War on the Rocks

Contested Logistics and the “Last Unmanned Mile”

Tom Garvey — Wed, 19 Aug 2026 08:00:58 +0000

In a Pacific war, the U.S. military cannot assume uncontested access to its depots and supply lines for munitions, spare parts, food, water, and energy. Jonathan is joined by David Tuttle (Rune Technologies), Paul Lwin (HavocAI), and Tom Garvey (CACI) to discuss sustaining a dispersed force that’s facing enemy fire and lacks stable, secure communications. They debate autonomy versus automation, predictive resupply, where the data comes from, and which lessons from Ukraine transfer across theaters.Image: Sgt. Alora Finigan via DVIDS.

The post Contested Logistics and the “Last Unmanned Mile” appeared first on War on the Rocks.

Managed Instability: Why the Wars Against Iran and Ukraine Can Go On and On and On…

Alex Kolbin — Wed, 19 Aug 2026 07:30:50 +0000

The Iran war is beginning to resemble the Ukraine war in one important way. Operationally, the wars themselves are still very different — Ukraine is a large-scale ground invasion, while the Iran war is not there just yet. But their political logic after a failure to achieve a quick result is starting to look very similar. In both cases, a larger power expected its overwhelming military force to produce a quick political result. And in both cases, that expectation failed.The targeted state adapted, outside supporters helped it remain afloat, and both conflicts moved from the promise of a decisive outcome

The post Managed Instability: Why the Wars Against Iran and Ukraine Can Go On and On and On… appeared first on War on the Rocks.

Proving the Negative: Three Warnings from Arms Control for the Age of AI

Mark Daley — Wed, 19 Aug 2026 07:00:54 +0000

In early 1963, a single number characterized the difference in the positions of the United States and the Soviet Union on a comprehensive nuclear test ban. Nikita Khrushchev had proposed three on-site inspections each year. Washington was asking for seven. Other differences remained, including inspection procedures and treaty language. But the difference mattered: Seismology could not always distinguish an underground test from an earthquake, and inspections created both assurance and opportunities for espionage.Neither number had been delivered by a technical expert wielding a seismograph. Each represented a political judgment about how much residual uncertainty its government should accept. The negotiations

The post Proving the Negative: Three Warnings from Arms Control for the Age of AI appeared first on War on the Rocks.

How Feasible Is a European Nuclear Deterrent Without Washington?

James Cameron — Tue, 18 Aug 2026 19:45:41 +0000

In 2025, James Cameron wrote, “Eurodeterrent: A Vision for an Anglo-French Nuclear Force,” where he argued the United Kingdom and France should cooperate to develop a nuclear deterrent umbrella for Europe, independent of Washington. A year later, after French President Emmanuel Macron’s landmark nuclear speech, we asked him to revisit his argument. Image: SAC Rob Bourne/MODIn your 2025 article, you argued that, given Europe’s perceived uncertainty about the U.S. commitment to its security and defense, the United Kingdom and France should cooperate to develop a nuclear deterrent umbrella independent of Washington. In July 2025, the United Kingdom and France signed the Northwood Declaration, and

The post How Feasible Is a European Nuclear Deterrent Without Washington? appeared first on War on the Rocks.

AI and the Risks of Tearing Down an Old System

Jordan Kane — Tue, 18 Aug 2026 07:30:31 +0000

Operation Epic Fury made clear that AI is now at the heart of American warfighting. Central Command used Claude through Palantir’s Maven Smart System platform to generate and prioritize roughly 1,000 targets in the first 24 hours of the campaign, at an operational tempo that more than doubled the opening phase of the 2003 Iraq invasion. Over 38 days, the campaign reached 13,000 total strikes, according to Pentagon data. Project Maven says that the program has accelerated targeting even further to 5,000 in a single day. The question is whether the department can evaluate what it deploys before it deploys

The post AI and the Risks of Tearing Down an Old System appeared first on War on the Rocks.

Inside Brazil’s 3D-Printed Gun Supply Chain

Carlos Eduardo da Silva — Tue, 18 Aug 2026 07:00:57 +0000

On June 26, 2026, the Civil Police of Rio de Janeiro, through its specialized firearms, ammunition, and explosives unit, raided a clandestine workshop in Rio das Pedras, on the city’s west side. Investigators said the group used a 3D printer seized at the scene to produce pistol frames and structural rifle parts in polymer and then completed them with metal parts. Early reports described those parts as imported, but police said on the day of the raid that they were still determining the metal’s origin. Police described the operation’s main target as an international arms and ammunition trafficker who supplied

The post Inside Brazil’s 3D-Printed Gun Supply Chain appeared first on War on the Rocks.

The Tension Between Collectivism and Individualism in Ukraine

WOTR Staff — Mon, 17 Aug 2026 19:00:41 +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 StrategyОбозреватель

The post The Tension Between Collectivism and Individualism in Ukraine appeared first on War on the Rocks.

A Life in Army Special Operations, from Desert Storm to the Next War

Francis Beaudette — Mon, 17 Aug 2026 17:40:08 +0000

Lt. Gen. (ret.) Francis Beaudette, former commanding general of the U.S. Army Special Operations Command, joins Ryan to discuss how his family history, service, and books shaped his path into and time in the Army. Together, they talk through his years as a young officer during Operation Desert Storm, the wars that followed, the present and future challenges of special operations (and how they aren’t that different from the past), and the difficulty of learning the right lessons from the wars of today. Thanks to Legion Intelligence for sponsoring the event at which this episode was recorded.Image: ChatGPT

The post A Life in Army Special Operations, from Desert Storm to the Next War appeared first on War on the Rocks.

Blanchard’s Lathe and the Long Arc of American Manufacturing

Aubry Eaton — Mon, 17 Aug 2026 08:00:05 +0000

Emerging from the chaos of supplying the U.S. Army during the War of 1812, the War Department sought to foster domestic production of standardized muskets. Out of this industrial project arose an invention that laid the foundation for automation and mass production. Thomas Blanchard’s copying lathe was a product of a fluid interchange between public and private interests, expertise, and capital. Born into the mechanical milieu of the nineteenth-century Connecticut River Valley, Blanchard embodied the period’s spirit of ingenuity. His creation enabled complex, irregular three-dimensional wood forms to be manufactured at scale. Prior to the copying lathe, this was an artisanal task

The post Blanchard’s Lathe and the Long Arc of American Manufacturing appeared first on War on the Rocks.

What Have We Learned from the 9/11 Wars? Not Nearly Enough

Jonathan Schroden — Mon, 17 Aug 2026 07:30:08 +0000

Editor’s Note: The following article draws on themes from the author’s forthcoming book titled US Counterterrorism Operations in Afghanistan: Jackpots, Dry Holes, and Collateral Damage.Over the next month, the United States will pass two major historical milestones: the five-year anniversary of its withdrawal from Afghanistan and the 25-year anniversary of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. While the latter is likely to receive at least a modicum of respectful remembrance from U.S. leaders and the American public, the former is likely to be ignored by the U.S. government and to escape broader notice.These are painful milestones. Ones that are

The post What Have We Learned from the 9/11 Wars? Not Nearly Enough appeared first on War on the Rocks.

Cheap Drones, Dry Taps: The Iran War Opens a New Era of Water Infrastructure Risk

Gabriel Collins — Fri, 14 Aug 2026 07:30:30 +0000

Water and energy infrastructure have become one of Iran’s main levers of deterrence against the United States. Iranian Foreign Minister Aragchi recently made it clear to Gulf states that if the U.S. military renewed large-scale strikes on Iran, their critical infrastructure would be struck. Iranian forces’ operational history over the past six months confirmed the threat’s credibility.Kuwait first reported damage near a desalination plant early in Operation Epic Fury, when debris from an intercepted drone struck the Doha West facility. Then, on March 7 and 8, Iran claimed a desalination facility on Qeshm Island had been attacked, and in response,

The post Cheap Drones, Dry Taps: The Iran War Opens a New Era of Water Infrastructure Risk appeared first on War on the Rocks.

The Commercial Space Race

Rebekah Reed — Thu, 13 Aug 2026 18:14:06 +0000

A strong commercial space industry is an important partner for the U.S. government, as it contributes to building more robust space and defense capabilities and facilitates innovation more broadly. As competition between the United States and China heats up, both countries look to the commercial space sector to help them get ahead in both the space race and defense technologies. We asked five experts: What is a crucial step for the United States to take now to stay ahead in commercial space competition with China?Read more below.Rebekah ReedAssociate Director in the Belfer Center’s Program on Emerging Technology, Scientific Advancement, and

The post The Commercial Space Race appeared first on War on the Rocks.

