Faculty Publications

Policymakers must be prepared to accept their responsibilities to take the hard choices involved in translating strategy into policy.

Approaches for policymakers to consider when grappling with the ethical questions of whether and how to engage with authoritarian or increasingly illiberal states and actors.

The Taiwan question remains unresolved. The PRC believes that there is one China, and Taiwan is part of it. The United States and Taiwanese authorities seem content to maintain the status quo and not provoke the PRC.

Strategic competition between the United States and China is not just geopolitical, but directly impacts US-based corporations and the global economy. While US firms may not be interested in the strategic rivalry between the United States and China, they are nonetheless on the frontlines.

The expected Ukrainian offensive may see Russia resurrect its “Escalate to De-escalate” Strategy to deploy a tactical nuclear weapon to stop an overwhelming conventional attack. An examination of the permissibility of the use of these weapons under the Law of Armed Conflict is needed.

We highlight how non-US efforts to train and arm Ukrainians is contributing much more to Ukrainian military effectiveness than most realize.

Russia’s infamous Wagner paramilitary company may be headed for defeat in Ukraine.

Days after Russia’s renewed invasion, Ukraine’s Minister of Digital Transformation announced a call to digital arms on Twitter. Over a year later, the so-called IT Army has accumulated nearly 200,000 volunteers. These cyber operators have targeted the websites and networks of Russian companies and infrastructure through various cyber operations and used facial recognition software and social media to notify the families of dead Russian soldiers.

Podcast interview discussing our new report: The Wagner Group’s Expanding Global Footprint.

The Ukraine-Russia conflict seems to be accelerating in intensity with explosions and drone attacks in major cities of Moscow and Saint Petersburg. It is unclear whether Ukraine is launching these attacks in response to Russian missile strikes or they are the actions of some independent resistance figures within Russia.

The Taiwan question has been a concern for the United States for more than seventy years, though it seems to have grown more urgent recently. Yet the question of Taiwan’s political status has even deeper roots, and the island’s clear, natural borders belie a messy cauldron of clashing identities, loyalties, perspectives, and priorities.

Dr. Brian C. Chao presents “The Taiwan Question: Cross-Strait Relations and U.S. Policy Past, Present, and Future.”

“In Renaissance religious paintings, angels and saints, lifted by faith, float above the ground,” said Brian Michael Jenkins in 2016. “Similarly, nuclear terrorism, lifted by fear, became gravity free.”

The Wagner Group is both the tip of the Russian spear in Ukraine and the state’s backroom dealer in Africa. A mercenary outfit originally designed as an expeditionary foreign policy tool offering Russia the guise of plausible deniability, Wagner ascended as a leading force in the Kremlin’s campaign to wage war in Ukraine as evidenced by its scorched earth assault in Bakhmut.

The United States is at a critical juncture as it looks to adapt its counterterrorism mission. Nowhere is this more evident than in the Sahel region of Africa, where for the past decade, the United States has relied on France to serve as the counterterrorism lead. Those days are over, at least for now, and the United States is left attempting to balance its counterterrorism efforts in the frame of great power competition.