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Articles by Kevin Bilms
Solving for the Missing Element of Maritime Campaigning
Editor’s note: This article is part of Project Maritime, which explores modern challenges and opportunities in the maritime dimension at the intersection of irregular warfare and strategic competition. We warmly invite your participation and engagement as we embark on this project. Please send submissions to submissions@irregularwarfare.org with the subject line “Project Maritime Submission” and follow us on X (formerly Twitter) @proj_maritime.
David vs. Goliath: Southeast Asia Can Resist China’s Gray Zone Aggression in the South China Sea . . . with Help
The perception that Southeast Asian nations tend to yield to Chinese coercion at sea overlooks the brave efforts of regional navies and coast guards to assert their national sovereignty. Those efforts can and should be bolstered and amplified. The stereotypical image of Southeast Asian nation responses to China’s maritime coercion in the South China Sea is one of meekness or, at worst, submission.
The Cod Wars and Lessons for Maritime Counterinsurgency
Can a small state successfully defend its maritime claims against a nuclear-armed opponent? Are smaller actors able to win below the threshold of high-intensity war? Or was Thucydides right in saying that the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must? While pondering these questions, today’s disputes in the South China Sea or future concerns in the Arctic may come to mind.
The Cod Wars and Lessons for Maritime Counterinsurgency
Can a small state successfully defend its maritime claims against a nuclear-armed opponent? Are smaller actors able to win below the threshold of high-intensity war? Or was Thucydides right in saying that the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must? While pondering these questions, today’s disputes in the South China Sea or future concerns in the Arctic may come to mind.
2/1/23 National Security News and Commentary
Informal Institute for National Security Thinkers and Practitioners Quotes of the Day: 1. To Solve a Problem, You Need to Define It…Accurately 2. Preparing for strategic competition: The need for irregular warfare professional military education 3. Record Defense Budget Flunks the China Test 4. RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, JANUARY 31, 2023 5. DOJ Reveals New Iran-backed Assassination Attempt on Iranian American Journalist 6.
Past as Prelude? Envisioning the Future of Special Operations
It is indicative of the current zeitgeist that Washington’s strategists quote Sun Tzu and sprinkle the ancient philosopher’s axioms in conversations and PowerPoints across town. For policymakers seeking to win without fighting with the People’s Republic of China or other competitors, they should also note the popular Chinese proverb that the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago; the second-best time is now.
Past as Prelude? Envisioning the Future of Special Operations
Past as Prelude? Envisioning the Future of Special Operations
Past as Prelude? Envisioning the Future of Special Operations
It is indicative of the current zeitgeist that Washington’s strategists quote Sun Tzu and sprinkle the ancient philosopher’s axioms in conversations and PowerPoints across town. For policymakers seeking to win without fighting with the People’s Republic of China or other competitors, they should also note the popular Chinese proverb that the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago; the second-best time is now.
Gray Is Here To Stay
Kevin Bilms Modern War Institute March 27, 2021 Earlier this month, the White House released its Interim National Security Strategic Guidance, the foreign policy blueprint that will inform the Biden administration’s national security strategy. Most analysis of the guidance has focused on how it represents a departure in tone and tenor from the previous administration’s National Security Strategy.
Gray is Here to Stay: Principles from the Interim National Security Strategic Guidance on Competing in the Gray Zone
Earlier this month, the White House released its Interim National Security Strategic Guidance, the foreign policy blueprint that will inform the Biden administration’s national security strategy. Most analysis of the guidance has focused on how it represents a departure in tone and tenor from the previous administration’s National Security Strategy. Much less attention has been paid to the guidance’s treatment of competition in the gray zone between peace and outright war.
An Irregular Upgrade to Operational Design
Irregular warfare is an enduring, economical contribution to America’s national security, and will remain an essential core competency of the U.S. Department of Defense. – Summary of the Irregular Warfare Annex to the National Defense Strategy Operational design — the analytical framework that underpins U.S. military planning — has a relevance problem.
What’s in a Name? Reimagining Irregular Warfare Activities for Competition
“Irregular warfare” has an image problem. Artistic liberties in Hollywood and misadventures by former special operators cause “irregular warfare” to be conflated with either the highly kinetic exploits of elite units, or “little green men” attempting to overthrow fledgling dictators. Irregular warfare needs a new market strategy that shakes these misconceptions, or else an entire form of warfare may move to the sidelines in favor of focusing only on preparing for high-end war.
Avoid ‘Great-Power Competition’ in Future Security Strategies
The 2017 National Security Strategy (NSS) and 2018 National Defense Strategy (NDS) were transformative because they rebalanced the primary security focus away from countering extremist groups, and towards the challenges presented by near-peer competitors and revisionist regimes. Both documents depicted an international landscape that was increasingly complex and competitive.
Better understanding irregular warfare in competition
Kevin Bilms 2 days ago U.S. Naval Special Warfare operators and U.S. Navy Special Warfare combatant-craft crewmen prepare for a visit, board, search, and seizure exercise during a training mission at the NATO Maritime Interdiction Operational Training Center, Greece on July 31, 2020. (Sgt. Aven Santiago/Army) “Irregular Warfare” is not a perfect term, but it helps distinguish the U.S. military’s potential contributions to strategic competition short of all-out war.
Will COVID Finally Force Us to Think Differently About National Security?
The United States was already overdue to reshape its conception of national security to meet an era of gray-zone challenges below the threshold of “regular war” — and then came COVID-19. The global pandemic is changing the dynamics of competition for influence, and may constrain U.S. defense budgets even more than sequestration.
The NDS’s Irregular Warfare Annex. Here’s Why It’s so Significant.
Kevin Bilms Modern War Institute October 5, 2020 This week, the Defense Department released an unclassified summary of the Irregular Warfare (IW) Annex to the National Defense Strategy.
Look at Great Power Competition Through a Special Operations Lens
Most of this competition is far short of combat, which makes the principles and expertise of SOF keenly relevant. Recent events in Crimea, Syria, Libya—even the COVID-19 pandemic– show that state adversaries compete with the United States deliberately below the threshold of intensity likely to escalate to conventional war. Success in great power competition, therefore, requires more than preparation for conflict and high-intensity warfare.
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