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Articles by David Zikusoka
Spying From Space
In 2023, the U.S. Department of Defense announced an ambitious plan to launch 1,000 satellites over the next decade. Over the same period, the National Reconnaissance Office, which runs the United States’ spy satellites, plans to quadruple the size of its fleet of a couple of dozen satellites. The U.S. government can expand its fleet this quickly because satellites have become much cheaper to manufacture and easier to launch into space.
Spying From Space
In 2023, the U.S. Department of Defense announced an ambitious plan to launch 1,000 satellites over the next decade. Over the same period, the National Reconnaissance Office, which runs the United States’ spy satellites, plans to quadruple the size of its fleet of a couple of dozen satellites. The U.S. government can expand its fleet this quickly because satellites have become much cheaper to manufacture and easier to launch into space.
The Future of War is Electromagnetic
In the laboratory for modern war that Ukraine is today, electronic warfare is evolving at an unprecedented pace. It’s cat-and-mouse, move, and countermove. Ukraine’s military wreaks devastation with explosives zip-tied to off-the-shelf commercial drones that can evade Russian jamming systems. Russian forces adapt their jammers; Ukrainian operators watch helplessly as their drones lose their signal and drop from the sky. Engineers are ramping up new software fixes.
North Korea and Russia: A Lopsided Affair
As Russia and Ukraine hunker into their winter stance, expending troops and artillery over months for little visible gain in an admitted stalemate, North Korea seems to have leveraged Russia’s falling artillery stockpiles into substantial gains—ones that contravene United Nations weapons and nonproliferation sanctions and have the potential to further destabilize the Korean Peninsula.
It’s Time to Bring Back Conventional Deterrence Patrols
After decades of war in the Middle East, the joint force is retooling to pierce the bubble of China’s formidable anti-access, area-denial defenses. The national defense strategy calls China the pacing challenge and Defense Department officials have called a cross-strait Chinese invasion of Taiwan the pacing scenario. The most stressing part of this scenario would be the fight to sink the invasion fleet as it approaches Taiwan’s shores.
How Ukraine’s “Uber for Artillery” is Leading the Software War Against Russia
Recent fighting in Ukraine has been characterized by a regression to older forms and even older modes of fighting. The struggle for Bakhmut has devolved into World War I-style trench warfare. Facing deep materiel attrition, Russia has pressed 1950s-era tanks back into service. Building-by-building, floor-by-floor firefights have prompted comparisons to the Nazi-Soviet battle for Stalingrad. And yet, the war also bears the hallmarks of future, digital warfare.
Satellite Wars over Ukraine
As Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine churns into a new phase with the passing of the one year anniversary of the Kremlin’s military offensive this week, the view from hundreds of miles above the battle-scarred Ukrainian countryside is not pretty. Russian forces are again on the offensive in the eastern region of Donbas where World War I-style trench warfare is playing out in and around the city of Bakhmut.
A Role for Supersonic Munitions in Standoff Strike
Evangelism, speculation, and anxiety attend America’s campaign to add hypersonic weapons to its standoff strike portfolio. These weapons, some of which may fly as fast as 20 times the speed of sound, have been cause for varying reactions in the national security establishment.
How Fast Is Fast Enough? A Role for Supersonic Munitions in Standoff Strike
Evangelism, speculation, and anxiety attend America’s campaign to add hypersonic weapons to its standoff strike portfolio. These weapons, some of which may fly as fast as 20 times the speed of sound, have been cause for varying reactions in the national security establishment.
The Second Battle of Midway: What the US needs to do to win in a showdown with China
David Zikusoka, Center for a New American Security 13m More icon Three evenly spaced dots forming an ellipsis: "...". Close icon Two crossed lines that form an 'X'. It indicates a way to close an interaction, or dismiss a notification. China's Harbin guided-missile destroyer during a week-long China-Russia navy exercise. AP Photo A conflict with China in the western Pacific will likely mean the US has to deploy weapons and forces over great range, which would make such a fight infeasible right now.
The Second Battle of Midway: What the US needs to do to win in a showdown with China
The year is 2025 and a Chinese amphibious action group has set out for Taiwan. The United States will intervene to stop this effort, but there isn't a US ship within 4,000 miles of Taiwan and air bases across the region were vacated soon after the crisis began. US forces are going to do something unprecedented: Fight this war from 4,000 miles away. Today, it takes a bomber about seven hours to fly 4,000 miles and a guided-missile destroyer about a week to do the same.
The US Is Unprepared to Mobilize for Great Power Conflict
July 21, 2019 By Elsa B. Kania and Emma Moore Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Print The “fully mobilized Joint Force,” the National Defense Strategy tells us, will be capable of “defeating aggression by a major power; deterring opportunistic aggression elsewhere; and disrupting imminent terrorist and WMD threats.” Yet neither that document, nor U.S. planners in general, are sufficiently grappling with certain mobilization challenges that could prove decisive in a future great power conflict.
National Security Lightning Talks and Roundtables
June 14, 2019 By Loren DeJonge Schulman, David Zikusoka, Cristina Killingsworth, Neil Bhatiya, Kristine Lee, Nicole Alexander, Ainikki Riikonen, Megan Lamberth and Elsa B. Kania Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Print At the 2019 CNAS National Security Conference, CNAS experts pitched their top national security challenges and solutions in lightning-talks, followed by roundtable discussions to further develop these new ideas.
Toward an “Open Source” Maritime Force Structure
June 15, 2017 By Nicholas C. Prime Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Print Download PDF The U.S. Navy’s updated Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower outlines several key themes and areas of development for the sea services as they continue the transition from the focus on the land wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.1 Some are new, a few are traditional, and several provide an interesting perspective on previously gestating concepts.
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