fuel, vehicle parts, and reinforcements to its units on the far bank. Without such supply lines, any forces committed would risk being isolated in a Russian counterattack or be unable to exploit the success of an initial assault.

The width of the Dnipro River and lack of existing bridges means that Ukrainian logistics and follow-on forces would need to establish new bridging, rely on ferries, or a combination of both. During its 2022 withdrawal from the city of Kherson, Russia used ferries to move troops and equipment across the river, as shown below. Ukraine presumably refrained from targeting Russia’s ferry operation because it wanted the Russians out of the city. Today, however, Russia would attempt to strike the vulnerable dock and loading areas if Ukraine were to fail to first push back enemy indirect fires. Any bridging operation across the river would need to account for the same threat of indirect fires.

By delaying a potential offensive in Kherson Oblast, the dam’s breach increases pressure on ongoing offensive operations elsewhere along the front. Russia is already reportedly redeploying units from the south to reinforce defensive positions further north. These redeployments will increase the number of Russian troops available to defend against Ukrainian attacks and may free operational reserves to contain Ukrainian breakthroughs or conduct counterattacks.

Even still, a Ukrainian offensive across the Dnipro River remains possible in the coming months. Common knowledge of an operation’s difficulty can work in the attacker’s favor by generating operational surprise. The landing at Inchon in 1950 during the Korean War was initially dismissed by both UN and North Korean forces as too difficult, but the amphibious assault by UN forces against underdefended enemy positions took and created the conditions the near-total collapse of the In Min Gun within a month.

A successful crossing of the Dnipro River near Kherson is extremely unlikely to have such a dramatic strategic effect, but it could catch Russian forces off guard and allow Ukraine to bypass the defensive systems Russia has constructed further north and strike important groundlines of communication leading from Crimea.

For now, however, a Ukrainian offensive in Kherson Oblast is extremely unlikely to be viable for at least several weeks because the reconnaissance and planning that determines the success of any major river-crossing operation will need to begin again. In the meantime, Russia will continue to capitalize on the defensive advantages it gained from the breach.

As opposed to conventional munitions, which have a single warhead, cluster munitions operate by dispensing a number of smaller warheads over an area. They are particularly useful against soft and mobile targets, especially those dispersed over a wider area or entrenched in a specific location. However, cluster munitions are banned by most countries due to the risk of unexploded ordinance. In the case of DPICMs, the form of munition most often discussed to be sent to Ukraine, this rate hovers around 2-5%. It’s important to note that Ukraine, Russia, and the US are not signatories to the treaty which banned cluster munitions, and all three possess at least some stockpiles of such munitions. In addition, both Ukraine and Russia have been reported as using cluster munitions during the war. However, Russia’s use of cluster munitions has been significantly greater and appears to have indiscriminately targeted civilian population centers on many occasions. Ukrainian usage has likely been limited by their smaller stockpiles of such weaponry, but the country has used cluster weapons in populated areas in the past, though not with the lack of tactical benefit and disregard for civilian life displayed by the Russians. Ukraine has also been receiving DPICM munitions from Turkey, likely with informal consent from the Biden administration. While I haven’t seen any footage of their use, its likely they have already been deployed somewhere along the front. Neither side has given any indication that they are limiting use based on ethical concerns with tactical munitions.

When discussing DPICM munition aid, it is important to balance the human cost of cluster munitions against the damage that could be caused by a prolonged conflict. Sending DPICMs will unquestionably result in civilians being harmed, now and in the future. It's unpleasant, but it's the truth. However, it is also true that civilians are dying now, to a Russian army that has shown a reckless disregard for human life and is engaging in terror bombing of cities it has no chance of taking. Just because cluster munitions have harm associated with them, does not mean that sending them would not decrease the overall harm of the conflict overall. Furthermore, restrictions on the use of such munitions would go a long way toward minimizing civilian harm while retaining most of their combat effectiveness. DPICMs would be massively useful in clearing trenches, for instance, but such usage has far less risk to civilians than attacking a city.

Submission Statement The outcomes of wars are determined in part by the capacity of factions to maintain and replace capabilities as they degrade. While Western stockpiles are large, they are not infinite, and excessive depletion could endanger other allies. Both the existing progress and political commitments reported in this article are positive signs for the sustainment, and therefore future success, of the Ukrainian war effort.

The U.S. has sharply increased production of a key artillery shell, helping to alleviate a global shortage of the ammunition that threatened to squeeze Ukrainian forces as they battle Russia, the U.S. Army’s acquisition chief said.