The True Cost of Cheap Chips

Faisal Akhter — Thu, 13 Aug 2026 08:00:29 +0000

Given the relentless demand for computing power, electronic components are in scarce supply. Prices for certain memory chips, known as DRAM, have surged by more than 50 percent in a single quarter this year, and have roughly quadrupled since last fall. Because DRAM supply is tight, Apple, Dell, and HP are currently evaluating memory from ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT), a company the Pentagon has designated as a Chinese military company. Apple, in particular, has sought assurances from the U.S. government that CXMT will not face future sanctions that would cut off its supply. Apple justifies its request by pledging to

The post The True Cost of Cheap Chips appeared first on War on the Rocks.

2026 and All That: Another Benchmark Year in Royal Navy Decline

Steven Wills — Thu, 13 Aug 2026 07:30:49 +0000

The 1930 comic history, 1066 and All That, made famous the British habit of reducing national history to a sequence of memorable dates. The modern Royal Navy has its own unhappy version of that calendar. Since 1945, a series of ostensibly practical political decisions has steadily reduced Britain’s ability to sustain a globally relevant fleet: the 1956 failed Suez expedition, the 1966 retreat from “East of Suez,” the 1981 Nott Review, the 1998 Strategic Defence Review, and the 2010 review that further reduced the fleet even as Britain moved toward operating the long-desired Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers. The year 2026

The post 2026 and All That: Another Benchmark Year in Royal Navy Decline appeared first on War on the Rocks.

Russia’s Blurry Line Between Science and Sabotage Beneath the Ocean’s Surface

Nurlan Aliyev — Wed, 12 Aug 2026 17:30:08 +0000

In 2025, Nurlan Aliyev wrote, “The Mayhem of Russia’s “Research” Fleet,” where he argued that NATO must act decisively to safeguard critical undersea infrastructure from Russian sabotage attempts. A year later, we asked him to revisit his arguments. Image: Andrey Luzik via Wikimedia CommonsIn your 2025 article, you argued that NATO needed to act decisively to safeguard critical undersea infrastructure in the Baltic, Barents, and Arctic regions from Russian sabotage. Since then, where has NATO strengthened its deterrence and defense in this area, and where do gaps still remain? Since 2025, NATO and E.U. members have strengthened coordination to protect critical undersea infrastructure through

The post Russia’s Blurry Line Between Science and Sabotage Beneath the Ocean’s Surface appeared first on War on the Rocks.

Hyman Rickover and the Birth of Nuclear Power

Thane C. Clare — Wed, 12 Aug 2026 08:00:51 +0000

Editor’s note: This is the eighth article in a limited series celebrating American defense technologies born from wartime and their effects on broader national security, politics, and society. This series will run for several weeks to commemorate America’s 250th anniversary, and winners will be selected by a reader vote undertaken through our newsletter later this summer. Prior installments can be found at the Arsenal of Innovation page.For more than 70 years, nuclear power has propelled America’s silent service — attack submarines stalking their prey from below, and the “boomers” that lurk undetected, ballistic missiles on alert, forming the most survivable leg of the

The post Hyman Rickover and the Birth of Nuclear Power appeared first on War on the Rocks.

The Next School of War: Educating for Tomorrow’s Battlefield

Brig. Gen. Matthew Tracy — Wed, 12 Aug 2026 07:30:12 +0000

When war changes, schools change. New technology, the politics of mass mobilization and campaign design, and novel tactics that defined Napoleonic warfare led to Gerhard von Scharnhorst’s reforms and the idea of lifelong education as a professional obligation. The pattern repeated itself in the interwar period. In 1929, James Carson Breckinridge, a Marine officer, published “Some Thoughts on Service Schools” in the Marine Corps Gazette, calling for a new educational paradigm consistent with John Dewey’s ideas about pragmatism and experiential learning.War is again changing. The promise of the third offset has arrived, extending the battlefield and resulting in wars waged by

The post The Next School of War: Educating for Tomorrow’s Battlefield appeared first on War on the Rocks.

Who Pays for America’s Research and Development?

Cogs of War Staff — Tue, 11 Aug 2026 08:00:32 +0000

When the Soviet Union launched Sputnik in 1957, the U.S. government was the unrivaled patron of American science. It funded nearly two-thirds of the nation’s research and development — much of it for defense — defining the early Cold War. In a phenomenon that’s been widely explored in our Arsenal of Innovation series, for several decades federal dollars pushed the technological frontier, and the private sector followed.Today, that arrangement has been inverted. Industry now funds roughly three-quarters of U.S. research and development, while Washington’s share is less than a fifth. Because the cutting edge increasingly emerges from commercial labs, the

The post Who Pays for America’s Research and Development? appeared first on War on the Rocks.

Putting Armageddon on Autopilot: How Artificial Intelligence Could Make Nuclear Threats More Effective

Joshua Schwartz — Tue, 11 Aug 2026 07:30:08 +0000

Nine countries now possess nuclear weapons. Arms control agreements painstakingly built over decades have collapsed. Geopolitical competition is intensifying rivalries between nuclear-armed powers. North Korea continues expanding its arsenal and delivery systems. China is on a trajectory to go from roughly 600 warheads today to around 1,500 by 2035. Meanwhile, Russia bears most of the responsibility for the expiration of New START and is developing an array of exotic new nuclear delivery systems designed to circumvent missile defenses. This includes nuclear-powered and nuclear-armed cruise missiles and underwater drones, hypersonic glide vehicles, and a nuclear-armed anti-satellite weapon. Although most recent focus

The post Putting Armageddon on Autopilot: How Artificial Intelligence Could Make Nuclear Threats More Effective appeared first on War on the Rocks.

The White House Is Right on AI. Now Let Defenders Use It.

Cory Ondrejka — Tue, 11 Aug 2026 07:00:52 +0000

The White House has the right instinct on AI. Its June 5 National Security Presidential Memorandum commits the government to putting the most capable models in the hands of national security professionals “without delay.” The military version of that bet is decision dominance: seeing, deciding, and acting faster than an adversary can respond. Recently, we saw a live test of how far the commitment reaches.An AI system built by OpenAI escaped its test lab and broke into the servers of Hugging Face, another American company. When Hugging Face’s security team went to investigate, safety controls on the commercial AI services

The post The White House Is Right on AI. Now Let Defenders Use It. appeared first on War on the Rocks.

Is Ukraine Drifting Towards Groupthink on European Integration?

WOTR Staff — Mon, 10 Aug 2026 17:45:16 +0000

The post Is Ukraine Drifting Towards Groupthink on European Integration? appeared first on War on the Rocks.

What America Learned About Democracy When It Gained Stealth

T. Nelson Collier — Mon, 10 Aug 2026 08:00:41 +0000

Editor’s note: This is the seventh article in a limited series celebrating American defense technologies born from wartime and their effects on broader national security, politics, and society. This series will run for several weeks to commemorate America’s 250th anniversary, and winners will be selected by a reader vote undertaken through our newsletter later this summer. Prior installments can be found at the Arsenal of Innovation page.On the night of 24 March 1999, U.S. pilots flying 15,000 feet or more above the Balkans released precision-guided munitions, or “smart bombs,” onto military targets in Yugoslavia, beginning Operation Allied Force. The U.S.-led NATO operation carried

The post What America Learned About Democracy When It Gained Stealth appeared first on War on the Rocks.

Why Military Cooperation in the Indian Ocean Still Falls Short

Rebecca Strating — Mon, 10 Aug 2026 07:30:32 +0000

The United States has bluntly signaled a deprioritization of the Indian Ocean at a peculiar time. The reversion of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command to its former name, U.S. Pacific Command, signifies no material change in force posture or organizational responsibilities, but it unavoidably signals less focus on the Indian Ocean, presumably in favor of its consistent top priority in the western Pacific, although it’s not clear anyone really knows.The recent closure and persistent uncertainty over the Strait of Hormuz have underscored the fragility of international shipping lanes that traverse the ocean, especially in Asia, where most countries relied on oil shipped

The post Why Military Cooperation in the Indian Ocean Still Falls Short appeared first on War on the Rocks.

Why Conflict Gold Sanctions Fail

Amanda Kadlec — Mon, 10 Aug 2026 07:00:36 +0000

In April 2026, over a month after the United States launched its attack on Iran, leading to thousands of reprisal strikes across the Gulf, the United Arab Emirates shut down a network of money changers connected to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Iranian exchange houses and the shell companies built around them — vehicles for laundering billions in offshore Dubai-based holdings and funneling funds to help Iran evade sanctions — are reported to have knowingly operated on Emirati soil for over a decade.Washington’s pivotal Gulf ally proved useful in the fallout of the Iran war. Emirati authorities finally cracked down

The post Why Conflict Gold Sanctions Fail appeared first on War on the Rocks.

Warlords of Greece: Warfare in Homer’s World

Josho Brouwers — Fri, 07 Aug 2026 07:30:12 +0000

The Iliad and Odyssey have shaped Western ideas of heroism for nearly three millennia. Yet despite centuries of debate over whether they reflect historical reality or poetic fantasy, the Homeric world remains an internally consistent universe worth studying on its own terms. This isn’t about separating fact from fiction: it’s about understanding the warrior ethos that dominated the ancient Greek and Roman imagination, and how battles were truly fought in the world of Achilles, Hector, and Odysseus.The release of Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey in cinemas has led to a resurgence in public interest in the original source material. In ancient

The post Warlords of Greece: Warfare in Homer’s World appeared first on War on the Rocks.

