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Overseas military access and basing is a critical component of China's global military ambitions. With the opening of its first overseas military facility in Djibouti in 2017, China appeared to take a major step toward global power projection. The strategic implications of such access and basing outside of China's immediate periphery are hotly debated. In this report, the authors look to the past to help anticipate what Chinese overseas access and basing might look like in the 2030s. They focus on three case studies of overseas military access and basing among the United States' competitors - French bases in francophone Africa during De Gaulle's presidency, Soviet bases ringing the Mediterranean and Red Seas region under Brezhnev, and Russian bases in Syria during the ongoing Syrian civil war - to understand how major powers have conceived of and used strategic basing in the past. France, the Soviet Union, and Russia - together with the United States (also examined) - have had the largest networks of overseas military bases in the post-World War II period. These cases represent a range of competitive behaviors, reflecting the uncertainty of Chinese behavior ten to 20 years in the future. Drawing on a combined examination of case studies and a literature review of U.S. basing experiences, the authors assess the potential risks posed by Chinese military expansion and recommend principles for the U.S. government, U.S. Department of Defense, and U.S. Army to adopt now to help shape the environment in which Chinese ambitions for global military presence will unfold.

Military bases, Chinese --- Military bases, Soviet --- Military bases, American --- Military bases, Foreign --- History. --- China --- Soviet Union --- Russia (Federation) --- United States --- China. --- Mediterranean Region. --- Soviet Union. --- Syria. --- United States. --- Military relations.

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Comparing U.S. Army Systems with Foreign Counterparts: Identifying Possible Capability Gaps and Insights from Other Armies provides the U.S. Army's Force Development and others an opportunity to contrast selected U.S. Army systems and capabilities with comparable foreign weapons. The sponsor of the research, G-8, Headquarters, Department of the Army, was interested in gaining insights into how various U.S. Army systems compared with similar foreign counterparts in order to identify possible capability gaps, as well as good ideas that other armies might have that the U.S. Army could consider adopting. Based on the time and resources that were available, the research focused on armored fighting vehicles, helicopters, rocket and cannon artillery, and various logistics platforms. The armies that were selected for the comparisons included U.S. allies as well as potential future opponents. The organizing principle for the research was the Army's warfighting functions. These functions include movement and maneuver (air and ground), intelligence, fires (indirect), sustainment, mission command, and protection. The comparison of the Army's systems with their foreign counterparts was performed within this framework. The primary data used to develop comparisons were the on-the-record attributes of a system, such as the range of weapons and the munitions they fire, weight and protection levels of vehicles, carrying capacity of vehicles either in terms of numbers of personnel or cargo, and range and payload characteristics of helicopters. In addition to performing direct system-to-system comparisons, the research was able to identify crosscutting insights and issues that spanned several of the warfighting functions.

Military helicopters --- Armored vehicles, Military --- Maneuver warfare. --- Armies --- Evaluation. --- Operational readiness. --- Weapons systems --- United States.