Doug Bush, the Army’s assistant secretary for acquisitions, logistics and technology, said in an interview that the U.S. is currently producing around 24,000 155-millimeter howitzer shells each month, up from around 14,000 a month before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The U.S. wants to hit monthly output of between 70,000 and 80,000 shells a month by early in the 2025 fiscal year, he said.

“We are on a very rapid path to get to really high numbers,” Bush said. The U.S. has drawn down some of its own stockpiles of the ammunition to supply Ukraine. Bush said those stockpiles are more robust than many people believe, and that they will return to prewar levels quickly.

Submission Statement

Regardless of one's position on Sweden and Finland's decision to join NATO, the military value of doing so has been so broadly accepted that it nearly goes without saying. This article pushes back against that assumption, claiming that, given the preexisting connections between Sweden, Finland, and NATO, accession is actually more of a choice of identity and culture than defensive bolstering. From this perspective, the debate about the move's impact on collective defense is missing the forest for the trees. The choice to give up their nonaligned policies and incorporate NATO membership into their identities as states will likely be the deepest and most durable impact of accession.

Katherine Elgin, Ph.D. is a fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, where she focuses on great power relations, U.S. and allied defense strategy, and grand strategy.

Alexander Lanoszka is an Assistant Professor of International Relations at the University of Waterloo. He studies alliance politics, theories of war, and European security.

Rationalist understandings of military alliances argue that a formal treaty underpinning the security relationship is crucial for deepening and rendering more efficient defense cooperation between countries. However, Sweden’s and Finland’s cooperation with NATO prior to 2022, when the two countries announced their intentions to formally join the alliance, was far more substantial than what rationalist explanations would expect. Traditional approaches to military alliances overlook the importance of ontological, or identity-based, considerations that come with being a formal member of an alliance. Accordingly, not only is signing a treaty functionally important, it is also significant in terms of what it implies for national identity in terms of security policy. For Sweden and Finland, this suggests that the greatest change with NATO membership will be with regard to identity and strategic culture.

Submission Statement

The taboo against nuclear use is perhaps the most widely adopted norm in human history. Russia is no exception to this, and despite the strategic debacle unfolding in Ukraine, the Russian nuclear arsenal has shown few signs of activation. By contrast, Russia has leaned heavily on nuclear signaling, where the use of nuclear weapons is heavily implied through state and quasi-state channels to achieve policy goals.

One such signaling effort has unfolded over the past week, taking the form of a cascade of articles surrounding the idea of a limited nuclear strike against Ukraine. Remarkably, these articles touch tangentially if at all on using nuclear weapons to generate battlefield effects. Instead, nuclear usage here is framed as a signal intended to coerce Western powers into giving Russia political concessions. In this sense, the discourse can be seen as an outgrowth of continuing messaging by the Kremlin attempting to reframe its war in Ukraine as an existential struggle of East vs. West.

An interesting aspect of these articles is that they are(for the most part) not explicitly state-sanctioned. They are being published by websites that are not explicitly connected with Russian government sources, and by intellectuals that are not traditionally considered government mouthpieces. Nearly simultaneously, Russia has moved nuclear weapons to Belarus, and Putin announced that the Sarmat nuclear weapon was nearly complete. The likely intent is to communicate a whole-of-society debate on the nuclear bomb, intending to indicate to the West a larger conversation is being had around nuclear weapons, and therefore potentially a larger consensus could be reached regarding their use. Putin's saber-rattling is easy to dismiss as empty threats, but a half dozen experts must at least be considered as an indication of broader trends in Russian intellectual spheres.

While Twitter links are ordinarily not sufficiently credible for this forum, the thread linked above is an aggregation of other, more mainstream sources. Given the novel nature of active nuclear signaling by a major power, the number of articles that were connected to the signaling effort, and the qualifications of the Twitter user herself, I felt the thread was the best to link to.

Submission Statement

While the focus of the article is on one/a few cases of RCA use in the Ukraine War, the article also serves as an excellent overview of the reasons that chemical weapons have largely fallen out of favor since World War I. While there have been a few isolated reports of Russian/Ukrainian use of tear gas/RCA, larger-scale deployment of these weapons remains unlikely, given their serious drawbacks and the stigma surrounding the use of such weapons.

