War on the Rocks

Hollow Deals, Tricky Negotiations, and State Visits

WOTR Staff — Thu, 28 May 2026 18:30:51 +0000

Welcome to The Adversarial. Every other week, we’ll provide you with expert analysis on America’s greatest challengers: China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, and jihadists. Read more below.***IranThere has been increasing chatter that Washington and Tehran are nearing an agreement that might wind down the war launched by the United States and Israel on Feb. 28. The truce that took effect seven weeks ago has been a prickly affair, with occasional fire at Gulf states and tit-for-tats at sea — including in recent days, which have seen U.S. forces strike missile sites and vessels in southern Iran as well as shooting down

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What Would Relations with Post-War Russia Look Like?

Rose Gottemoeller — Thu, 28 May 2026 16:00:28 +0000

Rose Gottemoeller joined Ryan in Washington. They discussed how the West might think about relations with Russia once the war with Ukraine ends, as well as nuclear diplomacy and other critical issues. Gottemoeller was the deputy secretary general of NATO and, before that, served as a senior State Department official. She is currently at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University and has a new book out called Security Through Cooperation: Space, Nuclear Weapons, and US-Russia Relations after the Cold War (Stanford University Press).Image: Kremlin.ru via Wikimedia Commons Image: Kremlin.ru via Wikimedia Commons

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Control Without Ownership: How China’s Party-Business Networks Dominate Indonesia’s Mineral Supply Chains

Ahmad Syarif — Thu, 28 May 2026 08:00:38 +0000

In 2024, when Jiangsu Delong, the world’s second-largest stainless-steel producer, filed for bankruptcy, several Chinese firms and state-owned enterprises quietly absorbed its Indonesian assets. Among them was China First Heavy Industries, a state-owned enterprise founded in 1954 as one of China’s early Soviet-backed industrial projects. Today, China First Heavy Industries supplies military-grade metals to China’s military, including reactor vessels for nuclear submarines. For a manufacturer embedded deeply in China’s naval industrial base, securing nickel feedstock for specialty steels is crucial.The episode reveals China’s strategy for critical minerals: Incentivizing access to upstream assets for Chinese firms reduces the risk of supply

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A Sea Control Revolution?

Richard Dunley — Thu, 28 May 2026 07:30:16 +0000

Sea control has changed. In recent years, there has been a quiet revolution in maritime strategy that has seen navies increasingly expected to exert greater levels of control over more of the world’s oceans, more of the time. Whether it is NATO forces protecting critical maritime infrastructure in the Baltic, Pacific Island nations requiring maritime domain awareness to protect against illegal fishing, or Chinese coast guard and maritime militia vessels occupying features in the South China Sea, navies across the globe are confronting major challenges and are being forced to operate in new and novel ways. Behind all of this

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What Everyone is Missing About North Korea’s Reunification Strategy

Hyunseung Lee — Thu, 28 May 2026 07:15:46 +0000

When news broke that North Korea had revised its constitution, analysts in the West and across the Korean Peninsula rushed to declare it the formal death of Korean reunification as a policy objective. The changes were hard to ignore. Pyongyang stripped all references to a unified Korean nation, codified a territorial clause treating the Republic of Korea as a separate foreign state, vested direct nuclear weapons authority in Kim Jong-un personally, and concentrated near-absolute executive power in the supreme leader alone. On the surface, it looked like the official burial of seven decades of unification ideology.That reading is seductive. It’s

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What Did the NPT Review Conference Achieve?

Ankit Panda — Wed, 27 May 2026 19:15:56 +0000

The 11th Review Conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) concluded on May 22. Held every five years, the conference offers an opportunity to evaluate the treaty’s implementation, respond to technological and geopolitical developments, and reinforce states’ commitment to the treaty. For the third time in a row, the conference failed to reach consensus on a final document.We asked five experts for their perspectives on what the conference achieved — or failed to achieve.Read more below.Ankit Panda Stanton Senior Fellow in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Host of War on the Rocks’ Thinking the Unthinkable PodcastWhile the

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Washington Shouldn’t Fly Solo on Building Space Superiority

Nazmelis Zengin — Wed, 27 May 2026 18:00:11 +0000

In 2025, Nazmelis Zengin wrote, “The Fragility of U.S. Space Power in a Multipolar World,” where she argued Washington’s space superiority could be challenged if the United States doesn’t rethink its course, taking lessons from mid-tier space powers. A year later, we asked Nazmelis to revisit her arguments.Image: NASA Kennedy Space Center/NASA/Chris Swanson via Wikimedia CommonsIn your 2025 article, you argued that American space dominance could be challenged if the United States doesn’t alter how it systematically thinks about adaptability, resilience, and co-development, taking lessons from mid-tier space powers. In late 2025, President Trump signed Executive Order “Ensuring American Space Superiority,”

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Synthetic Biology, Drones, and AI: The Risks of Dual-Use Technologies

Lennart Heim — Wed, 27 May 2026 08:00:09 +0000

Is it too late to stop criminals and American adversaries from exploiting AI to conduct cyberattacks or design novel pathogens? Has regulation kept pace with the threat civilian drones pose to critical infrastructure? AI researcher Lennart Heim, Army drone strategist Paul Lushenko, and CEO of Sentinel Bio Claire Qureshi join Jonathan to discuss the trade-offs between protecting the public and letting the private sector forge ahead. The conversation gets into synthetic DNA, the risk of drones at the FIFA World Cup, and whether the U.S. government should get early access to Silicon Valley’s newest large language models.Image: T. T. Paris

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The Road to Space Runs through the Poles

Rebecca Pincus — Wed, 27 May 2026 07:30:17 +0000

Why are there more antennas on Svalbard than anywhere else on Earth? Svalbard of all places, where cats and childbirth are banned and there are more polar bears than people? This cluster of islands in the Arctic, one thousand kilometers from Norway, is key to everything from your weather forecast to your car’s navigation. At 78 degrees north, Svalbard is the highest-latitude satellite ground station on Earth and is a crucial point in humanity’s growing dependence on space. In fact, the polar regions — the Arctic and Antarctic — are both crucial to space access.The polar regions are the only

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Leading in the Dark: How Submarine Commanders Think Under Uncertainty

Paulo Frade — Wed, 27 May 2026 07:15:57 +0000

We had been tracking the contact for six hours.The acoustic signature was ambiguous. The geometry was incomplete. The tactical picture had shifted twice in the preceding hour.I ordered battle stations anyway. Not because I was certain, I was not. I ordered it because the decision window was closing. Waiting for certainty was no longer a strategy, it was a risk. That moment — the space between incomplete knowledge and irreversible action — is where submarine command lives. It is where I spent 14 years.Modern militaries have spent decades trying to eliminate that space. Networked sensors, satellite surveillance, and instantaneous communications

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Understanding the Value of Ukrainian Railways

WOTR Staff — Tue, 26 May 2026 15:30:21 +0000

Welcome to The Ukraine Compass, a weekly digest of Ukrainian commentary and analysis from across the political spectrum only for War on the Rocks members. Each Monday, we bring you a curated selection of articles from Ukrainian media offering insight into how Ukrainians themselves debate the issues shaping their country.American coverage often narrows the view to the battlefield — these pieces widen it, revealing the texture of daily life, politics, and public argument in a nation at war. The perspectives gathered here are varied, candid, and often surprising, together forming a more complete picture of Ukraine as it really is.Frontline and StrategyЦензор.НЕТ —

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An Inconvenient Reality: Climate-Preparedness Cuts Are Lethality Cuts

Caitlin Irby — Tue, 26 May 2026 07:30:05 +0000

In 2019, the Missouri River flooded at historically high levels and damaged 137 facilities, destroyed 1.2 million square feet of workspace, and flooded 3,000 feet of runway at Offutt Air Force Base. Repairing the installation cost $1.2 billion. The Trump administration and Department of Defense justified $1.2 billion in budget reductions to the U.S. Geological Survey, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and Defense Department climate programs as cuts to “woke” climate or environmental initiatives, but a singular event caused sufficient damage to erase those savings.The lethality of American presence in the Pacific depends upon the resilience of bases, ports, and

