Analyzing China’s Escalation After Taiwan President William Lai’s National Day Speech

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On October 10, 2024, Taiwan President William Lai followed a long-held practice of delivering a speech marking the National Day of the Republic of China (commonly referred to in Taiwan as “Double Ten Day”). Past speeches have rarely been monitored closely by the international community, but Lai’s remarks were watched intently because China took the unprecedented step to respond to Lai’s May 2024 inauguration address with large-scale military drills, and the National Day speech was the first major speech Lai delivered since his inauguration.

Beijing again demonstrated its preference for relying on coercive measures. Four days after Lai’s speech, China conducted large-scale military exercises around Taiwan and several outlying islands, named “Joint Sword-2024B.” China’s maritime law enforcement forces also conducted unprecedented patrols around Taiwan. This ChinaPower feature tracks and analyzes China’s activities during the October 14 exercises and two weeks before and after the exercises.

‘Integration’ in the PLA Western Theater Command: Practices and Patterns

Anushka Saxena

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Since wide-sweeping reforms of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) began in 2015, efforts of the country’s defence apparatus are oriented towards creating an “integrated” force capable of fighting and winning “high intensity, short duration, localised wars.” Integration has been focal to prepare for achieving the intended goal, and has manifested itself in both doctrine and real-time combat preparedness exercises. In the Western Theater Command of the PLA, which has a primary operation direction towards India, requirements to make integration a reality are reflected, too.

The Science of Military Strategy (战略学) document published by the PLA Academy of Military Science in 2013, lucidly explains the pillars of Multi-Domain Integrated Joint Operations (MDIJO). The requirement is two-fold — that the services and support arms of the PLA fuse their operational expertise and platforms to the highest possible degree (i.e. preparing a “joint combat force”), and that they do so via a “seamlessly linked up networked military information system.” The former constitutes the material basis on which operational strengths can be complementarised and the boundaries and hierarchies of services and arms can be transcended. The latter constitutes the safe and reliable supporting link so that all operational elements have a common awareness of battlefield postures. Theater commands like the WTC have been essential in fulfilling this requirement.

China takes down fake news about its military, closes social media accounts

Phoebe Zhang

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Chinese internet regulators are removing social media accounts that use fake information to hype the country’s military strength, including false reports of “cyberwarfare” in the South China Sea.

A sample post from June on Douyin, China’s version of TikTok, read: “Breaking news: China and the US engaged in 12 hours of cyber warfare, causing Luzon Island in the Philippines to lose all GPS, communication and phone signals!”

Another invented post in July featured a video delivering an in-depth explanation of how China had won in its rivalry with the United States, thanks to a technology breakthrough by telecoms giant Huawei which had upgraded China’s radars.

In its latest report released on Monday, the Cyberspace Administration of China said the posts were promptly identified as rumours and removed. The accounts responsible invented “military fantasy stories” to give themselves a sense of satisfaction and fulfilment, it said.

China Cracks Down On “Chinese Propaganda”; Fake News About Military, Foreign Conflicts Face Axe

Sakshi Tiwari

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China has launched an extensive campaign to combat the growing menace of fake news, misleading information, and false claims swirling on social media, which undermine the country’s reputation and project it in a poor light.

The Chinese internet authorities are taking down social media accounts that falsely ‘hype’ the country’s military by spreading misleading information, such as fabricated claims of “cyber-warfare” in the South China Sea.

The report is based on an assessment made by the Cyberspace Administration of China, whose findings were published on October 28 and reported by SCMP.

The report mentioned a few cases, including a June report on Chinese social media Douyin that read: “Breaking news: China and the US engaged in 12 hours of cyber warfare, causing Luzon Island in the Philippines to lose all GPS, communication, and phone signals!”

Incidentally, this comes days after the US alleged that a Chinese hacking network called ‘Volt Typhoon’ had compromised several internet-connected devices. China has refuted the claims, producing evidence to prove that the US accusations are false and amount to a disinformation campaign.

