Acquisition Trends, 2018


Book Description

This report analyzes the current state of affairs in defense acquisition by combining detailed policy and data analysis to provide a comprehensive overview of the current and future outlook for defense acquisition. This analysis will provide critical insights into what DoD is buying, how DoD is buying it, from whom is DoD buying, and what are the defense components buying using data from the Federal Procurement Data System (FPDS). This analysis provides critical insights into understanding the current trends in the defense industrial base and the implications of those trends on acquisition policy.




U.S. Naval Power in the 21st Century


Book Description

This nation‘s Cold War and Global War on Terror defense structures need an update. U.S. Naval Power in the 21st Century provides such a framework for the changed world we live in, offering a detailed roadmap that shows how the United States can field a war-winning fleet that can also compete aggressively in peacetime against dangerous competitors unlike any the nation has faced before. Brent Sadler presents a compelling new strategy and organizing approach that he calls naval statecraft, which acknowledges the centrality and importance of the maritime domain. While similar in scale and scope to Cold War containment strategies against the Soviets, naval statecraft is much more. It must be to challenge China‘s involvement in global supply chains, which gives that country significant financial heft and influence around the world. Unlike what existed during of the Cold War, however, Sadler provides a unique vision for competing with China and Russia. Rather than simply calling for better coordinated U.S. diplomacy, military operations, and economic statecraft, Sadler argues for integrating the levers of national power coherently and in a sustainable way. This is no small feat, and his approach is informed by a long career rich in working with various agencies of government, foreign militaries (including hostile ones), and our allies. It is an approach imminently appropriate to our times but comes with a realization that the nation is not ready for the competition it faces from China and Russia. The book is a valuable contribution to the national debate over how best to respond to China‘s rise and Russia‘s antagonisms.




Disintegration


Book Description

The United States is undergoing a profound and radical transformation, all features of which point to the fact of its departure at an accelerated rate from its largely self-proclaimed status as a global hegemon. The United States has lost ground in every single category that defines the power and status of a nation in relation to its rivals. This book delves into the reasons for a catastrophic decline of the American nation, addressing a range of factors from the economic (especially energy), to cultural, technological and military factors. America’s deindustrialized economy is now deeply affected by what can only be described as a massacre of her small and middle-size businesses and the implosion of the US commercial aerospace industry. America’s only driver of real growth, the shale oil industry, is facing realities which may make the Great Depression pale in comparison. Disintegration also seeks answers to the precipitous moral and professional decline of the always mediocre qualities of the American elites, from the corridors of political power to those of the military and business, now spiraling out of control. More alarmingly, the trend also points to the possibility of the actual physical disintegration of the United States as a unified entity—whether the divisions are ethnic or ideological. The most profound fault line is cultural—between the Coastal self-proclaimed elites backed by the secular, liberal media and deep state, who promote the most radical ideologies as it concerns gender and race, and the working class majority whom the former polemicize as deplorables, Christian fundamentalists, white supremacists, and climate and science denialists. Investigating these factors sheds light on America’s future which holds very little promise for the country which had once proclaimed itself to be a shining city on the hill. The American collapse is not just coming, we are presently experiencing it. How can we deal with a catastrophe which is unfolding before our very eyes? Disintegration lays out some possibilities.




The Economics of the Global Defence Industry


Book Description

This book makes an original contribution to our knowledge of the world’s major defence industries. Experts from a wide range of different countries – from the major economies of North America and Western Europe to developing economies and some unique cases such as China, India, Singapore, South Africa and North Korea – describe and analyse the structure, conduct and performance of the defence industry in that country. Each chapter opens with statistics on a key nation’s defence spending, its spending on defence R&D and on procurement over the period 1980 to 2017, allowing for an analysis of industry changes following the end of the Cold War. After the facts of each industry, the authors describe and analyse the structure, conduct and performance of the industry. The analysis of ‘structure’ includes discussions of entry conditions, domestic monopoly/oligopoly structures and opportunities for competition. The section on ‘conduct’ analyses price/non-price competition, including private and state funded R&D, and ‘performance’ incorporates profitability, imports and exports together with spin-offs and technical progress. The conclusion explores the future prospects for each nation’s defence industry. Do defence industries have a future? What might the future defence firm and industry look like in 50 years’ time? This volume is a vital resource and reference for anyone interested in defence economics, industrial economics, international relations, strategic studies and public procurement.




Survival: February-March 2024


Book Description

Survival, the IISS’s bimonthly journal, challenges conventional wisdom and brings fresh, often controversial, perspectives on strategic issues of the moment. In this issue: Franz-Stefan Gady and Michael Kofman highlight the pitfalls of grafting a Western manoeuvre-oriented approach to war onto the Russia–Ukraine conflict Irene Mia examines the chasm between Javier Milei’s dramatic rhetoric and the domestic and international obstacles he faces to changing Argentina’s foreign and economic policies Edoardo Campanella and John Haigh outline the necessity of meaningful dialogue between the West and China to prevent the internet’s fragmentation John Raine assesses the geopolitical trends that the Gaza war has set in motion and the issues they create for Ukraine’s defence against Russia And seven more thought-provoking pieces, as well as our regular Book Reviews and Noteworthy column. Editor: Dr Dana Allin Managing Editor: Jonathan Stevenson Associate Editor: Carolyn West Editorial Assistant: Conor Hodges




Trade Wars


Book Description

This book explores the causes and instruments of 500 years of armed and non-armed international trade conflicts. Nils Ole Oermann and Hans-Jürgen Wolff draw on decades of experience to examine trade wars, economic sanctions, and different types of economic warfare, investigating their history, ethics, economic driving forces, and legality under current rules. They provide a clear and accessible account of the economics of trade, of trade and financial policy since the nineteenth century, and of the effectiveness of sanctions and the 'winnability' of trade wars. The book also describes the transformation of economic warfare since 1989, namely in cyberspace and in the world financial system, and shows how China's rise challenges the Western model of democracy and free market economies. The authors conclude with a plea for improved economic statecraft and an overhaul of the current trading regime.