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The U.S. Military Lacks an Ethics Doctrine. Combat Effectiveness Suffers

Dennis W. Katolin — Tue, 26 May 2026 07:15:57 +0000

In 2004, I was a boot (translation: brand new) first lieutenant in 1st Battalion, 7th Marines at a retransmission site in the middle of nowhere, al-Qa’im, Iraq. I heard a sudden explosion and small-arms fire two kilometers away. The battalion radio net burst with chatter, with someone saying there were three casualties: two urgent surgicals (send help quickly!) and one routine (no rush to provide aid). Someone in the operating center asked about the status of the routine casualty, and the radio crackled with the kind of transmission that changes everything. “It’s Whiskey Six, he’s KIA [killed in action].” I

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Rebuilding American Manufacturing: A Keystone for Economic Statecraft

Mark Rosenblatt — Tue, 26 May 2026 07:00:37 +0000

Editor’s note: This is the ninth article in an 11-part series examining how the United States should organize, lead, and integrate economic statecraft into strategy, defense practice, and the broader national security ecosystem. The special series is brought to you by the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies and War on the Rocks. Prior installments can be found at the War by Other Ledgers page.In September 2010, after a Chinese fishing trawler captain was detained near the Senkaku Islands, Beijing halted rare-earth exports to Japan. The embargo lasted weeks. China showed, on a U.S. treaty ally, how a supply chain could be

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The Lessons of Sacrifice

Adam A. Scher — Mon, 25 May 2026 07:30:19 +0000

On this Memorial Day, American servicemembers remain deployed across the world. Many are in harm’s way. This simple fact makes the day less abstract, more real. Memorial Day is not only about wars filed away in history, but also about lives lost in service to the nation and the obligations those losses place on the living.For those who served in combat, the day is intensely personal. It is a day of names, missions, and memories that never fade away entirely. Three of the fallen return to me every year: Cpl. Andrew J. Kemple, 2nd Lt. Tracy Lynn Alger, and Sgt.

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Inside Ukraine’s Battlefield Innovation Loop

Catarina Buchatskiy — Fri, 22 May 2026 08:00:24 +0000

This exclusive Cogs of War interview is with Catarina Buchatskiy, the co-founder and director of analytics at the Snake Island Institute, a Kyiv-based defense analytics center, and Viktoriia Honcharuk, the institute’s director of defense technologies. We asked them to share their views on how Ukraine’s military and defense firms turn battlefield feedback into rapid innovation, what Western investors and defense tech companies can learn from Ukraine, and what a future Ukraine-West defense industrial partnership might look like. Sign Up for Our Newsletter American and allied defense companies often speak about testing their products in Ukraine, but few have consistently done so. Why

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The Pentagon Still Cannot Manage Cyber Talent at Scale. Here’s the Fix.

Henry Phillips — Fri, 22 May 2026 07:30:14 +0000

The Department of Defense does not primarily have a cyber recruiting problem — it has a cyber talent management problem. The military already possesses serious qualification frameworks, scholarship programs, credentialing systems, and selection tools. What it still lacks is a system tying assessment, training, assignment, performance, and retention together across an entire cyber career.In March 2026, the department announced at its Cyber Workforce Summit 2.0 an effort to reinvent the cyber workforce. Called Cyber Command 2.0, this effort’s principal goal is improvement in talent management by focusing on identifying, recruiting, hiring, and retaining the right people. The effort also emphasizes

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The Kid Rock Flyby Controversy and the Erosion of Military Professionalism

Jason Dempsey — Fri, 22 May 2026 07:15:10 +0000

During Congressional testimony from Department of Defense leadership last week, Representative George Whitesides asked Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, “How does canceling a command-initiated review support a culture of accountability?” But before the secretary could answer, Whitesides instead decided to direct the question to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Dan Caine. Clearly uncomfortable with the question, Caine replied, “What you are alluding to … is a partisan question.” The exchange occupied only a few minutes amid days of acrimonious testimony focused primarily on the war with Iran, but reflected how partisan considerations have now extended to

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China’s AI Governance Offensive Threatens U.S. Tech Leadership

Audrye Wong — Thu, 21 May 2026 08:00:37 +0000

China’s diplomats are on an “AI governance” offensive. At a May 5 United Nations meeting, China’s vice minister of science and technology championed China’s role in shaping U.N.-led frameworks that determine how the technology should be built and used. Just a week earlier, two top Chinese AI experts actively involved in Beijing’s governance efforts appeared by video on a Capitol Hill panel discussion hosted by Senator Bernie Sanders, touting China’s contributions to AI safety and cooperation.Norms and standards on AI development and applications are still being defined. Being a standards-setter rather than a standards-follower can simultaneously solidify a country’s technological

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The Operational Case Against Israel’s Gaza Campaign

Andy Milburn — Thu, 21 May 2026 07:30:53 +0000

Gaza did not have to look the way it looks. That is not a moral claim. It is an operational one.Claims of necessity are invoked to explain the scale of civilian harm, but they founder in the face of operational logic. Supporters of Israeli methods argue that Gaza’s urban battlefield — tunnels, rocket fire, extreme population density, hostages held underground — left no viable alternative to large-scale destruction. That argument rests on a false assumption: that large-scale fires were inevitable rather than chosen, and that the only tradeoff was between more fires and mission failure. That is a false choice,

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Europe’s Dangerous Hunger Games for American Troops

Vytautas Leškevičius — Thu, 21 May 2026 07:15:40 +0000

Every time reports emerge about a potential reduction of U.S. forces or capabilities in Europe, the old continent falls into the same cycle of anxiety and panic. The same applies to announcements about delayed or suspended deployments, planned rotations, or broader force posture reviews.A brief historical reminder here is necessary. The 2014 Wales Defense Investment Pledge is still often misunderstood in Europe as little more than an American demand for higher defense spending. In reality, it reflected something broader already taking shape in Washington: the expectation that Europe would gradually assume far greater responsibility for conventional defense on its own continent.

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A Check-In On North Korea and Russia’s Wartime Partnership

Choong-Koo Lee — Wed, 20 May 2026 17:30:26 +0000

In 2025, Choong-Koo Lee wrote, “Putting the Screws on the Partnership Between North Korea and Russia,” where he argued that the United States and South Korea should work together to weaken Pyongyang and Moscow’s military relationship. A year later, we asked him to revisit his arguments.Image: The Kremlin via Wikimedia CommonsIn your 2025 article, you argued that the United States and South Korea should work together to limit the deepening military relationship between Russia and North Korea. How has the U.S.-South Korean relationship evolved over the past year, and what does that mean for the prospects of any joint effort? Separately,

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The Navy Needs Precise Mass and Here Is How to Get There

Michael C. Horowitz — Wed, 20 May 2026 07:30:39 +0000

Maintaining deterrence in the Indo-Pacific and around the world requires the U.S. Navy to change what it builds and how it fights. Sen. Roger Wicker observed in 2024 that the United States’ approach to fleet design and ship construction is “too small and too old.” The current model of naval power cannot scale at the speed modern war demands. The war with Iran is already exposing the limits. High-end ships are being consumed in sustained operations, munitions inventories are thinning, and replacement timelines for exquisite weapons stretch into years. Against a more capable adversary, such as China, those constraints would

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Machine Overmatch: What Salt Typhoon Reveals About China’s Data-Centric Intelligence Strategy

Ashley Ruiz — Wed, 20 May 2026 07:15:33 +0000

What if the next decisive intelligence advantage isn’t a recruited insider but a nation’s ability to model entire societies from its digital exhaust? Salt Typhoon’s multi-year cyber campaigns against U.S. telecommunications networks and critical infrastructure demonstrate China’s unparalleled focus on data-centric espionage: collect widely, analyze fast, and operationalize at scale — alongside continued investments in traditional intelligence disciplines. This approach reshapes how the United States has conventionally thought about intelligence advantage. From Exquisite to ExhaustFor decades, the U.S. intelligence community has prized what analysts call “exquisite” intelligence: narrowly sourced, high-confidence insight into adversary intent. That model depends on scarcity — secrets

