In the News

Here's what we can gather about the US nuclear attack submarine collision in the South China Sea

Quoted: Vipin Narang, a professor of nuclear security and political science at MIT, says we shouldn't hold our breath when it comes to the USS Connecticut.  "It's totally unclear what hit it," he said.  When asked about the possibility of it hitting an enemy submarine, he said he doubts we will ever know. "We likely won't know for sure for a while, if ever, on this one," Dr Narang said.  "Not sure why we heard about this one — sometimes the damage is extensive enough that it's hard to hide," Dr Narang said.

Analysis + Opinion

In Europe's new humanitarian crisis, border security is prioritized over human rights

This new crisis is a stark reminder that the EU migration policy prioritizes border security over human rights. It is likely that pushbacks wouldn't have become such an obvious tool of choice now if they hadn't been widely practiced in Croatia, Cyprus, France, Greece, Italy, Malta, Slovenia, and Spain for the past five years with the silent approval of EU institutions.

In the News

How close did Chinese warplanes really get to Taiwan?

Quoted:  M Taylor Fravel, an expert on China’s military and the director of MIT’s Security Studies Program, said in a phone conversation Tuesday, “These planes are never on a vector to intrude into Taiwan’s airspace.” MIT’s Fravel estimates that, since that trip, Chinese planes have flown over Taiwan’s zone around 20 days each month. They have also flown over Japan’s ADIZ with some regularity. In this sense, as in many others, Beijing is an equal-opportunity exploiter of rivals’ openings. However, Fravel emphasizes, these planes have never flown over Taiwan’s actual airspace. Chinese President Xi Jinping and his generals may be haughty, but they don’t appear to be reckless.

In the News

Taiwan and China: line that Biden must tread is finer than ever

Quoted: “It’s absolutely unprecedented in the modern history of these flights that China has run into Taiwan’s Air Defence Identification Zone,” said Taylor Fravel, the director of the security studies programme at MIT. “Each day breaks the preceding record for the total number of flights on a single day.”...“If we were back where we were with Taiwan 10 or 15 years ago with a very sort of active independence-oriented president and that precipitated a conflict across the strait, I’m not sure the United States would necessarily come to Taiwan’s aid in the first instance,” Fravel said. “It would depend on how it played out. But the fundamental US goal is to maintain stability across the strait and to prevent a conflict from occurring.”

Analysis + Opinion

Why conservatives turned on the US military

Conservative American pundits and politicians have found a surprising new punching bag: the “woke” US military. “Anti-American indoctrination [is] seeping into parts of our military,” Senator Tom Cotton, a Republican from Arkansas, railed in a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee in June. “Holy crap,” Senator Ted Cruz, a Republican from Texas, tweeted in May in response to a recruitment ad showcasing the US Army’s diversity. “Perhaps a woke, emasculated military is not the best idea.”​

Analysis + Opinion

Don’t sink the nuclear submarine deal

"The benefits of AUKUS outweigh the proliferation risks," says Caitlin Talmadge, associate professor of security studies at the Edmund A Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. Talmadge is a research affiliate of the MIT Security Studies.

In the News

North Korea tested a hypersonic missile. Here’s why it matters

Quoted:   That feature may allow it to be attached to much bigger missiles than the KN-23, says Vipin Narang, a nuclear and defense specialist at MIT.  “This atop a mobile solid fuel (intercontinental ballistic missile) would pose a big problem for the US — it could be hard to find, and the warhead difficult to intercept by homeland defenses,” Narang told VOA.  The development means North Korea would be able to fuel missiles in a factory, seal them hermetically in canisters, and store them so that they can be moved out quickly and launched promptly, Narang says.  “They have so many liquid fuel missiles. Now they may not take hours to fuel in the open where they are vulnerable. Big leap in survivability and promptness,” he added.

Analysis + Opinion

Beyond forever war

After years of hopeful delusions that the era of jihadi terrorism was past, it is indeed time for US policymakers to refocus on the threat. But returning to the fearfulness and hyperventilation that plagued the decade and a half before Trump is not the way to do it.

In the News

Mariya Grinberg seeks clarity in jargon

Mariya Grinberg aims to create clear definitions within IR theory, and to ensure definition is understood within different contexts. In her most recent project, she’s focused on the field’s shared understanding of “decline” in the context of nation-states.

Analysis + Opinion

Don't count your submarines before they're built