From Cold War 2.0 to World War 3.0 - Opinion

George S Takach

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When I wrote “Cold War 2.0”, some 18 months ago, Vladimir Putin was deep into his invasion of Ukraine and Xi Jinping was menacing the Philippines in the South China Sea and Taiwan with gray-zone military punishment drills.

When the book was published earlier in 2024, Hamas’ attack on Israel had already triggered a major military conflict in Gaza, and the Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen were disrupting global shipping through the Suez Canal by firing Iranian missiles into ships in the Red Sea.

Now, in late 2024, the Ukrainians are fighting aggressively to hold territory in Russia they took back in August, and Russia is deploying North Korean troops into this war zone.

Israel has attacked Hezbollah (another Iranian-funded proxy) in southern Lebanon, and Israel and Iran are now exchanging directly major missile offensives. Further, three times this year, China has significantly increased its military grey-zone punishment tactics against Taiwan.

All that remains is for Beijing to amplify its aggression against Taiwan to a full-on blockade, and Cold War 2.0 will have escalated into World War 3.0.

China leverages Meta’s Llama AI to boost military, police ops, weapon development

Kapil Kajal

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In a shocking revelation, China is leveraging Meta’s publicly available Llama 2 13B large language model (LLM) to develop an Indigenous AI tool for various defense and police applications.

According to academic papers and analysts, top Chinese research institutions associated with the People’s Liberation Army have reportedly utilized Meta’s publicly available Llama model to create an AI tool for potential military applications.

In a paper published in June and reviewed by Reuters, six Chinese researchers from three different institutions, including two affiliated with the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) main research organization, the Academy of Military Science (AMS), described how they utilized an earlier version of Meta’s Llama as the foundation for their project, which they call “ChatBIT.”

The researchers utilized an earlier version of Meta’s Llama 2 13B large language model (LLM).

They incorporated their parameters to develop a military-focused AI tool for gathering and processing intelligence, providing accurate and reliable information for operational decision-making.

Fighting the Houthis Is a Waste. That’s the Point

Rosemary A. Kelanic

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In a major escalation, the United States hit Houthi targets in Yemen this month with B-2 stealth bombers, perhaps the most sophisticated and expensive platform in the U.S. arsenal. The Air Force only has 19 such bombers and hasn’t used them in combat since 2017. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the raid demonstrated Washington’s ability to “take action against these targets when necessary, anytime, anywhere.”

It also demonstrated, once again, that the U.S. response to the Houthi threat is far costlier than any damage the Houthis could have hoped to achieve.

Houthi attacks on maritime shipping have cost the industry $2.1 billion since October 2023. But the U.S. has spent more than twice that sum—at least $4.86 billion—on its military campaign against the Houthis, according to the Costs of War Project at Brown University.

Throwing nearly $5 billon at a $2 billion problem makes no sense. In principle, the U.S. government could save $3 billion simply by reimbursing the shippers instead of fighting the Houthis. Not that it should, because the costs are tiny and the industry can easily absorb them.

Israel’s Attack On Iran Has Left Tehran Offensively And Defensively Weaker – Analysis

Kian Sharifi

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Iran was quick to downplay the impact of Israel’s attack on key military sites on its territory on October 26.

But satellite images suggest Israel has degraded Tehran’s air-defense and missile-production capabilities, analysts say.

Fabian Hinz of the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies said Israel had dealt a “significant blow” to Iran’s ability to produce long-range ballistic missiles.

Ability To Sustain Long-Range Attacks

On October 1, Iran launched its biggest-ever direct attack on Israel, firing nearly 200 ballistic missiles at its archenemy. Dozens of the missiles, aimed mostly at military sites, penetrated Israel’s formidable air defenses.

Israel’s retaliatory strikes on October 26 were aimed at hindering Iran’s production of solid-propellant ballistic missiles that were used by Tehran in its assault, the “weapons that are of most concern to Israel,” Hinz said.