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Asian Reactions to Trump’s Summit with Xi

William Chou — Tue, 19 May 2026 17:30:37 +0000

From May 14 to 15, U.S. President Donald Trump held a summit in Beijing with Chinese leader Xi Jinping. In addition to pageantry, the summit featured discussions about Iran and the Strait of Hormuz, Taiwan, and bilateral trade. Both Washington and Beijing emphasized a relationship based on “constructive strategic stability.”Many countries, particularly those in Asia, were watching closely to see how the two leaders got along, what they agreed on, and what divided them. We asked four experts to tell us about the reactions in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and the Philippines.Read more below.William Chou Senior Fellow and Deputy Director

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When Refusal Doesn’t Matter: Operation Epic Fury and the Erosion of Host Nation Consent

Bo Ram Kwon — Tue, 19 May 2026 07:30:35 +0000

When the U.S. military launched its war against Iran in Feb. 2026, it did not just dismantle Iranian military capabilities. It shattered the illusion that the United States would consult with its closest allies and that an ally’s refusal to grant base access can stop an American war in motion. Rather than the much discussed “outward flows” of military assets from the Korean Peninsula to the Middle East, it is the anticipated “inward flows” of U.S. military assets that could be more consequential in times of crisis.Focusing on the early days of the fallout of this intervention, I argue that

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The Recognition Question: Somaliland, Israeli Security Geometry, and the Red Sea Power Struggle

Iqra Salah — Tue, 19 May 2026 07:15:13 +0000

Since its proclamation of independence from Somalia in May 1991, Somaliland has sought international recognition for the territories under its control. Despite functioning as a de facto independent state for years, it lacked any formal recognition on the international stage until recently, when Israel became the first state to officially recognize Somaliland as an independent state. On Dec. 26, 2025, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that Israel and Somaliland had signed a joint declaration establishing full diplomatic relations, describing it as being in the spirit of the Abraham Accords.Despite the enthusiastic reception in Somaliland, Israel’s move did not receive

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Ukrainian Agriculture as Strategy, Diplomacy, and Legacy

WOTR Staff — Mon, 18 May 2026 15:53:13 +0000

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Regulatory Friendly Fire: How ITAR Undermines the Alliance It Was Built to Protect

Gregory Kausner — Mon, 18 May 2026 08:00:49 +0000

For nearly a century, America’s defense industrial strength yielded a subtle benefit: influence as the world’s security guarantor of choice. But the system that once anchored partner access to U.S. weaponry is now an obstacle. Modern statecraft — the interplay of industry, diplomacy, and defense — requires a fresh approach to regulating defense trade.While the American arsenal accounts for more than 40 percent of global arms transfers, that share largely comprises exquisite systems for which the United States is unable to meet its own demand, let alone the needs of other nations. Arab partners expended hundreds of high-end interceptors to

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Army Aviation’s Wasted Decade: Lessons for the Next Generation of Drone Integration

Jake Steckler — Mon, 18 May 2026 07:30:12 +0000

In 2006, the U.S. Army’s 25th Combat Aviation Brigade deployed to Iraq, where it paired Task Force ODIN (Observe, Detect, Identify, and Neutralize) with an Apache battalion from the 82nd Airborne Division — a first-of-its-kind teaming of attack helicopters with drones. These units combined manned and unmanned sensors to identify and destroy improvised explosive devices and high-value targets, leveraging drones to fill gaps in traditional rotary wing aviation. Col. Jamie LaValley, at the time a captain with the 82nd, told me he felt he was witnessing “the future of warfare.” “Man, Army Aviation is on to something,” he recalls thinking.

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Missiles Aren’t Strategy: Lessons From Iran for a Pacific Air War

David Deptula — Mon, 18 May 2026 07:15:51 +0000

Western airpower debates are increasingly driven by grim math. Analysts tally missile inventories, strike ranges, and sortie-generation capacity against a small number of critical runways, fuel systems, and aerial refueling aircraft. The prevailing conclusion is that U.S. and allied airpower could be severely disrupted early in a conflict with China. While China’s anti-access/area-denial capabilities place U.S. and allied air operations in the Indo-Pacific under sustained, lethal, and consequential threat, the belief that this numbers game guarantees victory is a fallacy — something Russia is learning the hard way in Ukraine. The 2026 Iran War showed why: Real combat is interactive,

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Restrain and Hedge: A New U.S. Nuclear Strategy for a Two-Peer World

Tyler Bowen — Fri, 15 May 2026 07:30:45 +0000

What if fielding more nuclear weapons makes the United States less secure, not more? That question is now at the center of a growing debate as the United States confronts a nuclear landscape shaped by two major nuclear rivals.China is rapidly expanding and modernizing its nuclear arsenal, while the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), the last remaining nuclear arms control deal between the United States and Russia, has expired. In what appears as the beginning of a new, more dangerous nuclear age, some analysts believe the United States should increase the size of its deployed nuclear arsenal. Others believe

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South Korea’s 500,000 Drone Warriors Will Be a Hollow Force

Min-Cheol Jung — Fri, 15 May 2026 07:15:26 +0000

Ukraine has reshaped the battlefield with cheap, expendable drones. South Korea reads the signals and wants to match the scale. North Korea has been reading the same signals through a more direct channel. Since late 2024, North Korea has rotated thousands of troops through Russia’s war in Ukraine, alongside what is currently the world’s most combat tested drone force — tied with Ukraine’s, of course. Ukrainian defense intelligence reports that some of those troops have begun returning home and moving into instructor roles within the North Korean military.What exactly they are bringing back is harder to pin down from the

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In Talks with Israel, Lebanon is Walking a Thin Line

Faysal Itani — Thu, 14 May 2026 19:40:45 +0000

This week, Israel and Lebanon are holding their third round of unprecedented direct talks on crucial issues, including borders, the disarmament of Hizballah, and ongoing Israeli military action. The United States, which is clearly driving these talks, views them expansively as seeking a “comprehensive peace and security agreement,” although one that is contingent on Lebanese action against Hizballah. Ironically, as the most injured party, the Lebanese government is the one that can least afford a comprehensive agreement that would isolate it at home. This twist represents the single greatest obstacle to a settlement that would satisfy the United States or

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Maximalist Demands, Victory Day, and a Summit

WOTR Staff — Thu, 14 May 2026 19:00:58 +0000

Welcome to The Adversarial. Every other week, we’ll provide you with expert analysis on America’s greatest challengers: China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, and jihadists. Read more below.***IranA month after negotiators met for historic high-level talks in Pakistan, Washington and Tehran seem closer to a breakdown of the ceasefire that U.S. President Donald Trump announced on April 7 than a breakthrough. In addition to its blockade of Iranian shipping, the United States has been stepping up sanctions against Iran as part of “Economic Fury,” announcing several tranches of designations in recent days targeting its oil trade and banking networks. The toll on

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The New Era of Air and Missile Defense

Matthew Isler — Thu, 14 May 2026 08:00:05 +0000

Modern air and missile defense is approaching a structural limit. The model that protected forces over the past two decades remains effective, but only within a narrower envelope than current threats demand. A new approach is required, built on fire-control-level integration, disaggregated survivable architectures, affordable magazine depth, and the integration of offensive action as the central element of defense.I am a retired U.S. Air Force brigadier general and now lead international business development and strategy for Northrop Grumman in Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East. I previously served as chief operating officer of DEFCON AI. As a defense industry

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Cyber Operations Aren’t Slow — Our Thinking Is

Timothy N. Neslony — Thu, 14 May 2026 07:30:51 +0000

The phone rang at 3:45 pm on a Friday afternoon. We were winding down for the weekend when the caller ID lit up — it was the counterterrorism analyst in our office we affectionately called “CT Brian.” When he called, it was never good news. An al-Qaeda-affiliated group seized an American aid worker. Her captors were preparing to move her within the hour and special operations forces needed cyber to pinpoint her location in 30 minutes or less. An assault team stood by, ready to launch — if we could tell them where to go. Weekend plans evaporated. Screens brightened.

