August 2012

Trust, Engagement, and Technology Transfer: Underpinnings for U.S.-Brazil Defense Cooperation
by E. Richard DOWNES

Among emerging powers, Brazil is politically and culturally the closest to the United States. For this South American neighbor, defense technology has become a critical aspect of strategic reorientation and force modernization. Sharing U.S. defense technology, including know-how, would strengthen U.S.-Brazil relations.

June 2012

Offshore Control: A Proposed Strategy for an Unlikely Conflict
by T.X. HAMMES

China’s antiaccess/area-denial capabilities resulted in the Pentagon writing an Air-Sea Battle concept as part of its Joint Operational Access Concept. Missing is a discussion of an appropriate strategy if the entirely undesirable Sino-American conflict occurs.
This paper proposes Offshore Control as a military strategy. It recognizes that any conflict with China will be measured in years, not weeks or months. Offshore Control aligns U.S. strategic requirements with the resources available; takes advantage of Pacific geography to provide strategic, operational, and tactical advantages for U.S. forces; and provides a way for the conflict to end that is consistent with previous Communist Chinese behavior.
By reducing reliance on space and cyber domains, Offshore Control is designed to slow a crisis down and reduce escalatory pressure in a crisis and potential ensuing conflict.

April 2012

Grand Strategy and International Law
by Nicholas ROSTOW

Grand strategy is, or should be, the “calculated relationship of means to large ends.” Interrelated strategic and legal dimensions provide a leitmotif to the modern history of relations among powerful states. States employ an array of means to achieve their large ends—military power, as well as diplomatic, informational, economic/financial, and legal tools and influence.
As grand strategy deals with subjects that touch the sources of sovereignty, is there—can there be—a relationship between law, much less international law, and grand strategy? The answer, of course (despite the skeptics), is yes; it is a different “yes” than advocates of this or that legal or other international institution might intend. At the same time, the nature of the relationship is both complex and straightforward.