Hold off on the celebrations, Tehran has planned for the long game against Israel - opinion

MAJ.-GEN. (RES.) YITZHAK BRICK

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The Israeli Air Force's attack on Iranian military targets significantly damaged Iran's ground-to-ground missile production capability and its air defense systems.

While Israel's attack can be considered successful and caused significant damage to Tehran, celebrations following the success of the Israeli attack are premature. As we have seen many times in the past, the perspective of most military correspondents, analysts, and retired generals is narrow and current, like looking through a keyhole without broader and deeper foresight into the future.

Consider some statements by retired generals, such as, "The war's step-by-step development has brought us closest to regional victory," or, "The message to Iran is clear: Israel's attack was preparation for a bigger blow."

Their thinking isn't coherent; they change direction like a weathervane with each new breeze. We should all remember that Iran still has about 3,000 ballistic missiles and rockets that can cause enormous damage to Israel's home front and population centers. More importantly, Israel's war, with US help, isn't just against Iran and its proxies but also against the axis of evil: Russia, China, and Iran, who have joined together to displace America from both its Middle East control and its economic assets and military bases, and of course against Israel, its close friend.

U.S. Nuclear Defense Should Not Be So Costly

Ivan Eland

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After a decades-long post-Cold War halt to designing, manufacturing, and testing new nuclear arms, the United States is implementing a three-decade-long, $1.7 trillion program to modernize and increase its already sizable arsenal of nuclear weapons, according to a recent New York Times report by W. J. Hennigan. This program, which is already over budget and behind schedule (as most weapons programs tend to be in the Pentagon’s uncompetitive procurement environment), is also an overreaction to other nuclear weapons powers. It should be pared back significantly.

During the nuclear insanity of the Cold War, during the late 1980s, the world had around 70,000 nuclear warheads, up from roughly 3,000 in 1955. As a result of arms control and the end of the Cold War, the number now stands at about 12,000 globally. The United States currently has about 5,748 warheads in its nuclear arsenal compared to Russia’s 5,580. Together, both arsenals contain more than 90 percent of the world’s nuclear warheads. When New START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty), which limits long-range nuclear warheads and delivery systems, expires in early 2026, the United States is considering adding warheads to its arsenal. China currently possesses 500 warheads, is on schedule to double that number by the turn of the decade, and may build up its force further by 2035. Russia has also overhauled its nuclear arsenal.

Fighting Ideologies: Lessons Learned from the War on Terror and Their Application to Strategic Competition

Heather S. Gregg

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Introduction

The United States along with its allies and partners devoted critical time and energy to countering the ideology of al Qaeda (AQ) and the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) as part of a comprehensive strategy to defeat these groups in the Global War on Terror (GWOT). These ideologies, which were part of a larger interpretation of Islam called Jihadi Salafism, formed a critical warfighting capability for these terrorist groups that explained what was wrong with the world and who was to blame for it, an ideal state for how the world ought to be, and how to get there.

Today, the United States and its allies face threats posed by strategic state competitors, especially Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea. While considerable focus has been placed on these countries’ military capabilities, including their nuclear ambitions, considerably less attention has been paid to understanding and fighting their ideologies. As with AQ, ISIS, and other Salafi Jihadis, ideology plays a critical role in the warfighting capabilities of our strategic competitors, and we should be actively taking measures to undermine their ideology.

Failure in the Sahel

Lawrence Freedman

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In an illuminating book, published earlier this year, political scientist Adam Casey explored the issue of whether the US government had been able to use arms sales to sustain friendly but authoritarian regimes during the Cold War years. His conclusion was that by and large they had not had that effect. The US model assumed the need for armies to be independent of government, so the support flowed to the military who often then went on to mount coups. As interesting was the second part of his argument. The Soviet Union’s model for military assistance was quite different. It reflected a preoccupation with regime stability and the need to keep the army subordinate to prevent coups. Soviet support often included special units tasked with protecting the leaders of the regime, a vanguard party to spread its power, and suppression of popular dissent. The regimes so supported tended to survive longer - although their armies were more prone to corruption and lost effectiveness.

