Russia, China Are Outmaneuvering US: Generals Recommend New Authorities, Doctrine

Russia, China Are Outmaneuvering US: Generals Recommend New Authorities, Doctrine
Russia, China Are Outmaneuvering US: Generals Recommend New Authorities, Doctrine

  China and Russia are outmaneuvering the US, using aggressive actions that fall short of war, a group of generals and admirals have concluded. To counter them, the US needs new ways to use its military without shooting, concludes a newly released report on the Quantico conclave. The US military will need new legal authorities…

Confronting Conflict In The ‘Gray Zone’

Confronting Conflict In The ‘Gray Zone’
Confronting Conflict In The ‘Gray Zone’

A new Army War College report, Outplayed: Regaining Strategic Initiative in the Gray Zone, argues that the United States should adopt innovative approaches against a new and more complex set of international security challenges. “Outplayed” is the culmination of a nine-month study effort that was sanctioned by the Army Chief of Staff and sponsored by…

New Military Strategy Shows A Dangerous World – But Not How To Deal With It

New Military Strategy Shows A Dangerous World – But Not How To Deal With It
New Military Strategy Shows A Dangerous World – But Not How To Deal With It

WASHINGTON: The Pentagon is painfully aware the world is changing. What the military’s clearly still struggling with is how we should change to cope. That’s the less-than-reassuring implication of the new National Military Strategy, released a week ago by the outgoing chairman of the joint chiefs, Gen. Martin Dempsey. (I discuss the strategy and its…

Time For US Strategy Review; Then Tackle Goldwater-Nichols

Time For US Strategy Review; Then Tackle Goldwater-Nichols
Time For US Strategy Review; Then Tackle Goldwater-Nichols

WASHINGTON: One of America’s most respected strategists is calling for a comprehensive review of the military’s roles and missions to prepare the way for revision of the basic law undergirding the modern force, Goldwater-Nichols. The combination of an excellent quartet of lawmakers leading the armed services committees; the markedly complex and global set of threats…

Hard Corps: Marine’s ‘Expeditionary Force 21’ To Be ‘Fast, Austere, & Lethal,’ And Expensive

Hard Corps: Marine’s ‘Expeditionary Force 21’ To Be ‘Fast, Austere, & Lethal,’ And Expensive
Hard Corps: Marine’s ‘Expeditionary Force 21’ To Be ‘Fast, Austere, & Lethal,’ And Expensive

WASHINGTON: In a move with major implications for the defense budget, defense contractors, and inter-service politics, the Marine Corps is set to publish a new “capstone concept” — leaked to Breaking Defense — that will guide the entire service for the next decade. From the title on, Expeditionary Force 21 paints an emphatic, uncompromising picture of a future Marine…

Syria, North Korea, China & Beyond: Does Army’s Future Lie In ‘Messy Middle’?

WASHINGTON: What does America need an army for, anyway? The question has bedeviled policymakers since the Founding Fathers, who wrote their distrust of large ground forces into the Constitution. The question returns as budgets come back down after every land war. This time around, the Army leadership has not given the country a clear answer,…

US Military Confronts Nightmare Scenario Of Syrian Collapse

Call it Somalia on steroids. Call it Syria next week. Either way it’s a scenario the US military needs to prepare for: an intervention into a failing state where rival factions have looted a sophisticated arsenal, from tanks to shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles to weapons of mass destruction. There’s no political will in Washington to intervene…