Forward-looking…

Strategy requires foresight. Leveraging the Scowcroft Center’s cutting-edge strategic foresight practice, Forward Defense helps identify the most important long-term developments, trends, and technologies that are shaping the future geostrategic and military environment.

Emerging military technology

Defense foresight

Report Nov 30, 2020

The Five Revolutions: Examining defense innovation in the Indo-Pacific region

By Tate Nurkin

The Indo-Pacific region has become a center of gravity for innovation in defense technologies and emerging military capabilities. This report explores major drivers of modernization and advances a new framework to capture defense technology and investment efforts in the region.
China Defense Industry
Defense foresight

Report Nov 3, 2020

Embracing underseas robots: a US strategy to maintain underseas superiority in an age of unmanned systems

By Erich Frandrup

The future of warfare is progressing towards uncrewed systems and automation. This report takes a look at this trend in the undersea domain, proposing a strategy for the United States to leverage the emerging capacity of unmanned undersea vehicles.
China Defense Industry
Defense foresight

Report Aug 17, 2020

Primer on hypersonic weapons in the Indo-Pacific region

By John T. Watts, Christian Trotti, and Mark J. Massa

Hypersonic weapons are nearing maturation, but debates about their military relevance are often defined solely by technology. This primer situates hypersonic weapons within the regional context of the Indo-Pacific to provide a foundation for strategic analysis.
China Defense Industry
Defense foresight

Event Recap Jul 28, 2020

Is the United States already losing the military tech race to China?

By Andrew Farnsworth

On June 30, Forward Defense hosted a panel of distinguished speakers to discuss the opportunities for, and challenges of, integrating autonomous technologies into the US military to better prepare it for great-power competition.
Defense Industry Defense Policy
Defense foresight

Issue Brief Mar 6, 2020

Russia’s exotic nuclear weapons and implications for the United States and NATO

By Matthew Kroenig, Mark J. Massa, Christian Trotti

Great-power competition has returned, and with it, the importance of nuclear weapons in international politics.
Defense Technologies Nuclear Deterrence
Public Event Tue, June 30, 2020 • 6:30 pm ET

The future of high-tech warfare
China Defense Industry Defense Policy Defense Technologies

Nontraditional threats

Defense foresight

Event Recap Feb 10, 2021

Looking beyond COVID-19: The need to focus US national strategy on the next major crisis

By Julia Siegel

Health security and technology experts joined the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center and its Forward Defense practice for a discussion on building resilience for the next major national security shock.
Coronavirus Crisis Management
Defense foresight

Report Sep 9, 2020

Future of DHS Project: Full report

By Thomas Warrick & Caitlin Durkovich

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) needs to refocus its mission to lead the defense of the United States against major nonmilitary threats.
China Coronavirus
Defense foresight

Event Recap Oct 9, 2020

Future of DHS Project identifies new threats to the homeland

By Julia Siegel

On Wednesday, September 9, the Scowcroft Center’s Forward Defense practice launched the Future of DHS Project Final Report, building on its Key Findings and Recommendations released in August. Following the report release, Forward Defense hosted three panels of distinguished speakers to discuss the future of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in a changing threat landscape.
China Coronavirus

Related Scowcroft Center content on emerging dual-use technology

Defense foresight

New Atlanticist Apr 1, 2020

The battle for 5G leadership is global and the US is behind: The White House’s new strategy aims to correct that.

By John T. Watts

The West has fallen behind in the competition for leadership of the 5G transition, a reality that has huge economic implications and also risks the West facing the reality of a global telecommunications backbone that not only has serious security flaws, but is also shaped by political values incompatible with our own. A new White House strategy aims to close the 5G transition gap.
Defense Technologies Internet
Defense foresight

Atlantic Council Strategy Paper Series Dec 10, 2019

A candle in the dark: US national security strategy for artificial intelligence

By Tate Nurkin, Stephen Rodriguez

AI is expected to have a transformational impact on the future of geopolitics, defense, and security. In this fluctuating environment, where the US is engaged in a high-stakes competition with is near-peer adversaries, and AI is enabling paradigm-shifting changes in public and private sector operations, how should the US respond?
Artificial Intelligence China
Defense foresight

Strategic Insights Memo Sep 9, 2019

Recommendations on 5G and national security

By James L. Jones

China’s aggressive attempt to subsidize the development of global 5G networks as a tool of Beijing’s geopolitical and economic power requires an urgent and robust, public- and private-sector response from the United States government, its allies, and partners to bring secure 5G technology to our allies.
China Security & Defense

Modeling the geopolitical future

Pavel in Defense One: Pandemic raises likelihood of great-power conflict

On June 1, Defense One published an article by Scowcroft Center Director Barry Pavel titled: “The Coronavirus is Raising the Likelihood of Great-Power Conflict.” The article addresses the intensifying military operations in the western Pacific and warns of potential escalation if efforts are not calibrated carefully.

