CSBA in the News

Russian President Vladimir Putin likely never thought he would have to admit that conscripts had been used in Ukraine — and, yet, the Russian government had to do just that.

Conscription is a sensitive topic in Russia, and their use by the Kremlin indicates the degree to which the country’s leaders believed they could keep the cost of the war hidden from the domestic populace. But now that their deployment is public, what does Russia’s continued use of conscripts say about the war and the future course the conflict may take?

Mystery guest host (Bill Kristol) joins Eric for a discussion with Johns Hopkins SAIS Professor Hal Brands about his new book the Twilight Struggle. They discuss the lessons of America's cold war strategic competition with the USSR for today's era of strategic competition with China and Russia—the role of strategy, economic competition, political warfare, and more.

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) sees advanced technology as one of the keys to victory in its challenge to global order in this century. CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping has pronounced that the world is on the precipice of a “fourth industrial revolution” centered upon artificial intelligence and autonomous technology. China is mobilizing every sector of society to contribute to the state’s grand technological ambitions in its long-term struggle against the United States. 

Nowhere is this clearer than in the realm of military affairs. China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is racing to integrate futuristic technologies into its historically less-advanced military. The PLA has coalesced around a new organizing concept for how it thinks that advanced technologies will affect warfare in this century. “Intelligentization” represents China’s vision for a new revolution in military affairs. This little-known new concept is driving the PLA’s modernization efforts and signals the expansive ambitions the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has in challenging American military dominance globally.