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.
A Global Security Advisory and Assistance Strategy for Strategic Competition: Winning Before War Through Effective Campaigning
"The true value of security assistance is not measured in weapons delivered or training events completed. It is measured in trust, relationships, access, influence, and capability."
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’
Iran, Ukraine, and the Future of Naval Warfare
Episode 156 examines what the U.S.-Iran War and Russia-Ukraine War reveal about how weaker states and irregular actors contest navies, maritime commerce, and global energy flows. Summary This conversation examines naval irregular warfare in an era of drones, shadow fleets, contested chokepoints, and attacks on commercial shipping. The
Join Us at the 2026 CIWAG Maritime Symposium
The maritime domain is entering an era of gathering storms and shifting tides. Join leading practitioners, scholars, and policymakers at the 2026 CIWAG Maritime Symposium, taking place 22–24 June 2026 in Newport, Rhode Island, for discussions on some of the most pressing challenges shaping maritime security today. Topics include
The Enduring Relevance of Irregular War
For three years, I’ve watched with excitement as Dr. Kerry Chavez and Dr. Rick “Newt” Newton built and expanded IWI’s Air and Space Power Initiative into the premier forum driving the discussion of the role for air and space power in irregular warfare. It is a great honor
Winning the Systems War: Why the Army Should Reorganize Itself for Modern Combat
America’s decisive victory in Desert Storm may have also planted the seeds of future military defeat. Watching American forces dismantle the Iraqi military convinced Chinese military analysts that they could not compete with the United States tank for tank or plane for plane. The lesson learned was that America
Good Change Brings New Leadership, Ideas, and Opportunities to IWI’s Air and Space Power Team
Editor’s Note: As the Air and Space Power Team enters its next chapter, Dr. Kerry Chávez and Dr. Rick Newton will be stepping aside from their leadership roles and passing responsibilities to Dr. Michael Kreuzer. While this marks a leadership transition, the team’s commitment to advancing air and
Operationally Detached: Why Decentralization, Not Consolidation, Is the Future of U.S. Army Special Forces
“The country must turn to, and not away from, the American way of irregular war.” —Lieutenant General Charles T. Cleveland, The American Way of Irregular War (2020) Editor’s Note: This article is a response to “The Last A-Team: Special Forces Aren’t Special Anymore,” and “A New Vision for
Bridging the gap between irregular warfare scholars, practitioners, and policymakers.