A recent article in the RUSI journal by Jack Watling and Nina Wilén on strategic realignment in the Sahel region of Africa fits Casey’s analysis remarkably well, providing another example of how much modern Russia is still influenced by past Soviet practice. In this case it was France that was caught out by coups in countries where it had been providing direct and substantial military assistance. As the new juntas broke with France, Russia achieved a strategic realignment by stepping in with military support of its own. There were precedents in Africa. One going back to the Cold War, examined by Casey, was the catastrophic rule of Mengistu Haile Mariam who came to power in Ethiopia in a 1974 coup and was soon backed by Soviet and Cuban advisors helping him develop a new internal security apparatus to crush any opposition, as well as fight insurgents. He lasted until the end of the Cold War in 1991, despite presiding over a disastrous famine in the mid-1980s.

Putin is creating the conditions for Russian victory in Ukraine

Mykola Bielieskov

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The Russian invasion of Ukraine is often depicted in the Western media as a bloody stalemate with neither side able to achieve a decisive military breakthrough. While this has been the case for much of the war, there are growing indications that Russia may now be creating the conditions for victory in Ukraine.

For more than a year, Russia has held the battlefield initiative in southern and eastern Ukraine. While Moscow’s territorial gains have been relatively minor, the advances achieved by Putin’s army since late 2023 stand in stark contrast to the virtually static front lines of the previous year. Indeed, according to Germany’s Die Welt, Russian territorial gains during October 2024 were the largest since March 2022.

Russia’s offensive operations have focused on the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, with Putin’s troops capturing a number of towns so far this year such as Avdiivka and Vuhledar as they advance toward Pokrovsk. If this trend continues during the coming months, Russia could be poised to complete the conquest of the Donbas during the 2025 campaigning season.

Israel is keeping open the nuclear option

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WHEN IRAN fired 181 ballistic missiles at Israel on October 1st, Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, and at least some of his generals, spied an opportunity to do what the country’s air force had practised for decades—bomb Iran’s nuclear sites. The armada of more than 100 Israeli planes that flew east on October 26th instead hit only military facilities. But in doing so they may have disarmed Iran and paved the way for deeper and more ambitious attacks in the future.

Ukraine's Kursk Gamble Isn't Paying Off - Opinion

Daniel R. DePetris

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Volodymyr Zelensky is a lonely man these days.

The Ukrainian president's latest swing through Western capitals, where he met with President Joe Biden in late September and various European heads of state in October, produced little in the way of new security commitments from his foreign backers. Kyiv's request to use Western-made missiles against targets deep in Russia remains on ice. Zelensky's so-called "Victory Plan" hasn't impressed anybody—it's less of a "plan" and more like a wish-list of weapons that Ukrainian officials have been reciting every week for the last two and a half years.

The battlefield isn't looking great for the Ukrainians either. Although the Russian army continues to take a beating—September was reportedly its deadliest month since the war began—its offensive in Donetsk is chipping away at Ukrainian defensive positions. Russian President Vladimir Putin is committed to capturing the Donbas region and more than willing to sacrifice a lot of young Russian men to do it. The strategy, however brutal, appears to be working, albeit more slowly than Putin would like. In early October, the Russian army captured Vuhledar after a months-long offensive there; this week, they took Selydove, a small town on the road to the logistical hub of Pokrovsk.

Sea Drones Helping Ukraine Win the Battle of the Black Sea - Opinion

David Kirichenko

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Over the past two and a half years, Ukraine, despite lacking a formal navy, has been steadily eroding the strength of Russia’s naval presence in the Black Sea. Once a dominant force, Russia’s Black Sea Fleet has now largely withdrawn from occupied Crimea under relentless Ukrainian strikes and drone warfare. Ukraine’s aim is to entirely neutralize Russia’s Black Sea capabilities, removing the threat they pose. In July 2024, Ukraine announced that Russia had pulled its last patrol boat from Crimea, effectively ending the Black Sea Fleet’s presence on the occupied peninsula.

