"Elbridge Colby, former U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy and Force Development, recently spoke with The Asahi Shimbun about China’s military ambitions, particularly over Taiwan, and what he believes neighboring countries, including Japan, should do to prepare for such security threats..." Read the full transcript here: Full Transcript
"The past ten years have seen both transformation and inertia in global politics. In many countries, as heads of government have changed, authoritarian leadership has not. Nick Schifrin sits down with the Hudson Institute’s Rebeccah Heinrichs, the American Enterprise Institute’s Kori Schake and Michèle Flournoy of WestExec Advisors to discuss why the decade is concluding with a year of protest..." Read the full transcript here: Full Transcript
"Protests and upheaval are sweeping Iraq and Lebanon. The wrath of demonstrators in the streets is being directed against their own political classes and at Iran’s government. Citizens in Lebanon and Iraq are not only fed up with economic mismanagement, ineffective governance, and entrenched corruption of political elites at home, but they also directly link their dismal situation to Tehran’s corrupting influence and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’s exploitation of their countries to fund and arm militias unaccountable to their countries. [...]
"'Both the Russians and the Chinese have concluded that the way to leapfrog the US is with AI,' says Bob Work, a distinguished senior fellow at CNAS who served as deputy secretary of defense under Presidents Obama and Trump. Work says the US needs to convince the public and that it doesn’t intend to develop lethal autonomous weapons, only technology that would counter the work Russia and China are doing..." Read the full article here: Full Article
"American defense leaders have adapted over the years to shifts in technology and conflict — for example, accepting space and cyber as principal warfighting domains and integrating them into planning and thinking about deterrence and escalation. But national security policymakers are overdue to incorporate economic instruments, such as sanctions and trade controls, into planning for conflicts and crises. "From Russia and North Korea to Iran and Venezuela, U.S. presidents and lawmakers have long employed varying levels of economic pressure to alter [...]
"Elbridge Colby, who led the team that helped develop the Pentagon’s military strategy to counter China and Russia, said the new missile would be an important addition to the U.S. non-nuclear arsenal. “'It is an important step forward in strengthening our conventional posture, especially in Asia,' said Mr. Colby, who left the Pentagon last year. "The new land-based weapon, Mr. Colby said, would present the Chinese military with more U.S. systems to worry about and would also be more cost-effective for [...]
"The verdict is in on U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade war with China. Regardless of whether U.S. negotiators soon reach a deal with Beijing, the administration’s initial gambit has run aground. After wreaking havoc on portions of the U.S. economy with his trade policies, the president is now angling to freeze or roll back tariffs on Chinese products in exchange for almost nothing. Deal or no deal in the coming days, it is clear that the United States needs a fundamentally [...]
"U.S. foreign policy is, by most accounts, in disarray. Headlines—including in these pages—proclaim the death of global American leadership. Famous columnists send regular dispatches from the frontlines of U.S. President Donald Trump’s supposed campaign against the postwar liberal order. The damage to Washington’s standing in the world, we are told, is irreparable. "But step back from the day-to-day commotion, and a different picture emerges. In truth, the United States is gearing up for a new era—one marked not by unchallenged U.S. [...]
"‘We’ve been having individuals from Arab militaries studying and working here for decades — not just from Saudi Arabia but from across the Arab world,’ said Nicholas Rasmussen, a former intelligence official who directed the National Counterterrorism Center. ‘When something like this happens you have to go back and look at whatever vetting procedures you have and check carefully to make sure that you are doing everything you can to get a full picture of those entering the United States for [...]
"That, in turn, concerns officials and outside experts who believe the Pentagon must focus its resources on countering China, as mandated by the U.S. National Security Strategy and the Pentagon’s National Defense Strategy. China, some say, is a much larger, if less immediate, problem. “'China is always a, quote, long-term problem, unquote,' said Elbridge Colby, who helped author the Pentagon’s defense strategy. 'But it’s actually a now problem...'" Read the full article here: Full Article