GOVERNANCE & ELECTIONS
SECURITY, UNREST & WAR
The Great Barrage: How the US Embarks on its New Global War
This may be the first occasion on which the US has actually initiated a global offensive. All its previous endeavors have been either evolutionary or reactive. The new Trump dynamic has put all states — friend and foe — into a defensive and recalculating mode.
STRATEGY & INTELLIGENCE
STRATEGIC TRAJECTORIES | Trump’s Unsurprising Major Target: the Americas
It has to be assumed, by recent and past actions, that Pres. Trump feels that most of the old alliances are no longer functioning in US or even global interests, and that he has no problem walking away from them. But then what?
PERSONNEL
Key Transitions and Defense and Intelligence Appointments - 02/2025
HISTORY
ESSENTIAL READING | Trying to See at Midnight in Moscow
SECURITY, UNREST & WAR
Pacific Warfare: Crossing Distant Beaches
Can rapid restoration of USMC capability in the Pacific be an easy, early win for incoming US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth?
CULTURE, PSYCHOLOGY & MEDIA
Prestige: Decider of Wars
More critical than the “correlation of forces” is the balance of prestige in “an ignoble world”.
STRATEGY & INTELLIGENCE
Gaining Strategic Initiative
There is no “art of the deal” unless negotiations — a non-kinetic dynamic — can be forced to begin. How engagement is commenced determines strategic advantage and momentum.
STRATEGY & INTELLIGENCE
Watching the Dust Settle on the Panama Canal Issue
The “changes” the US has seen with regard to the Panama Canal since the visit by Marco Rubio have been symbolic of a far greater US concentration than for many decades on the Americas, but the US will need more attention on its maritime supremacy to continue to keep Beijing on the defensive.
STRATEGY & INTELLIGENCE
EARLY WARNING | Humiliation as Strategic Motivation or Malaise
STRATEGY & INTELLIGENCE
CURRENT ESTIMATE | Strategically, in 2025, “Chance Happeneth to Them All”
PERSONNEL