The geopolitical implications of COVID-19

In this virtual ‘fireside chat’ co-hosted by the Atlantic Council and SACC-USA, Scowcroft Center Director Barry Pavel addresses the Scowcroft Center’s efforts to both comprehend the geopolitics of COVID-19 and shape the US and allied response.

What world post-COVID-19? Three scenarios

In this report, the Foresight, Strategy, and Risks Initaitve’s Mathew Burrows and Peter Engelke explore the geopolitical implications of COVID-19. They outline three potential scenarios for the future world order: 1) great accelerator downwards; 2) China first; and 3) new renaissance.

Global risks 2035 update: Decline or new renaissance?

The Scowcroft Center’s conclusion in 2016’s “Global Risks 2035” was that state-on-state conflict posed a bigger threat than terrorism. In the two years since, the post-Cold War order has continued to unravel without a ‘new normal’ emerging.

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Experts and futurists

Fellow

Evanna Hu

Nonresident Senior Fellow

Forward Defense Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Extremism Defense Technologies

Fellow

Tate Nurkin

Nonresident Senior Fellow

Forward Defense Indo-Pacific Security Initiative

China Defense Industry

Fellow

Stephen Rodriguez

Senior Advisor

Forward Defense Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Defense Policy Defense Technologies
John Watts

Fellow

John T. Watts

Nonresident Senior Fellow

Forward Defense Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Conflict Crisis Management

More on defense foresight & technology

Issue Brief

Feb 20, 2025

Issue brief: A NATO strategy for countering Russia

By Ian Brzezinski, Ryan Arick

Russia poses the most direct and growing threat to NATO member states’ security. This threat now includes the war in Ukraine, militarization in the Arctic, hybrid warfare, and arms control violations. Despite NATO’s military and economic superiority, a unified and effective strategy is essential to counter Russia’s aggression.

Cybersecurity Defense Technologies

New Atlanticist

Feb 18, 2025

What’s missing from the AI debate? Patience.

By Trey Herr

The AI sector is evolving quickly, fueled by a self-reinforcing cycle of investment, commentary, and ambition. In this race for compute, patience is important to sorting out sustainable innovation from speculative excess.

Artificial Intelligence Defense Technologies

UkraineAlert

Feb 13, 2025

Ukrainian drones reportedly knock out 10 percent of Russian refining capacity

By Peter Dickinson

Ukraine’s 2025 campaign of drone strikes on Russian energy infrastructure has succeeded in knocking out around one-tenth of Russia’s refining capacity, according to analysis by Reuters, writes Peter Dickinson.

Conflict Defense Technologies

In the News

Feb 13, 2025

Soofer interviewed for USA Today article on Trump’s ‘Iron Dome’

By Atlantic Council

On February 11, Forward Defense senior fellow Robert Soofer was interviewed for a USA Today article entitled, “Will Trump’s ‘Iron Dome’ missile defense make Americans safer? It’s complicated.” The article quotes Soofer’s response to Trump’s executive order, citing his claim that it is “even more bold, I would suggest, than Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative.”

China Defense Policy

In the News

Feb 13, 2025

Soofer’s report ‘First, we will defend the homeland’ quoted in SPIEGEL article on Trump’s ‘Iron Dome’

By Atlantic Council

On January 29, Forward Defense senior fellow Robert Soofer was quoted in a SPIEGEL article with the translated title, “That’s why Trump wants an American Iron Dome.” The article cites his recent Atlantic Council report, “‘First, we will defend the homeland’: The case for homeland missile defense,” where he warns of the threat to US territory from missiles.

China Defense Policy
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Forward Defense, housed within the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, generates ideas and connects stakeholders in the defense ecosystem to promote an enduring military advantage for the United States, its allies, and partners. Our work identifies the defense strategies, capabilities, and resources the United States needs to deter and, if necessary, prevail in future conflict.

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