Robbin Laird

War is evolving from a competition between armed forces into a competition between complex national systems. We are living in an international environment that is significantly less stable and predictable than in the past. Great-power competition, the return of large-scale conventional warfare, the expansion of regional conflicts, and the growing interdependence among military, economic, technological, […]

By Robbin Laird A colleague recently recommended that I listen to and read through a CSIS discussion between two senior Army officials, the Honorable Michael Obadal, Under Secretary of the Army, and the Honorable Ryan McCarthy, former Secretary of the Army, moderated by Jerry McGinn of CSIS’s Center for the Industrial Base. Having done so, […]

The contemporary relationship between the United States Marine Corps and the Australian Army has quietly outgrown the language that is still used to describe it. For decades, the default framing of the alliance in Northern Australia was one of hosting: Australia supplied bases, training areas, and political cover; the United States supplied forces, equipment, and […]

By Robbin Laird I have never had a career. I want to say that plainly, at the start, because it is the truest thing I know about my own life, and because it took me the better part of four decades to be able to say it without apology. A career is a path. It […]

Two pieces published within eight days of each other in late July 2026 stake out what looks, at first glance, like the same argument from opposite sides. David Deptula’s Forbes essay, “Stop Judging Airpower Against Missions It Was Never Assigned,” is a broadside against a genre of commentary he considers lazy: the recurring claim that […]

By Robbin Laird A recent CSIS conversation between the Honorable Michael Obadal, Under Secretary of the Army, and the Honorable Ryan McCarthy, former Secretary of the Army moderated by Jerry McGinn of CSIS’s Center for the Study of the Industrial Base offered a candid look at how senior Army leadership is thinking about the service’s […]

Morgan Bazilian and Jahara Matisek have done the defense community a service with their CIMSEC piece, “The Grid is the Arsenal: Power Wars and the New Foundations of Military Strength.” Their argument is blunt and, I think, correct: electricity is becoming to 21st century militaries what oil was to the 20th, and the United States […]

Robbin Laird’s recent article, “The Air Littoral Is a Maritime Problem Too,” attempts to move the debate over the so-called “air littoral” beyond terminology and toward force design. That is a worthwhile objective. The United States does need better and more affordable ways to detect, track, and defeat large numbers of low-cost threats operating at […]

The Navy and Marine Corps do not lack risk management (RM) processes. Risk, issue and opportunity management in acquisition programs and operational risk management in fleet settings have been around for decades (DoD RIO Guide, 2023; OPNAVINST 3500.39, 2018; and MCO 3500.27C, 2014). These procedures were crafted to identify, assess and develop mitigations for risks/hazards. […]

By Robbin Laird The United States Marine Corps is in the midst of the most consequential transformation in its modern history. That transformation is not, at its core, about new platforms or revised force structure tables, though both are part of the story. It is about something more fundamental: a shift in what the Marine […]