Background:
Divergent Options is a non-politically aligned non-revenue generating national security website that, in 1,000 words or less, provides unbiased, dispassionate, candid articles that assess a national security situation, present multiple options to address the situation, and articulate the risk and gain of each option. Please note that while we assess a national security situation and may provide options, we never recommend a specific option.
Below you will see a Call for Papers. If you are not interested in writing on this topic, we always welcome individual articles on virtually any national security situation an author is passionate about. Please do not let our call for papers cause you to hesitate to send us your idea. We look forward to hearing from you!
Call for Papers:
Divergent Options is calling for national security papers assessing situations or discussing options related to actions that were done during the 1947-1991 Cold War, and whether those actions or portions of them are transferable to today’s national security environment.
To inspire potential writers, we provide the below prompts:
– Assess the validity of the U.S. spectrum of Containment -> Competition -> Rollback used when thinking about the Soviet Union towards the People’s Republic of China.
– Assess how the linkage between the U.S. and China economies will impact national security differently than the linkage between the U.S. and Soviet Union economies did.
– Can products the U.S. acquires for China be acquired elsewhere? If so, what acquisition options are available and how will this impact national security?
– Can earlier Offset Strategies used during the Cold War be applied to China? If so, what options are available for their application and what conditions need to exist to ensure their success?
For further inspiration, we highly recommend potential writers read the chapter “Soviet military thought and the U.S. competitive strategies initiative” by John Battilega, which can be found within the book “Competitive Strategies for the 21st Century: Theory, History, and Practice” by Thomas G. Mahnken.
Please limit your article to 1,000 words and write using our Options Paper or Assessment Paper templates which are designed for ease of use by both writers and readers alike.
Please send your article to submissions@divergentoptions.org by February 13, 2021.