How Can U.S. Special Operations Forces Help Defeat China on Taiwan?

Brian Petit — Fri, 07 Aug 2026 07:00:55 +0000

It is conceivable that in one blistering campaign, the People’s Republic of China could invade, occupy, and forcibly annex Taiwan. One question would dominate the post-occupation debate: “What more could have been done?” The obvious answers will be better intelligence, bigger exercises, more weapons. One underexamined answer is a different model for U.S. special operations forces advising.The United States has spent decades using rotational military teams to train foreign partners. This approach is sustainable and useful for specific tactical tasks, but it is poorly suited to the institutional, linguistic, and political work required to help Taiwan prepare for a prolonged

The post How Can U.S. Special Operations Forces Help Defeat China on Taiwan? appeared first on War on the Rocks.

Attacks, Deals, and Discontent

WOTR Staff — Thu, 06 Aug 2026 18:15:30 +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.***IranOver the last two weeks, President Donald Trump repeatedly threatened major attacks on Iran. Going into the weekend, multiple news outlets reported that he was mulling a major bombing campaign — which would almost certainly result in retaliatory strikes against U.S. bases and allies around the region. But late Saturday night, Trump asserted that a deal was in the works to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, based on which he would hold fire for the

The post Attacks, Deals, and Discontent appeared first on War on the Rocks.

Does Latent Nuclear Deterrence Really Work?

Matthew Fuhrmann — Thu, 06 Aug 2026 15:00:27 +0000

In 2025, Matthew Fuhrmann wrote, “U.S. Allies and Adversaries Are Attempting Nuclear Deterrence Without Weapons – Will It Work?,” where he argued countries don’t always need to go as far as actually building nuclear weapons to reap the benefits of nuclear deterrence. A year later, we asked Matthew to revisit his arguments.Image: MidjourneyIn your 2025 article, you argued countries don’t necessarily have to follow through with building nuclear weapons to reap the benefits of nuclear deterrence, a strategy you called latent nuclear deterrence. Which countries do you think stand to gain the most from this strategy, given the significant and,

The post Does Latent Nuclear Deterrence Really Work? appeared first on War on the Rocks.

The Arsenal and the Statehouse: New Defense Firms, Venture Capital and State Industrial Policy

Joshua Alley — Thu, 06 Aug 2026 08:00:09 +0000

When Anduril announced a $910 million drone production facility in Ohio, it was not politics as usual. The main message came from Ohio’s governor, Mike DeWine, while Representative Mike Carey’s press release thanked the governor. Members of Congress usually take substantial credit for defense industrial jobs, but Carey did not because he could not. Anduril sited Arsenal-1 near Columbus partially because of state subsidies.New defense firms backed by venture financing and state economic development subsidies have given states a political stake in the most innovative portion of federal defense procurement. New entrants promise and sometimes deliver fast, commercial solutions. Subsidies

The post The Arsenal and the Statehouse: New Defense Firms, Venture Capital and State Industrial Policy appeared first on War on the Rocks.

The Blood Price: In Israel, Military Sacrifice Is Becoming Political Power

Guy Ziv — Thu, 06 Aug 2026 07:30:42 +0000

In late June, cadets at the Israeli military’s officer training school sat through a lecture by Ofer Winter, a retired brigadier general and a polarizing figure in the Israel Defense Forces. According to Haaretz, Winter told the future officers that “there are no uninvolved civilians in Gaza” and accused two former chiefs of staff of politically blocking his career. Regulations prohibit political activity in training programs, and the Israeli military later called the episode a failure. The cadets who spoke to Haaretz, however, described this politically charged lecture as part of a pattern of guest speakers drawn overwhelmingly from the

The post The Blood Price: In Israel, Military Sacrifice Is Becoming Political Power appeared first on War on the Rocks.

Beyond Hormuz: The Future of Maritime Chokepoints

Patrick Cronin — Wed, 05 Aug 2026 17:30:07 +0000

Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz and efforts to extract payments for safe passage — plus, more recently, the Houthis’ move to attack Saudi shipping through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait — have highlighted the risks of maritime chokepoints to global shipping and raised questions about the future for freedom of navigation. The impacts extend beyond the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea, so we asked five experts to consider the implications for several other crucial waterways: the Strait of Malacca, the Taiwan Strait, the Panama Canal, the Suez Canal, and the Turkish Straits.Read more below.Patrick M. CroninAsia-Pacific Security Chair

The post Beyond Hormuz: The Future of Maritime Chokepoints appeared first on War on the Rocks.

Why Trump’s Israel Normalization Demand May Kill the Saudi Nuclear Deal

H. A. Hellyer — Wed, 05 Aug 2026 07:30:49 +0000

Only days after the Trump administration celebrated what it called a landmark civilian nuclear agreement with Saudi Arabia, the president himself appeared to place the entire arrangement in jeopardy. In a Truth Social post, President Donald Trump declared the deal “totally subject” to Saudi Arabia joining the Abraham Accords and normalizing with Israel — a condition absent from the administration’s own announcement barely a day earlier. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt then confirmed that, without normalization, “the deal is off.”The reversal was striking not simply because it resurrected a condition Washington had already concluded was ineffective, as Saudi Arabia

The post Why Trump’s Israel Normalization Demand May Kill the Saudi Nuclear Deal appeared first on War on the Rocks.

Beyond the Output Trap: Haiti and the Future of International Stabilization

Philippe de Bard — Wed, 05 Aug 2026 07:00:33 +0000

Five years after the assassinations in Haiti of Monferrier Dorval, Diego Charles, and Antoinette Duclaire, justice remains elusive. Four years after the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse, accountability is still incomplete. Yet international reporting on Haiti continues to foreground outputs: workshops on gender and youth participation, deployments, and decrees. International organizations, including the United Nations, and the donor community measure what they do. Meanwhile, the Haitian public measures what actually changes.Call this the output trap: Missions demonstrate progress in outputs without delivering comparable gains in outcomes. Closing that gap requires making outcomes, not outputs, the measure of success. I examine

The post Beyond the Output Trap: Haiti and the Future of International Stabilization appeared first on War on the Rocks.

A Conversation with the Pentagon’s Chief Buyer, Under Secretary Michael P. Duffey

Michael P. Duffey — Tue, 04 Aug 2026 08:00:41 +0000

Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment Michael P. Duffey joins Jonathan to discuss the Pentagon’s ongoing acquisition transformation. Their conversation spans the recent munitions agreements, industry investments, the shift to portfolio acquisition executives, allied coproduction, and more.Image: Cpl. Sarah Grawcock via DVIDS.

The post A Conversation with the Pentagon’s Chief Buyer, Under Secretary Michael P. Duffey appeared first on War on the Rocks.

Is Washington Rewriting the North American Trade Agreement Around China?

Daniel Rechtschaffen — Tue, 04 Aug 2026 07:30:43 +0000

Washington has repeatedly used trade policy and U.S. market access over the past decade to advance broader economic security priorities with its trading partners. The Trump administration’s decision not to renew the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement on July 1, during a mandatory six-year review, is the latest example of this approach. Despite the inclusion in the U.S. trade representative’s announcement that deficits were a prevailing concern, conversations with industry sources and past statements by the administration indicate that ongoing negotiations increasingly focus on limiting Chinese supply chain inputs by embedding economic security principles into the continent’s trade architecture. Incorporating provisions like investment screening,

The post Is Washington Rewriting the North American Trade Agreement Around China? appeared first on War on the Rocks.

Why Egypt’s Opinion of Ukraine Matters, Now and Later

WOTR Staff — Mon, 03 Aug 2026 17:30:14 +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 StrategyФокус —

The post Why Egypt’s Opinion of Ukraine Matters, Now and Later appeared first on War on the Rocks.

How to Stop China from Freeriding on American AI

Ryan Fedasiuk — Mon, 03 Aug 2026 08:00:32 +0000

The release of the Chinese open-weight AI model Kimi K3 has compressed a year’s worth of unresolved AI policy debate into a single news cycle. On July 21, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent threatened sanctions against Chinese labs found to have built their models on “theft,” reporting that the government is “finding watermarks of our U.S. large language models on many of the Chinese models.” The following day, White House science advisor Michael Kratsios clarified that the Chinese AI lab behind K3, Moonshot AI, had built a sophisticated platform to copy Anthropic’s Fable model while evading detection.Industry has been vocal about

The post How to Stop China from Freeriding on American AI appeared first on War on the Rocks.

