By Lindsay P. Cohn, War on the Rocks: “More recently, the apparent ramping-up of the U.S. military presence in Syria, Afghanistan, and parts of Africa has continued apace, while lacking a clear and consistent strategic narrative about what this is supposed to accomplish. There is no shortage of things for observers and scholars to worry about when it comes to civil-military relations.”
By Lorand Laskai, China Brief: “China’s efforts to become a dominant ‘science and tech superpower’ (科技强国) in technologies like artificial intelligence, quantum communications, robotics and smart manufacturing are well documented. Less is known about how China plans to use CMF to convert its technological push into a long-term military advantage.”
(Defense News) Sri Lanka, an island nation in the Indian Ocean the size of West Virginia, has become another flashpoint in regional naval competition.
By Bates Gill & Benjamin Schreer, The Strategist (ASPI): “...sharp power shouldn’t be conflated with ‘soft power with Chinese characteristics’. Instead, it’s a vital instrument to fulfill President Xi Jinping’s ambition for China to become a global power by piercing, penetrating or perforating the political and information environments in target countries.”
By Franz-Stefan Gady, Defense One: “I was raised in a culture in which soldiering is seen as just another dangerous profession.”
By Lorand Laskai, China Brief: “Amid growing tensions with the United States over technology and trade, China is elevating civil-military fusion to the center of the country’s cybersecurity and informatization agenda.”
By Charlie Dunlap, Small Wars Journal: “The military is hardly as homogenous in its views as many narratives would have you believe.”