War on the Rocks
War on the Rocks is a platform for analysis, commentary, and debate on foreign policy and national security issues. It features articles and podcasts produced by an array of writers with deep experience in these matters: top notch scholars who study war, those who have served or worked in war zones, and more than a few who have done it all. War on the Rocks is the flagship publication of Metamorphic Media.www.warontherocks.com
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Search complete. 31 mentions across 19 episodes found for "War on the Rocks".
Sep 16, 2026
Wendy Whitman CobbHOST
I think that's probably a great way to get into one of the two pieces you've written recently.
Wendy Whitman CobbHOST
And maybe we can start with your piece in War on the Rocks from July 2nd of this year, The Blind Spots in Chinese Military Studies.
Wendy Whitman CobbHOST
So maybe you can tell us a little bit about that piece and what those blind spots are.
Lyle MorrisGUEST
Yeah, so it started, I mean, I've been bouncing around this idea in my head for really since I was at RAND about, you know, what do we know, what we in the West know about the PLA? And, you know, I try to go to as many PLA conferences as I can and interact with people in the field and It was pretty clear that the trend lines were such, were going in a negative way in that the sources that we in the PLA watching community use were drying up, either drying up or just not, or outdated.
Andy MilburnHOST
So, uh, it, it...
Andy MilburnHOST
We don't wanna, we don't want to give too much credit to the Iranians, right? I mean, I wrote an article for War on the Rocks where it said actually, you know, they, they had been, uh, they had exercised campaign design more so than the United States in this war, but that's a low bar, and that may be true.
Andy MilburnHOST
But then, uh, I think it was The New York Times this week said that the, the July attacks on shipping, you know, the ones that disrupted early on the ceasefires, um, the July attacks by Iran on the Straits of Hormuz were launched by a hardline faction without authorization, um, from, uh, Pres- Pezeshkian, who's the president, or the IRGC commander.
Andy MilburnHOST
And, uh, and that's what really killed the memorandum of understanding.
Jonathan PanterHOST
[upbeat music] Welcome to the Cogs of War podcast.
Jonathan PanterHOST
I'm Jonathan Panter, executive editor of the Cogs of War vertical, brought to you by War on the Rocks and Booz Allen Hamilton.
Jonathan PanterHOST
Today, we're discussing the emerging space economy.
Jonathan PanterHOST
I am joined by Joseph Yaffe, chief operating officer and chief legal officer of Cowboy Space, a deep tech startup building vertically integrated orbital data centers.
Jake FraserHOST
And talk a little bit about the challenges you see, in particular, how industry is being used in the different COCOMs in similar or different ways.
Pete AndrysiakGUEST
Yes, you know, I think, and I hit on this, Jake, in really the article, that I wrote, right, in War on the Rocks.
Jake FraserHOST
December 24, folks, if you haven't seen the article, the headline, I'll just read it for you, is, if U.S. European Command, where I'm the chief of staff, had to fight today, we would risk failing to support our commander in making decisions at the speed and quality necessary to succeed in modern conflict.
Jake FraserHOST
That must have, you had a few text messages after that hit the press, I assumed.
Arzan TaraporeGUEST
I'll leave it there for now for recommendations, but happy to discuss further.
Bec StratingHOST
And Matt is going to put the links into those two articles that you mentioned, Arzan, that are publicly available, one on The Conversation and one from War on the Rocks.
Bec StratingHOST
But, Ambika, I might turn to you now to think more about the region.
Bec StratingHOST
I mean, sometimes I wonder whether here in Australia we think that when we go out and want to – do more things in a region that everybody's just going to be happy or fine with that.
Melanie MarloweHOST
What are we talking about?
Chris PrebleHOST
So today we're talking about an article by Jonathan Schroden in War on the Rocks entitled, What Have We Learned from the 9-11 Wars? Answer, not nearly enough.
Chris PrebleHOST
That's what Jonathan Schroden says.
Chris PrebleHOST
Jonathan is the author of the forthcoming book entitled U.S. Counterterrorism Operations in Afghanistan, Jackpots, Dry Holes, and Collateral Damage.
James FanellGUEST
Yes, John, I think clearly there is recognition that Xi wants to make an advance and move in this territory of expanded operations, both in the naval, PLA Navy, but also with the Chinese Coast Guard and also with their maritime survey operations.
James FanellGUEST
There was a great article in War on the Rocks by Peter Dutton and Ryan Martinson in the last 24 hours that talks about the scientific research efforts lawfare element of this.
James FanellGUEST
The point is, Xi can grab this territory, in essence, operate in it, go to Washington, and if no one in the administration calls him on it, then effectively it becomes de facto operational territory for the PRC.
James FanellGUEST
And so I would recommend that the administration call out their illegal activities in these waters, at least in terms of maybe they're not technically illegal under the united nations conventional law of the sea but they're certainly aggressive towards japan taiwan pla navy now operates you know six to eight nine ships a day around taiwan and they've now since june been continuously operating chinese coast guard maritime surveys east of taiwan off the shores of Taiwan, Japanese or Chinese combatants, as you mentioned, operating near shore to Japanese home islands in Kyushu, further up closer on the Ryukyu Island chain, all threatening maneuvers matching what they've been doing for the last decade in the South China Sea against the Philippines and Vietnam and other nations down there.
James FanellGUEST
Yes, John, I think clearly there is recognition that Xi wants to make an advances and move in this territory of expanded operations, both in the naval PLA Navy, but also with the Chinese Coast Guard and also with their maritime survey operations.
James FanellGUEST
It was a great article in War on the Rocks by Peter Dutton and Ryan Martinson in the last 24 hours that talks about the scientific research lawfare element of this operation.
James FanellGUEST
The point is, Xi can grab this territory, in essence, operate in it, go to Washington, and if no one in the administration calls him on it, then effectively it becomes de facto operational territory for the PRC.
James FanellGUEST
And so I would recommend that the administration call out their illegal activities in these waters, at least in terms of Maybe they're not technically illegal under the United Nations Conventional Law of the Sea, but they're certainly aggressive towards Japan, Taiwan.
Alan SandersHOST
Attack vector two, Ryan Evans.
Alan SandersHOST
Quote, the war on the rocks and the military think tank information complex.
Alan SandersHOST
He says, this was the vector under which my personal identity was first widely revealed.
Alan SandersHOST
Back in February of this year, I authored an article entitled Making the War Colleges Great Again.
Alan SandersHOST
As I mentioned in my statement that I linked above, this led to me being asked by the Department of War to participate in a task force studying reform in the military's senior service colleges, otherwise known as the war colleges.
Alan SandersHOST
In no time whatsoever, War on the Rocks published an attempted rebuttal article which had a deliberate secondary purpose, in my personal opinion, of ensuring that my real-life identity was widely known.
Alan SandersHOST
While War on the Rocks and the article's author claimed that they were merely publishing information that was already publicly known, The reality is that such article immediately resulted in a swarm of harassing activity directed at me to include death threats, attempts to have me fired from my law firm, and all other manner of public lies.
Alan SandersHOST
As a result of this, I had to engage personal security, and this was in part the reason why I retired from my practice of law months earlier than I had previously or originally intended.
John AmbleHOST
That had me thinking about the experience of a place like Afghanistan.
John AmbleHOST
And I remember having conversations about this with Ryan Evans, a good friend of mine who runs War on the Rocks, about our obligation to the Afghans who had worked for us over 20 years of war as the withdrawal was approaching.
John AmbleHOST
were our obligations to take them with us, to evacuate them from the country.
John AmbleHOST
There was a heroic effort to do so.
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