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Meet the New Host of Cogs of War

Ryan Evans — Thu, 14 May 2026 07:30:25 +0000

Ryan sits down at the Cogs of War mic for the last time to introduce Jonathan Panter, the new host and executive editor of Cogs of War. Jonathan shares his background, from naval officer to scholar. They discuss major defense tech issues, and Jonathan shares what he hopes to accomplish at the helm of Cogs of War. Image: Cpl. Jacquilyn Davis via DVIDS.

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While the War Continues in Ukraine, the Kremlin’s Real Battlefield is at Home

Anna Varfolomeeva — Thu, 14 May 2026 07:15:07 +0000

On April 1, 2026, Russian officials announced the liberation of the so-called Luhansk People’s Republic — for the third time. The first announcement came under then-Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu in July 2022. The second one, in July 2025, came from the “republic’s” own head. By that point, Shoigu had already been reshuffled to the Security Council of the Russian Federation, but not for lying about Luhansk. The neat reports about Russia’s successes kept coming.In the fifth year of what the Kremlin calls a special military operation, that pattern raises a question worth taking seriously: is winning still Russia’s objective?Russia entered

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Analyzing Trump’s Foreign Policy and Its International Implications

Benjamin Friedman — Wed, 13 May 2026 17:30:42 +0000

In 2016, Ben Friedman wrote, “The Trump Administration Will be Hawkish,” where he argued that despite Trump’s non-interventionist campaign rhetoric, structural forces, hawkish appointees, and an entrenched foreign policy bureaucracy would push him closer toward conventional military interventionism. Ten years later, we asked Ben to revisit his arguments.Image: Max Goldberg via Wikimedia CommonsIn your 2016 article, you argued the Trump administration would adopt a hawkish foreign policy, namely towards Russia, China, and Iran. What can we gather about his foreign policy objectives towards those countries from his first term and the first year of his second term? What factors have

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The Missing Navies: The Hormuz Crisis and the Limits of America’s Indo-Pacific Partnerships

Jean-Loup Samaan — Wed, 13 May 2026 07:30:28 +0000

On May 4, 2026, a South Korean vessel came under fire in the Strait of Hormuz, leading President Donald Trump to urge the government in Seoul to join the U.S.-led operation to secure the waterway. The South Korean government politely replied it would “review” the American proposal. The event crystallized a major paradox of the ongoing conflict: The closure of the Strait of Hormuz, the worst maritime crisis in decades, is fundamentally an Asian problem, yet Asia is almost entirely absent from the debate over how to resolve it.In fact, not only are Asian countries greatly suffering from the Hormuz

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Dazed and Confused: How Marine Corps Promotion Boards Keep Getting It Wrong

Stephen McNeil — Wed, 13 May 2026 07:30:25 +0000

An old adage claims a marine’s career came down to the “two or three minutes of a promotions brief.” Turns out that was a little optimistic. In practice, the Marine Corps promotion system decides the institutional worth of a 20‑year career in about 12 minutes of board attention.Imagine the National Football League compressing the seven primary drills of the Scouting Combine — the 40‑yard dash, bench press, vertical and broad jumps, three‑cone drill, 20‑yard shuttle, and 60‑yard shuttle — into a single 12‑minute window. No game file, no multi-day interviews, no medical deep dives. In 12 minutes, it would be

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Pakistan’s New Logic of Limited War May Not Keep War Limited

Muhammad Faisal — Wed, 13 May 2026 07:15:11 +0000

In May 2025, as Indian BrahMos missile strikes hit Pakistani air bases — targeting runways, parked aircraft, and critical infrastructure — Islamabad faced a choice. It had the capability to respond with its own long-range systems, but it chose not to. Pakistan deliberately withheld the Babur cruise missile, not because it lacked options, but because using a dual-capable system risked signaling nuclear escalation.That moment captures the changing logic of conflict in South Asia. The four-day crisis was intense but contained, defined less by what was used than by what was held back. Yet, almost a year later, the sustained air

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Does OPEC Still Matter?

Kristian Coates Ulrichsen — Tue, 12 May 2026 19:45:38 +0000

On April 28, the United Arab Emirates announced that it would leave OPEC, effective May 1 — ending nearly six decades as an OPEC member. In terms of oil production, it is the most significant country to leave the group. While multiple factors drove the decision to leave, the timing is notable — as the war with Iran has led to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and focused global attention on oil prices. We asked four experts to consider the impact on OPEC’s future.Read more below. Kristian Coates Ulrichsen Fellow for the Middle East at the Baker Institute

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What Does SOUTHCOM’s New Autonomous Warfare Command Herald?

Gen. Frank Donovan — Tue, 12 May 2026 17:40:20 +0000

Gen. Frank Donovan, commander of U.S. Southern Command, sat down with Ryan to discuss the vision behind the command’s new Autonomous Warfare Command and what it signals for the future of military operations in the Western Hemisphere. Donovan explains how SOUTHCOM aims to move drones and autonomous systems beyond tactical experimentation and connect them to strategic effect: disrupting cartel networks designated as terrorist organizations, strengthening cooperation with allies and partners, and giving the command new ways to see, decide, and act across a complex region. This episode was brought to you by NODA. Find out more about our friends at

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The Other Border Problem: How Russia and China’s Lawfare Threaten the Arctic

Jill Goldenziel — Tue, 12 May 2026 07:30:20 +0000

What happens when the Arctic starts to look like the South China Sea?Historically, a neutral region where cooperation prevailed, the Arctic is quickly becoming a contested space. This is no more evident than in the increasing scope and volume of Russian and Chinese lawfare affecting the region. Through excessive maritime regulations, coordinated challenges to Western continental shelf claims, and the use of shadow fleets to avoid accountability, Russia and China are increasingly coordinating their efforts to exert influence and challenge Western claims to Arctic resources and freedom of navigation. As these tactics continue to converge, the United States and its

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Closing the Gap? Italy Sets New Rules for Its First National Security Strategy Amidst Old Obstacles

Lorenzo Termine — Tue, 12 May 2026 07:15:35 +0000

Italy may finally be about to publish its first-ever national security strategy, a striking development for the only G7 country that has never had one.For decades, a mix of government instability, competition between institutions, a relatively permissive international environment, and the perceived reliability of U.S. security guarantees in Europe and the Mediterranean reduced incentives to produce a strategy. Recently, however, domestic political consolidation and external pressures have appeared to align in a way not seen before. Until recently, limited news articles and confidential interviews with policymakers, diplomats, and military officials pointed to a forthcoming publication that could address what military

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Sensationalism Doesn’t Serve Society

WOTR Staff — Mon, 11 May 2026 17:35:25 +0000

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Ankara’s Crossroads: Rearmament, Risk, and the Prospect of War with Israel

Ryan Gingeras — Mon, 11 May 2026 07:30:56 +0000

Talk of war in the Middle East abounds on social media, but not just about the one with Iran. A small, but significant, portion of this chatter relates to a conflict that has not begun. For more than a year now, pundits and politicians have warned of a potential clash between Israel and Turkey. Driving this hypothetical confrontation are a series of issues related to Syria, the Palestinian territories, and regional security as a whole. In December 2025, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu indirectly charged Ankara with wanting to reestablish Ottoman imperial rule over the Levant. To that, he declared,

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Conflict, CASEVAC, and the Golden Hour in the Age of Persistent Surveillance

Kai Gilmour Gath — Mon, 11 May 2026 07:15:54 +0000

Editor’s Note: This article contains frank descriptions of battlefield conditions, including accounts of soldiers dying by suicide following injury. Western battlefield casualty evacuation doctrine is built on assumptions forged during the “Global War on Terror.” Central among these is the belief that the wounded can be rapidly moved from the point of injury to progressively higher levels of medical care within a defined timeframe, commonly referred to as the “golden hour.” The concept itself originated in civilian trauma medicine decades prior, generally attributed to Dr. R. Adams Cowley of Baltimore’s Shock Trauma Institute in 1975. In 2009, Secretary of Defense Robert

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As Adversaries Integrate, U.S. Partners Bypass Washington

Ariane Tabatabai — Fri, 08 May 2026 07:30:53 +0000

The drones hitting Gulf Arab states daily since the United States and Israel launched large-scale military operations against Iran in February are not merely Iranian. They are originally Iranian, yes. But these designs and production processes were improved and refined by Russia through years of battlefield testing against Ukrainian defenses. So, they were returned to Tehran from Moscow. Confronted with a threat that Ukraine has spent four years learning to counter, the United States found itself in unfamiliar territory. It was one of 11 countries requesting Ukrainian counter-drone assistance to defend against Iran’s attacks, despite the American president’s assertion that

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Could Russia Follow the “Hormuz Playbook” in the Baltic and Black Seas?

