In a manner reminiscent of the first Cold War, Washington and Beijing are now competing to entice smaller countries to their side. “China and the U.S. each represent one pole, with many ‘middle countries’ in between,” observes Shi Yuanhua of Fudan University. “Middle countries represent key targets for China’s diplomacy and competition with the U.S.”
On February 28, 2026, Iranian authorities cut all internet access, plunging Iran into what became an 88-day nationwide blackout—the longest in modern history. What does this shutdown reveal about the Islamic Republic's increasingly sophisticated censorship regime, and what lessons can we apply to strengthen existing and new circumvention tools to keep Iranians online the next time Tehran moves to disconnect them?
The United States faces a fundamental organizational crisis in space. America’s space enterprise remains fragmented across multiple agencies with unclear roles, overlapping responsibilities, and competing authorities. This institutional confusion undermines national security, stifles commercial innovation, and threatens U.S. leadership in the vital space domain.
Although Tehran’s activities in Africa tend to receive far less attention than its machinations in the Middle East, Europe, or Latin America, they form a critical pillar of the Islamic Republic’s global strategy.
Without immediate legal and technological reforms, the U.S. will remain vulnerable to adversarial drone incursions that exploit current jurisdictional and strategic gaps in our existing system.
The United States risks misunderstanding India not by underestimating its capabilities, but by misreading its strategic trajectory.
The Iranian regime’s most acute vulnerability comes not from external attack but from within: from the persistent and growing discontent of its own citizens. In response, Tehran has leaned more and more heavily on a long-term strategy of digital control.
Control over the extraction, refining, export, and applied manufacturing of power natural resources will become a key strategic goal for the U.S.—not only for maintaining a globally competitive edge but also for ensuring Great Power status in an increasingly multipolar world.
Working capital funds could revolutionize how the United States builds and maintains space industrial advantage, yet the Space Force remains locked out of this proven funding mechanism.
On the tenth anniversary of the Evolvable Lunar Architecture (ELA) study, its historical significance has come into sharp focus as a visionary roadmap that helped reframe U.S. Lunar ambitions around sustainability, affordability, and commercial partnership.
In December 2010, the Asahi Shimbun published a remarkable roadmap laying out the future trajectory of Chinese maritime expansion. In its analysis, the Shimbun outlined a geographically contingent thesis of Chinese geopolitical strategy—one on which the scholar Tetsuo Kotani elaborated further in a 2019 academic paper. Both publications argue that Chinese maritime access to the Pacific and Indian Oceans is effectively constrained through a series of islands and straits in the First Island Chain. These potential chokepoints constitute the “Nine Gates” through which Chinese maritime commerce and sea power must flow.
In December of 2024, the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Damascus fell unexpectedly to opposition Islamist forces spearheaded by the rebel group Hayaat Tahrir al-Sham.
This paper recommends that Congress encourage and support a commercial demonstration of asteroid capture and resource harvesting as a critical element of U.S. national security and economic development strategy.
U.S. Space Force strategy must extend beyond “right of bang” and focus on shaping the operational environment through posture, partnerships, and technology before conflict arises.
ASEAN has grown from a small, consensus-based group into a significant regional bloc, now at the center of U.S.-China competition. Its expanded scope and diverse membership make it both a key player and a complex challenge for external powers.
As China rapidly expands its network of satellite mega-constellations, it grows in informational power. As a result, it could acquire a dominant position in global connectivity, greatly expanding the reach and impact of its messaging, propaganda and influence operations.
Artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to transform economies, reshape societies, and redefine what it means to be a global power. China’s pursuit of AI advancement poses a challenge to U.S. interests.
President Xi Jinping has promoted the enhancement of strategic forces, stressing new developmental plans for the People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force (PLARF). The U.S. maintains nuclear superiority, but China leads in conventional and hypersonic missile technology.
The U.S. Space Force’s plan to deorbit Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture (PWSA) satellites presents a strategic opportunity to advance defense partnerships.
Congress passed the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act (the Act). The Act specifically mentions ByteDance and TikTok, which means that they and their subsidiaries are required to divest. However, the law's scope is not limited to just TikTok and ByteDance. The Act broadly applies foreign ownership restrictions to apps operating within the United States. Specific attention is given in this paper to WeChat and Temu.