By: Stephen Kuper Just as the Cold War was characterised by a period of “Competitive Coexistence” between the United States and the Soviet Union, our new multipolar world embodies this in a significantly more complex way, presenting significant challenges for Australia and its “Fight Tonight” force. Human history has been…
By Robbin Laird On February 11, 2026, Allied Command Operations (ACO), which is responsible for the planning and execution of all NATO exercises, activities and operations, noted that they began Arctic Sentry. The multi-domain activity will further strengthen NATO’s posture in the Arctic and High North as persistent NATO presence…
By Robbin Laird The fundamental assumptions underpinning Western defense planning are collapsing. For generations, democratic nations operated under the comfortable presumption that major conflicts would arrive with ample warning, years, perhaps a decade, to mobilize industrial capacity, train forces, and prepare society for war. This strategic cushion has evaporated. The…
By Pierre Tran Paris – President Emmanuel Macron started Feb. 17 an official visit to India, a few days after the defense ministry in New Delhi said it had given the green light for contract talks for a further batch of Rafale and missiles, with local media reports of a…
By Robbin Laird For decades, national security establishments have organized around crisis management or the structured response to disruptions within fundamentally stable systems. The Cuban Missile Crisis, though terrifying, operated within understood parameters: known actors, measurable capabilities, calculable escalation ladders. Even the most dangerous moments followed a logic that skilled…
By Robbin Laird In February 2026, a team from OpenAI published what may become a landmark document in the emerging field of AI geopolitics. “AI and International Security: Pathways of Impact and Key Uncertainties” represents something unusual: a major AI laboratory attempting to map how its own technology could reshape…
Recently, Lt General (Retired) Preziosa published two essays in European Affairs in Italian which we are including in translation after this overview of his analysis of Europe’s position in the evolving global system. His argument rests on a fundamental proposition: the Russian-Ukrainian war represents not a regional conflict but a…
By Robbin Laird In 2025, four significant books emerged that collectively chronicle the transformation of airpower from its industrial-age roots to its current form as a networked, information-centric enterprise. These volumes, Training for The High-End Fight: The Paradigm Shift in Combat Pilot Training, Remembering the B-17 and Its Role in…