Miro Sedlák — Fri, 08 May 2026 07:15:22 +0000

On the eve of the U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran, 56 tankers sailed through the Strait of Hormuz. Two days later, Lloyd’s List, the maritime industry’s journal of record, counted just seven tankers and a single gas carrier — all small and three of them shadow-fleet vessels — with hundreds more drifting in the Gulf of Oman. One of the world’s most important maritime chokepoints had not been mined, blockaded, or seized by a navy. Rather, it had been priced shut by a handful of drone strikes and the insurance market.Within two days of the first U.S.-Israeli strikes on Feb. 28,

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The Pentagon Needs a Playbook for Munitions Surge Production

Bryce Loidolt — Thu, 07 May 2026 08:00:13 +0000

The Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles the U.S. military fired during Operation Epic Fury take months to put on contract and years to produce.Whether driven by U.S. military operations or support to partners, the challenge of quickly replenishing U.S. munitions is not new. Exquisite munitions often take an exquisite amount of time to manufacture and deliver. Defense officials, in turn, frequently want to compress that time as much as possible, seeking to restock fast and mitigate future risks.The Russo-Ukrainian War has illuminated the challenge of accomplishing this feat. It also offers lessons for how the U.S can accelerate munitions production timelines

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What 300 Emails Say About Americans and the Army’s Direct Commission Program

Ted Delicath — Thu, 07 May 2026 07:30:52 +0000

For nine months in 2024 and 2025, I had an additional duty — monitoring an inbox that connected potential direct commission candidates with the Army’s individual branches. I served on the Army Reserve’s senior leadership team, helping to stand up a brokerage between mid-career professionals and the decentralized branch pipelines that controlled direct commission slots.During that time, I personally reviewed over 300 inquiries from accomplished professionals — data scientists, logistics engineers, cyber specialists, and strategic communicators — all of whom wanted to serve their country in uniform. The experience taught me two main lessons. First, people either regret not serving

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The Army Needs to Build Better Command Posts

Justin Lynch — Thu, 07 May 2026 07:15:09 +0000

It would be odd to see a TOC Mahal in the Russo-Ukrainian War. Often spotted at U.S. Army Combat Training Center rotations or large home-station exercises, TOC Mahals are sprawling tactical operation centers (TOCs) made from a series of connected tents, vehicles, and generators. They typically have maps posted at entrances to help people find their way through a labyrinth of desks, chairs, television screens, and cables. Most division command posts, many brigade command posts, and truly exceptional battalion command posts meet the criteria of a TOC Mahal. At their best, these behemoths foster collaborative planning by co-locating command teams

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How Much Longer Can Russia Last in the War?

Collin Meisel — Wed, 06 May 2026 17:30:18 +0000

In 2025, Collin Meisel and Mathew Burrows wrote, “Russia Can Afford to Take a Beating in Ukraine,” where they argued Russia was able to absorb the blows Ukraine was delivering and could continue fighting for a while. A year later, we asked Collin and Mathew to revisit their assessments.Image: The Kremlin via Wikimedia CommonsIn your 2025 article, you argued that due to its sheer size — in service-capable population, economy, and munitions production capacity — Russia can absorb more of a hit throughout this war than Ukraine can. After another year of combat, Ukrainian defense innovation, and even more Russian

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The Cop on the Corner Is Our First Line of Defense: Local Police and the Surveillance Detection Gap

Matt White — Wed, 06 May 2026 07:30:15 +0000

Just before midnight on Nov. 24, 2025, New Castle County police officers conducting a routine property check in Wilmington’s Canby Park spotted a white Toyota Tacoma parked after hours. What initially appeared to be a standard traffic stop uncovered a detailed terror plot. The suspect — a University of Delaware student — was found in possession of a converted machine gun, more than 100 rounds of ammunition, body armor, and a handwritten notebook mapping out a planned attack on the campus police department, including entry points, escape routes, and the name of a specific officer. When FBI agents interviewed him,

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Between Intent and Capability: Assessing the Lack of Iranian Attacks on the U.S. Homeland

Matthew Levitt — Wed, 06 May 2026 07:15:19 +0000

Three days into the Iran war, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said the quiet part out loud: The Revolutionary Guard’s Qods Force has long carried out plots around the world and now intended to deploy those capabilities against the U.S. homeland. The United States, a Qods Force statement carried on Iranian television warned, “will no longer be safe” as the Qods Force targets Americans within the homeland and abroad. “The enemy should know that their happy days are over and they will no longer be safe anywhere in the world, not even in their own homes.” U.S. authorities went on a nationwide high alert

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How the War with Iran Is Shaping U.S.-Chinese Competition

Zack Cooper — Tue, 05 May 2026 18:45:52 +0000

The war with Iran has once again raised questions about Washington’s ability to prioritize its interests in East Asia and particularly to manage intensifying competition with Beijing. Furthermore, the war and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz have presented American and Chinese leaders with new challenges and potential opportunities, as they respond to the war’s global impacts. We asked five experts to address how the war is shaping competition between Washington and Beijing.Read more below.Zack CooperSenior Fellow at the American Enterprise InstituteBoth sides may be taking different lessons from the Iran War. Beijing appears to see it as another

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Acquisition Reform Needs Its Own Wargame

Stephen Bittner — Tue, 05 May 2026 08:00:52 +0000

One number buried in the Pentagon’s Fiscal Year 2027 budget request reveals a decade of acquisition decisions in a data point: The U.S. Navy is requesting 785 Tomahawk cruise missiles. In 2025, Congress funded 55. That 1,200 percent jump is the cost of choices never stress-tested against the scenario unfolding today — a sustained air campaign against Iran while China watches the magazine drain.As a legislative fellow on the Hill, I watch acquisition reform proposals grind through the legislative machinery every day. A proposal usually arrives with a clean rationale: streamline this contracting mechanism, expand multi-year purchasing authority for this

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Practice Makes Deterrence: India’s Next Nuclear Challenge at Sea

Kunal Singh — Tue, 05 May 2026 07:30:16 +0000

When India’s third ballistic missile-carrying, nuclear-powered submarine — the INS Aridhaman — entered service on April 3, 2026, it marked a milestone decades in the making.With three boomers, India can now reliably always maintain at least one on deterrent patrol, thus completing the sea leg of its nuclear deterrent. Earlier, India successfully tested the capability to deploy multiple independently targetable warheads from a single missile. If it integrates multiple warheads into its sea-launched ballistic missiles, India further ensures it can cause unacceptable damage to an aggressor in response to an initial nuclear strike. With these capabilities, India now has the

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Abandoned and Ungoverned: Lebanon’s Palestinian and Syrian Populations and the Emerging Radicalization Landscape

Jack Schwartz — Tue, 05 May 2026 07:15:15 +0000

Inside Lebanon, the conditions for the next extremist uprising are quietly taking root.In the summer of 2007, the Lebanese Armed Forces fought Fatah al-Islam for three months inside Nahr al-Bared, a Palestinian refugee camp in northern Lebanon. Fatah al-Islam was a Salafi-jihadist group that exploited the camp’s power vacuum to establish a strong recruitment base, drawing recruits from Palestinian, Syrian, and broader Arab networks. Once the dust settled, more than 400 people were dead, and the 30,000 residents of Nahr-Bared were displaced for a second time. The very same conditions that led to the Nahr al-Bared clash are reassembling now,

