Episode 8: Military capabilities and great power competition in the 21st century

Henry Boyd, IISS Research Fellow for Defence and Military Analysis, joins Dr Kori Schake for this episode of Sounds Strategic. In this episode, Kori and Henry explore the military dimensions of the new great power competition emerging between a declining United States, a resurgent Russia and a rising China and their implications for international security and defence. They also discuss the impact Russian intervention in Syria has had on contemporary concepts of the legitimate use of force and the ethics of modern warfare. Henry goes on to explain why assessing the military capabilities of countries such as the United States and China requires more than a simple measure of their military hardware. Instead, additional factors must be considered, such as organisation, doctrine and training. Henry also talks about how he first became interested in the subject of defence and security, the virtues of wargaming, and the role human rationale and psychology plays in how we understand modern international affairs, war and policy. Favourite data visualisationRichard J. Heuer Jr, Psychology of Intelligence Analysis, ‘Chapter 12 - Biases in Estimating Probabilities, Figure 18’, CIA Measuring perceptions of Uncertainty | Visual Capitalisthttps://www.visualcapitalist.com/measuring-perceptions-of-uncertainty/ Reading recommendations:Professor Philip Sabin, Simulating War: Studying Conflict through Simulation Games, (London: Bloomsburg, 2014) Further work by the IISS Defence and Military Analysis ProgrammeBastian Giegerich, Christian Moelling et al, ‘Could the EU deliver on its military ambitions after Brexit?’, Military Balance blog, (London: IISS, 2018) IISS Defence and Military Analysis Programme, ‘The Military Balance 2019 wall chart’, The Military Balance 2019, (Abingdon: Routledge, 2019)Date of recording: 8 April 2019Sounds Strategic is recorded and produced at the IISS in London.Theme music: ‘Safety in Numbers’ by We Were Promised Jetpacks. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.