Red Sea Topic Week By Clay Robinson It was a sunny morning with calm seas on March 6, 2024, a fine day for sailing the tranquil waters of the Gulf of Aden. The crew of M/V True Confidence, howeve...
By Conor Kennedy The role of civilian roll-on/roll-off (RO-RO) ferries in a PLA invasion of Taiwan deserves its growing notoriety. With port access secured or coupled with developing logistics ov...
By Geoffrey L. Irving Introduction A combination of the United States’ nascent modern industrial policy, diplomacy, and aligned governmental and commercial interests have set the conditions for...
This article is part of a series that will explore the use and legal issues surrounding military zones employed during peace and war to control the entry, exit, and activities of forces operating...
By Michael Dahm and Conor M. Kennedy The Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) has been increasing its ability to use civilian roll-on/roll-off (RO-RO) ferries to move troops and equipment ashore in amph...
Emerging Technologies Topic Week By Ryan Fedasiuk Since 2018, Indonesian fishermen have regularly reeled in autonomous, glider-like vehicles operating as far south as the Java Sea—part of China...
By Capt. Tuan N. Pham, USN Part one of this two-part series calls for a bilateral technology roadmap to field and sustain a lethal, resilient, and rapidly adapting technology-enabled Joint Force ...
By Akshat Patel The South China Sea is to China as the Caribbean Sea is to the United States. Just as the United States repeatedly thwarted European powers from the Caribbean throughout the ninet...
By Capt. Tuan N. Pham, USN The setting is the South China Sea (SCS) in 2035. On the Chinese island of Mischief Reef, Senior Captain Chen, the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) Spratly Island...
Read Part One here. By Adam Taylor The challenges posed by China’s offensive deterrence paradigm require a new and innovative future force design for the US Navy. China’s deterrence model pri...
By Adam Taylor Recent remarks by Admiral Phil Davidson, Commander of the Indo-Pacific Command (INDO-PACOM), highlights one of the most difficult challenges confronting US naval forces in the Asia...
Naval Intelligence Topic Week By Andrew P. Thompson The Modern Fight Written into the most recent National Security Strategy is the principle that Great Power competition will continue to play a ...
By Bill Bray The U.S. military spends quite a bit of money and time educating a segment of its personnel on foreign cultures. Too much or not nearly enough, depending on who you ask and at what m...
Fiction Contest Week By Ryan Belscamper Seven years ago, the Marine Corps decided they needed a better way to “Kick in doors on foreign shores!” Landing craft were slow and vulnerable, aircra...
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By Christopher Bassler and Matthew McCarton The Challenge: Growing Uncertainty and Tensions in the South China Sea Over the last decade, stability in the South China Sea (SCS) has progressively d...
This article originally featured in the September-October 2019 edition of Military Review and is republished with permission. Read it in its original form here. By Gen. Robert B. Brown, U.S. Ar...
By Dmitry Filipoff CIMSEC had the opportunity to discuss the second edition of Red Star Over the Pacific with James Holmes, current J. C. Wylie Chair of Maritime Strategy at the U.S. Naval War...
Countering China Topic Week By Matthew Quintero “If not China, who?” was a question asked during a class on foreign investment in Africa. The speaker was an African naval officer. The class w...
Countering China Topic Week By LtCol Roy Draa “Free and open access to the South and East China Seas is critical to both regional security and international commerce…Through its illegitimate ...
The following article originally featured in The Foreign Service Journal and is republished with permission. Read it in its original form here. By Philip A. Shull Winston Churchill famously refe...
This article originally featured on China Leadership Monitor and is republished with permission. It originally published under the title, “A Tale of Three Speeches: How Xi’s Speech Marking th...
By Tuan N. Pham Last September, to the surprise of many, Pope Francis signed a confidential agreement giving Beijing effective control over who chooses church leaders within China. The settlement...
By Jon Isaac Introduction In January 2019, Chinese Communist Party leaders announced that the newest iteration of their DF-17 missile system was being designed to overwhelm and sink U.S. aircraft...
By Tuan N. Pham Last year on June 18, President Donald Trump directed the Department of Defense (DoD) to establish the “Space Force.” The Space Force would be a distinct but equal military s...
By Devin Thorne and Ben Spevack Introduction On a late June morning in 2014, Vietnamese fisheries inspection vessel KN 951 approached HYSY 981 (海洋石油981), a Chinese-owned mobile oil platfo...
By Cris Lee CIMSEC was pleased to be joined by Dr. Toshi Yoshihara of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA). Professor Yoshihara is a long-time expert and well-published autho...
By Tuan N. Pham Earlier this year, the author published an analysis comparing and contrasting the 2017 and 2018 Shangri-La Dialogues (SLD) in terms of Chinese themes, narratives, responses, and o...
By Aidan Clarke When war broke out between Japan and China in 1894, few expected a Japanese victory. Qing China had undergone its period of self-strengthening and modernization for much longer th...
What could and should the United States do if the Belt and Road Initiative collapses? By Grant Newsham and Tuan Pham Part one of this two-part series discussed the growing concerns of a Belt an...
What could and should the United States do if the Belt and Road Initiative collapses? By Tuan Pham and Grant Newsham More and more China Watchers, to include these two observers in Japan, are h...
