Note: This article is the first of a series addressing the challenges facing the Air Force’s combat aviation capabilities in the future. The series, titled “Stuck on Denial,” addresses the root of the Air Force’s combat aircraft procurement problem — that the service remains stuck in the denial phase of the grieving process over the …

On February 2, the Senate Armed Services Committee heard conflicting testimony from the Army and Marine Corps about integrating women into the infantry. The Marine Corps had opposed the change, drawing the ire of Navy Secretary Ray Mabus. So he took gender integration a giant step farther, ordering the Marines to abolish their separate male …

Over the weekend, Chinese coast guard vessels brazenly reclaimed a Chinese fishing boat being towed by Indonesian maritime authorities after it was caught illegally fishing in Indonesian waters. The incident occurred around Indonesia’s Natuna Islands in waters that conveniently overlap with China’s infamous nine-dashed line area. Despite being inside Indonesian territorial waters, the particular seas in …

Earlier this year, War on the Rocks contributors David Barno and Nora Bensahel argued that U.S. policymakers and military planners should think about how to prepare for the next big war. Their stimulating essay identified six gaps — munitions, weapons platforms, manpower, planning, technology, and stamina — that a big war against a peer competitor …

Editor’s Note: This article was adapted from the author’s remarks delivered at the West Point Society of New York on the occasion of Founder’s Day. This is the first in a new special series at War on the Rocks on American exceptionalism.   There was a lot of fuss a few years ago when President Obama …

The Russian bombardment of Aleppo has prompted calls for the United States to dramatically alter its approach to the Syrian conflict. Washington is currently losing its clandestine war against Syrian President Bashar al Assad. Russian intervention has altered the dynamics on the battlefield, largely because its air force has shown no remorse over the mass …

I. The news that China has deployed advanced fighter jets to, and emplaced surface-to-air missiles on, Woody Island in the disputed Paracel Island chain confirms long-held fears that Beijing plans to militarize its possessions in the South China Sea. As Adm. Harry Harris, commander of U.S. Pacific Command, testified before Congress in February, China is …

Few subjects have sparked as much political upheaval or disagreement as conscription. From draft riots during the Civil War to draft-fueled protests of the Vietnam War, conscription has galvanized political action like few other things in our nation’s history. So it should be no surprise that the recent suggestion by military leaders to open conscription …

Twenty-five years ago this month, the conclusion of the First Gulf War inaugurated the post-Cold War global order. Militarily, U.S. forces dramatically outperformed pre-war expectations. Diplomatically, Washington assembled a coalition that shouldered the financial burden of the war. Domestically, the American public rallied around the flag. Meanwhile, the war exposed Iraq, the erstwhile Soviet client …

The recent political fracas over women and the draft is making headlines around the country and has become a campaign issue in the Republican presidential primaries. But this debate raises even more profound questions about the need for — and value of — the draft more broadly. Put simply, Selective Service is the only remaining …

Ask most combat veterans, and they will readily tell you that war is more art than science. The messy, chaotic, incomprehensible business of organized violence seems to defy science’s ability to draw meaningful predictions. Napoleon’s strategic brilliance is more often compared to Picasso than Einstein. For most of history, warfare was placed firmly in the …

Many military pilots can empathize with what Navy flier Henry Saint George went through on a Wednesday in mid-December 1977. He most likely woke up in a start, worrying he had overslept. Then he remembered the flight schedule: “I’m instructing a night hop tonight.” He tried to go back to sleep but could not, instead enjoying …

I really don’t have much faith in congressionally mandated committees. I was a member of the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR). I found the experience to be unseemly and the shrill and naked advocacy of my fellow members very disappointing. Congressman Ike Skelton appointed Professor Dick Kohn and me to the QDR expecting us to …

Editor’s Note: This article is adapted from the Heritage Foundation’s forthcoming Solutions 2016, a recently released policy handbook for federal candidates.   “It’s complicated.” That vague Facebook relationship status indicator very much applies to the United States and the People’s Republic of China. American decision-makers must balance necessary cooperation with increasingly intense competition. They must reconcile …

Editor’s Note: This essay is based upon David Betz’s recent book Carnage and Connectivity: Landmarks in the Decline of Conventional Military Power (Hurst & Co/Oxford University Press) as well as a lecture he delivered at the Engelsberg Seminar organized by the Ax:son Johnson Foundation (Sweden).   In 1984, at the mid-point of the Reagan era, …