Possible Is Not Plausible: How Nightmare Scenarios Hijack Unconventional Weapons Policy

April Arnold — Mon, 03 Aug 2026 07:30:16 +0000

Current conversations surrounding unconventional weapons — chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear — have become so fantastical as to be unserious. As the Chinese military fundamentally rethinks biological warfare and Russia continues to use chloropicrin in Ukraine, hypothetical scenarios of AI-enabled bioweapons dominate the headlines. If national security leaders and unconventional weapons experts continue to prioritize latent potentialities of emerging technology over current trends, U.S. national security will once again run the risk of being unprepared for an actual chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear incident.Executive agencies and Congress have drastically cut down opportunities for successful unconventional weapons policy formation by eliminating

The post Possible Is Not Plausible: How Nightmare Scenarios Hijack Unconventional Weapons Policy appeared first on War on the Rocks.

The Atlantic Brief: The Strait of Hormuz and the Future of Free Navigation

Andrew Burns — Fri, 31 Jul 2026 20:27:03 +0000

In February 2026, the United States and Israel initiated a war in the Middle East against Iran. Since then, the warring sides have oscillated between strikes, a fragile ceasefire, and the blocking of the Strait of Hormuz. Open hostilities resumed in mid-July. More recently, the Houthis in Yemen have threatened Saudi shipping through the Bab al-Mandab, raising the risk to shipping through that critical waterway.For the first webinar of The Atlantic Brief, War on the Rocks and the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) present a dialogue on the Strait of Hormuz and the future of free navigation, exploring the consequences

The post The Atlantic Brief: The Strait of Hormuz and the Future of Free Navigation appeared first on War on the Rocks.

Can Cyber Operations Be Deterred? What Wargames Reveal

Ruby Booth — Thu, 30 Jul 2026 07:30:39 +0000

The most successful deterrent threats leave no evidence behind. No missiles fly. No networks go down. No troops cross borders. Nothing happens. For policymakers, that is often the desired outcome. For researchers, it is a nightmare. Imagine, however, being able to observe a decision-maker preparing to attack, receiving a deterrent threat, and then changing their mind. That moment — the instant deterrence succeeds — is arguably the most important observation in international security. It is also one we almost never see.We can see its failure: the red line crossed, the chemical weapons used, the invasion that follows from “military exercises.”

The post Can Cyber Operations Be Deterred? What Wargames Reveal appeared first on War on the Rocks.

How Mexico Locked In Its Militarized Police State

Andrew Ivey — Wed, 29 Jul 2026 17:30:17 +0000

In 2021, Andrew Ivey wrote, “‘I Have Other Data’: The Guardia Nacional and the Entrenchment of Mexico’s Militarization’,” where he warned Mexico was headed toward a militarization trap. Five years later, amidst increased pressure from the Trump administration and the election of a new Mexican president, we asked Andrew to revisit his arguments.Image: Sitio Oficial de Andrés Manuel López ObradorIn your 2021 article, you warned that Mexico was headed toward an entrenched militarization trap. In 2024, the Chamber of Deputies passed a constitutional reform formally placing the National Guard under military control, with President Claudia Sheinbaum embracing the change. Has

The post How Mexico Locked In Its Militarized Police State appeared first on War on the Rocks.

ASML’s Extreme Ultraviolet Lithography and the Limits of Reverse Engineering in China

Andrea Gilli — Wed, 29 Jul 2026 08:00:20 +0000

In June, the U.S. Department of Commerce informed the Dutch company ASML that it suspects one of its extreme ultraviolet lithography machines has reached China, an accusation that ASML denied, and for which no supporting evidence has yet been made public. ASML is the sole global producer of the machines capable of making the most advanced microchips. Whether China obtained a full extreme ultraviolet lithography scanner, major subsystems, or just related components, the strategic question is the same: How much can China gain from physical access to these pieces of the technology?The U.S. concern presumably spans across several dimensions, but

The post ASML’s Extreme Ultraviolet Lithography and the Limits of Reverse Engineering in China appeared first on War on the Rocks.

Parsing Trump’s Decision to (Maybe) Give Uranium Enrichment to Saudi Arabia

Richard Nephew — Wed, 29 Jul 2026 07:30:23 +0000

On June 22, the United States announced that it had signed a nuclear cooperation agreement with Saudi Arabia. This type of agreement broadly authorizes trade in nuclear technology, equipment, and materials, but only if the agreement and the country in question meet defined nonproliferation requirements. They are called Section 123 agreements for the section of the 1957 U.S. Atomic Energy Act that lays out the specific conditions for them. But the legal terms of Section 123 are only the minimum requirements in law: On top of the legal standards are nonproliferation policies that have been held by the United States

The post Parsing Trump’s Decision to (Maybe) Give Uranium Enrichment to Saudi Arabia appeared first on War on the Rocks.

Key Areas Where Water Scarcity Intensifies Risks of Conflict

David Michel — Tue, 28 Jul 2026 17:30:22 +0000

Water disputes can directly drive conflict, but more often, water scarcity acts as a catalyst — one that, combined with other pressures, raises the risk of conflict. This is nothing new; water has shaped human conflict for millennia. What’s changed is the accumulation of stress, as climate change, population growth, human migration, and the intensive demands of agriculture and industry are converging to strain water systems in ways that threaten to exacerbate instability. However, examples of governments cooperating to manage scarce resources also suggest that conflict over water is not inevitable.Water scarcity contributes to the risk of conflict in many

The post Key Areas Where Water Scarcity Intensifies Risks of Conflict appeared first on War on the Rocks.

The Octane Revolution: How Jimmy Doolittle Catalyzed a Wartime Industry

Aidan Poling — Tue, 28 Jul 2026 08:00:30 +0000

Editor’s note: This is the sixth article in a limited series celebrating American defense technologies born from wartime and their effects on broader national security, politics, and society. This series will run for several weeks to commemorate America’s 250th anniversary, and winners will be selected by a reader vote undertaken through our newsletter later this summer. Prior installments can be found at the Arsenal of Innovation page.The impact of chance and poor logistics on warfare is especially acute when a battle or campaign is a close-run thing, as it was over the skies of England in 1940. After all, for want of a

The post The Octane Revolution: How Jimmy Doolittle Catalyzed a Wartime Industry appeared first on War on the Rocks.

The First Waves of Amphibious Assault Will Be Unmanned

Brian Kerg — Tue, 28 Jul 2026 07:30:09 +0000

In the Pacific War, the U.S. Navy’s underwater demolition teams prepared the way for U.S. and allied amphibious landings on enemy-held islands. Through beach reconnaissance, obstacle breaching, mine clearance, and other missions, these teams paved paths for the first waves of amphibious assaults conducted by naval task forces and subsequent landings by marines and soldiers throughout the island hopping campaign. These critical first steps of an amphibious operation were incredibly risky in World War II. And the underwater demolition teams, which were the predecessors of the Navy SEALs, were understandably proud of their work. The Marine Corps prided itself on being first to hit the beach. And when marines did hit the beach, they often

The post The First Waves of Amphibious Assault Will Be Unmanned appeared first on War on the Rocks.

How Orbán’s Fall Changed Serbia’s Political Future

Liudmila Listrovaya — Tue, 28 Jul 2026 07:15:25 +0000

In the speech announcing his invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, Vladimir Putin took only minutes to arrive at the original sin in his catalogue of Western crimes. Before Iraq, before Libya, before Syria, came Belgrade: “First a bloody military operation was waged against Belgrade, without the U.N. Security Council’s sanction but with combat aircraft and missiles used in the heart of Europe.” The placement was not incidental, as Putin was telling Serbs that Russia’s war in Ukraine and NATO’s bombing of Yugoslavia belonged to the same story, and that he, unlike the West, remembered. Aleksandar Vučić has been

The post How Orbán’s Fall Changed Serbia’s Political Future appeared first on War on the Rocks.

Zelensky’s Political Storm Starts to Clear

WOTR Staff — Mon, 27 Jul 2026 16:45:07 +0000

The post Zelensky’s Political Storm Starts to Clear appeared first on War on the Rocks.

Taiwan’s Tech Hurdles Threaten Military Capability and Potential Coalition Defense

Fanny Chao — Mon, 27 Jul 2026 08:00:25 +0000

Taiwan produces the world’s most advanced semiconductors, yet the island’s own military is only in the opening stages of adopting artificial intelligence systems. This mismatch bears directly on Taiwan’s ability to deter Chinese aggression.Beijing is pushing to develop and field sophisticated AI-enabled military capabilities. Given China’s focus on “reuniting” with Taiwan, the Taiwanese military could be the first to contend with the People’s Liberation Army’s emerging defense technologies during a potential conflict. Should the United States, and possibly allied forces, come to the island’s defense, a coalition would benefit from having access to AI-enabled military systems that share data and

The post Taiwan’s Tech Hurdles Threaten Military Capability and Potential Coalition Defense appeared first on War on the Rocks.

