Dr Michael Raska

Dr Michael Raska is Assistant Professor and Coordinator of the Military Transformations Programme at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. His research interests focus on East Asian security and defense issues, including theoretical and policy-oriented aspects of military innovation, force modernisation trajectories, information conflicts and cyberwarfare in East Asia. He is the author of Military Innovation and Small States: Creating Reverse Asymmetry (Routledge,2016) and co-editor of Security, Strategy, and Military Change in the 21st Century: Cross-regional Perspectives (Routledge, 2015). He has published in peer-reviewed professional and academic journals such as the Korea Journal of Defense Analysis, Pointer-Journal of Singapore Armed Forces, and Asian Journal of Public Affairs. His academic contributions also include chapters in edited volumes in cooperation with the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS); European Union Institute for Security Studies (EUISS); Center for New American Security (CNAS); the Norwegian Institute of Defense Studies (IFS); the Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation, UC San Diego; the Strategic Studies Institute (SSI), and the US Army War College. His strategic assessments, commentaries, and op-eds have been published by the National Interest, Project Syndicate, Defense News, The Diplomat, East Asia Forum, RUSI Newsbrief, Asia Times, and select newspapers worldwide. He has also been a frequent commentator on Asian security issues for the BBC World News, CNBC, Channel News Asia, and other media networks. Dr Raska has previously taught at the Goh Keng Swee Command and Staff College (SAF Campaign and War Studies Course) and the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy (International Security). His research experiences include visiting fellowships at Yonsei University, Pacific Forum CSIS, and Hebrew University of Jerusalem (Rothberg International School). He is an alumnus of the Columbia / Cornell University Summer Workshop on Analysis of Military Operations and Strategy (SWAMOS 2012), the Philip Merrill Center for Strategic Studies Workshop at Basin Harbor (2013), the Hertog Summer Study Program (2014), Japan Ministry of Defence Opinion Leader Program (2016), and the German Marshall Fund Young Strategists Forum (2017). He holds a BA in International Studies (summa cum laude) from the Missouri Southern State University (2000), MA in International Relations from the Graduate School of International Studies, Yonsei University (2002), and a PhD in Public Policy and International Affairs (2012) from the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore, where he was a recipient of the NUS President’s Graduate Fellowship.

• Military Innovation: Theory, Processes, and Debate – Impact of emerging disruptive technologies and new types of armaments on military transformation and modernisation, particularly when it comes to new operational concept and new operating areas, especially in the maritime, air, and space domains;
• Security Conceptions, Strategic Trends, and Military Modernisation in East Asia: Regional approaches to military modernisation and its implications for the medium to long-term stability of the geo-strategic environment of the Asia Pacific;
• Information & Cyber Warfare: Cross-Domain Strategic Interactions – Implications of cyber and information warfare on international security; Long-range trends and developments when it comes to future warfare.

• Selected to provide expert testimony at the public hearing before the Select Committee on Deliberate Online Falsehoods, Singapore Parliament, 2018.
• Selected as a participant in the Young Strategists Forum (YSF) by the German Marshall Fund of the United States, Tokyo, Japan, 2017.
• Selected as a participant in the Opinion Leaders Program by the Japan Ministry of Defense, Tokyo, Japan, 2015.
• Selected as a participant in the Hertog Summer Study Program by the Philip Merrill Center for Strategic Studies, San Diego, CA, USA, 2014.
• Selected as a participant in the Summer Workshop on the Relationship between National Security and Technology in China by the Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation, University of California, San Diego, CA, USA, 2013.
• Selected as a participant in the Philip Merrill Center for Strategic Studies Basin Harbor Teaching Seminar, The Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), The Johns Hopkins University, 2013.
• Selected as a participant in the Summer Workshop on Military Operations and Strategy (SWAMOS), Columbia / Cornell University, 2012.
• Samsung Economic Research Institute, Center for Global Cooperation, Research Analyst, 2005-2006.
• Fellow, Rothberg International School, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2004
• Pacific Forum CSIS, Young Leaders Program, 2003.
• Fellow, Air Power Program, GSIS Yonsei University, 2003.

Policy Reports

• Countering the U.S. Third Offset Strategy: Russian Perspectives, Responses and Challenges

  24 January, 2017

• Confronting Cybersecurity Challenges: Israel's Evolving Cyber Defence Strategy

  08 January, 2015

• The AirSea Battle Debate and the Future of Conflict in East Asia

  01 February, 2013

Commentaries

• Singapore Defence Technology Summit - Is the Innovation Winter Coming?

