This article evaluates the role of coalitions in U.S. grand strategy, and how American partnerships provide it a decisive advantage in global competition. It also assesses the rise of the Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa (BRICS) intergovernmental organization, and impact of the recent addition of Iran, Nigeria, Egypt, Ethiopia, and United Arab Emirates. This bandwagoning of nation states into BRICS demonstrates a possible inflection point in current international order. In examining competition between the United States and China, BRICS, and key U.S. partnerships like the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the essay introduces data centric analysis through a novel alliance power index tool made up of fifteen separate indicators. Finally, the authors offer foreign policy recommendations regarding the importance of alliances for navigating strategic competition with China over the next decade. Journal of Strategic Competition, coming soon.

As the African Sahel attempts to address endemic challenges of climate change, intrastate conflict, and human insecurity, the continent as a whole also sits at a crucial inflection point in its geostrategic alignment. Recently, in 2024 and 2025, Egypt, Nigeria, and Ethiopia joined South Africa in the Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa (BRICS) consortium. With the ejection of French and U.S. forces from West Africa in 2024, the growing use of Russia’s Africa Corps for security provisioning, and heavy infrastructure and mining investments from China, some countries in Africa appear to be leaving the Western diplomatic orbit and moving decidedly east. Journal of Strategic Competition, coming soon.

Over the past two years of fighting in Sudan, the nation’s economy has collapsed, and millions of its citizens have been displaced. The violence continues unabated, despite dire warnings by the United Nations and the African Union about a mounting humanitarian crisis. While most of the world remain spectators, a few important external actors maintain essential support to the belligerents. Small Wars Journal, 8 July 2025. https://smallwarsjournal.com/2025/07/08/inside-the-flames-two-years-of-civil-war-in-sudan/ 

The conflict in Myanmar is the world’s longest ongoing civil war. Dr. Chris Mason and I team up on this article to propose a radically innovative U.S. foreign policy in Myanmar. National Interest, 1 July 2024. https://nationalinterest.org/feature/americas-relationship-with-myanmar-is-deeply-flawed 

Global and National Security Institute, 25 April 2025, https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1024&context=gnsi_decision_briefs.   

Irregular Warfare Initiative 10 April 2025 https://irregularwarfare.org/articles/total-defense-strategy-national-resilience/ 

Marine Corps Gazette, February 2025. https://www.mca-marines.org/wp-content/uploads/Burrell-Feb25-WEB.pdf 

Small Wars Journal, 7 February 2025 https://smallwarsjournal.com/2025/02/07/resistance-lessons-from-myanmar/ 

GNSI Decision Brief, 5 February 2025 https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1015&context=gnsi_decision_briefs 

Why Understanding Resilience and Resistance in Mexico Matters. Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, 12 January 2025 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1057610X.2025.2450847?src=exp-la 

Interpopulum: The Journal of Irregular Warfare and Special Operations, 14 December 2024 https://interpopulum.org/seeing-red-a-2024-guide-to-assessing-resiliency-and-resistance-in-russia/ 

National Interest, 30 November 2024 https://nationalinterest.org/feature/what-marco-rubio’s-nomination-means-venezuela-iran-and-china-213927 

Global and National Security Institute, 16 September 2024, https://www.usf.edu/gnsi/publications/decision-briefs/decision-brief-21-free-venezuela-interactive.pdf 

Global and National Security Institute, 3 July 2024 https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1004&context=gnsi_publications 

Irregular Warfare Initiative, 27 June 2024, https://irregularwarfare.org/articles/resilience-and-resistance-post-raisi-a-data-centric-approach-to-iran/ 

Joint Forces Quarterly, June 2024, https://digitalcommons.ndu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1014&context=joint-force-quarterly 

Global and National Security Institute, 6 March 2024, https://www.usf.edu/gnsi/publications/decision-briefs/decision-brief-14-creating-sun-tzu-masters-degree-irregular-warfare.pdf 

Irregular Warfare Initiative, 16 January 2024 https://irregularwarfare.org/articles/a-guide-for-measuring-resiliency/ 

Interpopulum: Journal of Irregular Warfare and Special Operations Winter/Fall 2023, https://interpopulum.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/IPJ_Winter-2023_Web.pdf 

Expeditions in Marine Corps University Press, 9 January 2024, www.usmcu.edu/Portals/218/EXP_Burrell_Collison_Assessing%20Resistance_PDF.pdf 

Small Wars and Insurgencies, 14 December 2023, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09592318.2023.2292942 

Irregular Warfare Initiative, 14 March 2023, https://irregularwarfare.org/articles/a-full-spectrum-of-conflict-design-how-doctrine-should-embrace-irregular-warfare/