Lennie Phillips OBE Senior Research Fellow, Chemical Weapons Proliferation and Nuclear Policy

Professor David Crouch Senior Associate Fellow - Specialist in chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) remediation processes

Submission Statement The Navy's personnel issues are a known and even notorious problem for the service. Failures to attract and retain competent and motivated individuals have direct and indirect consequences for force readiness. The article and the report embedded within detail the scope of the problem and valuable first steps towards addressing those issues.

Sam LaGrone is the editor of USNI News. He has covered legislation, acquisition and operations for the Sea Services since 2009 and spent time underway with the U.S. Navy, U.S. Marine Corps and the Canadian Navy.

Anyone familiar with surface warfare knows that frustrations about time away from home, too many JOs and a punishing amount of administrative paperwork are as common as mustard on a hotdog.

In 2021, the Government Accountability Office studied Navy career trends and found since 2004 SWOs had the shortest average careers of the major warfare communities in the Navy and surface warfare had a harder time generating department heads for ships.

“U.S. Navy officials stated that SWO retention to the department head milestone is low and requires them to commission nearly double the number of SWOs every year than needed, to ensure they have enough department heads eight years later,” reads the report.

The surface navy has polled its force every two years since 1999 and reached similar conclusions. Now, SWO leadership is trying to make better use of its data to make the community more appealing.

“There’s inherently a lot of friction on the ship,” Capt. Andy Koy, director of SURFOR commander’s action group at Naval Surface Warfare and former destroyer commander, told USNI News in an interview. “How can we reduce some of that?”

For example, having a ship full of ensigns competing for time on the bridge discourages SWOs from staying for the long haul, the community has found.

“Having a lower number of ensigns aboard, or the wardrooms that have a lower density [of officers] tend to have a greater feeling of connected value among junior officers. There’s definitely something to that,” Koy said.

Since the 2017 fatal collisions in the Western Pacific, the Navy has poured billions into training SWO ensigns that also makes better use of their time underway, USNI News reported from an underway aboard USS Halsey (DDG-97).

SURFOR has been on a drive to tie the thousands of data inputs the command gets from each ship to an overall dashboard for the health of the force. In parallel with the survey, analysis over time shows that the surface ship with the lowest density of officers tend to produce more department heads overall.

“We are bringing in 20 percent fewer officers next year – largely in response to this knowing that the ships with the lowest density of officers produce the highest percentage of department heads,” Cmdr. Bill Golden, deputy for the commander’s action group, told USNI News.

To keep the SWO pool healthy, the Navy is also targeting junior grade lieutenant SWOs with two to four years in the service, since the study found they are the most likely to leave.

“Many officers are likely making the decision to either stay in the Navy or remain a SWO as a LTJG. LTJGs are serving as either 1st or 2nd tour division officers on ships, and their satisfaction is most influenced by administrative burdens, equitable workload and work performance recognition,” reads the report.

In terms of complaints, the survey found that “most JOs are dissatisfied with administrative requirements, workload distribution, and working hours during shipyard availabilities.”

There were also specific reasons that women tended to leave the surface fleet.

“Junior officers were asked which reasons contribute the most to their desire to separate from the Navy. While men and women had similar trends, women expressed a stronger overall desire to separate from the service, with the ability to start a family as the leading reason why they plan to leave the Navy,” reads the survey.

Some JOs said they were reluctant to take the training to be a Weapons Tactic Instructor – a specialized training in a specific warfare area like mine warfare or air and missile defense – due to complications to train as a WTI and also attend graduate school.

An overwhelming number of junior officers wanted specialized career paths that would slot them as ship drivers, engineers or weapons system specialists.

In line with the findings, SURFOR will hold a junior officer symposium later this summer to gather more input on correcting some of the problems identified.

One innovation in use now is increased automation for tedious tasks like reporting a casualty on a ship.

“You have to go from a piece of equipment being broken to that report leaving the ship,” Golden said. “We have ships doing that – are doing that in a not-quite-automated fashion. It’s not quite chatGPT. But there, they’re much smoother about getting that from the O1 who’s writing it, who’s through to the O6 to have it released and saving time and allowing [SWOs] to focus on… how to teach their sailors about warfighting and how to get better ship handling.”

The structure of the anonymous survey reinforced one positive for Koy and Golden.

“There was no one looking over their shoulder. They were able to take this survey on their own and they said, ‘Leading sailors and working with the people I am charged to lead is what I find the most valuable’,” Golden said. “I think that is fundamental to what it means to be a SWO. On the first day you step on a ship, you might not know… what a CASREP even is, but you can help create a team and build that connection from your lowest-ranking sailor throughout that division and make it a place that people look forward to going to work.”