  26 June, 2019

• The SAF After Next Incarnation

  08 March, 2019

• CO18105 | Singapore’s Next Frontier: In Search of Defence Innovation

  25 June, 2018

• CO18071 | Cross-Domain Coercion: Contours of East Asia’s Future Conflicts

  24 April, 2018

• CO17205 | North Korea Threat and Asian Markets: A Paradox?

  01 November, 2017

• CO17165 | Strategic Contours of China’s Arms Exports

  11 September, 2017

• CO17102 | 4G SAF: Creating New Advantages

  24 May, 2017

• CO16223 | China's Quantum Satellite Experiments: Strategic and Military Implications

  05 September, 2016

• CO16156 | Cyber Conflicts and Singapore’s ‘Total Defence’ Strategy

  23 June, 2016

• CO16093 | Tailored Deterrence: Influencing North Korean Decision-Making

  22 April, 2016

• CO16032 | The Real Star Wars: Improving Satellite Defences

  11 February, 2016

• CO15262 | Hybrid Warfare with Chinese Characteristics

  02 December, 2015

• C015172 | Cyber-Enabled Hybrid Conflicts in East Asia

  17 August, 2015

• CO15091 | Russia’s Concept of Hybrid Wars: Implications for Small States

  14 April, 2015

• CO15045 | Decoding China’s Cyber Warfare Strategies

  04 March, 2015

• CO14229 | Back to the Future: China’s Defence Industry Innovation Paths

  19 November, 2014

• CO14192 | Building a Cyber Iron Dome: Israel’s Cyber Defensive Envelope

  02 October, 2014

• CO14130 | Toward Stealth and Sea Denial: Submarine Modernization in East Asia

  07 July, 2014

• CO14030 | SINGAPORE AIRSHOW: China’s Aviation Industry on the Horizon?

  13 February, 2014

• CO14026 | SINGAPORE AIRSHOW: East Asia’s Changing Security Dynamics: The Role of Airpower

  11 February, 2014

• CO14008 | Rethinking Asia-Europe Security Cooperation

  15 January, 2014

• CO13163 | China's [Secret] Civil-Military Megaprojects

  02 September, 2013

• CO13119 | Information Warfare 3.0: Weapons of Mass Effectiveness

  28 June, 2013

• CO13101 | Australia's Evolving 'Smart Power' Strategy

  28 May, 2013

• CO13052 | South Korea's Security Predicaments: Preparing for 'Hybrid Conflict'

  02 April, 2013

• CO13013 | Submarine Trends in Asia Pacific: Air-Independent Propulsion A Game Changer?

  24 January, 2013

• CO12219 | Creating Reverse Asymmetry: Patterns of IDF's Military Innovation

  05 December, 2012

• CO12194 | China's Defence Aviation Industry: Searching for Innovation

  17 October, 2012

• CO12158 | Decoding the Air-Sea Battle Concept: Operational Consequences and Allied Concerns

  23 August, 2012

• CO12105 | Ascertaining China’s Strategy for the Korean Peninsula: Implications for the U.S.-ROK Alliance

  20 June, 2012

• CO12039 | Iran’s Nuclear Conundrum: Israel’s Strategic Options

  12 March, 2012

• CO12031 | From Copier to Innovator? China’s Ballistic Missile Modernisation

  21 February, 2012

Authored Books

• Raska, Michael. Military Innovation in Small States: Creating a Reverse Asymmetry. Routledge, 2015
• Creating Reverse Asymmetry: Military Innovation in Small States (London: Routledge, 2015 Forthcoming).

Edited Books / Special Issues

• Jo Inge Bekkevold, Ian Bowers and Michael Raska (eds.), Security, Strategy and Military Change in the 21st Century: Cross-Regional Perspectives, Routledge, April 2015.
• Jo Inge Bekkevold, Ian Bowers and Michael Raska (eds.), Security, Strategy and Military Change in the 21st Century: Cross-Regional Perspectives, Routledge, April 2015.