By Shang-su Wu Due to their central location between the Indian and Pacific Oceans, maritime Southeast Asian countries have increasingly important roles in the Free and Open Indo-Pacific (FOIP) I...
By Mark J. Valencia In his piece, Mr. Pham “lays out recommended ways and means that Washington can regain and maintain the strategic initiative in the Indo-Pacific.” However many of his reco...
By Aswani Dravid Though the Indian Ocean was considered exotic for centuries, it was transformed into a mere colonial sea by the 18th century. The European powers divided the South Asian continen...
Maritime Strategy for Great Power Competition Topic Week By Harry Halem Introduction – Maritime and Grand Strategy During the third presidential debate of the 2012 election season, then-Preside...
Maritime Strategy for Great Power Competition Week By David Scott Introduction On 30 May 2018, Admiral Harry Harris, the retiring chief of the newly renamed U.S. Indo-Pacific Pacific Command (Ind...
By Chad Pillai There is a growing strategic competition underway in the Indian Ocean and Arabian Sea between India and China focused on acquiring commercial ports and military facilities. It is a...
By Tuan N. Pham Last March, CIMSEC published an article titled “A Sign of the Times: China’s Recent Actions and the Undermining of Global Rules, Part 1” highlighting three troubling develop...
This article is published in partnership with the U.S. Naval Academy’s Foreign Affairs Conference (NAFAC). By Yena Seo In the Western world, the freedoms of press, speech, assembly, and petitio...
This article is an adaptation of an academic publication by Bill Hayton published in ‘Modern China’ as ‘The Modern Origins of China’s South China Sea Claims: Maps, Misunderstandings, and ...
By Pawel Behrendt Two years ago, President Xi Jinping announced the reorganization of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and the implementation is gaining momentum. The changes, which g...
By Tuan N. Pham Last month, CIMSEC published an article titled “A Sign of the Times: China’s Recent Actions and the Undermining of Global Rules, Part 1” highlighting three troubling develop...
By Tuan N. Pham More Chinese assertiveness and unilateralism are coming. In January, this author’s article in a separate publication assessed strategic actions that Beijing will probably undert...
The Southern Tide Written by W. Alejandro Sanchez, The Southern Tide addresses maritime security issues throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. It discusses the challenges regional navies f...
By Tuan N. Pham At the 19th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), President Xi Jinping opened the assembly by delivering a seminal report to its members. The three hour-long spe...
CIMSEC is an all-volunteer, 501(c)3 nonprofit that relies on its readers to continue. Consider making a donation here today. By Dmitry Filipoff Last week CIMSEC published articles analyzing China...
China’s Defense & Foreign Policy Topic Week By Jeffrey Payne Consistent discussions over the past several years between the United States and China on counterterrorism (CT) cooperation represen...
The following article originally appeared in South Asia Defence and Strategic Review and is republished with permission. By Vice Admiral Pradeep Chauhan, AVSM & Bar, VSM, IN (Retd) Japan is very...
By Dmitry Filipoff Articles Due: November 22, 2017 Week Dates: November 27 – December 1, 2017 Article Length: 1000-3500Words Submit to: Nextwar@cimsec.org As China’s economic power has grow...
Dr. Ching Chang The Coming Power Reshuffle The Nineteenth National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party will be held on October 18, 2017. As many China political observers already know, the Co...
Andreas Rupprecht and Tom Cooper. Modern Chinese Warplanes: Combat Aircraft and Units of the Chinese Air Force and Naval Aviation. Houston: Harpia Publishing, 2012. 256pp. $64.95 By Lieutenant Co...
The Southern Tide Written by W. Alejandro Sanchez, The Southern Tide addresses maritime security issues throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. It discusses the challenges regional navies f...
By Marjorie Greene Introduction At a recent Berkshire Hathaway shareholder meeting Warren Buffett said that Artificial Intelligence – the collection of technologies that enable machines to lea...
By Dr. Ching Chang The Coming Synchronization As many political observers have already noted, the Nineteenth National Congress of the Communist Party of China is expected to be held in Beijing so...
Bernard D. Cole, China’s Quest for Great Power: Ships, Oil, and Foreign Policy. Naval Institute Press, 2016 304pp. $34.95 By John Bardenhagen China’s Navy is emerging as a force capable of g...
By Matthew Merighi Join us for the latest episode of Sea Control for a conversation with Professor Kate Walsh of the U.S. Naval War College about the Blue Economy, ocean clusters, and their re...
By Brandon Hughes Drone Diplomacy On December 15, 2016, a United States Navy (USN) unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV) was seized by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) about 80 mile...
By Sebastian Bruns and Sarah Kirchberger On 19 July 2017, after a long transit through the Indian Ocean and around the European continent, a three-ship People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) task...
The following two-part series will delve into the evolution of China’s national security debates pertaining to maritime security. Part One focused on changes and trends during Deng Xiaopeng’s...
Graham Allison, Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap? Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2017, $18.30/hardcover, 384 pp. By David Edgar The “Thucydides Trap” refers to ...
The following two-part series will delve into the evolution of China’s national security debates pertaining to maritime security. Part One will focus on changes and trends during Deng Xiaopeng...