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Looking at Europe With a Sharper Eye

WOTR Staff — Mon, 04 May 2026 15:30:44 +0000

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Cheap Missiles, Not Drones, Will Win the Next Air War

Vitaliy Goncharuk — Mon, 04 May 2026 08:00:51 +0000

After four years of watching the war in Ukraine, NATO defense decision-makers are finally beginning to pour money into drones. The Iran conflict has drawn further attention to these investments. The assumption is that unmanned aerial systems will ensure a long-term advantage in conflicts requiring ground operations and infrastructure defense.But the battlefield in Ukraine is already pointing toward a different future. Russia is transforming slow, propeller-driven Shahed drones into cheap, missile-like systems by equipping them with turbojet engines. This has sharply complicated Ukrainian air defense, as the new platforms now fly four to five times faster (about 460 miles per

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The Illusion of Sovereignty: How International Law and Big Tech are Eroding the State

Mykhailo Andreichyn — Mon, 04 May 2026 07:30:38 +0000

Caught between two hammers — international law and technological dependence on the private sector — modern state sovereignty is in crisis. When a state attempts to act decisively against an adversary operating below the threshold of armed attack, it risks not only diplomatic sanctions and international condemnation but the loss of access to critical digital infrastructure owned by private corporations. In wartime, that loss is catastrophic, as we both experienced firsthand during Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine.The classical understanding of state sovereignty is being challenged. States now must actively ask for permission to use private capabilities for defensive purposes. Two

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Why Kim Jong Un Won’t Pick Up the Phone and What to Do About It

Jonathan Corrado — Mon, 04 May 2026 07:15:30 +0000

Every American administration pledges to learn from the past when devising a strategy for contending with nuclear North Korea. And yet, few portfolios are so paralyzed by path dependency and resistance to learning. But now, confronted with the inescapable prospect that the legacy approach is actually creating risk rather than reducing it, the time has come to learn and pivot.The Trump administration should sharpen the choice for North Korea, making it enticing, raising the stakes, and being prepared to back it up. In service of this, the U.S. and South Korean governments could make the bold decision to put denuclearization

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Modern Combat Requires Warrior Medics Modeled After Machaon

Jeremy W. Cannon — Fri, 01 May 2026 07:30:02 +0000

Modern peer combat has blown apart the myth of protected combat medical units. On the battlefields of Ukraine, scores of medical personnel, shielded in theory by both international law and historic norms, now lie dead. To survive in this environment while rescuing others, medics ranging from junior enlisted caregivers to senior physicians need tactical experience under fire. Skipping this training leaves them vulnerable and turns them into a security risk — a losing formula in modern combat.Throughout the past four years, Russia has targeted Ukrainian aid stations, evacuation routes, and trauma teams. These attacks offer a grim triple advantage: killing

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Why Lebanon Is Nonnegotiable for Iran

Sajjad Safaei — Fri, 01 May 2026 07:15:02 +0000

As American and Iranian diplomats gathered in early April in Islamabad for Pakistan‑mediated ceasefire talks to end the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran and its regional allies, including Hizballah, a sticking point emerged: whether the ceasefire was to include Lebanon. The United States and Israel initially rejected the notion that Lebanon had been part of the agreement, with President Donald Trump referring to Israeli operations there as a “separate skirmish.” Conversely, the Iranians signaled that Lebanon had been part of the agreement and threatened to unilaterally end the ceasefire if Israeli attacks continued against Lebanon.Although the ceasefire remains fragile, with Iran

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Economic Fury and Claims of Victory

WOTR Staff — Thu, 30 Apr 2026 19:30:45 +0000

Welcome to The Adversarial. Every other week, we’ll provide you with expert analysis on America’s greatest challengers: China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, and jihadists. Read more below.***IranThree weeks since a ceasefire took effect, the United States and Iran have shifted from open hostilities to unsuccessful negotiations to economic brinksmanship. The Trump administration has been squeezing Tehran on two parallel fronts: A naval blockade physically subduing its maritime trade, complemented by increasing sanctions pressure against its oil and banking networks. The Iranian government was already in a weak financial position before the war, so additional sanctions as part of what the U.S.

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What a Post-Orbán Hungary Means for Hungarians and Europe

Sándor Ésik — Thu, 30 Apr 2026 15:28:21 +0000

Hungary has turned the page. After 16 years of rule by Viktor Orbán, opposition leader Péter Magyar has emerged as the winner by a landslide. Ryan is joined by Sándor Ésik, the lawyer and writer behind the Hungarian Muse, to understand how Orbán built his “soft-authoritarian” system, how it failed to stave off Magyar’s challenge, and what comes next. Of course, Orbán was anti-Ukrainian, pro-Russian, and antagonistic towards the European Union, so they also discuss what a post-Orbán Hungary means on those fronts. And, as a bonus, Sándor shares the bizarre story of how Orbán’s son — an Army officer —

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Correcting Course in the Indo‑Pacific

Luke Collin — Thu, 30 Apr 2026 07:30:16 +0000

Last month, President Donald Trump hosted Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi for a visit that captured both the promise and the shortcomings of America’s Indo‑Pacific strategy.In some ways, the meeting was a success: It produced a few commercial deals, reaffirmed the strength of the bilateral relationship, and — most importantly — demonstrated a visibly warm personal rapport between the two leaders (despite an awkward moment). But as has so often been the case during America’s fitful “pivot” to Asia over the past two decades, the visit was overshadowed by yet another conflict in the Middle East that is absorbing U.S.

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Rethinking Corporate Risk and Alignment in an Era of Economic Statecraft

Gen. (ret.) Timothy Ray — Thu, 30 Apr 2026 07:00:42 +0000

Editor’s note: This article is the eighth in an 11-part series examining how the United States should organize, lead, and integrate economic statecraft into strategy, defense practice, and the broader national security ecosystem. This special series is brought to you by the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies and War on the Rocks. Prior installments can be found at the War by Other Ledgers page.In Sept. 2010, following a collision between a Chinese trawler and Japanese coast guard vessels near the Senkaku Islands, Chinese authorities halted shipments of rare earth minerals to Japan. The move disrupted supply chains for everything from consumer electronics to advanced

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The Trump Administration Hasn’t Forgotten America’s Backyard

Joshua Trevino — Thu, 30 Apr 2026 05:30:10 +0000

On Jan. 3, U.S. forces captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, and they are now imprisoned in the United States. That operation followed a buildup of U.S. military assets in the Caribbean and the launching of strikes against boats allegedly trafficking drugs. The latest National Security Strategy and National Defense Strategy emphasize the importance of the Western Hemisphere to U.S. policy. After Maduro’s capture, the Trump administration increasingly appeared to look toward regime change in Cuba. However, when U.S. and Israeli strikes against Iran began on Feb. 28, attention — and some military assets — shifted to the

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Human Geography: The Strategic Edge in a Complex World

Judd Devermont — Wed, 29 Apr 2026 17:30:58 +0000

In 2024, Judd Devermont wrote, “Human Geography Is Mission-Critical,” where he argued that the United States should focus on behaviors and attitudes informed by human geography to craft better strategy. Two years later, we asked Judd to revisit his arguments. Image: Samuel Lamptey via Wikimedia CommonsIn your 2024 article, you argued that the United States needed to focus its attention on behaviors and attitudes informed by human geography to craft strategy that adequately navigates a more complex world and threat environment. Two years later, has the United States utilized human geography more as an indicator for foreign policy decisions? Can you give some examples

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Aligning the U.S. and Canadian Defense Industrial Bases

