Faculty Publications

I’ve heard a lot of people saying recently, ‘Quantity has a quality all its own.’ And I just want to be clear: No, it doesn’t. That’s one of the dumbest damn things I’ve ever heard.” With respect to the quoted speaker, not only does quantity have a quality all its own, but it also almost always proves decisive in naval warfare when professional competence is equal.

Kennedy draws one connecting thread through the resources, strategies, and ends of each naval power, and explains the goals of battles and how they affected the war’s outcome. Such succinct and overarching analysis is rare, making the work a valuable addition. For those learning to connect military means to grand strategic outcomes, the book is required reading.

The blasts that tore through the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 pipelines last Monday have already blown up whatever was left of five decades of German energy policy. While the circumstances of the explosions are still unclear, Danish and Polish leaders have stated that the likely cause is sabotage, while a Ukrainian official deemed the explosion a “terrorist attack planned by Russia.”

The agreement to open the Black Sea to Ukrainian grain shipments previously blockaded by Russia floats on rough seas. Russia has shown itself to be an unreliable partner, striking the port of Odesa less than 24 hours after inking the deal. Among Russia experts, there is little consensus that the agreement will prove lasting.

Rather than trying to turn national attention to climate change during a historic global energy crisis, the Biden administration should sharply focus its message on addressing energy and national security, a politically savvy strategy that would reap more benefits for the climate.

President Joe Biden took office in 2020 with climate action as a top priority, but Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and other events have thrown his energy policy into chaos. Yet this crisis also an opportunity: Biden can, and should, reframe the clean-energy transition as an urgent national security priority.

China is touting its renewable energy investments and has vowed to “accelerate the pace of coal reduction” in coming years. Yet in practice the country continues doubling down on coal on the back of blackouts, energy security fears, great-power competition, and Europe’s biggest land war in nearly 80 years. Fear and risk aversion both favor coal entrenchment, and both are in ample supply in Beijing these days.

Economic sanctions are often regarded as a relatively weak tool, especially in response to the use of military force. In part, this stems from scholarship, which suggests that economic sanctions alone rarely lead to war termination.

Orienting more resources to naval, space, and cyberspace capabilities may be a more effective deterrent to war in the Pacific than a strategy based on strikes against the Chinese mainland.

In the interview you’re about to hear, Dr. Holland describes her background and the nature of her job at the Naval War College before explaining the challenges and tradeoffs inherent in the West’s efforts to isolate Russia’s oil and gas industries.

This essay finds that Chinese firms are rapidly developing Africa’s ports as platforms for the integrated political, economic, and military presence of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in each of the continent’s subregions.

Several weeks into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán singled out Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky as an enemy of the Hungarian nation. In the current crisis, Orbán’s criticism of Ukraine and fierce opposition to further sanctions against Russia stand out during a rare moment of apparent E.U. unity in support of Ukraine.

Watching Russia falter in Ukraine, Chinese President Xi Jinping may conclude that if he decides to invade Taiwan, he cannot hope to achieve victory with little or limited fighting. The risk is that this will lead him to prepare a much bigger assault, deploying far heavier and more concentrated firepower to batter the island into submission.

One of the most surprising ways that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has transformed Europe is Germany’s sudden willingness to rapidly improve its military. Jonathan D. Caverley of the Naval War College and Lucas F. Hellemeier at Freie Universität Berlin explain that while this is an important shift in Berlin’s approach to security, Germany will take years, even decades, to become a major military power.

Emily Holland, professor at the U.S. Naval War College, analyzes the impacts of Russian oil and natural gas export restrictions on European, U.S. and global energy markets as well as the geopolitical ripple effects.