Russia’s forced retreat was driven by Ukraine’s proactive use of Western-supplied cruise missiles and domestically developed naval drones. These combined efforts have caused substantial damage to the Russian fleet, sinking flagships, destroying smaller vessels, and even incapacitating a docked submarine.

Speaking about the gravity of the situation, retired US Army Major General Gordon Skip Davis Jr remarked: “Ukraine’s actions have wrestled control of Ukraine’s western territorial waters back from Russia and prevented the Black Sea Fleet from threatening Odesa with amphibious assault or providing tactical fires and logistical support to Russian forces in Kherson.”

How Eisenhower Reshaped the Joint Chiefs and U.S. Military Strategy

Jerry Hendrix

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“They Have A Boss” - Ike’s Management of the Joint Chiefs - “I know better than any of you fellows about waste in the Pentagon and about how much fat there is to be cut because I've seen those boys operate for a long time.” When Dwight Eisenhower became president, he came with an agenda to massively reorganize and reform what he considered to be a vastly bloated federal bureaucracy, especially in the Department of Defense, and to drive through an entirely new national security strategy. But to accomplish his goals, he knew that he would need allies amongst both civilian appointees and the uniformed leadership in that vast organization.

Regarding the civilian leadership, the change of government allowed Eisenhower to usher out the by now nearly professional (the Roosevelt and Truman administrators combined for twenty years of political rule) political administrators who had headed up the multitude of three-letter-agencies that had emerged under the New Deal and replace them with businessmen who had experience running large organizations. As for the military, perhaps due to his familiarity with the current generation of military service leaders, Eisenhower wanted to install a new slate of uniformed heads of the military services, who also comprised the Joint Chiefs, to dramatically alter the nation’s military strategy.

Presidential Transition Task Force

Frank J. Cilluffo & George Barnes

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Unifying the Regulatory Landscape: Coherence for National Security

The United States is facing a critical challenge when it comes to the harmonization of our cybersecurity regulatory frameworks. This challenge goes beyond the desire for bureaucratic streamlining in that it plays a critical role in ensuring the nation’s cybersecurity resilience. Further, harmonization will also better promote innovation and help us maintain our global competitive edge. U.S. cybersecurity regulation is a patchwork of laws, regulations, rules, and standards that have evolved incrementally over time in response to specific crises or by addressing more narrow sector-specific needs. This fragmented approach has led to a complex, overly burdensome, and sometimes contradictory regulatory environment that can hinder our collective cybersecurity efforts.

Several factors drive the need for harmonization. First, the nature of cyber threats is inherently cross-sectoral and transnational. A vulnerability in one sector can quickly become a point of exploitation that affects multiple industries and even national security. Second, the rapid pace of technological advancement often outstrips the ability of traditional legislative and regulatory processes to keep up, leading to outdated or ineffective rules. Third, the increasing interconnectedness of our digital infrastructure means that inconsistencies in cybersecurity practices across different sectors or jurisdictions can create systemic vulnerabilities.

Fit for war in decades: Europe’s and Germany’s slow rearmament vis-à-vis Russia

Guntram B. Wolff, Alexandr Burilkov, Katelyn Bushnell & Ivan Kharitonov

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INTRODUCTION

Europe must confront the reality that a long-lasting war of attrition is again on European soil. The war of Russia against Ukraine is now in its third year and many military experts expect it to last even longer. While initially the hope was that this war would be a short military confrontation, it is by now clear that it has turned into a long-lasting war of attrition. In a war of attrition, three factors are of central importance to its outcome: (1) the political willingness to sustain the war; (2) the production capacities to deliver the necessary military materiel for force sustainment and generation (alongside the ability to recruit and train soldiers, a topic not further considered here); and (3) the available fiscal resources and the cost of the purchased equipment.

