Another Cuban Missile Crisis?

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky meets U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi during a visit by a U.S. congressional delegation on April 30, 2022 in Kyiv, Ukraine. (Getty Images)

During the Cold War, the West used nuclear deterrence to offset the Soviet superiority in conventional forces in the European theater. Now, the evident weakness and disorder of Russian conventional forces suggests a new possibility: that a weaker Russia must try to deter NATO in Ukraine by nuclear threats, warns Walter Russell Mead in The Wall Street Journal. 

Virtual Event |The Future of Cyber Warfare

U.S. Army Gen. Paul M. Nakasone, commander of U.S. Cyber Command, director of the National Security Agency, and chief of the Central Security Service, hosts the CYBERCOM Academic Engagement Network event on February 10, 2022. (U.S. Cyber Command)

Could proposed changes to the functioning of U.S. Cyber Command impact our ability to counter cyber attacks by Russia and China? Please join Hudson Adjunct Fellow Ezra Cohen on Thursday for a discussion with expert panelists Alexei Bulazel, JD Work, and Joshua Steinman on this vital issue.

Biden's All-Hat National Defense

A U.S.-made F-16V fighter jet with its armaments is on display during an exercise at a military base in Chiayi, southern Taiwan on January 15, 2020. (Getty Images)

President Biden's defense approach recalls the Old West phrase describing a cowboy who talked big without the ability to back it up—“all hat, no cattle.” While the administration has rightly noted the rapidly growing risks to U.S. security, they have neither presented nor pursued a clear strategy needed to address them, writes Hudson's Andrew F. Krepinevich, Jr. with Bridge Colby in National Review. Restoring America's globe-spanning dominance will not be easy, but the alternative is unthinkably worse. 

Virtual Event | Defense Transformation in Japan? 

Japan's Self-Defense Forces conducting landing training on November 25, 2021, at Tanegashima, an island of Kagoshima Prefecture. (Getty Images)

Last week, Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s Research Commission on Security presented pathbreaking recommendations to strengthen Japanese defense capabilities. To examine the report and its recommendations, Hudson Institute will welcome Commission Chairman and former Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera, former State Minister for Foreign Affairs Masahisa Sato, and former Minister of Justice Takashi Yamashita , for a discussion with Walter P. Stern Distinguished Fellow Ken Weinstein on this landmark report and implications for the future of Japan’s approach to defense.

To Counter China, The Navy Should Retake the High Ground

Sailors signal that an F/A-18E Super Hornet fighter jet is ready for takeoff on the flight deck of aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan. (U.S. Navy)

Today’s naval air portfolio is ill-suited for highly distributed operations in contested areas, argue Bryan Clark and Tim Walton in Breaking Defense. To retake the high ground at sea, naval and congressional leaders need to reimagine Navy and Marine Corps land and sea-based aircraft as a unified force.

BEFORE YOU GO...

This Thursday at 6:30 p.m., join Hudson Senior Fellow Rebeccah L. Heinrichs and panelists Ross Douthat, Bridge Colby, and Jakub Grygiel for a discussion on “New World Order: What the War in Ukraine Means for American Grand Strategy.”