Across The World

An Analysis of the CSIS Report on the Invasion of Taiwan      By: Marco Dorazio:  1/31/2022 Recently, the CSIS (Center for Strategic & International Studies) published a report on a hypothetical invasion of Taiwan by China. This was one of the first reports where analysts found that the US and Taiwan could jointly defend Taiwan from an amphibious invasion of the Island. I wanted to write an article about this a while ago, but I never had the time so I’ll give you it now. The report found that China is unlikely to succeed in an invasion of Taiwan after 24 computer simulations of such an invasion. These simulations included many different scenarios and restrictions on the capabilities of each side.  For the base scenario, the researchers found that China was unable to capture major cities and was out of supply in the first 10 days. Importantly, in all base scenario simulations, China loses at least 90 percent of the Chinese amphibious fleet forcing the units o...

Western Tanks to Ukraine? By: Marco Dorazio Created Janurary 31st, 2023 This past Thursday, Germany announced its plans to approve and send 112 Leopard 2 tanks from its own inventory over an unspecified period of time. The US also approved a package of 31 M1A2 Abrams tanks. Poland and a number of other European countries are expected to follow in the coming months with other packages of tanks. Poland has already offered its home-developed PT-91 Twardy, which is basically a souped-up T-72M1. With all these tanks pouring in from other countries, it is crucial to analyze what kind of impact they will have on the Ukrainian conflict. From the beginning, there have been doubts about the effectiveness of the Abrams compared to its performance in previous wars. During the 1991 invasion of Iraq, Abrams tanks were able to destroy hundreds of older Russian model tanks without losing any Abrams to direct fire. However, the conflict in Ukraine is vastly different than the one in Iraq. Unlike the US...

German Tank Debate: What Role Do American Armament Interests Play? Why is Germany Hesitant to Play the Tank Game? Ukraine needs to have a supply of Western main battle tanks (MBTs) in order to continue defending itself against the Russian attack. However, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is hesitating and under pressure from NATO Allies. When asked, he replied with, "There are good reasons for the delivery and good reasons against it. All arguments would have to be carefully weighed." Since the beginning of the war, Western MBTs have been in question due to the large reserve of them and the strategic advantage it would give to Ukraine if they were delivered. There are about 2,300 M1 Abrams tanks in reserve in the US. Many of these are non-upgraded versions of the plain M1 model. These tanks possess a modern standard 120mm smoothbore cannon, composite armor, and a relatively advanced fire control system (FCS) and second-gene...