Submission Statement India's love-hate relationship with the "First World" can be traced all the way back to its founding. Many of the country's revolutionary leaders were open to or outright supporters of socialism. As a nation, India itself attempted to chart a path separate from either of the Cold War powers and their spheres of influence. The same skepticism of Western motives and attitudes which drove that neutrality remains a powerful force within India. The situation now is less amenable to such neutrality, however. China's revanchist ambitions are growing increasingly overt and violent as the nation displays both the will and the ability to seize Indian territory by force. Russia is inarguably declining on the world stage, leaving only the West as a credible security partner. That leaves India in a bit of a pickle, being forced to pick between its historical Western skepticism and a global environment that is making the West an extremely attractive security partner.

Okay, with all that context out of the way, this article is an excellent summary of India's increasing strategic alignment with the West. The situation is not as cut and dry as the article claims it to be, however. Western nations' attitudes toward freedom of expression and democratic values are likely to remain a stumbling block for India, where the dominant political party, BJP, has increasingly been stoking the flames of Hindu nationalism and undermining its democratic norms and institutions. To be sure, such concerns haven't prevented Western alliances in the past or present(see: Turkey). But Western pressure over India's authoritarian streaks is likely to continue inducing friction over the long term. The tension between domestic and international priorities is fascinating and a space to watch.

SUMIT GANGULY is Distinguished Professor of Political Science and Tagore Chair in Indian Cultures and Civilizations at Indiana University Bloomington and a Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution. He is currently a Visiting Professor in the Institute of Politics at the University of Heidelberg.

DINSHA MISTREE is a Research Fellow in the Program on Strengthening U.S.-India Relations at the Hoover Institution.

Article text in the comments.

In the middle of August 1952, Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai traveled nearly 4,000 miles to Moscow to meet with the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin. Zhou was acting as an emissary for the leader of China, Mao Zedong. The two Communist powers were allies at the time, but it was not a partnership of equals: the Soviet Union was a superpower, and China depended on it for economic assistance and military equipment. Two years earlier, Mao and Stalin had embarked on a joint venture of sorts, giving their blessing to the North Korean leader Kim Il Sung when he invaded South Korea. Their hopes had been high; even though the United States immediately rushed to South Korea’s aid, Stalin telegrammed Kim in the wake of the invasion to tell him that he had “no doubt that in the soonest time the interventionists will be driven out of Korea with ignominy.”

Things had not gone according to plan. In the fall of 1950, as troops led by U.S. General Douglas MacArthur advanced through North Korea, China directly intervened. By the middle of 1951, a bloody stalemate had set in along the 38th parallel, the line that had delineated North from South Korea before the invasion. Negotiations between the opposing sides began in July of that year. Their purpose was to reach an armistice and set the stage for discussions about Korea’s future. The talks had deadlocked, however, over the details of exchanging prisoners of war.

When Zhou traveled to Moscow in the summer of 1952, the situation was looking grim for the Communists. Airstrikes had destroyed the North’s industrial facilities and heavily damaged every city. Food was short. In February, Kim told Mao that he had “no desire to continue the war.” Around five months later, Kim pleaded with Stalin to bring about “the soonest conclusion of an armistice.” But Stalin did nothing. Like Stalin, Mao was determined to stand fast in the face of U.S. demands, and he was less worried than Kim was about the battlefield. Like Kim, however, Mao knew that his country was suffering.

Over the course of the Cold War, Zhou would earn a reputation as a cool diplomat. Yet arriving in Moscow as the bearer of bad news, he could not have been at ease. His task was to sound out Stalin’s openness to a truce. Stalin had been behind the war, and it seemed reasonable to assume that talk of shutting it down would displease him.

The meeting took place on August 20. Stalin wanted to know if the Chinese and North Koreans could increase the military pressure on the United States. Zhou expressed confidence that “both sides are about equal in strength” but noted that a Chinese “general offensive would be difficult to carry out.” In other words, there were no good military options for coercing the United States. To exude confidence, Zhou reassured Stalin that “Mao believes that the continuation of the war is advantageous to us, since it [distracts] America from preparing for a new world war."

“Mao Zedong is right,” Stalin affirmed, according to Russian archival documents. “This war is getting on America’s nerves. The North Koreans have lost nothing, except for casualties. . . . [The] Americans understand that this war is not advantageous and they will have to end it. . . . Endurance and patience [are] needed here.” Zhou praised “the truth of comrade Stalin’s observations.” Then he tried again. The North Koreans are “wavering somewhat,” he said. “They are in a slightly unsteady state. Among certain elements of the Korean leadership one can detect a state of panic, even.” This seemed to annoy Stalin, who replied that he had been “already informed of these feelings.” Zhou backed off.

