Strange Bedfellows

As you’ve probably already read, China and Russia will hold their first-ever joint military exercise later this month. So what’s it mean? That’s what I’ve been trying to figure out. Let’s think out loud for a few hundred words and see what we can discover.

Here’s what we do know. Countries who don’t practice together can’t really fight together. Combat is chaotic, even when everybody on one side speaks the same language. So much so, that even interservice rivalries can produce disaster. For 25 years now, the Pentagon has focused on “jointness”