Faculty Publications

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.

How might Russian maritime forces be brought to bear against the United States and its allies? This question is particularly critical as fears of inadvertent escalation in Ukraine increase. Understanding the answer requires a close reading of what Russian military theorists themselves write about warfare, matched with an examination of maritime geography; combat power; and intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, and targeting.

China is a leader in the global transportation industry, with an especially significant position in ocean ports. A mapping of every ocean port outside of China reveals that Chinese firms own or operate terminal assets in ninety-six ports in fifty-three countries. An original dataset of Chinese firms' overseas port holdings documents the geographic distribution, ownership, and operational characteristics of these ports.

The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has quietly changed the way it interacts with U.S. military forces in the Western Pacific. Instead of just tracking and monitoring U.S. ships and aircraft, demanding they leave sensitive areas, the PLA has embraced an approach that favors hostile encounters as preparation for future conflict with the United States. In PLA parlance, it is “using the enemy to train the troops”—nadi lianbing (拿敌练兵).