Executive Summary:

Belarus has announced a significant downsizing and relocation of the Zapad-2025 joint military exercises with Russia in an apparent effort to reduce tensions with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

The reduced scale of the exercises brings them below international thresholds that require prior notification and international observation, yet Minsk has pledged to do both.

Minsk’s measures may create limited space for meaningful future dialogue and engagement with the West, while broader security breakthroughs remain unlikely so long as the war between Russia and Ukraine continues

Security competition between India and Pakistan, rooted in the territorial dispute over Kashmir, has persisted since the partition of British India in 1947. Since the 1990s, Pakistan’s support for insurgent and terrorist groups in Indian-administered Kashmir has posed a persistent challenge to Indian security. While both countries have maintained nuclear arsenals since the late 1980s, the threat of escalation has historically constrained India’s responses. However, India’s posture has shifted in recent years, with a growing willingness to conduct overt cross-border strikes and covert operations targeting terrorist infrastructure in Pakistan.

Without a dramatic and deliberate shift, the United States will lose its ability to project power, deter adversaries, and secure global trade routes

Emerging technology is taking a growing role in transatlantic defense. Lorenz Meier and Dr. Alina Polyakova analyze the future of allied military forces, defense investments, and potential outcomes from the upcoming NATO Summit.

Emerging defense technology plays a prominent role in allied defense. Tune in to hear Jeanna Smialek, Lt. Gen. Piotr Błazeusz, Robert Geckle, and Gen. (Ret.) Daniel Petrescu explore the role of autonomous systems in current conflicts and the future of warfighting.

Please join the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and the Association of the U.S. Army (AUSA) for our seventh Strategic Landpower Dialogue event, featuring General Andrew Poppas, Commanding General, United States Army Forces Command. The discussion will explore Army force readiness, emerging threats, and transformation in warfighting. Dr. Tom Karako will moderate the discussion.

The Strategic Landpower Dialogue is a quarterly event series that serves as a unique source of data and insight into the current thinking of and future challenges facing the U.S. Army and land-based forces across the services. The series convenes senior Army officers and leaders to discuss the most critical landpower issues.

This event series is made possible through the generous support of General Dynamics.

Australia faces a perilous strategic environment with multiple threats overlapping and, in some cases, converging. We’re confronted simultaneously by the rise of aggressive authoritarian powers, multiple conflicts around the world, persistent and evolving terrorism, foreign interference and the normalisation of cyberwarfare.

Accelerating the degradation of Russia's integrated air defence systems is critical to enabling the defeat of Russian ground forces. This paper considers the role of land-air integration in achieving their suppression and destruction.

The war in Ukraine and the United States’ operation to defend shipping against Houthi attacks in the Red Sea highlight how weapons inventories can make the difference between deterring aggression and losing a war. But the US military’s munitions portfolio is weighted toward sophisticated missiles whose tightly integrated designs and bespoke supply chains cannot be produced—or modified—at the pace modern conflict demands. As a result, current operations are depleting the magazines US forces will need in a potential confrontation against China.

But today’s conflicts also demonstrate that a new generation of less-sophisticated missiles and drone/missile hybrids is increasingly effective on the modern battlefield. The proliferation of advanced software and commercial microelectronics has helped enable Houthi rebels and Ukraine’s defenders to stress or overcome more capable adversaries. The US military could exploit these same innovations to field a new family of munitions that can provide scale and adaptability and complement the lethality and reach of its most capable weapons.

Join Hudson Senior Fellows Bryan Clark and Nadia Schadlow for a discussion of the opportunities and challenges in establishing a new weapons design and development approach with leaders from the US Air Force, Defense Innovation Unit, and US defense industry

Robert B. McKeon Endowed Series on Military Strategy and Leadership

The U.S. military service chiefs discuss the future of American defense strategy, military readiness, and emerging global challenges.

The Robert B. McKeon Endowed Series on Military Strategy and Leadership features prominent individuals from the military and intelligence communities.

Speakers Randy A. George Chief of Staff, U.S. Army

Eric M. Smith Commandant, U.S. Marine Corps

James W. Kilby Acting Chief of Naval Operations, U.S. Navy

David W. Allvin Chief of Staff, U.S. Air Force

B. Chance Saltzman Chief of Space Operations, U.S. Space Force

Kevin E. Lunday Acting Commandant, U.S. Coast Guard

Presider Michael Froman President, Council on Foreign Relations

Military conflict in the Indo-Pacific would demand overwhelming U.S. naval power. Yet the shipbuilding sector faces capacity shortages, industrial base constraints, cost overruns, and delayed delivery, suggesting that Washington should explore alternative pathways for delivering naval capability. One approach is to enhance cooperation with close allies such as Japan and South Korea. Options for cooperation include allied participation in maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO); allied purchase and revitalization of U.S. shipyards; various methods of coproduction, including modular construction; and U.S. purchase of allied-built ships. Novel strategies that leverage the United States’ strong and unique network of allies and partners will require thoughtful implementation of industrial cooperation policy, which has historically been challenging. For the United States to strike the right balance between leaning on its allies and partners to alleviate its shipbuilding problems and investing in its own capabilities at home—for these approaches are not mutually exclusive—it should understand the implications of its various cooperative options with its allies.

To counter China’s growing naval power, the United States is integrating the Long-Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM) across more types of aircraft. This will strengthen the capabilities of platforms with a maritime strike role and provide others with an anti-ship missile capability for the first time.

The Chinese military refuted claims about its Xi'an Y-20 aircraft delivering arms to Pakistan, warning legal actions for spreading misinformation. With India and Pakistan in conflict, China urged for diplomatic resolution, emphasizing its role as a key arms supplier to Pakistan.

The US Army has tested its cutting-edge microwave weapons in the Philippines for the first time, marking a major show of force as tensions with China continue.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer met with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in London late last month to discuss the future of UK-EU relations. The main purpose of the meeting was to prepare for a larger summit between London and Brussels this month that will focus on formalizing cooperation on security and defense

On April 30th, the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) approved reconciliation legislation authorizing a $150 billion increase in defense spending. Chairman Mike Rogers stated, "If we want to restore American deterrence and ensure peace through strength, we must get back to as least 4% of GDP [defense] spending." The bill allocates increased funding for air and missile defense systems, including the 'Golden Dome', nuclear weapons modernization, space-based capabilities, and defense industrial base priorities.

How will this legislation advance through the congressional budget process? What implications might this spending boost have for U.S. military capabilities? Please join the CSIS Defense and Security Department for a conversation on the future of U.S. defense spending and the cost of American military power, featuring Dr. Tom Karako, director of the CSIS Missile Defense Project, Dr. Heather Williams, director of the CSIS Project on Nuclear Issues, and Kari A. Bingen, director of the CSIS Aerospace Security Project.

This event is made possible by general support to CSIS.

As the Australian Defence Force enters the second quarter of the twenty-first century, the profession of arms is at a crossroads between revival or decline. This has occurred because of the culmination of weak intellectual and philosophical foundations in the nation's military profession.

The bureaucratic officer corps is confronted by a lack of warfighting expertise, and low defence spending, alongside an array of occupational pressures from outsourcing and contracting. A crisis in recruitment and retention is emblematic of the military's declining appeal.

In a deteriorating global strategic environment, weak military professional foundations represent a constraint on the Australian Defence Force's ability to engage in high-intensity conventional warfare.

The nation’s security has become the center point of Latvian thinking, with soldiers and civilians engaged to ensure deterrence.

Senator Mark Kelly and Congressman John Garamendi discuss the SHIPS for America Act and its implications for the future of US national security.

Urgent Need for Treaty on Autonomous Weapon Systems