Here at War on the Rocks, Joshua Rovner has written an insightful and provocative essay about the origin and nature of what seems to be a permanent rift between those who study security and those...
Earlier this year, we marked the 25th anniversary of the Gulf War and the beginning of 25 years of continuous U.S. military operations in the Middle East. Many forget the beginning of this involv...
In a previous article here at War on the Rocks, I argued that the “gray zone” concept — used to describe the strategic behavior of everyone from the Islamic State to Vladimir Putin — is h...
Many men, as they age, start to worry about gray hairs. America’s military men, however, worry about gray wars. Gray wars are, as the former commander of U.S. Special Operations Command noted, ...
http://warontherocks.com/2015/12/50-shades-of-gray-why-the-gray-wars-concept-lacks-strategic-sense/
Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert Work recently announced that the core of the United States’ new “offset strategy” to counter emerging operational and technological threats from Russia an...
It has been a very bad month for advocates of the “indirect” approach to U.S. national security policy. U.S.-trained rebels in Syria handed over their weapons to al-Qaeda; and the United Stat...
http://warontherocks.com/2015/10/the-moral-hazard-of-proxy-warfare/
Who killed American strategy? Discussion about American security and defense today often resembles TV shows like Crime Scene Investigation and its numerous spinoffs. There’s a dead body, a list...
http://warontherocks.com/2015/10/csi-pentagon-who-killed-american-strategy/
On Wednesday, June 17, Reuters reported tersely that the White House “continues to have confidence” in the beleaguered Office of Personnel Management (OPM) chief Katherine Archuleta. This cam...
Opponents of autonomous weapons have already lost the debate over so-called “killer robots” according to Matthew Hipple, writing here at War on the Rocks. Military necessity will win out, and...
http://warontherocks.com/2015/05/secret-agent-man-how-to-think-about-autonomy/
New York University business professor Daniel Altman has a beef with U.S. foreign policy. It’s wasteful, inefficient, and haphazard. But in rushing to find an optimal solution to Washington’s...
http://warontherocks.com/2015/04/why-an-economic-approach-to-foreign-policy-fails/
With the release of Michael Mann’s new film Blackhat, the information security community will engage in an age-old ritual: mocking Hollywood hacking. The film may deliver an improvement on the ...
Algorithms have become a buzzword in policy circles – but in many cases, using the term “algorithm” alone is akin to the common journalist errors of making every armored vehicle a tank or a...
http://warontherocks.com/2015/01/breaking-the-algorithmic-black-box-in-security-affairs/
National security analysts frequently lament that the United States is losing the innovation race and forfeiting its technical edge. While there are many dimensions to this problem, a prominent f...
http://warontherocks.com/2014/12/from-dotcom-to-dotmil-a-matter-of-hearts-and-minds/
In a series of articles at War on the Rocks and Slate, I heavily criticized Black Ops 2’s vision of future warfare for – among other things – a stale consensus vision of future conflict tha...
http://warontherocks.com/2014/11/what-black-ops-2-gets-right-about-americas-dirty-little-wars/
In the opening days of America’s ongoing air campaign in Iraq, many critics and pundits decried the admitted absence of a strategy guiding the Obama administration’s response to the emerging ...
http://warontherocks.com/2014/10/iraq-syria-and-the-islamic-state-a-matter-of-control/
The Atlantic Council, seeking to enhance its exploration of the Future of Warfare with some new blood, recently hired Call of Duty: Black Ops series director Dave Anthony for an unpaid position a...
http://warontherocks.com/2014/10/why-call-of-duty-may-not-help-us-predict-future-wars/
Ghost in the shell, one of the most famous cyberpunk films of all time and an inspiration for everything from The Matrix films to the study of cyber conflict, will turn 20 next year. Are we livin...
http://warontherocks.com/2014/09/do-cyborgs-dream-of-electric-powerpoint/
One of the most fundamental questions lurking beneath the surface of 21st century security discussions is the question of what constitutes a state. Does the prominence of powerful sub-state actor...
As the Crimea crisis steadily worsens, many have floated the counterfactual: what if Ukraine hadn’t given up its nuclear weapons? Walter Russell Mead and other commentators have pointed to an o...
http://warontherocks.com/2014/03/nukes-crimea-and-possible-putins/
It is often said that the rise of military robotics and cyber warfare is turning war into a “videogame.” But this thesis—which blames technology for a supposed loss of moral seriousness abo...
http://warontherocks.com/2014/03/war-is-a-video-game-and-were-losing/
Artificial intelligence (AI) is a hot topic in the defense community. Since the publication of P.W. Singer’s Wired for War, analysts have debated whether or not we are truly moving towards what...
http://warontherocks.com/2014/03/artificial-intelligence-wars-new-grammar/
The imminent publication of former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates’ harshly critical memoir is likely to trigger another around of recriminations about the prosecution of the wars in Iraq and...
http://warontherocks.com/2014/01/the-odd-sheikh-out-a-complex-problem/
Once upon a time, I firmly believed that al-Qaeda was a decentralized network that self-synchronized to accomplish tasks. I placed stock in the idea that the “lone wolf” was the next wave of ...
When thinking about international security issues, the term “rational actor” is heavily misused. Proponents of hawkish measures against Iran suggest the Iranian government is fundamentally ...
http://warontherocks.com/2013/10/do-some-men-want-to-watch-the-world-burn/
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC)’s call for military-themed games to observe the laws of war (and punish in-game player infractions) has attracted substantial attention and m...
For twenty years, we have heard much about the threat of a “cyber Pearl Harbor.” The term usually refers to a catastrophic computer attack that cripples federal government capabilities and/or...
Editor’s Note: WOTR is pleased to welcome its newest columnist, Adam Elkus. From computer models of climate change to intricate simulations of future conventional conflicts, abstract models,...