Why Norway and Finland Should Preserve Two of Europe’s Most Important Security Arrangements

Douglas Peifer — Mon, 27 Jul 2026 07:30:26 +0000

Svalbard is a stark archipelago of glaciers and coal mines lying 650 kilometers (403 miles) north of Norway’s North Cape, roughly halfway between the Norwegian mainland and the North Pole. It belongs to Norway but is governed under a 1920 treaty that grants nationals of more than 40 signatory states sweeping economic rights while barring Oslo from constructing naval bases or using the archipelago for “warlike” purposes. Far to the south, in the Baltic Sea between the Finnish and Swedish coasts, lie the Åland Islands, which are composed of roughly 6,500 islands and reefs. They are also home to 30,000

The post Why Norway and Finland Should Preserve Two of Europe’s Most Important Security Arrangements appeared first on War on the Rocks.

Global Risks Heating Up

WOTR Staff — Fri, 24 Jul 2026 17:45:02 +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.***IranThe U.S.-Iranian ceasefire agreed in April began deteriorating — and the Memorandum of Understanding signed on June 17 — ramping up to a near-constant exchange of hostilities in early July. On July 10, Trump declared that the ceasefire was over. The United States resumed its naval blockade and has been striking Iranian soil on a daily basis. Iran has targeted vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz while launching drones and missiles at Arab Gulf states

The post Global Risks Heating Up appeared first on War on the Rocks.

Before a Cyber Force, Fix Cyber Governance

Justin Hardy — Fri, 24 Jul 2026 07:30:15 +0000

Let’s not start picking out uniforms just yet. The chorus calling for a Cyber Force continues to grow by the day, but the debate has its priorities backward. In June, an amendment from Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) calling for the creation of a cyber service within the Department of the Army failed in the Senate Armed Services Committee by a single vote. Support is popular on both sides of the aisle, with Rep. Pat Fallon (R-TX) quoted as saying that a “Cyber Force is inevitable.” The highly anticipated June 2026 Center for Strategic and International Studies report skips the question of whether the Department needs a Cyber Force and

The post Before a Cyber Force, Fix Cyber Governance appeared first on War on the Rocks.

Chaotic Progress: European NATO’s Quest for Stronger Defense

Max Bergmann — Thu, 23 Jul 2026 20:00:19 +0000

In 2024, Max Bergmann wrote, “NATO Missed a Chance to Transform Itself,” where he argued NATO’s leadership needs to facilitate a strong European pillar of the alliance through structural reforms in European institutions. Two years later, we asked Max to revisit his arguments.Image: The White House via Wikimedia CommonsIn 2024, you argued NATO’s own leadership should facilitate a European pillar. Two years later, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte told the European Parliament that anyone who thinks Europe can defend itself without the United States is dreaming, drawing public pushback from European leaders. Does that rift suggest NATO’s leadership is blocking progress on

The post Chaotic Progress: European NATO’s Quest for Stronger Defense appeared first on War on the Rocks.

America Needs an Off-Ramp Between Doing Nothing and Shutting AI Down

Martijn Rasser — Thu, 23 Jul 2026 08:00:26 +0000

For 18 days in June, two of America’s most capable AI models went dark worldwide, not for technical or business reasons, but because the U.S. government ordered it. On June 12, 2026, the Commerce Department informed Anthropic that its Fable 5 and Mythos 5 models could no longer be provided to any foreign person without a license, and the company concluded that compliance meant shutting the models down for everyone. Public access to Fable 5 was restored on June 30.The United States doesn’t have a trusted, standardized process for evaluating the security risks of frontier AI models or proportionate remedies

The post America Needs an Off-Ramp Between Doing Nothing and Shutting AI Down appeared first on War on the Rocks.

The King of Cool: Mobile Refrigeration and the Remaking of Global Logistics

Caitlan Fealing — Thu, 23 Jul 2026 07:45:53 +0000

Editor’s note: This is the fifth article in a limited series celebrating American defense technologies born from wartime and their effects on broader national security, politics, and society. This series will run for several weeks to commemorate America’s 250th anniversary, and winners will be selected by a reader vote undertaken through our newsletter later this summer. Prior installments can be found at the Arsenal of Innovation page.Have you ever wondered how the United States transitioned from only having local fresh produce to an abundance of perishable goods available year-round across the country, even during the off-season? Today, almost $3 trillion (roughly 2.7

The post The King of Cool: Mobile Refrigeration and the Remaking of Global Logistics appeared first on War on the Rocks.

The Importance of the Invasion of Sicily

Steven T. Barry — Thu, 23 Jul 2026 07:30:48 +0000

On July 10, 1943, the Allied invasion of Sicily — codenamed Operation Husky — put more assault troops ashore on its first day than the Normandy landings would 11 months later. Despite the scale of these amphibious and vertical assaults on the Mediterranean’s largest island, the images most carry of this campaign come from a movie: Patton. In the 1970 film, U.S. Lt. Gen. George S. Patton wins the race to Messina and waits, smirking, as British Lt. Gen. Bernard Montgomery’s column rolls in late. The scene is an invention that reduces the campaign to a duel between two generals’

The post The Importance of the Invasion of Sicily appeared first on War on the Rocks.

Total War on Taipei: China Explores Elevating Cognitive Effects into Its Vision of Warfare

Howard Wang — Wed, 22 Jul 2026 07:30:49 +0000

In March 2025, China’s military researchers published a concept describing how to rapidly capture and subdue the city of Taipei. Distributed in restricted military channels, this approach argues Beijing can achieve victory “by blocking the city’s ability to receive external assistance, restricting its ability to enable operations, breaking its operational system, collapsing cognitive cohesion, and eliminating its ability to recover.” Its objective is to break the Taiwan people’s will to fight.While this concept is not yet doctrine, it is an important and rarely seen example of how China’s military strategy and research inform the way it plans to fight a

The post Total War on Taipei: China Explores Elevating Cognitive Effects into Its Vision of Warfare appeared first on War on the Rocks.

How Ukraine Put Russia on the Backfoot

Michael Kofman — Tue, 21 Jul 2026 18:43:04 +0000

Ukraine’s expanding use of drones at all ranges has changed the war’s momentum. This episode examines how Kyiv is reaching deeper into Russian territory, disrupting operations and logistics as well as energy infrastructure. How is Russia adapting (or not)? Can these strikes produce lasting advantages on the battlefield? Will this force Russia to escalate? Mike Kofman and Dara Massicot join Ryan to discuss.This episode is brought to you by Booz Allen. Learn more at warontherocks.com/boozallen.Image: ArmyInform

The post How Ukraine Put Russia on the Backfoot appeared first on War on the Rocks.

How the War with Iran is Shaping Key U.S. Relations Beyond the Middle East

Jenny Town — Tue, 21 Jul 2026 18:30:04 +0000

The U.S. war with Iran has had political, economic, and military implications that spread far beyond the Middle East. We asked five experts to assess how the war with Iran has affected U.S. bilateral relations with key countries that illustrate some of the global ramifications: South Korea, India, Ukraine, France, and the United Kingdom.Read more below. Jenny Town Senior Fellow at the Stimson Center and the Director of 38 NorthSouth Korea has resisted aiding U.S. military operations to forcefully reopen the Strait of Hormuz, pledging other forms of political and logistical support instead. This has, at times, drawn harsh criticism from President Donald Trump. It has also

The post How the War with Iran is Shaping Key U.S. Relations Beyond the Middle East appeared first on War on the Rocks.

Rebuilding America’s Critical Minerals Base

Alex Grant — Tue, 21 Jul 2026 08:00:31 +0000

There’s a clear consensus that America hollowed out its critical minerals base. How to rebuild it is less settled. Alex Grant of Magrathea Metals and Wes Spurlock of Principal Mineral join Jonathan to discuss the processing technology, labor force, and how government can catalyze private capital investment in the sector rather than replace it.Image: U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission via Wikimedia Commons.

The post Rebuilding America’s Critical Minerals Base appeared first on War on the Rocks.

Learning from the ‘Voyage of the Damned’: The Making of a Russian Naval Disaster

Steven Wills — Tue, 21 Jul 2026 07:30:35 +0000

Editorial Note: The dates cited in Eugene Politovsky’s account are from the old Russian Orthodox calendar, which is 13 days behind that of the (Gregorian) calendar system used in this article.A recent War on the Rocks article on the failure of the Spanish Reserve Fleet to prepare for war with the United States in 1898 offers a useful point of entry into what may be the most significant issue of poor fleet readiness ahead of a major battle. Fought on May 27, 1905, the Battle of Tsushima ended in the destruction or capture of nearly the entire Russian Baltic Fleet,

The post Learning from the ‘Voyage of the Damned’: The Making of a Russian Naval Disaster appeared first on War on the Rocks.

Corruption Takes Center Stage in Ukraine’s National Conversation

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

The post Corruption Takes Center Stage in Ukraine’s National Conversation appeared first on War on the Rocks.

