The Nuclear Scholars Initiative is a signature program run by the Project on Nuclear Issues (PONI) to engage emerging nuclear experts in thoughtful and informed debate over how to best address the nuclear community's most pressing problems. The papers included in this volume comprise research from participants in the 2023 Nuclear Scholars Initiative. These papers explore a range of crucial debates across deterrence, arms control, and non-proliferation communities.

This CSIS report asks two main questions. How is the Russian military thinking about the future of warfare? How is the Russian military thinking about force design over the next five years? The report has several findings. First, Russian military thinking is dominated by a view that the United States is--and will remain--Moscow's main enemy (главный враг) for the foreseeable future. This sentiment will likely drive Moscow's desire to reconstitute its military as rapidly as possible, as well as strengthen nuclear and conventional deterrence. Second, Russian analyses generally conclude that while the nature of warfare is unchanging, the character of future warfare will rapidly evolve. Adapting will require Russia's cooperation with other countries, such as China, in areas like long-range, high-precision weapons; unmanned systems; emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence; and the utility of hybrid and irregular warfare. Third, Russian political and military leaders are committed to a major reconstitution of the Russian military--including the army--over the next several years.

China's defense industrial base is operating on a wartime footing, while the U.S. defense industrial base is largely operating on a peacetime footing. Overall, the U.S. defense industrial ecosystem lacks the capacity, responsiveness, flexibility, and surge capability to meet the U.S. military's production and warfighting needs. Unless there are urgent changes, the United States risks weakening deterrence and undermining its wartime capabilities. China is heavily investing in munitions and acquiring high-end weapons systems and equipment five to six times faster than the United States. China is also the world's largest shipbuilder and has a shipbuilding capacity that is roughly 230 times larger than the United States. One of China's large shipyards, such as Jiangnan Shipyard, has more capacity than all U.S. shipyards combined.

CSIS's Mark Cancian annually produces a series of white papers on U.S. military forces, including their composition, new initiatives, long-term trends, and challenges. This report is a compilation of these papers. It takes a deep look at each military service, as well as special operations forces, DOD civilians, and contractors in the FY 2022 budget. The report also discusses the debate about legacy equipment, the interaction of the budget and force size, and the decline in force size that the services face with retiring older systems without adequate replacements.

Russia's missile campaign against Ukraine has severely underperformed expectations. In the invasion's early days, Russia underestimated the necessary scale and effort of its missile campaign. Since then, Russia has changed course multiple times, most recently moving to target Ukrainian electrical grid and civilian infrastructure during the winter months. Russia's haphazard missile campaign reflects both internal strategic failures and Ukraine's critical forward thinking in the days prior to the invasion. Early Russian failures also gave time for Ukraine to develop its air defense strategy and capabilities which have only grown in effectiveness, thanks in large part to Western aid. This CSIS report provides an in-depth review of these and related missile war dynamics.

CSIS's The Future of Military Engines looks at the state of the U.S. military engine industrial base and the choices confronting policymakers at the Department of Defense (DoD). The military engine industrial base is closely tied to the industrial base for commercial engines. U.S. engine providers use many of the same facilities and largely the same supply chain for military and commercial engines. The ability to leverage commercial supply chains is critical because supply chain quality underlies the performance advantage of U.S. military engines, both for individual aircraft and military aircraft fleets. International competitors such as Russia and China are seeking to overtake the U.S. in engines. However, the current U.S. advantage is sustainable if it is treated as a national priority. Many military aircraft, especially fighters, require engines with important differences from commercial aircraft. They fly different flight profiles and perform different jobs. These differences mean that while DoD can leverage the commercial engine industrial base, it must also make investments to sustain the industrial base's unique military components. In the next few years, DoD investment in military engines is projected to decrease significantly, particularly for R&D. This presents a challenge as military-unique engineering skills are highly perishable. Four major policy choices confront DoD as it formulates its investment approach to military engines going forward: 1) Priority, 2) Resources, 3) Business Model, and 4) Competition. The DoD is at an inflection point for engine investment, and the time for choosing on these four key policy questions will come in the next few years.

This report examines Russia's growing use of private military companies (PMCs) to increase its influence through irregular means. In recent years, Moscow has expanded its overseas use of PMCs to countries such as Ukraine, Syria, Libya, Sudan, the Central African Republic, Madagascar, and Mozambique. Many of the PMCs operating in these countries, such as the Wagner Group, frequently cooperate with the Russian government--including the Kremlin, Ministry of Defense (particularly the Main Intelligence Directorate, or GRU), Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), and Federal Security Service (FSB)--and perform a variety of combat, paramilitary, security, and intelligence tasks. However, many of these PMCs have a poor track record--including operational failures and human rights abuses--and there are opportunities to exploit PMC vulnerabilities. Although Russian PMCs present only one of a variety of national security threats and challenges facing the United States, this report assesses that they warrant a more substantive and coordinated response from the United States and its partners.

As economic strategy and national security become increasingly intertwined, Japan and the United States are aligned on the importance of protecting critical and emerging technologies to manage strategic competition with China. As the technology policy debate advances rapidly in both countries, there is great potential for bilateral cooperation to enhance competitiveness and coordinate approaches with other regional allies and partners. This edited volume is an anthology of nine essays from Japanese and U.S. scholars examining the technology policy landscape with an eye toward developing recommendations for bilateral cooperation in the years ahead. Topics include U.S. and Japanese technology strategy, economic security, and rulemaking for the digital economy. The conclusion synthesizes the authors' recommendations and outlines an agenda for a U.S.-Japan technology alliance to manage competition in new domains and underwrite norms for economic security in the digital economy.