The Diplomat | Author
Jacob Parakilas
Jacob Parakilas is an author, consultant, and analyst working on U.S. foreign policy and international security.
He has over a decade’s professional experience spanning think tanks, NGOs, the U.S. government, and academia. He started his career in 2007 working on student visa issues for the U.S. government before returning to academia and earning a Ph.D. at the London School of Economics. From 2014 until 2019 he was the deputy head of the U.S. and the Americas Programme at Chatham House, the Royal Institute of International Affairs, where his job was to explain the key issues in U.S. foreign and domestic policy to non-American audiences. Jacob is currently based in Lagos, Nigeria, and is also an Associate with LSE IDEAS.
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August 06, 2021
The China-US Arms Trade Arms Race
By Jacob Parakilas
For all its military technology advances, China remains far behind the U.S. in arms exports. The example of Nigeria helps explain why.
July 28, 2021
Emergency Fighters and National Resilience
By Jacob Parakilas
Complex, expensive high-end military hardware might prove impossible to replace quickly enough during a major conventional war. It's time to revisit the idea of building simpler, cheaper emergency replacements.
July 16, 2021
Going Big Might Not Bring Back the Age of the Airship
By Jacob Parakilas
A mysterious giant hangar in China has, once again, revived dreams of lighter-than-air craft.
July 08, 2021
Donald Rumsfeld, Technical Innovation, and the Scarcity Mindset
By Jacob Parakilas
A more expensive weapon is not necessarily a more useful weapon; and a more useful weapon is not necessarily the decisive factor in a conflict.
June 25, 2021
Is There Anything New Under the Technological Sun?
By Jacob Parakilas
Even categories of military technology that seem novel, like UAVs, are actually refinements of previous forms, rather than a wholly new innovation.
June 12, 2021
The Promise and Peril of Technological Competition
By Jacob Parakilas
The Senate bill to increase U.S. technological competitiveness with China does not address the most important part of the competition to come.
June 02, 2021
What Would a Modern ‘National Flagship’ Actually Look Like?
By Jacob Parakilas
Does a royal yacht, like the one planned by the U.K., actually have a role to play in modern statecraft?
June 01, 2021
Reimagining the Future of China-US Competition
By Jacob Parakilas
How governments imagine the future – including the future of war – shapes their responses and planning in the present.
May 19, 2021
UFOs, Secrets, and Signaling
By Jacob Parakilas
Are we being visited by aliens, or are we learning something about military secrecy?
May 05, 2021
Are Augmented Humans the Future of War?
By Jacob Parakilas
It is easy to advocate an outright ban on “supersoldiers.” But augmentation has been around in one form or other for a long time – in life and war alike.
April 29, 2021
The Coming Age of Strategic Annoyance
By Jacob Parakilas
Small drones, used unpredictably, could conceivably force defenders to adopt a wearying posture of constant readiness and uncertainty.
April 15, 2021
Can Smaller Countries Produce Competitive Fighters?
By Jacob Parakilas
Plenty of countries could use a modern fighter that isn’t the F-35. But building such a fighter and successfully selling it are two very different objectives.