Journal Articles

• “Strategic Competition for Emerging Military Technologies: Comparative Paths and Patterns” in PRISM, 8, 3, 2020, 64-81
• “Strategic Competition and Future Conflicts in the Indo-Pacific Region” in The Air Force Journal of Indo–Pacific Affairs , Vol. 2, No. 2, 2019, pp. 83-97
• “Cybersecurity in Southeast Asia” (with Benjamin Ang) in Asia Centre, 2018. 1-9
• “Locating China’s Place in the Global Defense Economy” (with Michael Raska, et.al.), in Forging China’s Military Might: A New Framework for Assessing Innovation (Tai Ming Cheung, ed.), Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014
• “RMA Diffusion Paths and Patterns in South Korea’s Military Modernization,” Korean Journal of Defense Analysis 23, no. 3 (2011): 369-385.
• “Five Waves of RMA Theory,” Pointer - Journal of Singapore Armed Forces 36, no.3 (2011): 1-12
• “Beyond the Bomb in the Basement: Israel’s Nuclear Predicament & Policy Options,” The Asian Journal of Public Affairs 1, no.2 (2011):22-33.
• “The Concept of Reverse Asymmetry: Israel’s Military Innovation,” RUSI Newsbrief 33, no.1 (2013).
• “The Air-Sea Battle Debate and the Future of Conflict in East Asia,” RUSI Newsbrief 32, no.6 (2012).

Chapters in Edited Books

• Michael Raska, "South Korea's Military-Innovation Trajectories," In: Cronin, Patrick (ed.), Breakthrough on the Peninsula: Third Offset Strategies and the Future Defense of Korea (Washington D.C.: Center for New American Security, 2016), 23-39.
• Koh, Swee Lean, Collin; Richard A. Bitzinger; Michael Raska; Kelvin Wong Ka Weng. “Locating China’s Place in the Global Defense Economy” in Tai Ming Cheung (ed.), Forging China’s Military Might: A New Framework for Assessing Innovation, pp. 169-212. Baltimore, Maryland: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014.
• “Locating China’s Place in Global Defense Economy,” with Richard Bitzinger et. al., in Forging China’s Military Might: A New Framework for Assessing Innovation, ed. Tai Ming Cheung (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013).
• “China’s Strategic Imprint on the Korean Peninsula: Crisis Scenarios and Implications for the US-ROK Alliance,” in Contending for the Asia-Pacific: New Dynamics in US-China Relations, eds. Mingjiang Li and Kalyan Kemburi (London: Routledge, 2014).
• “Capacity for Innovation: Technological Drivers of China’s Future Military Modernization,” with Richard Bitzinger, in The PLA in the 2025, eds. Roy Kamphausen and David Lai (Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, 2014 Forthcoming).
• “Debating Military Innovation: Conceptual Approaches,” in Managing Military Change: Strategic Thinking, Reforms and Adaptation in a Changing Security Environment, eds. Jo Inge Bekkevold and Dahiya Rumel (Oslo: Norwegian Institute for Defense Studies, 2014 Forthcoming).
• “SSK Submarine Modernization in East Asia: The Role of Air Independent Propulsion Systems,” in Emerging Critical Technologies and their Impact on Asia-Pacific Security, ed. Richard Bitzinger (London: Palgrave, 2014 Forthcoming).
• “China’s Military Aviation Industry: In Search of Innovation,” in The Chinese Defense Economy Policy Briefs: Sector-by-Sector Assessments and the Role of Military End Users, ed. Tai Ming Cheung (San Diego: Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation, 2013)

Op-Eds

• “Cybersecurity in Southeast Asia” (with Benjamin Ang), Observatoire Asie du Sud-Est , 22 May 2018
• “What is China’s Strategy for North Korea?” Aljazeera, May 15, 2014.
• “Singapore’s Smart Army,” East Asia Forum, March 1, 2014.
• “East Asia’s Changing Security Dynamics and the Role of Airpower,” Defense News, February 3, 2014.
• “Time to Rethink Asia-Europe Security Cooperation?” The Korea Herald, January 19, 2014.
• “Scientific Innovation and Chinese Military Modernization,” The Diplomat, September 3, 2013.
• “Australia's Evolving 'Smart Power' Strategy,” The Jakarta Post, June 7, 2013.
• “Information Warfare on the Korean Peninsula,” ASPI Strategist, March 13, 2013.
• “Integrating Information Warfare into U.S.-ROK Defense Strategy,” The Korea Herald, March 4, 2013.
• “China’s Defense Aviation Industry: Toward Stealth Innovation?” with Alanna Krolikowski, East Asia Forum, March 11, 2013.
• “South Korea’s Changing Security Paradigm,” Project Syndicate, February 10, 2013.

• S6038 – Conflicts in the Digital Age: Information and Cyberwarfare