As the war lasts longer, the United States is increasingly likely to become absorbed by other threat theatres and European responsibility for the support of Ukraine and for deterrence will grow. In this war of attrition, the build-up of European military capacity for deterrence, as well as the production of military stock at reasonable prices, will thus become more and more decisive. Germany’s actions and decisions could play the pivotal role as it is the largest European economy with the most fiscal resources and the greatest industrial base for the production of arms in the EU and Western Europe.

Putin’s drone strategy shows the cracks in Russia’s war machine - Opinion

James Black, John Kennedy & Rebecca Lucas

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Russia shot down one of its own drones — a large and stealthy S-70 — after it flew uncontrolled into Ukrainian territory in early October, sparking speculation about how Moscow lost control of this valuable asset so publicly. It’s an unforced error that will be keenly felt in Moscow, whose high ambitions for producing its own drones have been slow to take flight.

Given shortfalls in manpower, munitions, artillery, and aircraft, Russia has signaled its belief that uncrewed systems could be transformative in an attritional war, listing drone production among the Kremlin’s priority projects. Russian President Vladimir Putin has also announced plans to increase drone production tenfold in 2024, aiming to manufacture 1.4 million this year.

But is this realistic or just more propaganda?

Russia will struggle to meet this target and will likely have to rely on China to procure enough drones. To supply this demand, China would need to significantly boost its own production.

Confronting Terror Requires Conviction to Win

Sandra Hagee Parker

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Israel’s war against Hezbollah was as inevitable as it was avoidable. Shaken by an unending war in Afghanistan and its concomitant withdrawal, the failure of which will live in eternal infamy, our political leaders over the last two decades came to favor diplomats promising to de-fund, disarm, and contain terror groups. As the world now witnesses the brutal outcome of these choices, it is clear the only path to decisive victory over terror is force.

Consider Lebanon. In terms of undermining terror, our leaders barely tried to do so. The diplomatic tradecraft they relied upon failed so spectacularly that Hezbollah hollowed out whole regions of northern Israel with weapons imported under the noses of willfully blind U.N. peacekeepers. This led directly to both significant bloodshed and entire portions of Hezbollah-controlled southern Lebanon being turned to rubble once again.

In contrast to that still-favored approach, Israel is decisively confronting and eliminating terror threats. The IDF has done so in remarkable fashion by killing Hezbollah’s leaders, destroying its infrastructure, and choking off its access to money and weapons from Iran. As a result, both Jerusalem’s and Beirut’s sovereignty is likely to be restored. The Holy Land and the Land of the Cedars stand a real chance of a brighter future – unless the diplomats stop it first.

AI Will Understand Humans Better Than Humans Do

Steven Levy

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Michal Kosinski is a Stanford research psychologist with a nose for timely subjects. He sees his work as not only advancing knowledge, but alerting the world to potential dangers ignited by the consequences of computer systems. His best-known projects involved analyzing the ways in which Facebook (now Meta) gained a shockingly deep understanding of its users from all the times they clicked “like” on the platform. Now he’s shifted to the study of surprising things that AI can do. He’s conducted experiments, for example, that indicate that computers could predict a person’s sexuality by analyzing a digital photo of their face.

I’ve gotten to know Kosinski through my writing about Meta, and I reconnected with him to discuss his latest paper, published this week in the peer-reviewed Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. His conclusion is startling. Large language models like OpenAI’s, he claims, have crossed a border and are using techniques analogous to actual thought, once considered solely the realm of flesh-and-blood people (or at least mammals). Specifically, he tested OpenAI's GPT-3.5 and GPT-4 to see if they had mastered what is known as “theory of mind.” This is the ability of humans, developed in the childhood years, to understand the thought processes of other humans. It’s an important skill. If a computer system can’t correctly interpret what people think, its world understanding will be impoverished and it will get lots of things wrong. If models do have theory of mind, they are one step closer to matching and exceeding human capabilities. Kosinski put LLMs to the test and now says his experiments show that in GPT-4 in particular, a theory of mind-like ability “may have emerged as an unintended by-product of LLMs’ improving language skills … They signify the advent of more powerful and socially skilled AI.”