Before Q-Day: The Race to Quantum First

Mauritz Kop — Mon, 20 Jul 2026 08:00:11 +0000

Somewhere, a hard drive is filling up with secrets no one can read yet, and its owner is waiting for the machine that opens them all at once. On March 30, 2026, that wait got shorter.Two independent research teams lowered the public estimates for breaking the encryption that secures banking, communications, and classified traffic. One showed that Shor’s algorithm, the quantum method for factoring the large numbers behind public-key encryption, could run at cryptographically relevant scale with as few as 10,000 reconfigurable neutral-atom qubits. Google Quantum AI, with the Ethereum Foundation and Stanford, put the threshold for breaking elliptic-curve encryption

The post Before Q-Day: The Race to Quantum First appeared first on War on the Rocks.

The Make-or-Buy Line has Moved

Jacob Green — Mon, 20 Jul 2026 07:30:44 +0000

The secretary of defense’s November announcement on acquisition reform laid out an unprecedented vision across the entire acquisition spectrum to improve the delivery speed of critical capabilities to our warfighters. One foundational pillar is the implementation of a commercial first policy, which laid out several initiatives: leveraging existing but less often used acquisition authorities, maximizing non-traditional contract vehicles, and increasing the use of more flexible solicitations. Most critically, it drives a commercial solution-first paradigm. If the immediate commercial solution isn’t sufficient, acquisition officers then find ways to modify it. If that approach does not work, then and only then do

The post The Make-or-Buy Line has Moved appeared first on War on the Rocks.

The Fedorov Dismissal: On Trust, Technology, and Turnover

WOTR Staff — Fri, 17 Jul 2026 17:30:33 +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.Western 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.This week,

The post The Fedorov Dismissal: On Trust, Technology, and Turnover appeared first on War on the Rocks.

The Fedorov Dismissal: On Trust, Technology, and Turnover

WOTR Staff — Fri, 17 Jul 2026 16:30:52 +0000

Welcome to The Ukraine Compass, a weekly digest of Ukrainian commentary from across the political spectrum.Every Monday, War on the Rocks members get a curated selection of op-eds and editorials from Ukrainian-language media to understand how Ukrainians themselves debate the biggest issues shaping their country. Western coverage of Ukraine often narrows to the battlefield; these pieces widen the view to daily life, politics, and public argument in a nation at war.A typical edition provides roughly a dozen pieces sorted into five categories: Frontline and Strategy, Allies and Diplomacy, Domestic Politics, Economy, and Society and Culture — closing with detailed Editor’s

The post The Fedorov Dismissal: On Trust, Technology, and Turnover appeared first on War on the Rocks.

The Blood Bank and the Logistics of Wartime Medicine

Naveen Krishnan — Fri, 17 Jul 2026 08:00:21 +0000

Editor’s note: This is the fourth article in a limited series celebrating American defense technologies born from wartime and their effects on broader national security, politics, and society. This series will run for several weeks to commemorate America’s 250th anniversary, and winners will be selected by a reader vote undertaken through our newsletter later this summer. Prior installments can be found at the Arsenal of Innovation page.Before the twentieth century gave armies antibiotics, the leading killer of American soldiers in wartime was neither enemy fire nor shrapnel. Two-thirds of the roughly 620,000 deaths in the U.S. Civil War came from diseases like

The post The Blood Bank and the Logistics of Wartime Medicine appeared first on War on the Rocks.

Broken Drone, Far from Home: The Case for Overseas Autonomous System Sustainment

Dan Justice — Fri, 17 Jul 2026 07:30:31 +0000

It’s 2028, and the Fujian carrier strike group has just left Yulin, China, for an unknown destination. The U.S. Navy’s “Hedge Strategy” has let commanders disperse unmanned systems across regional choke points as forward-deployed scouts. But days before contact with Fujian, an unmanned undersea vehicle in the Banda Sea transmits an error code and must head back to Yokosuka for repairs — a 3,000-mile, 15-day trip. A second platform, an unmanned surface vehicle, is overdue for a routine oil filter change in its propulsion system. Planners route it to Singapore, but the specialized technicians need visas to enter the country,

The post Broken Drone, Far from Home: The Case for Overseas Autonomous System Sustainment appeared first on War on the Rocks.

How Revolutions Break Their Believers

Matt Gallagher — Fri, 17 Jul 2026 07:15:47 +0000

Waguih Ghali, Beer in the Snooker Club (Vintage International, 2014)The noise, the noise, the unrelenting noise of the world: How is any writer with an interest in the long view supposed to escape it, if only for a couple hours to work, let alone maintain their sanity in the remainders of a day? It’s an old dilemma, for certain, but little digital town criers in our pockets bring instant, constant news about slaughter and ruin in Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan, and beyond — grim notices against the background of those chronicling the state of domestic American politics. Perhaps one could forgive

The post How Revolutions Break Their Believers appeared first on War on the Rocks.

Reading through the Lines of the FY2027 NDAA

Madeline Field — Thu, 16 Jul 2026 08:00:11 +0000

The relationship between Congress and the Pentagon over the past year has been marked by public disagreements and frustrations over lawmakers’ concerns about the Iran War, and by what some lawmakers view as politically motivated firings of top military leaders. In many ways, the House and Senate versions of the Fiscal Year 2027 National Defense Authorization Act reflect lawmakers’ efforts to check the Pentagon’s policy power.Innovation efforts are generally a bright spot in these political battles. While the reforms proposed this year across the chambers were more modest than last year’s transformational SPEED and FoRGED Acts, lawmakers continue to advance

The post Reading through the Lines of the FY2027 NDAA appeared first on War on the Rocks.

The Peace That Redistributes War: What Camp David Reveals About Lebanon and Iran

Ahmed Saber Abbas — Thu, 16 Jul 2026 07:30:07 +0000

Nothing reveals truths more effectively than patterns. If you can identify a pattern, you can see what actions conceal, what statements leave unsaid, and what agreements postpone. Peace treaties and the negotiations surrounding them are rarely analyzed in this way, even though they may exhibit patterns that recur across different circumstances. Consequently, there is often a simplification in understanding the pressures, incentives, and constraints shaping each step and each party’s choices, an exaggeration in linking the various warring factions into a single understanding without seeing the gaps, or a disregard for realities that might prevent us from truly understanding the

The post The Peace That Redistributes War: What Camp David Reveals About Lebanon and Iran appeared first on War on the Rocks.

Academia’s Critical Role in Developing an Economic Security Workforce

Jennifer Buss — Thu, 16 Jul 2026 07:15:51 +0000

Editor’s note: This is the tenth 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.The United States is fighting a new kind of global competition — over supply chains, chips, and sanctions. It barely has anyone trained to fight it.No single country can untangle itself from the forces of global trade, and no industry can stabilize in

The post Academia’s Critical Role in Developing an Economic Security Workforce appeared first on War on the Rocks.

One Size Doesn’t Fit All: The Many Faces of Africa’s Foreign Fighters

Austin C. Doctor — Wed, 15 Jul 2026 17:30:26 +0000

In 2020, Austin Doctor wrote, “The Looming Influx of Foreign Fighters in Sub-Saharan Africa,” in which he predicted the region would see an influx of foreign fighters to aid Islamist extremist groups. Six years later, we asked Austin to revisit his arguments.Image: African Union Mission in Somalia (Photo by Abukar Albadri)In your 2020 article, you forecasted an influx of foreign fighters into sub-Saharan Africa within a year. Six years later, how has that forecast held up? Did the anticipated surge materialize on the scale you expected? Why or why not?There are far more foreign terrorist fighters, who hail from a

The post One Size Doesn’t Fit All: The Many Faces of Africa’s Foreign Fighters appeared first on War on the Rocks.

MOLLE, PALS, and the Empty Loops of America’s Civil-Military Divide

Jim Perkins — Wed, 15 Jul 2026 08:00:05 +0000

Editor’s note: This is the third article in a limited series celebrating American defense technologies born from wartime and their effects on broader national security, politics, and society. This series will run for several weeks to commemorate America’s 250th anniversary, and winners will be selected by a reader vote undertaken through our newsletter later this summer. Prior installments can be found at the Arsenal of Innovation page.In the half-century since the Gates Commission established the all-volunteer force — and especially over the last 25 years — the relationship between the American soldier and the state has changed profoundly. Military service has become

The post MOLLE, PALS, and the Empty Loops of America’s Civil-Military Divide appeared first on War on the Rocks.

Before the Next Mythos Moment: The Case for an AI Threat Fusion Center

Rebecca Hersman — Wed, 15 Jul 2026 07:30:14 +0000

Earlier this spring, Claude’s developers found the cyber potential of Anthropic’s model, Mythos 5, hazardous enough to pump the brakes on model release, creating the Project Glasswing collaboration to give cyber defenders the upper hand through controlled access to the model. Despite these efforts, the U.S. government stepped in on June 12, 2026, and forced Anthropic to take down Mythos and its safeguarded form, Fable 5 — an action the company disputed, calling the trigger a narrow, nonuniversal jailbreak. A lack of standard processes, complex legal terrain, and information-sharing obstacles resulted in a “pickup game” where, absent a shared factual

The post Before the Next Mythos Moment: The Case for an AI Threat Fusion Center appeared first on War on the Rocks.