Disruptive and Game Changing Technologies in Modern Warfare


Book Description

This book explores and analyzes emerging innovations within today’s most cutting-edge science and technology (S&T) areas, which are cited as carrying the potential to revolutionize governmental structures, economies, and international security. Some have argued that such technologies will yield doomsday scenarios and that military applications of such technologies have even greater potential than nuclear weapons to radically change the balance of power. As the United States looks to the future – whether dominated by extremist groups co-opting advanced weapons in the world of globalized non-state actors or states engaged in persistent regional conflicts in areas of strategic interest – new adversaries and new science and technology will emerge. Choices made today that affect science and technology will impact how ably the US can and will respond. Chapters within the book look at the changing strategic environment in which security operations are planned and conducted; how these impact science and technology policy choices made today; and predictions of how science and technology may play a beneficial or deleterious role in the future. Some game changing technologies have received global attention, while others may be less well known; the new technologies discussed within this proposal, as well as future discoveries, may significantly alter military capabilities and may generate new threats against military and civilian sectors.




The (Real) Revolution in Military Affairs


Book Description

The liberal world order, a euphemism for American global hegemony, is crumbling at an accelerating pace. While its collapse is tangible, the outcome of such a collapse remains a matter of speculation and public debate. The US is desperately seeking to preserve the status quo, which rests primarily upon recognition of its military supremacy. For millennia, warfare has been a driving force behind changes in the geopolitical status of power configurations (whether of peoples, states or empires), and it remains so, today. Accordingly, short of actual warfare, the assessment (modeling) of relative military power plays an inordinate role in the determination of national status. Models of emerging changes in military capability range from relatively simple to extremely complex ones. Viewing the evolution of the current system of international relations outside the framework of actual, rather than propaganda-driven, military capabilities is not only useless, it is dangerous since states’ mistaken assessment of their own and other states’ military power can lead to misadventures and catastrophic mistakes. The United States’ efforts to preserve not just its dominance but the perception of its dominance are bound to fail for many important reasons, none more important than what is often misidentified in past American military-theoretical hypotheses about the future of warfare, known generically as the Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA). This book explains why those hypotheses are failing and will continue to fail, and addresses the real RMA. In the end, technological development in weaponry as a response to tactical, operational and strategic requirements defines not only a nation’s geopolitical status but determines the global order. Assessments of military capacity, if reality-based, serve as good predictors of the level of volatility in international relations and the level of violence globally. This book gives an insight into the evolution of weapons and the way they influenced international relations in the 20th and 21st centuries. It also defines Revolution in Military Affairs as manifested via policy, politics, and technology. It reviews some models which are useful in assessing the current geopolitical situation. This book also tries to give a forecast of the future development of warfare and the ways in which it is going to change the whole system of the international relations, hopefully towards a new geopolitical equilibrium.




A New Global Geometry?


Book Description

Scrutinizes possibilities for an equalised global order, in light of recent conflicts between the world’s major powers The “post-Cold War era is definitively over,” asserted US President Joe Biden as he launched the new National Security Strategy, warning in late 2022 that “a competition is underway between the major powers to shape what comes next.” American leadership, the document declared, would be more necessary than ever to define "the future of the international order,” insisting that the US must marshal its unparalleled economic, military, and diplomatic resources to confront its geopolitical rivals. Socialist Register 2024: A New Global Geometry? takes stock of momentous changes on the horizon: Even if these geopolitical shifts do not spell the end of globalization, how might they alter its historical trajectory? While it is it premature to speak of the end of the liberal economic order, let alone the development of a multipolar international system, can we begin to assess the dimensions of a new global geometry? And, how might we assess the potential vulnerabilities of socialist movements worldwide, alongside the potential resistance our movements might manage to present, grounded in our historical demands for a democratic and equalizing world order?




Emerging Technologies and International Security


Book Description

This book offers a multidisciplinary analysis of emerging technologies and their impact on the new international security environment across three levels of analysis. While recent technological developments, such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), robotics and automation, have the potential to transform international relations in positive ways, they also pose challenges to peace and security and raise new ethical, legal and political questions about the use of power and the role of humans in war and conflict. This book makes a contribution to these debates by considering emerging technologies across three levels of analysis: (1) the international system (systemic level) including the balance of power; (2) the state and its role in international affairs and how these technologies are redefining and challenging the state’s traditional roles; and (3) the relationship between the state and society, including how these technologies affect individuals and non-state actors. This provides specific insights at each of these levels and generates a better understanding of the connections between the international and the local when it comes to technological advance across time and space The chapters examine the implications of these technologies for the balance of power, examining the strategies of the US, Russia, and China to harness AI, robotics and automation (and how their militaries and private corporations are responding); how smaller and less powerful states and non-state actors are adjusting; the political, ethical and legal implications of AI and automation; what these technologies mean for how war and power is understood and utilized in the 21st century; and how these technologies diffuse power away from the state to society, individuals and non-state actors. This volume will be of much interest to students of international security, science and technology studies, law, philosophy, and international relations.