Image Source: RAND During Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s recent state visit in April 2024, the White House released a visionary joint statement on deepening U.S.-Japan cooperation across a variety of issue areas—from national security and defense to economic prosperity and technological development. But perhaps most importantly, the statement includes plans to integrate the American … Continue reading Building a Better Integrated Defense: Obstacles and Opportunities for U.S.-Japan Defense-Industrial Integration
Category: Topics
Unveiling Masculinity: The Complexities of Gender Identities in Jihadi-Salafi Extremism
Image Source: Islamic State propaganda published in its “Ghazwa-e-Hind” magazine Judith Butler, a pioneer of third-wave feminist theories, described gender performativity as a phenomenon where “gender proves to be performance”— that is, gender identity is not an inherent or a biological phenomenon but is constructed through repeated and conscious actions (i.e., performances). In Jihadi-Salafi groups … Continue reading Unveiling Masculinity: The Complexities of Gender Identities in Jihadi-Salafi Extremism
Ukraine’s Export Crisis Isn’t Over Yet
Image Source: Unsplash The Ukrainian “grain crisis" is not over, despite tremendous successes in increasing Ukrainian seaborne exports since the Russian military invaded Ukraine in 2022. Ukrainian exports, like grain and ore, face new logistical challenges beyond the Black Sea, circa October 2023: kinetic attacks by Houthi rebels against commercial vessels transiting the Red Sea. … Continue reading Ukraine’s Export Crisis Isn’t Over Yet
AI-Enabled Deception: The New Arena of Counterterrorism
Image Source: Academic Info Artificial Intelligence (AI) is constantly reshaping the boundaries of innovation, permeating every aspect of modern society, from healthcare to finance. As of November 2023, over half of global companies have integrated AI technologies into their operations. However, an alarming development has emerged alongside these advancements: the exploitation of AI by terrorist … Continue reading AI-Enabled Deception: The New Arena of Counterterrorism
The Case for U.S. Homeland Ballistic Missile Defense Against North Korea
Image Source: Breaking Defense The United States has long maintained that it can defend the homeland against limited North Korean intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) strikes. The 2022 Missile Defense Review (MDR) reaffirmed that the United States “will continue to stay ahead of North Korean missile threats to the homeland” through homeland missile defense, missile defeat, … Continue reading The Case for U.S. Homeland Ballistic Missile Defense Against North Korea
A Man, A Plan, A Canal, Afghanistan
Image Source: Eurasianet The unrecognized Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan is experiencing its first period of peace in nearly fifty years. The Taliban-run state now must balance its desire for good relations with its neighbors with its need to provide basic necessities like water to its citizens. While Afghanistan regularly courts the occasional Kazakh dignitary in … Continue reading A Man, A Plan, A Canal, Afghanistan
Surging Violence and Far-Right Extremism: Unpacking Social Media’s Role in the 2024 Election
Image Source: Wall Street Journal Across the Western world, right-wing political movements are on the rise. In the United States, this has manifested in an uptick of far-right extremist activity on the fringes of the U.S. political spectrum. Since 2016, far-right ideology in the United States has increasingly been a driver of extremist violence. In … Continue reading Surging Violence and Far-Right Extremism: Unpacking Social Media’s Role in the 2024 Election
From Sling and Stone to Autonomous Drone? Key Questions for Determining Whether Autonomy Favors Davids or Goliaths
Image Source: DALLE-3, via ChatGPT Suppose that the year is 2035 and America is engaged in counterinsurgency operations in the Middle East: would autonomous drones favor the insurgents or counterinsurgents? Scholars such as T.X. Hammes, Paul Scharre, and Sarah Kreps have argued that autonomous military systems (AMS) will tend to favor conventionally “weaker” or poorer … Continue reading From Sling and Stone to Autonomous Drone? Key Questions for Determining Whether Autonomy Favors Davids or Goliaths
The Great Replacement Theory & Racially or Ethnically Motivated Violent Extremists
Image Source: NPR In February, a convoy of trucks calling themselves “Take our border back” traveled from Virginia to the Texas-Mexico border to show support for the Texas government in its protest against the federal government over the immigration crisis. The convoy’s final destination was Quemado, Texas, 20 miles from Eagle Pass, where the Texas … Continue reading The Great Replacement Theory & Racially or Ethnically Motivated Violent Extremists
Pyrophobia: Confronting a National Resistance to Proactive Fire Use
Image Source: National Geographic “You can’t fireproof the forest,” John Gould, former smokejumper and manager of the Alaska Fire Service, told me. There is simply too much land to manage and not enough people to devote to the task. In this resource-constrained environment, the United States’ response to wildfire has typically been reactive and ad … Continue reading Pyrophobia: Confronting a National Resistance to Proactive Fire Use