A month later, Zhou broached again with Stalin the possibility of accepting a cease-fire and putting off contentious details regarding prisoner exchanges. Stalin dismissed the idea as “one of [several] possible scenarios, but America is not likely to agree to it.” It was clear that Stalin wanted the Chinese and North Koreans to press on and forgo compromise. Zhou was left with little choice but to assent to Stalin’s counsel, which he praised as “valuable instructions.”The fighting would rage for another ten months before the two sides would agree to an armistice, albeit on terms that were slightly worse for China and the Soviet Union than those that Zhou and Stalin had discussed. During that time, tens of thousands died, and tens of thousands more were wounded. Ultimately, 36,574 Americans were killed in the war and 103,284 were wounded. China lost an estimated one million people, and four million Koreans perished—ten percent of the peninsula’s population.

The armistice ended that bloodshed, establishing a demilitarized zone and mechanisms to supervise compliance and mediate violations. But the Korean War did not officially conclude. The major political issues could not be settled, and skirmishes, raids, artillery shelling, and occasional battles broke out. They never escalated to full-blown war, however. The armistice held—and 70 years later, it still holds.

Today, the Korean Peninsula remains a site of high geopolitical tension. North Korea is governed by a dictator who brutally represses his citizens and regularly threatens his neighbors with nuclear weapons. But the carnage of the Korean War is now a distant memory, and the peace produced by the armistice allowed South Korea to develop a robust economy and, eventually, a stable liberal democracy. For all its flaws, the armistice was a success.

The war ravaging Ukraine today bears more than a passing resemblance to the Korean War. And for anyone wondering about how it might end, the durability of the Korean armistice—and the high human cost of the delay in reaching it—deserves close study. The parallels are clear. In Ukraine, as in Korea seven decades ago, a static battlefront and intractable political differences call for a cease-fire that would pause the violence while putting off thorny political issues for another day. The Korean armistice “enabled South Korea to flourish under American security guarantees and protection,” the historian Stephen Kotkin has pointed out. “If a similar armistice allowed Ukraine—or even just 80 percent of the country—to flourish in a similar way,” he argues, “that would be a victory in the war.”The negotiations that produced the Korean armistice were long and difficult and took place alongside heavy fighting, before the war’s costs were clear enough to persuade either side to compromise. The same would likely be true today. The Korean experience also suggests that the obstinacy of Russian President Vladimir Putin—who, like Stalin, seems averse to compromise of any kind—could be especially obstructive. On top of that, domestic politics in the United States and the gap between Washington’s and Kyiv’s legitimate but distinct interests could trip up a cease-fire.

At the moment, debate in Washington often focuses on the question of when would be the right time to start pushing Ukraine to negotiate, and the consensus answer has generally been, “Not yet.” The Korean War shows that, in a military stalemate, it can take a very long time for both sides to clearly see that the costs of continuing to fight are outweighing the benefits. And by the time they do, a great deal of death and destruction can occur without producing any meaningful advantages.

If the United States, NATO, and other supporters of Ukraine do decide to work toward a cease-fire, the end of the Korean War offers three practical lessons. First, they must be willing to fight and talk simultaneously, using battlefield pressure to enforce demands at the negotiating table. Second, they should include the United Nations in any negotiations, since neutral arbiters are an asset. Finally, they should condition future security assistance and postconflict support for Ukraine on Kyiv’s willingness to make some concessions.

A complete victory for Ukraine and the West and a total defeat for the other side would be a welcome end to the Ukraine war, just as it would have been in Korea. And as in Korea, the risk of escalation confounds such an outcome. Kyiv, Washington, and their partners in opposing Moscow’s aggression should understand that an armistice that both Ukraine and Russia can accept—even if it fails to settle all the important questions—would still be a win.

Submission Statement

CARTER MALKASIAN is Chair of the Department of Defense Analysis at the Naval Postgraduate School and author of The Korean War, 1950–1953. From 2015 to 2019, he served as Special Assistant for Strategy to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

As General Mark Milley has stated, this war will end, one way or another, at the negotiating table. I found this article fascinating not necessarily for its parallels to Ukraine, but for its insights into decision-making in authoritarian nations, especially in the context of operational/strategic setbacks.