Future of the IC Workforce: Technology and Talent Transformation

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The Intelligence and National Security Foundation (INSF) has published a new paper outlining key insights from its three-part webinar series, The Future of the IC Workforce: Technology and Talent Transformation, held in September 2024. Underwritten by ClearanceJobs and GDIT, the series convened leaders from government, industry, and academia to discuss actionable strategies to strengthen the Intelligence Community (IC) workforce. Now in its fourth year, the INSF Future of the IC Workforce series examines the top issues, trends, and challenges facing the IC workforce.

"These findings underscore the importance of building a resilient and inclusive workforce ready for the challenges ahead,” said INSF President Suzanne Wilson Heckenberg. “This is a call to action for IC leaders across all sectors to work collaboratively in developing talent strategies that meet the evolving needs of the community.”

THE MULTI-DOMAIN OPERATIONS APPROACH TO INTERMEDIATE PME

Katrine Lund-Hansen & Jeff Reilly 

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Professional military education (PME) is unprepared to meet the magnitude of changes in complexity, speed, and precision evolving in maneuver warfare. This turbulence is being driven by an exponential growth of computing power where the pace of cyber, directed energy, nanotechnology, and hypersonic systems are eclipsing the normal capacity to predict their effects. The consequences of these changes are directly affecting the ability to effectively synchronize maneuver in multiple domains through joint operations alone. Evidence supporting this statement is clearly evident in the unfolding tragedy of the Ukraine War. The war has demonstrated an unforeseen capacity of advanced technology to exploit air, land, and maritime operations through use of unmanned aerial vehicles, Magura drone boats, anti-armor fires, and precision artillery strikes. Additionally, the war has provided a subtle hint of the importance of control of and access to the electromagnetic spectrum to jam enemy communications, use thermal and hyperspectral imagery for targeting, and vector friendly cyber effects. The most salient lesson from the war, however, is what happens when opposing forces cannot maneuver without catastrophic casualties. In light of these dynamic trends in warfare, it is clear that PME has an inherent responsibility to invest in reimagining maneuver warfare. Based on 18 years of experience in teaching the underlying principles of multi-domain operations (MDO), this article examines MDO and PME’s role in shaping advanced maneuver competencies. It begins by articulating why PME should approach MDO as a maneuver construct and how MDO affects the efficacy of planning and execution skill sets. The article then transitions to an analysis of MDO’s impact on interagency and multinational coordination and concludes with recommended PME considerations.

Why the Defense Department needs a chief economist

David Rader and Adam Papa

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The Department of Defense budget is growing, and the DOD is spending more money in novel industries and nontraditional areas than ever before. To ensure the DOD spends smartly in this new environment, Congress should authorize a chief economist to keep the DOD thinking about the dollars and cents of it all.

Since 2000, the DOD has spent more than $15 trillion dollars and has an anticipated budget of more than $900 billion for fiscal 2025. The DOD is the world’s single-biggest purchaser of bulk fuel, the largest employer on the planet with 3.4 million combined civilian and service members, and one of the largest health care providers in the world. The institution manages $3.8 trillion in assets that includes a 26 million-acre real estate portfolio and over 4,800 sites that can be found in every U.S. state and over 160 countries. The DOD’s budget ranks it as the 20th largest GDP in the world, ahead of countries like Switzerland, Poland and Taiwan.

Despite the immense scale of economic complexity managed and notable efforts in recent years to become a more versatile and active market participant, there is still a critical component missing to help this financial colossus better understand and improve its business dealings in an era of great power competition: a chief economist.