Christopher Zember — Wed, 29 Apr 2026 08:00:54 +0000

The United States and Canada are both racing to rebuild their defense industrial bases, recognizing that future conflicts will be determined not only by military capability, but by the ability to produce at scale. But they cannot succeed alone — and importantly, they do not need to start from scratch.After decades of reliance on globalized supply chains for everything from consumer products to critical defense technologies, the United States is reasserting a more active industrial policy, using tools ranging from the Defense Production Act to incentivizing private capital investments and even selective government equity stakes. Canada is undergoing a parallel

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Western Withdrawal, Jihadist Expansion: How the Sahel Became Ground Zero for Global Terrorism

James Paterson — Wed, 29 Apr 2026 07:30:34 +0000

On April 25, armed groups launched near-simultaneous attacks against military installations and key strategic sites across Mali. Claimed by Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin, a jihadist group, and conducted in coordination with Tuareg separatist forces from the Front de libération de l’Azawad, the attacks targeted multiple nodes across the country’s security architecture simultaneously, from the capital Bamako to Gao, Mopti, and Kidal.While the attacks themselves were a shock, they should be understood as the logical endpoint of a deteriorating security trajectory that Western governments have watched from an ever-increasing distance. The geographic scope of the attacks, the targeting of senior officials,

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The Mountaintop Mirage: Why Xi’s Military Purges Cannot Produce the Force He Wants

Christopher Nye — Tue, 28 Apr 2026 07:30:31 +0000

During the 1979 Sino-Vietnamese War, a 26-year-old company commander’s unit was pinned down by a fortified hilltop. After frontal assaults failed, the junior officer made an extraordinary request: an entire battalion, four times the size of his own unit, for a jungle flanking maneuver. The regimental commander agreed. The surprise assault broke the Vietnamese defense. This company commander’s pedigree was as formidable as his tactics: His father was a founding general who had just retired as head of the Chinese military’s General Logistics Department.Five years later, that same officer commanded the regiment tasked with the main assault at the Battle

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The Strange Rise and Fall of Russia’s Crowd Sourced Defense Industry

Samuel Bendett — Tue, 28 Apr 2026 07:15:50 +0000

In the early days of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, much that could go wrong did for the Russian military. As one volunteer organization called KatyaValya recalled:We called all our military friends in (Russian-held) Donetsk, but no one could really explain or say anything. Three or four days later, Katya’s husband (who served with Donetsk militia) disappeared from communications. We searched for him every day through the commandant’s office to make sure everything was alright. Then he finally got in touch: “We need combat boots, sleeping bags, cigarettes, raincoats, and most importantly, Baofeng radios.”While some elements of

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Confronting the Past and Present, Lessons from Chornobyl

WOTR Staff — Mon, 27 Apr 2026 16:46:16 +0000

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From Slogan to Standard: How the Pentagon Should Define Affordable Mass

Mike Benitez — Mon, 27 Apr 2026 08:00:51 +0000

The term “affordable mass” entered public defense discourse in 2021 as a munitions concept, which the Air Force adopted in 2023 to describe its effort to field large numbers of lower-cost, semi-autonomous aircraft to complement crewed fighters. The term has since spread in defense reporting, think-tank commentary, service initiatives, and even on War on the Rocks.The Air Force, Army, and Navy are all pursuing low-cost, high-volume buying efforts to augment the force of the “few and exquisite” with the “affordable and plentiful,” and the Pentagon is requesting $54 billion to dramatically expand autonomous drone warfare efforts. The Air Force calls

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Beijing’s United Front and the Quiet Transfer of Western Technology

Cheryl Yu — Mon, 27 Apr 2026 07:30:58 +0000

The military modernization and technological ambitions of the People’s Republic of China dominate headlines in Washington. Hypersonic missiles, AI breakthroughs, and an expanding navy are the visible symbols of competition with the Chinese Communist Party. But if the United States is serious about long-term competition, it should prioritize — or at least pay equal attention to — the Chinese Communist Party’s other weapon: united front. Understandably, military power and advanced technology feel urgent and concrete. The united front — a system of political influence, co-optation, and mobilization — sounds abstract.Yet the Chinese Communist Party’s objective has always been political. Its military

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The Importance of the Battle of Savo Island

John Severini — Mon, 27 Apr 2026 07:15:26 +0000

On the night of Aug. 9, 1942, an Allied fleet of 17 warships guarded the approaches to Guadalcanal. The fleet was newer, larger, and better equipped than the Japanese force bearing down on it. It had six heavy cruisers, two light cruisers, and nine destroyers. It carried radar, a technology that should have detected the enemy long before any lookout could spot a ship through the darkness. By the numbers, the Allied squadron was on average 10 years newer and outweighed its opponent by more than 85 percent in total displacement. On paper, the result should have been straightforward.Thirty-three minutes

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Airwaves of Power: Why the Pentagon Should Shift to a Commercial-First Spectrum Model

Roslyn Layton — Fri, 24 Apr 2026 08:00:32 +0000

The U.S. military is firing million-dollar missiles at Iranian drones that cost a tiny fraction as much — a striking example of the kind of overmatch modern warfare punishes.The Department of Defense’s approach to electromagnetic spectrum policy follows a similar logic, occupying prime mid-band frequencies for vital but relatively low-throughput national security uses — including radars, satellite communications, navigation, and electronic warfare — even as those same bands could generate much larger commercial, allied, and strategic returns.The Pentagon understandably views spectrum through a national security lens, but the current allocation reflects less strategic optimization than a legacy of policy choices

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Presence or Capacity? The Coast Guard Can Have Both Through Small Boat Stations

Craig Johnson — Fri, 24 Apr 2026 07:30:17 +0000

Closing small boat stations has proven difficult. Leaving them unchanged is operationally inefficient. These units are enduring parts of the Coast Guard’s force structure, yet their full potential is not always realized. This article proposes a model to better align their mission with national priorities.During the recent Senate confirmation hearing for the next commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard, senators raised a wide range of global maritime concerns, including Arctic competition, cyber threats targeting ports, migration pressures, and increasingly severe storms. Yet the hearing repeatedly returned to a far more local subject: the Coast Guard units in senators’ backyards.Coast Guard

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Why Do Many Western Defense Tech Firms Struggle in Ukraine?

Michael Kofman — Thu, 23 Apr 2026 16:07:47 +0000

Michael Kofman joined Ryan at a live event earlier this year to discuss the performance of American defense technology in Ukraine and why it often falls short. They examine the challenges of fielding and iterating systems in combat, from poor implementation and weak feedback loops to deeper mismatches between design and battlefield reality. They also explore what it takes to succeed in this environment and what it means for future conflicts. Thanks to Leonid Capital Partners for hosting the event at which this podcast was recorded. Image: ArmyInform via Wikimedia Commons

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A Formal Defense Pact in the Indo-Pacific Is the Wrong Answer

Ryosuke Hanada — Thu, 23 Apr 2026 07:30:25 +0000

The debate over how best to deter China in the western Pacific has reached a new level of ambition. Ely Ratner, a former senior defense official in the Biden administration, proposed a “Pacific Defense Pact” — a legally binding multilateral treaty among the United States, Japan, Australia, and the Philippines. This reflects serious concerns over China’s rise and its potential future use of force along the first island chain. The underlying diagnosis is sound: Existing U.S. alliances in the region lack an integrated command and control structure and the collective responsiveness required to credibly deter China in a high-intensity conflict.

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Seeing the Cyber in Economic Statecraft

Jason Blessing — Thu, 23 Apr 2026 07:00:45 +0000

Editor’s note: This article is the seventh in an 11-part series examining how the United States should organize, lead, and integrate economic statecraft into strategy, defense practice, and the broader national security ecosystem. This special series is brought to you by the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies and War on the Rocks. Prior installments can be found at the War by Other Ledgers page.Americans lost nearly $21 billion to cybercrime in 2025, a new record for cyber-enabled economic losses. Private sector losses to malicious cyber activity regularly exceed $200 billion in a given year. Alongside criminal groups, state-sponsored hackers are increasingly targeting America’s pocketbook.

