Wild Blue Yonder

June 8, 2020
COVID-19: China’s Chernobyl, China’s Berlin Airlift, or Neither?

Contemporary history shows a pattern of crises such as wars or pandemics leading to a shift in global power politics and realignment of power centers. Crises result in opportunities for countries to climb or fall on the global power scale. Will the current COVID-19 crisis be Beijing's Chernobyl,
June 8, 2020
Future Military Space: From Procurement to the Tactical Fight

Requirements for space systems are developed on a five to ten-year time horizon, which does not allow the development of systems that can be utilized on demand in an area of responsibility (AOR). New systems must be developed that can be deployed on demand to AORs and utilized by ground, sea, air,
June 8, 2020
Space Legal Operations

The purpose of this article is to propose that the US Space Force create a new Space Force Specialty Code (SFSC): Space Legal Operations. To explain this proposal, (1) China’s “three-front” war will be described to illustrate the need for such an operator; (2) the challenges and requirements of the
June 8, 2020
So Just What Is a Killer Robot?: Detailing the Ongoing Debate around Defining Lethal Autonomous Weapon Systems

This article will compare competing definitions of what ought to be considered a lethal autonomous weapon system (LAWS), presenting these definitions for consideration of their merits and differences. Whether a given definition would be considered “prominent” in this respect is largely dependent on
June 8, 2020
The Case for Missile Defense and an Efficient Defense of the US Homeland

In May 2019, the Pentagon first announced a pause on the years-long troubled efforts to redesign the Exoatmospheric Kill Vehicle (EKV) of the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system’s interceptors. Since 2004, the GMD system’s mission is to defend the United States from ballistic missile
June 8, 2020
If A2/AD Will Blot Out the Sun … Then We Will Fight in the Shade: 300 Spartans and Information Warfare in the Twenty-first Century

The defense enterprise’s imagination has taken an ancient, yet simple, idea (i.e., combined arms defense of the homeland) and allowed it to grow unchecked into the notion that antiaccess/area denial (A2/AD) is a revolutionary new concept and anyone who employs it possesses an impenetrable fortress:
May 25, 2020
Factotum: The US Military in the Twenty-First Century

Despite changes in the strategic environment, they are “unique in detail, not in kind”; thus, the US military’s proper role remains constant as the dutiful servant of the state.
May 11, 2020
Pilot Shortage

One of the major problems that the aviation community is facing right now is a pilot shortage. In recent years, the number of pilots has slowly been declining, and now we have a major, global pilot shortage. Many people know about the shortage and are not doing anything about it. Many think it is
May 11, 2020
The Silent Erosion of Sovereignty: A Sino–Australian Example

This short submission highlights the potential and current dangers of the CCP information and influence operations as part of the People's Liberation Army’s wider noncontact warfare approach of China's "three warfares" in the so-called grey zone and looks at potential comprehensive countermeasures.
May 11, 2020
Turning Expert Assessments into High Quality Empirical Data

Given the challenges and limitations of the current risk-assessment process, there is a more effective, rigorous, useful alternative. This article offers organizations that rely on small numbers of subject-matter experts a set of tools and methodologies that can increase the rigor of assessments and