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In a Feb. 2, 2018, report entitled “The Return of Political Warfare,” Seth Jones, PhD, Harold Brown chair, Transnational Threats Project director and International Security Program senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, says that US defense strategy must be take unconventional warfare, and especially political warfare, into consideration “since the costs and risks of conventional and nuclear war may be prohibitively high” for it and the countries it sees itself as competing with. “Recognizing that other powers routinely conduct political warfare, George Kennan encouraged U.S. leaders to disabuse themselves of the ‘handicap’ of the ‘concept of a basic difference between peace and war’ and to wake up to ‘the realities of international relations—the perpetual rhythm of struggle, in and out of war,'”  Jones writes. “Kennan’s advice may be even more relevant today in such a competitive world.”

READ THE REPORT — In “Keeping A2/AD at Bay: The Imperative for Base Defense in the Western Pacific,” a new report from the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, Lt. Col. Thomas R. McCabe, USAF Ret., argues that the United States must view the Western Pacific as a frontline and prepare its aircraft, assets and bases in the region for conventional attack due to China’s development and deployment of “modern military systems, especially conventional ballistic and cruise missiles.”  Further, he writes, “leaders should consider several countermeasures, including dispersal, passive defense, and active defense” in anticipation of such an attack. Learn more about the report here.