Welcome to The Adversarial. Every other week, we’ll provide you with expert analysis on America’s greatest challengers: China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, and jihadists. Read more below. *** China This week highlighted the importance of both domestic politics and economic policy in the United States and China, as China held its long-awaited Third Plenum...

Tensions between China and the Philippines have escalated dramatically in recent months around Second Thomas Shoal, a submerged reef in the eastern Spratly Islands. The Chinese Coast Guard has repeatedly attempted to block delivery of food, water, and building supplies to the Philippine marine detachment aboard the BRP Sierra Madre, a World War II–era...

Ryan Evans talks with Philip Zelikow about his recent article for TNSR, “Confronting Another Axis? History, Humility, and Wishful Thinking.” Their wide-ranging and insightful conversation covers everything from Zelikow’s career as a high-level foreign policy practitioner and as an historian, his experience directing the 9/11 Commission, his argument...

In 2020, Walker D. Mills and Dylan “Joose” Phillips-Levine wrote “The Future of Tactical Airlift is Here and it’s Vertical,” where they explore tactical airlift use in the U.S. military and argue that rotary-wing and tilt-rotor aircrafts should have a significant role in the future. Four years later, we invited them back to discuss how tactical airlift...

What is a country to do when military action and diplomacy are both presently hopeless? That is the situation the United States finds itself in today: Military escalation will not compel the Houthis to halt their anti-shipping campaign or attacks on Israel. Nor will diplomacy — at least not yet. Intensifying the use of force will strengthen the Houthis’...

Recent calls to create a Cyber Force are only the latest response to the U.S. military’s years-long struggle to train and retain talented cyber personnel. In 2019, for example, an instructor at the Cyber Center of Excellence noted the difficulty of rotating soldiers through assignments executing offensive or defensive cyber operations given the need...