Can the United States stop a Chinese invasion of Taiwan by turning the island’s approaches into an “unmanned hellscape”? Can the “attritable” unmanned capabilities being acquired through the Pentagon’s Replicator initiative close an emerging gap in combat power with the People’s Liberation Army? Can the U.S. Air Force compensate for its shrinking force...

Vietnam has been busy. In recent months, it has exponentially expanded the size of several features it controls in the Spratly Islands, including Barque Canada Reef, Namyit Island, Pearson Reef, and Discovery Great Reef. China appears to have allowed these expansion efforts to occur largely unmolested. And yet, elsewhere in the Spratlys at Second Thomas...

Iran’s “election circus” — as it is known in Farsi — is in full swing with a total of six candidates being approved by the supreme leader-controlled vetting body, the Guardian Council. These six have not held back in backstabbing each other, and the knives will be on full display in the coming weeks. Indeed, this circus is being tacitly encouraged by...

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. *** Iran Following the death of President Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash last month, Iran is gearing up to elect a new president on June 28. Although Iranian policy...

If one word has come to characterize the army that the Duke of Wellington led in the campaign that culminated in the Battle of Waterloo, that word is “infamous.” The description comes from the mouth of the Duke himself, and entered the popular vocabulary when novelist Georgette Heyer adopted it as the title for a Regency romance set against the backdrop...

Napoleon Bonaparte’s Waterloo army was the last he would ever lead into combat. Returning from exile in March 1815 to a country riven by factionalism and exhausted by two decades of almost unremitting warfare, the French emperor managed in only three months to pull together an army that came achingly close to defeating an allied force with almost double...