From NATO to the Gulf: Allies, Access, and the Hidden Architecture of American Power
Description Episode 159 examines the relationship between alliances, military access, and U.S. global power projection. Summary This episode explores an often overlooked benefit of alliances: wartime access. Dr. Rachel Metz and Ambassador Douglas Lute explain why public debates about allies often focus narrowly on defense spending, while missing the
IWI is a public 501(c)3 charity and not part of a government agency. The views expressed are those of the authors.
Podcasts
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From NATO to the Gulf: Allies, Access, and the Hidden Architecture of American Power
Description Episode 159 examines the relationship between alliances, military access, and U.S. global power projection. Summary This episode explores an often overlooked benefit of alliances: wartime access. Dr. Rachel Metz and Ambassador Douglas Lute explain why public debates about allies often focus narrowly on defense spending, while missing the
The Wars Nuclear Weapons Don't Prevent
This episode of the Irregular Warfare Podcast examines how nuclear weapons shape great power competition, making direct war less likely while encouraging indirect conflict. Guests are General Richard D. Clarke, Dr. David Logan, and Dr. Kyle Atwell.
Setting Out to Win: Why America Needs to Get Serious About Irregular Warfare
This episode explores why the United States has largely failed at irregular warfare over the past 75 years and what can be done to reverse that trend and win at irregular warfare. LTG (Ret.) Charles Cleveland and Dr. Rob Burrell are the guests.
Events
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Maritime Autonomous Systems Featuring Ukraine's SBU — Center on IW and Armed Groups 2026 Symposium
Co-director of IWI’s Maritime Program, Christopher Booth chaired a panel of guests invited by IWI as part of the Naval War College’s Center on Irregular Warfare and Armed Groups (CIWAG) 2026 Symposium – as supported by the Naval War College Foundation - to discuss autonomous maritime vessels.
Geoeconomics of Irregular Warfare: Iran and the Global Ripple Effects — Part IX
In Part Nine of Irregular Warfare Initiative’s special series on the conflict with Iran, presented by the Economic & Legal Warfare Team, Hamlet Yousef (IWI Economic & Legal Warfare Advisor), Matt Flug (Co-Director, Economic & Legal Warfare Project, IWI), Tom Johansmeyer (Co-Director, Economic & Legal Warfare Project,
Strategic Resources in Competition: Critical Minerals & Rare Earth Elements
21–22 July 2026 · 0830–1600 Carahsoft HQ · 11493 Sunset Hills Road, Reston, VA The Irregular Warfare Initiative (IWI) and the Special Operations Association of America (SOAA) will host a two-day conference at Carahsoft Headquarters in Reston, Virginia, focused on the role of critical minerals and rare earth elements
Articles
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IWI’s Summer 2026 Reading List
The Irregular Warfare Initiative (IWI) provides a reading list curated by its leadership and editors. It features a diverse mix of fiction and nonfiction spanning irregular warfare, history, memoirs, and sci-fi, tailored for leisure reading, long travel, or upcoming academic preparation.
Protocol Insurgency: Winning the War of Conditions in the Digital Age
Modern irregular warfare is shifting from physical terrain to digital protocols. This analysis explores how adversaries leverage infrastructure to build systemic dependence, introducing Technical Foreign Internal Defense (Tech-FID) and protocol insurgency to maintain strategic advantage.
Q&A with Vib Altekar, Co-Founder and CTO of Saronic Technologies
On June 8, a Saronic Corsair autonomous surface vessel located and recovered the crew of an Apache helicopter after it went down off the coast of Oman, the first time an ASV was utilized in an active combat rescue mission. On May 11, Vib Altekar, Co-Founder and CTO of
How America's Adversaries Learned to Weaponize Reality
Russia, China, and Iran use sophisticated narrative warfare to shape politics, while the US relies on an outdated Cold War model. Modern conflict is a battle of narrative endurance; strategic success depends on whose political story is believed, not who wins on the battlefield.
The Iran War: A War with or against the AI Sector?
The 2026 Iran War marks the dawn of hyperwar, accelerating military AI integration while disrupting critical upstream supply chains like Qatari liquid helium. This dual physical and financial pressure creates a shared strategic crisis for both the U.S. and Chinese AI sectors.
Hidden Costs of Precision: What Drone Strikes Actually Do to Civilians
New research using cellphone data from Yemen reveals that U.S. drone strikes cause widespread civilian displacement and communication spikes, even when avoiding casualties. These non-lethal disruptions create significant strategic and humanitarian costs overlooked by military planners.
A Bed-ROC-k for Total Defense: Building a Practical Manual to Disrupt Hybrid Threats and Deter War
While the Resistance Operating Concept guides post-occupation survival, states require a practical peacetime framework to deter hybrid aggression. This article proposes an international Total Defense manual, drawing on Finnish history, to operationalize whole-of-society resilience.
Is Cognitive Warfare Dead on Arrival?
Cognitive warfare is everywhere, but it may already be doomed. It is hard to read national security literature and social media posts without coming across the term cognitive warfare. The conflict with Iran. China’s current operations. Russia’s way of war. North Korea’s nuclear strategy. Reports from NATO’
Bridging the gap between irregular warfare scholars, practitioners, and policymakers.