Breaking America’s Promise to Pacific Island Veterans

Daniel Mandell — Wed, 15 Jul 2026 07:15:55 +0000

In January, Robson Henry died at the age of 66. Chances are, you have never heard of Henry. He was not famous, rich, or powerful. In many ways, Henry was no different from the thousands of young men and women who, at the age of 18, chose to serve by enlisting in the U.S. Army. Nor does the fact that he stayed in the Army for the next 26 years, serving multiple tours of duty in the Middle East, meaningfully distinguish him. And yet, Henry was special: Unlike the vast majority of his fellow soldiers, he was not from the

The post Breaking America’s Promise to Pacific Island Veterans appeared first on War on the Rocks.

NATO’s Unity on Paper and Fractures Beneath the Surface

Liviu Horovitz — Tue, 14 Jul 2026 18:00:17 +0000

On July 7-8, NATO held its 36th official summit in Ankara, Turkey. There were several consequential topics to discuss at this year’s meeting, chief among them the wars in Ukraine and Iran and the uncertain future of European defense and security. We asked five experts to assess the outcomes of the summit for the various parties involved.Liviu HorovitzAssociate Researcher at German Institute for Security and International AffairsThe key takeaway from Ankara is that even President Donald Trump is struggling to escape NATO’s strategic logic. He arrived attacking allies and questioning the alliance’s value, yet left reaffirming Article 5 and praising

The post NATO’s Unity on Paper and Fractures Beneath the Surface appeared first on War on the Rocks.

A Return to Mass: Russian Force Expansion in the War with Ukraine

Greg Whisler — Tue, 14 Jul 2026 07:30:54 +0000

Joseph Stalin famously said that quantity has a quality of its own. Yet the course of the Russo-Ukrainian War shows both the benefits and the eventual limitations of that approach. As the quantitative advantage grew on the Russian side, its ability to employ force at scale decreased. The resulting dynamic became a paradox: As Moscow fielded more forces, the value of that mass steadily diminished. The quality that the Russians expected to come from attaining quantitative advantages did not appear on the battlefield but was, over time, offset by Ukrainian adaptation, technology, and Western capital. Russian force expansion offered a

The post A Return to Mass: Russian Force Expansion in the War with Ukraine appeared first on War on the Rocks.

Outgunned, But Not Outplayed: Iran’s Theory of Victory

Pnina Shuker — Tue, 14 Jul 2026 07:15:54 +0000

Nineteen weeks ago, Iran faced the combined might of the most powerful country in the world and the most advanced military in the Middle East. Today, it is dictating the terms of the peace.When the memorandum of understanding was signed last month, President Donald Trump declared, “The Deal with the Islamic Republic of Iran is now complete. Congratulations to all!” and told the ships of the world to start their engines. Iran’s response was to keep striking and impose toll collection on the world’s most critical shipping lane while expanding its influence in Iraq, where it is increasingly seen as

The post Outgunned, But Not Outplayed: Iran’s Theory of Victory appeared first on War on the Rocks.

Big Promises, Bigger Blind Spots for Ukraine’s Security

WOTR Staff — Mon, 13 Jul 2026 18:05:52 +0000

The post Big Promises, Bigger Blind Spots for Ukraine’s Security appeared first on War on the Rocks.

An Unlearned Lesson: The Sorry Record of Regime Change Operations in the Middle East

Galen Jackson — Mon, 13 Jul 2026 07:30:35 +0000

On Feb. 28, 2026, President Donald Trump announced the commencement of Operation Epic Fury, a joint U.S.-Israeli military operation against Iran. Among the mission’s goals was the overthrow of the Islamic Republic. “When we are finished,” Trump told the Iranian people, “take over your government. It will be yours to take.” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu echoed Trump’s message, saying: “Our joint action will create the conditions for the brave Iranian people to take their destiny into their own hands.” To be sure, Washington and Jerusalem had other objectives — above all, preventing the Islamic Republic from acquiring nuclear weapons

The post An Unlearned Lesson: The Sorry Record of Regime Change Operations in the Middle East appeared first on War on the Rocks.

Going Over the Brink: How Hizballah’s Risk Strategy Made Lebanon Impossible to Ignore

Kelly A. Grieco — Fri, 10 Jul 2026 07:30:12 +0000

When the United States and Iran announced their framework agreement on June 15, attention focused on the direct U.S.-Iran dimensions of the deal, including the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, the lifting of the U.S. naval blockade, and the fate of Iran’s nuclear program. But the agreement also included a commitment to the “immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts, including Lebanon.” Washington had spent months treating Lebanon as a separate issue in negotiations, even as the Israel-Hizballah conflict remained active under a nominal ceasefire in place since April 16.It was ultimately this second front that

The post Going Over the Brink: How Hizballah’s Risk Strategy Made Lebanon Impossible to Ignore appeared first on War on the Rocks.

Fraying Deals and Rising Strikes

WOTR Staff — Thu, 09 Jul 2026 18:20:09 +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 after it was signed, the memorandum of understanding between the United States and Iran seems to be quickly unravelling. The two sides skirmished after an April ceasefire and continued to do so after the memorandum of understanding was reached, but had managed to keep those tit-for-tat exchanges from escalating into a full-on return to hostilities. Their agreement nonetheless faced death by a thousand cuts over mutual claims of violations and bad faith.A string

The post Fraying Deals and Rising Strikes appeared first on War on the Rocks.

The Pentagon’s Sprint to Get Tech Out of the Lab and to the Warfighter

Joseph Jewell — Thu, 09 Jul 2026 08:00:22 +0000

Joe Jewell left academia and his role directing hypersonic wind tunnels to oversee the Pentagon’s science and technology enterprise. He wants more researchers to make the same move. He joins Jonathan to discuss the Pentagon’s science enterprise, why he thinks academia is the envy of America’s closest allies, and how his office gets technology from the lab into the hands of the warfighter.Image: Gabriella White via DVIDS.

The post The Pentagon’s Sprint to Get Tech Out of the Lab and to the Warfighter appeared first on War on the Rocks.

The Pentagon’s AI Strategy Has a Funding Problem

Adam Lackey — Thu, 09 Jul 2026 07:45:44 +0000

In the span of two weeks, the White House issued two of the most ambitious artificial intelligence directives in American history. On June 2, President Donald Trump signed an executive order mandating rapid AI adoption and hardened cyber defense across the government. Three days later, National Security Presidential Memorandum 11 directed every element of the national security enterprise to accelerate AI adoption, anchored by four pillars: adoption, adaptation, assurance, and accountability.The strategy is sound. The harder challenge is execution, and a fiscal squeeze on the Fiscal Year 2026 operations and maintenance accounts threatens to stall it before it begins. On

The post The Pentagon’s AI Strategy Has a Funding Problem appeared first on War on the Rocks.

Victory for al-Qaeda’s Affiliate in Mali Would be a Catastrophe

Fulan Nasrullah — Thu, 09 Jul 2026 07:30:48 +0000

Mali is not Syria, and Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin is not Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham.While the fall of the Bashar al-Assad regime and the rise of the Ahmed al-Sharaa government in Damascus, Syria can be seen as a net positive for regional security in the Levant, a Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin victory in Mali would devastate the region.Unlike Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin is a horizontally integrated transnational coalition committed to dismantling existing international borders, with a rank and file too radical to accept an Islamic Emirate of Mali as a terminal goal. Iyad Ag Ghali, the leader of

The post Victory for al-Qaeda’s Affiliate in Mali Would be a Catastrophe appeared first on War on the Rocks.

A Fresh Look at the Houthi Threat to Maritime Shipping

Allison Minor — Wed, 08 Jul 2026 17:30:24 +0000

In 2024, Allison Minor wrote, “Solving the Houthi Threat to Freedom of Navigation,” where she argued the international response to Houthi attacks on shipping in the Red Sea has so far been inadequate and proposed a U.N.-led solution. Two years later, with global attention once again focused on maritime shipping activity, we asked Allison to review her arguments. Image: Petty Officer 1st Class Jonathan Word via DVIDSWhen you wrote about the Houthi threat in 2024, the activities in the Red Sea commanded high global attention. Two years on, that attention has largely shifted to the Strait of Hormuz. What has been

The post A Fresh Look at the Houthi Threat to Maritime Shipping appeared first on War on the Rocks.

The Davis Wing, the B-24 Liberator, and the Self-Made Bet That Paid Off

Mike Benitez — Wed, 08 Jul 2026 08:00:50 +0000

Editor’s note: This is the second article in a limited series celebrating American defense technologies born from wartime and their effects on broader national security, politics, and society. This series will run for several weeks to commemorate America’s 250th anniversary, and winners will be selected by a reader vote undertaken through our newsletter later this summer. Prior installments can be found at the Arsenal of Innovation page.The most produced American military aircraft of World War II was not a small fighter, a trainer, or a simple utility airplane — it was a complex four-engine heavy bomber called the B-24 Liberator. Over the course

The post The Davis Wing, the B-24 Liberator, and the Self-Made Bet That Paid Off appeared first on War on the Rocks.

