News

In the wake of America’s long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. military faced an urgent need to pivot from counterinsurgency back to conventional warfighting, especially against peer competitors like China and Russia.

This article examines how U.S. Joint Special Operations Forces (SOF), particularly through SAG-U and CJSOTF-10, have rapidly adapted to support Ukraine amid Russia’s full-scale invasion, offering a model for future joint force innovation.

This article analyzes the strategic importance of Southeast Asia to U.S. foreign policy amid rising competition with China, emphasizing the region's complex geography, diverse political systems, and centrality to global economic growth.

This article evaluates the modernization of the People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) from 2007 to 2025 using the Saunders-Quam framework, which identifies four core trade-offs: changes in roles and missions, domestic versus foreign procurement, high-tech versus low-tech systems, and combat versus support aircraft.

In this issue, JFQ Editor in Chief William T. Eliason reflects on the enduring value of joint professional military education (JPME) and the journal’s role in shaping informed national security leaders. He emphasizes the importance of history, critical thinking, and learning from past conflicts, principles rooted in Clausewitzian theory, as essential to preparing for future challenges. The issue’s Forum section tackles readiness for great power competition, especially with China, examining mobilization, PLA airpower, and Southeast Asia’s strategic geography. Additional features explore leadership development in special operations, civil-military relations, AI and deepfake threats, space-based logistics, Western Pacific access strategies, distributed medical support, and cyber force structure. Together, these contributions reinforce JPME’s mission to inform and strengthen the joint force for the complex security landscape ahead.

Joel Wuthnow, a senior research fellow in NDU’s Institute of National Strategic Studies, discusses the current state of military reform in China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA). The article analyzes the reform’s components, assesses its impact on operational effectiveness, and explores how it may influence Chinese leadership’s calculus in future military actions and calls attention to the need for the U.S. to consider these shifts in updating its Joint Warfighting Concept.

This article identifies a critical gap in ACE's protection strategy and proposes integrating Army maneuver short-range air defense (M-SHORAD) units, particularly from multidomain task forces (MDTFs), to provide mobile, layered air defense for ACE sites.

The U.S. military is confronting a recruitment crisis stemming from a declining pool of eligible and willing recruits, largely due to deteriorating physical and mental fitness across the population and waning societal confidence in the military. This article explores strategic alternatives to address the shortfall in military manpower.