China’s Naval Ambition: Capability, Credibility and Global Impact
In this episode, senior naval analyst Mike Plunkett outlines China’s rapid naval modernization over the past three decades, highlighting its shift from Russian imports to indigenous ship designs and the mass production of advanced vessels like the Type 055 destroyer and Type 075 amphibious assault ship. He explains the three main drivers—economic security of global supply routes, political ambition to be recognized as a world power, and military goals tied to Taiwan and deterring U.S. intervention. While China now fields the world’s largest navy on paper, Plunkett and co‑host Sean Corbett stress that a lack of combat experience, rigid command structures, and limited blue‑water operational capability create a gap between China’s naval aspirations and its actual effectiveness.
The New Battleground: Grey Zone and Hybrid Warfare Explained
In this episode, Elizabeth Braw, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, explains the distinction between hybrid warfare—combining kinetic and non‑kinetic tools such as cyber attacks, disinformation, and sabotage—and grey‑zone aggression, which operates below NATO’s Article 5 threshold and often relies...