Somali Pirates Are Back — But the Coalition That Beat Them Isn’t Coming

Benoit Lefevre — Wed, 08 Jul 2026 07:30:07 +0000

Numerous recent pirate attacks, especially the hijacking of three merchant vessels off the Horn of Africa, are a stark reminder that the conditions for resurgence can return quickly.It took years of sustained, coordinated effort by multinational naval coalitions, the shipping industry, and international organizations to get rid of pirates in the Western Indian Ocean and the Gulf of Aden. Since 2016, many observers have viewed Somali piracy as yesterday’s problem. Shipping companies increasingly treated the threat as manageable, and Western navies no longer prioritized it. However, piracy did not disappear, it simply went dormant. Somali piracy is now re-emerging amid

The post Somali Pirates Are Back — But the Coalition That Beat Them Isn’t Coming appeared first on War on the Rocks.

Gathering Clouds: Building Digital Strategic Depth in the Compute Age

Blake Herzinger — Tue, 07 Jul 2026 08:00:42 +0000

The wars in Ukraine and the Middle East have exposed a strategic reality that military planners are only beginning to confront: In a data-centric age, digital infrastructure has become part of the battlespace. Data centers and cloud regions are now the digital backbone of military power and economic prosperity. As such, they present attractive targets for rapidly proliferating long-range strike systems, drones, and cyber capabilities. As the protective value of physical distance erodes, strategic depth — once conceived in geographical terms — must now be measured in the resilience of data and compute.Alex Rough detailed the physical vulnerability of data

The post Gathering Clouds: Building Digital Strategic Depth in the Compute Age appeared first on War on the Rocks.

Sinews of War at Sea: The Armed Services Need a Common Watercraft Family

Peter Mitchell — Tue, 07 Jul 2026 07:30:46 +0000

To sustain future maritime operations, the U.S military will need to run supplies through an environment that spans thousands of miles of open ocean, denied ports, contested straits, and archipelagic chokepoints against adversaries that have spent decades studying how to target American logistics. That problem does not require one identical vessel for every mission. It does require a more common family of watercraft for the manned ships that carry cargo and vehicles inside a theater, built for scale, interoperability, and wartime replacement. Getting this right is arguably the most important acquisition problem the joint force faces in the next decade.So

The post Sinews of War at Sea: The Armed Services Need a Common Watercraft Family appeared first on War on the Rocks.

Ukrainian Writers Take Aim at Government Narratives

WOTR Staff — Mon, 06 Jul 2026 16:35:28 +0000

The post Ukrainian Writers Take Aim at Government Narratives appeared first on War on the Rocks.

A Catholic Security Scholar’s Case for Responsible Military AI

Craig Douglas Albert — Mon, 06 Jul 2026 07:30:48 +0000

What do you do when two identities that make up your deepest self find themselves on opposite sides of a moral and spiritual battlefield?I am Catholic. I have been one for over 20 years since I made the life-altering decision to join a friend for Mass one day. My faith became a spiritual and ethical foundation at a time I sorely needed it, so much so that for a time, I contemplated entering the priesthood, which replaced my previous career goal of entering the CIA. I eventually realized that teaching was my true calling and decided to pursue that path

The post A Catholic Security Scholar’s Case for Responsible Military AI appeared first on War on the Rocks.

Happy 250th Birthday, America!

WOTR Staff — Sat, 04 Jul 2026 07:30:27 +0000

Editor’s Note: Few rivalries in American history have been as consequential — or as personal — as the one between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. The two men could hardly have been more different. Adams, the stocky and combative Massachusetts lawyer, was blunt to a fault and quick to suspicion. Jefferson, the tall, elegant Virginia planter, was reserved and idealistic. The two held diverging political philosophies as well. Adams preferred a strong, central government while Jefferson favored states’ rights and limited government. This rift eventually led to an epic falling out, culminating in the presidential election of 1800, as Jefferson

The post Happy 250th Birthday, America! appeared first on War on the Rocks.

The Integrated Circuit and the Future of American AI Leadership

Sarah Kreps — Fri, 03 Jul 2026 08:00:02 +0000

Editor’s note: This is the first article in a limited series celebrating American defense technologies born from wartime and their effects on broader national security, politics, and society. This series will run for several weeks to commemorate America’s 250th anniversary, and winners will be selected by a reader vote undertaken through our newsletter later this summer. Prior installments can be found at the Arsenal of Innovation page.The history of the semiconductor is an origin story for modern computing but also reveals a recurring pattern in American innovation: government helps underwrite technological breakthroughs, and commercial markets transform them into general-purpose technologies. And yet,

The post The Integrated Circuit and the Future of American AI Leadership appeared first on War on the Rocks.

Misguided and Misunderstood: Trump’s Approach to U.S. Troops in Europe

Benjamin H. Friedman — Fri, 03 Jul 2026 07:30:40 +0000

For many observers, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s speech on the future of NATO, delivered in Brussels on June 18, 2026, constituted a perfect example of how the Trump administration is angrily abandoning the longstanding U.S. commitment to European security. The prevailing picture is that the administration is eager to shift the burden of Europe’s defense and is thus moving to withdraw U.S. forces from the continent, even though Europe is moving to do more militarily. Hegseth stated, “we’re doubling down on our effort to make NATO what it always was supposed to be, a balanced alliance with Europe in

The post Misguided and Misunderstood: Trump’s Approach to U.S. Troops in Europe appeared first on War on the Rocks.

The Blind Spots in Chinese Military Studies

Lyle Morris — Thu, 02 Jul 2026 07:30:31 +0000

During a recent conference on the People’s Liberation Army, I heard the same question posed to attendees and paper writers: “How would China react to U.S. force posture change X, Y, or Z?” or “How would the Chinese military respond to U.S. strikes in certain locations?” Having participated in dozens of unclassified wargames at the RAND Corporation and elsewhere, I hear a similar refrain when playing the “red team.”This is a reasonable and legitimate question. Policymakers and war planners should understand likely Chinese responses in studying and preparing for possible contingencies between China and the United States.To make well-grounded assessments

The post The Blind Spots in Chinese Military Studies appeared first on War on the Rocks.

From Shin Bet to Mossad, Netanyahu Reshapes Israeli Intelligence

Ofek Riemer — Wed, 01 Jul 2026 17:30:40 +0000

Editor’s Note: Rewind and Reconnoiter is one of our weekly members-only newsletters. To access the full archive of Rewind and Reconnoiter as well as our other members-only content, including podcasts, newsletters, and exclusive access to the War on the Rocks app, sign up using the link in the graphic below.In 2025, Ofek Riemer, Daniel Wajner, and Ehud Eiran wrote, “Populists vs. Spies in Israel and Beyond,” where they argued that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s relationship with Israel’s intelligence agencies could have grave consequences for Israel’s democracy. A year later, we asked them to revisit their arguments.Image: U.S. Department of State via Wikimedia

The post From Shin Bet to Mossad, Netanyahu Reshapes Israeli Intelligence appeared first on War on the Rocks.

How a Team of Marines Built the Corps’ FPV Drone Training Program from a Cold Start

Scott Cuomo — Wed, 01 Jul 2026 15:15:12 +0000

Last fall, the U.S. Marine Corps had virtually no first-person view attack drones. That’s changed quickly. This episode is about how a team of marines at Weapons Training Battalion at Quantico went from a cold start to building a Marine Corps-wide first-person view drone training system. Ryan was pleased to welcome some great marines onto the show: Col. Scott Cuomo, CWO5 Steve Pearsoll, CWO3 (Gunner) Troy Hotaling, GySgt Jude Stewart, GySgt Justin Creasman, and Sgt Timothy Brockup.Since we recorded this episode, Cuomo has changed command and is off to his next assignment.This episode was brought to you by Onebrief. Learn

The post How a Team of Marines Built the Corps’ FPV Drone Training Program from a Cold Start appeared first on War on the Rocks.

Trojan Spirit, the Army’s Intelligence Backbone, Needs a Successor

Mike Davenport — Wed, 01 Jul 2026 08:00:30 +0000

In 1990, the idea that deployed commanders could access the latest intelligence from three-letter agencies in the middle of nowhere was radical. But the Army was starting to make this idea real through a program called Trojan Spirit, so they could address a major strategic barrier: There were too many systems and databases for intelligence collection and analysis, some centralized and some forward deployed, and little access to practical insights. During Operation Desert Storm, the early Trojan system transitioned out of development and into operational deployment. Trojan Spirit’s first introduction to warfighters during the Gulf War fundamentally changed the battlefield.

The post Trojan Spirit, the Army’s Intelligence Backbone, Needs a Successor appeared first on War on the Rocks.