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Europe Might Sit Out In An Indo-Pacific War — But It Can’t Escape the Fallout

Paul van Hooft — Wed, 22 Apr 2026 17:30:31 +0000

In 2024, Paul van Hooft and Tim Sweijs wrote, “Two-Theater Tragedy: A Reluctant Europe Cannot Easily Escape a Sino-American War Over Taiwan,” where they argued a war in the Indo-Pacific would likely draw in and weaken Europe, even if European states try to remain on the sidelines. Two years later, amidst heightened tensions in both theaters, we asked Paul to revisit their arguments.Image: U.S. Naval Forces Europe-Africa/U.S. Sixth FleetIn your 2024 article, you argue a U.S.–Chinese war over Taiwan would inevitably draw in and weaken Europe, even if European states try to stay on the sidelines militarily. How does Europe’s recent

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When the Rules Fail: Tax Incentives and Defense Sustainment

Kevin Consedine — Wed, 22 Apr 2026 08:00:56 +0000

In the 1986 World Cup, Diego Maradona scored his infamous “Hand of God” goal — an obvious handball that went uncalled, because the referee did not have the tools to see it. Today, soccer has addressed that vulnerability with sensors and video review, ensuring the game is adjudicated fairly. U.S. defense industrial policy faces a similar challenge. In America’s defense industrial base, the issue is not a lack of oversight, but distorted incentives that steer work toward private vendors even when the organic industrial base is well-positioned to perform it. When the organic industrial base is deprived of work, it

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Resilience Without Capacity: The Fatal Flaw in America’s New Cyber Strategy

Jesse Humpal — Wed, 22 Apr 2026 07:30:15 +0000

What happens when a country develops a cyber strategy that depends on the capabilities it is actively cutting?The White House’s new cyber strategy offers exactly that kind of contradiction by pairing a strong vision for resilience and competition with policy choices that pull in the opposite direction. On the merits, it gets several important things right. It treats cyberspace as a domain of sustained strategic competition rather than a compliance problem. It puts unusual and welcome emphasis on national resilience. And it understands that offensive cyber action, paired with other tools of national power, should be part of any serious

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Why Iran Metabolizes the Pressure that Broke Venezuela

Rashed M. Aba-namay — Wed, 22 Apr 2026 07:15:27 +0000

The reality that regime change is not going to happen as a result of this war seems to have settled in at the White House. When American policymakers reflect and wonder why Iran did not react like Venezuela under pressure, they will not just be misreading Iran — they will be misreading how coercive pressure works. Iran’s resilience rests on internal and external pillars that a Venezuela comparison completely misses. Internally, the Supreme Leader’s authority is anchored in a theocratic order where religious legitimacy underwrites a sprawling economic system. At its center are the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and parastatal

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How the War in Iran Is Affecting Its Northern and Eastern Neighbors

Laura Linderman — Tue, 21 Apr 2026 17:30:41 +0000

When the U.S.–Israeli war with Iran began on Feb. 28, there were immediate impacts on the countries to Iran’s west — as Iran struck multiple Gulf Arab states and Jordan, Iraq absorbed direct attacks while facing renewed risks of internal stability, Israel launched intensive airstrikes and ground operations in Lebanon, and other countries and territories in the region struggled to cope with short-term and potential long-term ripple effects. However, Iran’s neighbors to its north and east are not immune to the risks — and opportunities — that the war poses. We asked five experts to assess the impact of the

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The United States Is Repeating Its Silicon Mistake with Gallium Nitride

Pradyot Yadav — Tue, 21 Apr 2026 08:00:13 +0000

China controls 99 percent of the world’s primary gallium, a critical mineral and semiconductor crucial for building the microchips of the future. In 2023, it placed export controls on gallium to retaliate against American restrictions on the export of advanced chips to China. In December 2024, China escalated to an outright ban on gallium exports to the United States. The U.S. National Defense Stockpile had zero gallium reserves when that ban landed.The United States has been here before. The United States pioneered and scaled modern silicon semiconductor infrastructure. A significant reliance on international manufacturing and the loss of domestic silicon

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I’m Sorry, Dave. I’m Afraid I Can’t De-escalate: On (AI) Wargaming and Nuclear War

Ankit Panda — Tue, 21 Apr 2026 07:30:50 +0000

Recent experiments placing large language models in simulated nuclear crises have produced alarming headlines. “Bloodthirsty” AI systems escalate conflicts, threaten nuclear strikes, and behave erratically under simulated pressure. A recent set of experiments presented in a pre-print paper from Kenneth Payne at King’s College London finds that across 95 percent of simulated games across 21 match-ups between three frontier models, at least one side engaged in nuclear signaling — with subsequent tactical nuclear use occurring in 95 percent of games and strategic nuclear threats in 76 percent. The study’s author describes the results as “sobering” and frames them as a

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What the War Against Iran Means for the U.S.-South Korean Alliance

Jihoon Yu — Tue, 21 Apr 2026 07:15:33 +0000

South Korea’s security is no longer confined to the peninsula. That is the real lesson from the standoff over the Strait of Hormuz. And if decision-makers in Seoul didn’t understand this before, they surely understand this now.The U.S.-South Korean alliance was built to deter North Korea, defend South Korea, and stabilize Northeast Asia. That mission remains indispensable, but a serious disruption in the Strait of Hormuz now hits South Korea directly through energy imports, shipping, industrial production, and economic confidence. For Seoul, this is not someone else’s regional crisis — it is a direct test of South Korean national resilience.

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When Identity Means Everything

WOTR Staff — Mon, 20 Apr 2026 17:00:08 +0000

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The F-35 Is a Masterpiece Built for the Wrong War

John G. Ferrari — Mon, 20 Apr 2026 08:00:36 +0000

Think of a violin made by a master craftsman: beautiful, precise, capable of extraordinary performance, but impossible to produce quickly or cheaply. It takes time, rare expertise, and materials that cannot be sourced at scale. You would not equip an entire orchestra with instruments like that. Yet that is essentially what the United States has attempted with its tactical air fleet.The F-35 program’s total lifetime cost is projected to exceed two trillion dollars, the most expensive Major Defense Acquisition Program in history. The United States plans to purchase thousands of them. Meanwhile, modern conflict, from Ukraine’s drone war to naval

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Iran and the Indispensable Broker: How Pakistan Outmaneuvers India on the World Stage

Farah Jan — Mon, 20 Apr 2026 07:30:06 +0000

In Sept. 2025, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia signed a mutual defense pact, formalizing what decades of quiet cooperation had already made real. The defense pact signed in Riyadh was presented in official communiqués as a natural deepening of bilateral ties. It was that, but it was also something larger: The latest installment in a pattern that has persisted for half a century and that continues to confound the logic of power politics. Pakistan, a state dependent on International Monetary Fund bailouts and outmatched conventionally by its larger neighbor, has once again positioned itself at the center of a consequential security

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Ceasefires and Communications

WOTR Staff — Fri, 17 Apr 2026 16:30:32 +0000

Welcome to The Adversarial. Every other week, we’ll provide you with expert analysis on America’s greatest challengers: China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, and jihadists. Read more below.***IranIn the space of less than 11 hours on April 7, President Donald Trump went from warning that “a whole civilization will die tonight” to announcing a two-week ceasefire with Iran. That whiplash-inducing turn was just a taste of the twists that would follow over the coming week. First came a resumption of negotiations mediated by Pakistan. With the presence of Vice President J.D. Vance and Iran’s parliamentary speaker, it marked the highest in-person engagement between the two sides

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How to Counter the Houthis Without Strengthening Them

Erin K. McFee — Fri, 17 Apr 2026 07:30:01 +0000

If the United States is drawn into another round of military action in Yemen, it ought to avoid the mistakes of the last decade. From about 2015 to last year, successive administrations backed Saudi‑ and Emirati‑led military campaigns, arms sales, and naval blockades that devastated civilians, deepened Yemen’s fragmentation, and perversely strengthened Houthi power and legitimacy instead of containing it.Instead, Washington should treat force as one tool within a broader political and economic strategy. Officially known as Ansar Allah (“Partisans of God”) and referred to here as the Houthis for ease of reference, the group is a Zaydi revivalist political-military

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